I’m starting 2019 out right: by planning to write a bunch of stuff that I might not get to do because I always overshoot like it’s my job.

I’m aiming for big writing goals while learning how to use my time wisely and manage my writing time better.

Will this work? Who knows.

Will y’all get good content out of this no matter what happens? Definitely.

So here’s my January 2019 to-do list.

One thing I’m doing that’s new is posting my fiction goals (original and fan fiction) which aren’t set in stone and are moving from month to month because they’re primarily me adding words or doing revisions on existing work. Usually I keep it private because of how often i miss my goals or write unrelated things…

But I’ve realized that y’all might not know I’m always working on some kind of fiction and I’m trying to change that because my fiction writing is important to me and I want it to be important to y’all as well on some level.

Let’s get started.

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First are what you can expect on my website:

The Great Big Anita Blake Reread #8: Blue Moon

In this newest installment of my reread series, we talk about the way that the series continues to suck at handling sexual assault, how the best thing it did for two of my favorite characters of color was never flesh them out in the slightest, and why Richard Zeeman has always been terrible and the “he’s a boy scout that wouldn’t hurt a woman” claims his friends use is not acceptable from even this point in this series.

Fleeting Frustrations #4 – What’s The Deal With Reverse Harem Romances

I know it’s a bit unsporting to pick on a subgenre in the wider romance genre, but that’s what my brain has been stuck on lately. In this airing of grievances, I talk about the colonialist origins of the original harem romance and the way many of the subgenre’s authors dodge queerness like they’re Neo dodging bullets.

Book Reviews

• Once Ghosted, Twice Shy – Alyssa Cole
• Lies Sleeping – Ben Aaronovitch
• Archangel’s Prophecy – Nalini Singh

Little Wolf, Big Red story snippet

I’m writing a lesbian Little Red Riding Hood retelling where Red Riding Hood is a big, butch lesbian and the wolf she runs into is a tiny and cute Black wolf-shifter that’s on the run from her pack (after getting on their leader’s bad side). It’s about 2400 words so far and I have yet to even get to the kissing, but I shared a snippet on Patreon a few months ago that I think y’all would like.

Ships ‘n Shit: Symbrock

The first installment of an experiment I’m running on being purely celebratory with my fannishness. In it, I go into why the Venom/Eddie Brock ship from Venom (2018) is kind of awesome.

Small Stitch Reviews

• White Stag
• Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse
• Dumplin’

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: Misogynoir – Intro to Misogynoir and Convenient Excuses

I decided to break my chunky and lengthy What Fandom Racism Looks Like installment on misogynoir into shorter, bite-sized pieces of information that’d make it easier for people to read and understand what I’m saying/what fandom has been doing for well over a decade. I’m staring out with the introduction and will be putting out the piece in installments with two this month and one a month until my presentation at PCA 2019 in April on misogynoir in fandom and how fans can and need to do better when it comes to Black women in fandom, in media, and in behind the scenes of these Black female characters.

Next, is what y’all can look forward to on Patreon. For ease of understanding, I’ve put down info about the tier each thing will be on.

Urban Fantasy 101 Notes ($1 Tier)

• Jen Estep’s Elemental Assassin series and what happens when a moral quandary gets worn into the dust with how often it’s repeated and left unsolved (everyone in Gin’s life knows what she is so why is it that every single fucking book they rehash it and she has to get her feelings hurt??)
• If the Anitaverse could make up its mind on how it wants to portray law enforcement, maybe it could actually be decent about the one thing it attempts to be good at. (The Anitaverse wants to fawn over cops because Hamilton fawns over them on the regular, but since Anita has to be the best and most special character ever, she has to be better at law enforcement than the actual cops and agents so the series swings between slavering fawning and cops as they often are in real life – men wild with power and ready to weild misogyny even against “their own”)

Urban Fantasy 101: They Work With The Dead or Freaking Fae Folk ($3 Tier)

For this month, I’m doing one of two quick and dirty guides to urban fantasy staples. Either I’ll cover folks that work for the dead (think necromancer plastic surgeons more than Renfield) or I’ll talk about the fae in the genre. Either way, it’ll be awesome!

