Well, you have surprised us, dear readers. It seems there are bitches among us. We know because an alarming number of you wrote in to tell us so.¹ We salute you! Please tell more bitches about the newsletter. And non-bitches, of course, although it may or may not be to their taste.

¹ You liked the footnotes, it seems. That’s good, because they aren’t going anywhere.

Writing Life Woes

We know at least some of you are authors, and so we also know you can relate: do you ever have one of those characters? One of the ones who, despite your best efforts, ruin everything about your draft as you’re writing it, requiring you to rethink plot details on the fly?

The character giving us fits is one Coruscar² Larithian, whose primary character trait is that he is resourceful. Whether or not he is clever is debatable—he has a positively constructive³ tendency to make the most stupid decisions possible in matters of the heart—but annoyingly, he can be counted upon to be a many-trick pony.

Regardless of his Intelligence/Wisdom ratio,⁴ he is very, very good at doing the things he sets his mind to. He is also a talented mage. This combination is unfortunate to the plot of one of our WIPs, for said plot relies on him not being able to figure out a magical conundrum that he keeps solving.

Truly, it is a shame that killing him would give us no joy since it would be too easy. And he keeps foiling our attempts to torture him. We need him to be in the Goldilocks zone of suffering, and he squarely refuses to go.

Please pity us.

² See the title of this newsletter re: pronunciation. Sorry, his name’s been like this since the Solandan Empire was but a twinkle in our eyes, so it’s not changing anytime. (Not anytime soon. Just anytime. Full stop.)

³ At least for the authors’ purposes.

⁴ You understood that reference! (We hope.)

WIP Snip

I sighed, sat up—and noticed Coruscar sitting in the corner, reading a book. 

I walked over and crossed my arms so that I was standing over him, tapping my foot until he registered the sound and stopped reading. He looked up and grinned. “Look, I don’t know what you expect. I like books."

“I’m starting to get jealous,” I teased, amused.

He put a bookmark in between the pages and stood. For a second he cocked his head to the side, studying me, then said with feigned concern, “The book is an inanimate object, Lena.”

I cocked my own head to the side opposite his and said, “You know, for some men that’s not much of an impediment.”

Recommendation

Have you ever listened to Halsey’s music? If not, then allow us to recommend their song “Drive”. And then the rest of their discography, pretty much, because it’s extremely baller.^6,7

⁶ Just be aware that their cover of their latest album is (eyebrows) lewd. You have been warned.

⁷ One of our interns only uses Youtube Music for recommendations, so get used to that, we guess.

A Note Re: Schedule

You may have noticed that this newsletter edition went live on August 16, 2023. Please try not to be alarmed for your inbox; we’re going to get lazy again very soon and figure out a rhythm, oh, sometime. Either way, the frequency of these emails will sharply decline. We guarantee it.