Lainnescape?

So yeah. This place is for my writing. I'm having trouble working out how to 'introduce' or 'explain' the method for this, or just generally go into why this...exists? Or how I intend for it to...work?

Basically, I intend to publish my work here. Simple. Free. That's all you really need to know.

For anyone who feels like supporting me, I may also have some extras, in progress drafting, back-matter and so forth as a 'thank you', but the actual work will be...freely available.

Why? This is a question I've been asked several times. If I think it's good enough to put out there, why am I not trying to actively monetise it?

Well...I tend to be better with communication through fiction so...fuck it. I'll address it in my...typical, circuitous, roundabout way. See below:

In Which Our Author Talks To Her Favourite Character About A New Project

“So she’s called ‘Mic’?” Anna asked. Bel nodded, before tilting her head to avoid getting ringlets in her mouth as she took an oversized bite of her Banh Mi. “What’s she like?”

“New.” Bel attempted through a mouthful of bread and pork. She scrunched her nose, putting the food down and clawing a string of coriander from between her teeth.

“Okay, gross…” Anna rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, I know. Coriander’s fucking disgusting.” Bel muttered.

“It’s not…never mind. So she’s new. And?”

“She makes bad choices. She’s kind of an avoidant mess. Magnetic, but feels burdened by that, like she’s guilty about being a social centre of gravity but she can’t help it, so she metabolises it through…being kind of sarcastic and volatile.”

“So…you’re writing your taste in women, basically?”

“I like to think my taste is a little less one-note than that.”

“Recent choices excepted…?”

“Okay. You’ve got me. But at least I’m working on things.”

“Yeah, you’ve been doing good lately. And Sara was…fine, so - "

“ - Sara was great. That was a very specific scenario. It’s not like I blame her. Sometimes you end up in a place with someone where…things just suck, no matter how much you both wished they didn’t.”

“It’s, true. And look, I’m not Liv. I’m not gonna break you down over it.” Anna reached out over the rickety cafe table to place a hand over Bel’s: “This is a safe space.” She assured her with deep, affectionate insincerity.

“The thing about Mic is, I’m not used to writing characters I don’t massively relate to.”

“Yeah well…Featherlight? Year Zero? Both of them were just you - your life, your trauma, your mental illness - refracted through prisms of the coulda-shoulda-woulda-been.”

“Exactly. So I wanted something new.”

“And how’re you liking it? Her?”

“More than I expected. Less than I’m worried I should, to hit the beats I wanna hit with the right kind of…” Bel mimed swinging a bat: “Controlled velocity.” Bel picked the Banh Mi back up, taking another oversized bite.

“It’s probably good for you? I don’t know, not everything has to fall into the spectrum of growth versus regression. You can just play and experiment and have fun.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

“It doesn’t feel like that’s okay, does it?”

“It does not.” Bel admitted. “I’ve never thought of myself as a perfectionist, as such? I want things the way I want them, but that doesn’t mean I’m exacting about like…craft or whatever. But maybe that’s my version of perfectionism. Some…hazy, internally defined mark I feel the need to hit with my work. A certain kind of vibe; resonance?”

“I don’t think anyone ever said perfectionism had to be about technical coherence.” Anna shrugged.

“Very true. Except for me. Just now.”

“You should pitch me.”

“Huh?”

”Pitch me on this book. What’re you calling it?”

“Working title is Dark Skies. Fuck, how does one pitch oneself? What does that even look like?”

“You know how to fucking pitch. You’ve approached Lit agents - "

“ - Yeah, and been rejected - "

“ - Yeah: one time, with one agent, you lazy asshole. You got a full manuscript request, wasn’t for them, and you decided to do your own thing. Do you know how many rejections most writers have to deal with before finding a good fit?”

“Ha. Yeah, that is how that went down, isn’t it?” Bel smirked.

“Don’t be smug. Just pitch the fucking book.” Bel held up a finger, taking another bite of her roll and slowly considering as she chewed. Finally, she swallowed. Narrowing her eyes and lowering her tone, she splayed her hands out to either side:

“In a world, where - “

“Don’t fucking paint-by-the-numbers-explosive-blockbuster-of-the-summer me. Take it seriously. I actually want to hear this you fucking goof.”

“Fine, fine.” Bel slumped forward. “Sensory Recursion Syndrome - SeReS - isn’t a disease, or a condition, or magic. It’s the new normal. Every person on the planet is constantly at risk of falling into the complete sensory hold of memories of the past, revisiting…tempting…tormenting. Starting in Manchester, several years before the present, this phenomena resulted in the chaotic end for a third of the world's population. In the aftermath, a strange new order emerged, focussed on a combination of strict, sometimes autocratic controls…and on governments allowing citizens radical freedoms to choose, in an attempt to avoid triggering Acute onset cases. In this world, Michelle Reid - journalist…survivor…dick - is collecting stories; a living history of how the world ended…and how it, somehow, continued to turn.”

“Party.” Anna nodded with a small smile.

“Bitch, that was work. You better be about to give me more than an Adore Delano about it.”

“I’m processing. Let me process. Dear god.” Anna picked up a rice-paper roll, dipping the end in a small bowl of hoisin sauce, and carefully taking a bite - all teeth - trying to avoiding getting sauce on or around her mouth. “So…” she started, swallowed, then continued: “It sounds like it’ll take a lot of exposition - "

“ - Got that covered. Dialogue exposition - interviews. Drip-feed, y’know?”