The Great Big Anita Blake Reread: Obsidian Butterfly

• Snippet ($1)
• Full Draft ($3)

We’re heading to New Mexico in this newest installment of my Great Big Anita Blake Reread! In this installment, we’re talking and thinking about the way that this book heralds the beginning of the end for the decent parts of the series and despite the fact that it’s not as bad as what will come after it, it’s… pretty awful in its own way. We’re talking introducing a recurring serial killer character, in-series racism about Native American men that is super dehumanizing, and one of the most frustrating villains this side of the Mississippi.

Urban Fantasy 101: Vamp Supremacy snippet ($1)

For some reason, vampires are seen as a de facto leader of supernatural beings despite the fact that they’re largely unsuited for the role as ridiculously flammable beings that can’t go out in the day and who have so many weird weaknesses besides. In this snippet, we’ll be covering some of the issue with having vampire rulers set up as having a right to rule and talking about nostalgia for colonialism/imperialism present in some of these narratives.

Urban Fantasy 101: Preternatural Patriarchy

• Snippet ($1)
• Full Draft ($3)

From last month. I’ll be finishing my piece on the way that’ the patriarchy plays out in urban fantasy series, primarily in shifter stories. I have a bone to pick with the way these series, many of which are written by women, center the patriarchy and hinge on female characters needing to suffer horribly on their path to enlightenment and empowerment. We’re unburying that bone here.

Audience Participation January 2019 ($5 and $10 Tiers)

• Stitch’s Five Favorite Horror Manga
• Revisiting Constantine (2014), A Review
• Bonus Book Bae: Finn from the assorted Star Wars: The Force Awakens novelizations

What Fandom Racism Looks Like: (Not) Talking About Race

• Snippet ($1)
• (Tentative) Full Draft ($3)

I’m reading a bunch of fan and media studies books largely unrelated to what I’m actually writing for my PCA 2019 presentation and one thing that stands out is how little people in these fields want to talk about race – including whiteness. I own a fairly large amount of fan and media studies books and most of them don’t talk about race in any meaningful way. Especially when it comes to works that also cover gender and/or sexuality. So we’re going to talk about how the way folks in fandom can’t figure out how to talk about race in their otherwise “woke” essays and books about media and fandom as yet another aspect of how fandom is racist.

Lastly, we’ll get to my fiction goals for the month. These will roll over with no guilt from me at the end of the month if I don’t finish them and I’ll keep working on them until they’re done. I’ll reward myself with a piece of semi-fancy cheese every time I hit one of these goals though.

Editing REDACTED

This is a novella. I really need to be sure all the “fill this in” parts are actually filled in before it gets properly edited.

Two more chapters of Midnight City 0.5 Safety In Numbers

This is the queer urban science-fantasy novella I was writing for Nano. It’s likely going to be a bit longer than a novella at this point…

Ten to fifteen more pages of Little Wolf, Big Red

So gay, such werewolves. But I’m handwriting this so 10-15 pages are not actually that long even though they sure do feel like it.

Finish plotting and get back to writing Angelfall

I started a frankly meandering story about angels falling to earth and I really need to figure out where it’s going and then get it there

Untitled Liv/Aunt May story

Aunt May’s first relationship after the death of her husband does not start or end the way she expects. When she meets Liv at a tipsy art class one chilly winter day, it sets off an unexpected relationship that reminds May of what she’s already lost, what she can have now, and how easily everything can come crashing down around her if she’s not careful.

This is a lot of work I plan to do and what would I’d really like to do is get more patrons so I can excuse devoting all of my time to writing on my own website. I’m so close (comparatively) to hitting my personal goal for some financial stability and that would really mean the world in getting to spend more time writing and trying to figure out how to get you guys more of that good content.

If you’re excited about January’s upcoming work and you want to support me, consider sharing my work with potentially interested parties, sending me a few dollars via Paypal/Ko-Fi, or becoming a Patron! Any little bit helps and I always appreciate whatever support I can get because it’s nice to know y’all are here, reading my work and seeing my content.

Peep my support links:

Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/A477I4N 

PayPal: https://www.paypal.me/ZinaH 

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/StitchMediaMix/ 

CV: https://stitchmediamix.com/zina-h-cv/ 

Book Wishlist:  https://www.amazon.com/registry/wishlist/UXW2K0AOL5YK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_ep_ws_RWWByb2JFWTRJ

 

Xoxo

Gossip Stitch