some updates

I am deep in deadline hell, and it is a “so close, yet so far” kind of place to be.

As you can see here, this is a very hefty romance novel, and I still have at least six or seven scenes to write, one of which is a load-bearing sex scene. I am desperately trying to keep this under 105k at the time I turn it in. For comparison, Goaltender Interference was my longest prior to this, and it was 104k when I turned it in, but was published at 108k. My deadline is March 16, so it’s entirely possible for me to make it, but I had wanted to have some time to edit and let it marinate as well, and that…that might be trickier. The weather is not cooperating either. I really do sometimes feel like I need to write an angry letter to the manager. How dare you dump 10” of snow on me when my manuscript is due in a couple of weeks?

I’m in that strange in-between stage of writing where I’m in love with the characters and the plot is all unfolding as it needs to, but also the rough first draft stage where I know there are ugly sentences and half finished dangling lines that don’t go anywhere. But I truly love these characters and the way that they have been growing and changing together, and I think it’s been really exciting to bring a city like Edmonton to life with the assistance of readers who live there. Amazingly neat moments to be able to say, “I am thinking about writing about [location,]” and not only have people talk to me about it, but offer to go there and take pictures and video so I can clearly describe it. But was it warm and humid? I ask, about a special exhibit in a glass pyramid, and I get an actual confirmation that my hunches were correct.

I didn’t know a lot about Edmonton when I started this book, but this screenshot I took while Google mapping locations is a good summary of it. A weird, often delightful, surprise, with absolutely beautiful skies everywhere:

My fingers are crossed that I will be able to finish my draft this week and start editing ahead of the due date. But that will also depend on whatever else the universe has to throw at me (before the blizzard, it was a 6-year-old’s stomach virus).

In other news,

Home Ice Advantage and Goaltender Interference are on sale for $2.99, 2/23 through 3/1.

I have been thinking about a lot of other things, too:

• Last month, I did an AMA on the MM Romance Books subreddit. If you’re interested, you can see all of the questions and answers here! People asked some really good ones.

• Some thoughts about boundaries that I had to articulate on my Instagram. I’m a pretty open book for the most part, and I love the community that I’ve cultivated with readers, and I love being able to personalize my books by sharing small aspects of my life, but I think I need to start sharing less, responding to direct messages less. The harder things are for me “irl,” the harder it is to feel like I’m not really perceived or treated as a real person in an author space.

• I need to start putting together source posts and research for Unsportsmanlike Conduct, which is a little bit of a different vibe than some of my other books. I think I’ve mentioned that Devon is from a fundamentalist family; I had been doing a lot of reading, but once the book sold, I had to concentrate on writing it. But regardless there’s a long, long list of books.

• I’ve been thinking a lot about the Olympics and how tough it is to be a fan of a sport that truly, in so many forms, does not love you back and never will. I’m never surprised by these things, but it still feels like a slap in the face every time. And there are so many slaps in the face. It’s disheartening to know that no matter what players say in public, when they think they’re alone and the world isn’t watching, that’s not what they truly believe. I wish I had a better way to reconcile my love of the sport with the rotten culture of it beyond writing what are essentially fantasies.

• On a similar note, it’s really frustrating to be constantly reminded that gender essentialism and vaguely transphobic rhetoric is alive and well in romance spaces. Sometimes I feel like if I see one more post that says something like “you know who never disappoints you? fictional hockey players written by women!” I may lose it and scream into the void. I’m sure that if you’re subscribed to my newsletter I am preaching to the choir, but let’s not pretend that women are infallible in this way, or that there aren’t so many queer cis men, trans men, and nonbinary people writing romance novels that you can enjoy without feeling like you’ve been slapped in the face by someone who actually doesn’t respect you. I don’t have much to add about this, except I’m fucking tired. I’m tired of discourse, I’m tired of the circular insults, I’m tired of never really feeling included no matter what angle people are approaching this from.

• It’s been a rough few months, I am not going to lie. A rough few months, a rough few years. Every time it feels like I am finally clawing my way back to some form of stability, the rug gets pulled out from under again. (For example: am I forgetting things because I’m exhausted and stressed out and doing too much and wrote 80,000 words since December 15, or have I inherited my father’s early onset dementia?) But I am still trucking along with my silly little stories with their awkward sentences and unlikeable characters. And pretty much no matter what, I will continue to be doing this, just with varying levels of depression in the process.

• Haha, what a note to end on, right? Well, just kidding, because we’re gonna end on a positive!

• I commissioned some art of Mike and Danny from the amazing queerente and I am posting it everywhere but I wanted to share it with you here, too, because I’m honestly just so happy with everything about it. Mike’s angry face and silly little throat tattoo; Danny’s patience and size:

As always, thanks for reading.

— Ari 🧡