“Are we worried it might be too…dry? Focussed?”

“We are not. Mic’s old lives that she ran from are pushing through the cracks, there’s a shadowy extra-governmental body called The Orphean Collective started by billionaire scions who might be a cult, terrorists, global travel - “

“ - Queer angst - “

“ - Naturally - “

“ - Sapphic yearning - “

“ - God. You just get me, y’know? But yeah. Not worried about excessive dryness. Plenty of narrative variation, but…nicely integrated into the 'A' plot, y’know? I feel like my balancing act is on point for this project.”

“Okay, that works. Yeah, like…it sounds pretty interesting.”

“But? I can tell there’s a ‘but’, there.”

“It’s not a ‘but’ so much as an asterisk. I just think it’s funny that you…flipped it.”

“Flipped what?”

“Usually it’s…a character you relate to in a scary, confusing world, yeah?”

“Reductive.”

“Oh fucking…barely. You know that’s what you do.”

“Continue.” Bel rolled her eyes.

“So in this case, your world architecture is relateable to you, but your protagonist isn’t. You flipped it.”

“Oh. Fuck. I did flip it.”

“Yeah. SeReS is just…sci-fi CPTSD, no?”

“I mean…maybe a little.”

“Mmm?”

“Okay, maybe more than a little.”

“So…” Anna paused, considering.

“What?”

“Just wondering…are you gonna try and sell this one?” Bel’s eyes narrowed.

“I don’t really wanna revisit this.”

“Okay. Loud and clear - “

“ - No, I’m sorry, Anna. It’s just such a big topic.”

“I thought we liked big topics.” Anna smirked.

“Don’t. This is still…in progress, emotionally speaking?”

“Hey. I’m here if you wanna talk it through, okay?”

“Yeah, it’s just…ugh. On the base level, I wanna write. Ideally it would be nice if people read it and got something out of it. And ideally I do wish there could be money involved, because I’ve always wanted to do this full time. But I don’t think that’s on the cards. I know - we both do - that I could sand down the edges, make my work more marketable, make the appeal broader…but I don’t wanna do that. I’d rather write what I want to write, never get read, and never make a cent, than…weaponise whatever talent and craft-skills I have to pump out something that checks a bunch of predefined boxes. I’m messy, and so’s my work.”

“But…?”

“But…yes, I did try. And yes, I did get a fairly good response. Yes, it should have been encouraging, yes, I know how many writers wish they got a request off their first query, and yes…I’m excessively aware of how hard it is to get traditionally published. I am also aware that the results of getting traditionally published have never been more underwhelming. And I’m just like…who fucking cares? Truly. Putting aside self-pitying qualifiers around ability, marketability, genre-preference and so forth…who fucking cares? Who has the time or energy or emotional bandwidth for this shit when you probably have the same probability of winning the lottery as being successful enough via traditional publishing to make anything resembling a decent living? Especially when the primary consideration for me is that I think it’d be pretty cool if someone got something out of my work. Why in the fuck would I put a paywall in front of it? I’m not gonna write to a trend, and I’m not getting on my knees for broad appeal. I’m not gonna make my work less trans, or less gay, or less weird, or less stupid. So fuck it. I’m just this girl, y'know? And if I wanna write my dumb, gay, overwrought, jagged edged, bit-too-pretentious, trauma-coded, navel gazing bullshit, that’s up to me. I don’t have to justify it beyond that.”

“Would you say no, though? To an actual offer?”

“As far as I’m concerned, I kinda did. Look, I wasn’t going to make a thing of it because of the choice I ultimately made, but…fuck: I know enough to know what getting a full request on my first attempt means. It means I can pitch. Well. It means my early pages are bait, and that someone would eventually bite. So even if I’m wrong…I basically put my money - or lack thereof - where my mouth was. I decided it wasn’t worth the bullshit, and just fucking put it out there myself."

“Fuck, you have uh…had this conversation a few too many times, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, just a couple. Mostly with myself but…not just with myself, y’know?”

“I do get it, for the record.”

“You always do.” Bel sighed, picking up her Banh Mi with an oppressed leer off into the distance. “Is it so much to ask? Genuinely, is it? To make a choice, to exercise some agency, and not want to be heckled for sidestepping the fucking hustle of it all? Just because I could do the thing doesn’t mean it’d make me happier or my life better. And like…we live in a fucking dystopian, capitalist hellscape; a prison that most people are too distracted by shiny consumerist bullshit to see through to the bars of…our political movements, on the left, spend roughly comparable amounts of time bickering over who’s a nazi and being actively infiltrated by them…the dumbest, most useless fuckwits on the planet are, broadly speaking, in charge, and we’re all full of microplastics and are probably gonna be dead in twenty years because of fucking climate change. All I wanna do is write my gay little books and eat my gay little sandwiches and try to love my gay little self until I’m, inevitably, relegated to a gay little grave. Y’know?”

“Preaching to the choir, babes.” Anna smiled wanly, holding up her rice-paper roll.

“To fiddling while the Titanic goes down.” Bel sighed, holding up the remainder of her Banh Mi.

“To our new microplastic overlords, whom I, for one, welcome.” Bel and Anna ‘cheersed’.