Everything Is Fine

So.

Book came out. The yellow one.

Everyone kept telling me that there’s a post-publication crash, but surely, I, the universe’s favorite, would not experience it. Promptly learned that I was not, in practice, the universe’s favorite.

I crashed hard.

For the first few weeks, I couldn’t write at all. This was new to me as I’d been writing non-stop for the past five years. I hadn’t always been writing coherent stuff, but I’d been writing something. Now, there was nothing in the good ol’ noggin. The bright side to this writer’s block was that it couldn’t last long. I had a deadline, and contractual obligations will do wonders to spur creativity.

Except that after I met the deadline, I, again, found myself unable to write.

I sat down, stared at the page, and wrote nothing. Sometimes, I’d start up, get a paragraph down, and then all motivation would die. I got through six thousand words of a new project only to scrap it. Then, another ten thousand words on something I had no intention of finishing. Every single book felt like a date where there was nothing technically wrong, but nothing felt right either.

And it wasn’t just writing.

I stopped finishing my meals, as I’d grow bored of them. I stopped talking to people. The movies and anime that used to hold my attention felt like nothing. I didn’t stop running, but what once felt like a lovely reprieve from an otherwise sedentary desk job became another chore in a never-ending list of chores.

Then my roof started leaking. Not a metaphor. There’s a literal bucket in my office right now.

At this point, many of you probably want to say “hey, A.D., that sounds a lot like depression, and we’re concerned about you.” but you’d be wrong!

It actually turned out to be severe iron deficiency, and I’m fine now.

As my iron climbs to levels never before experienced by my body, I’m trying, in these months after book #1 of 2026 (yellow book) is published and before book #2 of 2026 (pink book) goes to print, to figure out my relationship to my craft and my relationship with the reader.

I first came to any sort of planned writing in Grade 6 when my friend Riley and I began documenting the silly happenings in our class. I wrote what is now called, micro-fiction, to chronicle the silliness, and Riley created illustrations using Microsoft Word clipart. We kept at it for a year, amassing over fifty stories. Objectively, they were terrible stories and terrible art, but we had fun, asked for no feedback, and then stopped the whole project when we grew bored of it. In her thirties, Riley went on to have a family and a successful career doing something that is not writing. I’m here, sans family, writing slightly longer stories.

My goal with writing has always been to shift my readers’ lens, however far it was willing to go. I want to challenge them to experience a different perspective, to get frustrated, grow hopeless, and then maybe hopeful, and everything in between. I’m not aiming to change the world here, but maybe I can get someone to think, hey, things can be different.

In Grade 6, this was convincing ourselves that our lives were far sillier and more exciting than we thought them to be. Now, I’m not so sure. Maybe, the thread running through all of my work is that, people matter above everything else; never things, not even ideas, and screw our collective spiritual leanings. No. People, above all else.

I worry, a lot, about how my work is perceived.

I worry, just as much, if I’ll get to write more things.

I worry, and I worry, and this worrying does very little for craft.

So, a month ago, I decided that maybe the next work wasn’t going to be speculative in nature. Maybe the genre would forgive me straying a little. Lo and behold, the words started pouring. It’s done now (ha!). So simple. I suppose I’m not immune from needing my own lens shifted from time to time.

I don’t know if this one will ever see the light of day, but at least it exists, in a file somewhere on my computer. Maybe no one will ever see it. Maybe a lot of people will. But for now, there’s the same magic to it as there was in Grade 6, where I attempted to capture the strangeness of elementary school shenanigans.

BUT ALSO

I HAVE A BOOK COMING OUT THIS OCTOBER, FRIENDS!!!

Book 2 (aka pink book): Our Infinite and Inevitable Ends

this one is for the sapphics.

Our Infinite and Inevitable Ends, is now up on NetGalley:

It is also up on Goodreads:

help a gender-ambiguous author out and request it, or add to your TBR!

It has been, so far, receiving very mixed reviews, which both elate me and remind me that most people have had a veeeeeeeeery different life trajectory than me.

I guess D.A.R.E. worked on some people.

(If D.A.R.E. worked for you, I’m proud of you.)

On a related note, I started a brand-new side project called Space Scandal!! It’s a monthly serial about someone who accidentally became important at work. You can check it out here:

And now, I’m also proud of you for getting to the end of this newsletter!

Catch you later, fellow amphibians!

p.s. also everyone should read Notes from a Regicide by Isaac R. Fellman because it is A WORK OF ART OMG.