It’s been quite the year for me, and it’s only July.
Those in the know who have helped me through the changes I’ve tried to grow from this year know most of the stories, but I haven’t talked too much about it all openly. Some of it took time to come to terms with, others are relatively new, while still others are technically bound by a contract that I will talk about later. But lets start at the beginning, shall we?
Family changes
About halfway through January this year, my wife and I made the terribly difficult decision to separate. It was really hard to handle, and for the next two weeks I worked to find a place to stay away from her and my son. I ended up moving in with my brother and getting involved with my parents again, which is a grab bag of pros and cons in and of itself. But my brother was gracious enough to let me take over his spare room for a few months until I managed to find a low-income rental of my own. As of May, I’ve been living in my own tiny little bachelorette apartment, still in Edmonton, and a place that I’m comfortable bringing my son on the days I get to spend with him.
Truthfully the separation hurt a lot, but it was the best solution to the problems that my wife and I were having in our marriage. We’re still friends, in fact better friends than we were at being romantic partners, and we still co-parent to the best of our abilities to make sure our son still knows that both parents care about him dearly.
What does all this mean? It means not a whole lot of writing has gotten done. I started reflecting on myself and my life and wrote a couple of short stories that are available on my itch page (https://writerprincess.itch.io/) that are loosely autobiographical or were based on fears that I was having. Finding Her is the story of a crossdresser who finds himself at the mercy of a trans woman who won’t take no for an answer as she tries to show him that he can have the life he’s always wanted, while Bright Lights is a cyberpunk-y story of my fear that being close to my parents again would result in them trying to subtly pressure me into detransitioning. Which is something I refuse to do.
Now pretty settled in my own place, I’ve been able to start working on new projects, and while I’m not a hundred percent back up to my old efficiency, it’s really good to be excited for writing again and putting things out that I hope people want to read. That leads us to our next topic.
AI in Publishing
Those who follow me on Bluesky or I talk to on Discord have been aware of this for a little while and they’ve been helping me find a new way of getting my work out there since I made the decision to leave my publisher, Bold Strokes Books, back in April.
It was a decision I took some time to consider due to being uncomfortable with some of the restrictions and stipulations present in the contract that I had signed when my first book, Pack of Her Own, was picked up by them. But even that I was willing to overlook to some degree, until I sent them an email inquiring about the possibility of doing an audiobook for Pack. Unfortunately that wasn’t an option at the moment, but what came next was what solidified my intent to separate myself from the publisher. I was informed that Bold Strokes was fully intending to utilize ACX’s AI Narrator system that they’ve slowly been pushing out for the last while. It would allow narrators to sign up to allow ACX to create an AI version of their voice to use to create audiobooks. In this way, a narrator can sign up to do a book and simply allow AI to do it for them.
I know the debate about AI is constantly ongoing, but my stance is simple: No AI in art. I don’t care if you use ChatGPT to research for a book, or use ACX’s AI narrator to make it cheaper to get an audiobook done. It’s still using AI and it’s wrong. I am vehemently against AI. Not only is is extremely unethical, but art exists to be a human creation and experience. I know people argue that they can’t write so they get AI to do it for them. Well guess what? We all start not being able to write. And the way we get to the point where we can is by constantly practicing. Practicing when you have nothing else to do. Practice instead of losing your mind to Tiktok or Youtube for hours on end. Think about what you want to write while you’re working or cooking supper. There is zero reason to use AI in art, especially utilizing a technology that openly and flagrantly steals the work of other creatives be they authors, artists, musicians, or voice actors and narrators. I don’t care what arguments you have, this is my position and it’s not changing, honey.
And so, because of my strong feelings over the use of AI for the audiobooks, I parted ways with Bold Strokes Books. Which meant having to come up with something brand new, as they still own the rights to the four books I published through them.
A New Direction
So for something new I tried my hand at contemporary eggfic for a short while. Eggfic, for those that don’t know, is generally a label that trans readers and writers use for stories that feature a character coming out as trans as part of the storyline of the story. Simple enough. Some might disagree with this and that’s okay, it’s just the way I see the term used and feel comfortable using it. Sadly, this story was not becoming the project I truly wanted to work on at the time, and has thus been shelved until I feel I can come back to it.
Instead I am now working on a new paranormal romance called No Turning Back, featuring trans and lesbian characters and well as the usual shenanigans that I am known for. However, starting a new direction with self-publishing means finding new ways to get my books to the readers. This is why I have started uploading the chapters of my new story to my Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/writerprincess) and my Patreon (https://patreon.com/writerprincess) for donors to read. For those that don’t want to donate, don’t fret. The following weekend of every chapter’s release, it is being released on Scribblehub (https://www.scribblehub.com/series/1678007/no-turning-back/). This way everyone gets to enjoy it. When the work is finished, it will be put into book form and released for sale on Itch and other places books are sold.
Moving Forward
There’s mot much else left to say. There’s been a lot of changes in my life, good and bad, that have affected how I manage to do things. And it’s been a lot of work to figure out who i am without the status quo I was so used to. It’s a time of change, and I’m trying to handle it as well as I am able to. With varying degrees of success. There’s been some ups and downs but I’m working on it.
I am a work in progress, just like my books.