on entering a new decade and other commentary (Patreon)

Hey, guys and gals and all patreon pals - 

So, I've been ruminating on life in the last week, particularly because! I turned thirty last week! It was, as just about all of my birthdays are, a lowkey affair. I'm not really one for big crowds or going out to bars or anything, even in a pre- pandemic life. My friends and I did an escape room, which none of us expected to actually be able to escape from (spoiler: we DID with only 2 minutes left on the clock) and proceeded to have dinner at one of our favorite spots. 

But it's exactly the kind of day that I love. Just... being with my people. 

Anyway, the big point of this is that I was reflecting on my life as a whole over the last few days, and one thing in particular pops up whenever I think about the last few years. Which is, publishing my writing. It is singularly the BIGGEST thing to have changed my world. Like, ever? For many reasons, but truthfully, the biggest one is because of the people I've met: introducing me to my relationship and a couple really good friends, and experiencing the kind of overwhelming/amazing support from the best readers. 

I've said it before and I will say it again - lesfic is really SUCH a crazy cool niche market to exist in? Like, if you are reading heteromance, your market is saturated as FUCK, which is great, sure. But it's such a big pond, I imagine it's not as great for making connections to other readers, let alone making them to authors. 

And then you have the m/m romance market, which - I won't go off on it, because... I was gonna say this isn't the place, but maybe it is? It is technically my place, but it's also our place, and I never am looking to offend anyone. I just have big opinions. On just about everything. BUT the point is, that if you look at the writers on almost every mlm romance book on amazon, it's... women. Many (not all, but many) of them are cis/het women, at that. As are their readers. I've read multiple accounts by actual queer men who have pointed out that their own romance market doesn't even cater to them, because it's written by people who aren't actually them. I mean, imagine if you were a queer woman and you went into wlw romance sections and found that it was mostly cis/het men writing it? How utterly disappointing (to say the very least)

But to get into the POINT here (I struggle to get from point a to point b in a linear manner D:) - we never have to worry about that, in our little market of sapphic fiction, do we? And i fucking love that. 

We might have a smaller market then heteromance or mlm romance, even. 

But I will take our smaller world, knowing that most of our content is being written by queer women for queer women any day of the week. I will take our world where, as a reader, authors are accessible human beings to people, and I can interact with authors I've loved and fangirl over that. I will take our world where, as an author, I can look at social media and recognize so many readers based on their name and their comments and reviews. 

I will choose our world and us, over anything else that exists out there. 

When I was in undergrad, I struggled a lot in deciding what to do with my future. I was getting a degree in secondary education - English (queer high school English teachers unite), but... I also struggled with the social aspects of teaching? Standing in front of a crowd and managing rowdy teenagers and, most of all, following a curriculum that isn't my own design, isn't necessarily my dream; sharing fiction and encouraging a love of reading and writing - that is. 

Let me also take a second to say - those of you out there who are in education, you are absolutely metal and I have more respect for teachers as a profession than just about any other profession out there. PAY TEACHERS MORE MONEY. Okay, back to it:

At this time, I was writing fanfiction and that was my biggest passion. Shocker, right? And when I was bemoaning my career path options, a friend of mine was like "Why don't you just try writing as a job?!" 

Naturally, I was like, "Writing sapphic romances is never going to be able to be my job!"

And I believed that, truly. Because at that time, about nine years ago, I hadn't discovered lesfic at all, yet. At that time, I didn't even know this world existed, let alone think that I could be a part of it. Even when I discovered lesfic, about 4 years ago, I still didn't think I could really be a part of it in terms of writing. 

My day job is in social work (it's actually more of a night job, but I digress), and I'll be honest - I don't hate it. I didn't foresee this as my job in any way, but it's where I wound up after getting an ill-fated masters degree, and I enjoy it more than most people enjoy their day jobs, I think. But it's not what I want to do for the rest of my life, plus... pay social workers more money, america!!!

All of this to say that, when I published Those Who Wait, I was 28 and convinced it wasn't going to do well. And our lesfic world shocked me, honored me, amazed me, and has never stopped since. 

How many people can say that they have found something they absolutely love to do, that their dream job that they never thought was a real option, is something that they can actually DO, let alone figure that out by the time they turn 30?

I don't think very many people have that in their lives. But, I do. And I'm so unbelievably lucky to have this community, and especially to have you all here, as I enter this new decade of adventures.