(crossposted from Patreon)

Coming into 2024, I had big plans for how I was going to get back on track and get back to posting once a week and yeah, obviously, that hasn’t happened.

But what I have been doing is looking at my Patreon and at my own projects and figuring out some things I need to do differently. Last April, I changed my nom de plume because I wanted a fresh start. Now it’s time to give this entire Patreon project a refresh.

Here’s what’s happened so far:

• Deleted my old A.F. Linley website and gave up the domain; the cost for hosting has risen by $200/year and I wasn’t using it as much as I thought I would back in 2018. Also I kept getting spam emails through the contact page.
• Took down my Smashwords account; the single title I had managed to self-publish, a short story collection called Creeps, Ghouls and Jewels, had some serious formatting issues that it was not going to be worth the time/money to correct. Plus, I’m not happy with the changes that have come since Smashwords merged with Draft2Digital. (I’m considering moving to Payhip for future self-pubbed titles but that’s a discussion for a different post.)
• I’m starting the process of taking down my Redbubble shop and….Okay, actually, I might have done that already? I just went to grab a link to the site in case anyone wanted to order a Moonicorns t-shirt before I deactivated but uh, it looks like it might’ve deactivated itself? Anyway, merch isn’t the right direction for me at this time, but I’ve still got all the actual designs and I really do like the “Finishing Things is Hard” logo, so I’m definitely going to hang onto that and slap that onto some stuff at a different print-on-demand site in the future.

Here’s what’s happening next:

• New posting schedule: Starting in April, patrons will receive one short non-fiction post every week (500-1k words) and a piece of fiction every month (2-2.5k words). Oddments posts will continue to be free to read, but these take a decent amount of research and will be sporadic, basically happening around patron-only posts.
• Revised patron tier perks: Getting rid of physical rewards and adding more digital ones. More details to come.

Current and long-time patrons: Thank you for sticking around while I get my shit together. I say that frequently. I mean it every single time.

Potential new patrons: Hello. I have just met you, and I love you. My name is Ethan, I live in a 200-year-old house and I’m writing a novel called The Lion’s Paw. It’s set in 1925 and is about an immortal queer disaster woman and what happens when 400+ years of terrible decisions catches up with her.

Originally posted by pagets

(I will neither confirm nor deny that she was inspired by H.G. Wells from Warehouse 13.) (Yes I will confirm it, she totally was.)

There are séances and ghostly possession and psychics, there is historical romance, and psychological horror, there are haunted houses and artists behaving badly and a lot of ladies making out.

I post about my writing process and all the weird little historical niches that pop up during my research. Frequent topics include: 

• Spiritualism
• Cryptids
• Historical curiosities
• Medical quackery
• Weird tech
• General oddball occurrences and serendipitous intersections of history, folklore, and culture

And sometimes when I’m really bored I write short fiction via random prompts.

If any of that appeals to you, please consider subscribing! I’d love to have you along for this journey and my caffeine habit needs all the support it can get.

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Banner photo by Ryan Snaadt on Unsplash.

lizormianillustration:

whatever was left, that was ours for a while.

sunrise - louise glück

LizzieOrmian.redbubble.com

(via the-moon-loves-the-sea)

a-s-fischer:

If you want a good object lesson about what we can and can’t know about the past, we don’t know Ea-Nasir was a dishonest merchant selling shoddy goods.

What we know is we have found a cache of complaint tablets about him selling low quality copper as high quality, in a site that was probably his own residence. We know multiple people complained he was a cheat. It’s entirely possible they were right. It’s also entirely possible that he kept these complaint letters as records of people he would no longer do business with, because they had made accusations and threats in order to bully him into giving them free copper. That is an equally valid interpretation of the evidence.

My point is not that we have maligned Ea-Nasir, my point is that thousands of years later, we do not and cannot know.

(via pitviperofdoom)

ur-daily-inspiration:

Oh to be a cat sleeping peacefully at the foot of a bed, blissfully unaware of how chaotic the world is

(via timetravelbypen)

pwesident:

pwesident:

dont talk to me til ive fucked my coffee

[single loud slosh followed by Tom & Jerry yell]

(via swashbucklery)

massachusetts-official:

videos-i-didnt-make:

dunken.mp4

Official Post of Massachusetts

(via marzipanandminutiae)

victusinveritas:

All of these are by @mattxiv on Instagram.

Here’s to all the shockingly single bachelor uncles or the two very close friends who just happened to be girls and are only living together until one of them finds a man (they lived together for forty two years).

(via hhertzof)

thebibliosphere:

violentpriusdriver-deactivated2:

sunshine-tattoo:

weedforcats:

femgirlfriend-moved:

???

#straight up looks like Mr Blobby jizzed on this chair for years - @mothman-etd

thirddeadlysin:

imanutcase-10:

tattooedzombigirl:

theman:

beardedmrbean:

I GOT A FUCKING RAISE THE POTATO WORKED WTF

This potato works. Every. Fucking. Time.

Then bring me luck

the day after I posted this last time I was notified that I was selected for a really cool mentorship gig and got an unrelated glowing review at work

(via highlyillogicalandroid)

macgyvermedical:

trans-girl-nausicaa:

Listen, I wanted to join the military too. I really, really did. But if your motivation for joining the military is anything except going somewhere far away and killing people, rethink.

If it is getting away from the situation that you’re in, if it’s the ability to serve your country full-time, if it’s camaraderie and wearing a uniform and the opportunity for college and/or job training, if it’s physical fitness and learning to live with other people who are really different than you, heck, if it’s fully paid-for travel and the ability to do cool things like respond to disasters and fight wildfires…

JOIN THE NATIONAL CIVILIAN COMMUNITY CORPS OR A CONSERVATION CORPS INSTEAD.

AmeriCorps NCCC is a residential, team-based national service program. It’s free. They provide all travel, lodging, food, and training. They even pay you a stipend. At the end you get money for college or job training. Almost everyone 18-26 gets in. If you want to be a team leader you can be older than that.

You travel around the country for 1-2 years with a diverse team doing anything from building parks to trail maintenance to serving with a food pantry to disaster relief to cutting fire line to building houses.

If you have any questions I was a team leader with this program. I am happy to answer them.

(via hhertzof)