Work on the next Taeliana book, Fiendblood, is going mostly well. I’m in the last part of the book, but I’m just trying to figure out some stuff and how it works, and then there’s the editing, formatting, finishing the cover, writing the cover copy, getting everything ready to go. It takes a little time, but we’ll get there.
All posts by Jen D
New store!
Just a quick note – I’ve opened a store for sales of The Ballad of the Grey Swan in both PDF and epub formats on itch.io.
Happy New Year.
It’s 2025.
A lot of crap is not looking at making people happy this year. The new administration is not going to be fun for a lot of people. So I’m going to need to do it myself for myself.
The Cost of Being Yourself, Part 2: Getting Dressed.
Boy, can it be expensive to be transgender. The medications can be costly (I’m lucky with medications and the insurance I’m part of), the doctors can be expensive (again, lucky on the insurance), and there are a lot of things to worry about. But one of the more depressing things is clothing and shoes.
Let me talk about it some more.
Writing updates: new version, new book!
It’s been a while, but I’ve been doing some writing in the background. Let’s get down to business!
Click to continue reading.
The Ballad of the Grey Swan: Updates
Hi there! It’s been a bit.
Firstly, I have a new link page at Books 2 Go, that links to the book in all the stores it’s sold in one easy-to-click page. You can look there if you want to know where it can be found.
The Ballad of the Grey Swan Merch!
I decided to make some merch with a pair of images inspired by The Ballad of the Grey Swan and a good old-fashioned LGBTQIA+ slogan!
All are available through RedBubble.
The announcement: I have published a novel!
Yes! That’s the big announcement for today, the thing that’s been being counted down to in the margin and in my other posts. I have published a novel! My first novel. And I’m excited.
It’s called The Ballad of the Grey Swan. It’s a swashbuckling fantasy novel inspired by things like:
- my love of Dungeons and Dragons and fantasy
- the works of Alexandre Dumas like The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers,
- books like War for the Oaks which involve people rising up to be the equal of magical powers
- swashbuckler movies
- my desire to have a fantasy novel that reflects trans people and gay people as just people living their lives (well, as normal as you get in a fantasy world, but you get the idea) until things get weird
- and an image I got in my head and had to get out one way or another.
A D&D Archfey Patron: The Prince of Fireflies
Ah, The Prince of Fireflies.
He is also known as the Great Voyeur, the Watcher Over Lovers, and the Bleeder of Hearts.
The Faerie of Taeliana are incarnate stories, and the Archfey are the incarnations of the most powerful themes in stories. The Prince of Fireflies is love stories, no matter how they end. As an archfey, he does things for his amusement and to further the stories he embodies. (There is a difference between the fae and the faerie, which will be gone over later.) Click to continue reading.
Transgender Things: The Cost of Being Yourself, Part 1: Name Changes
A name change is important – you want to be yourself, and when you’re transgender, your name is a big, big part of it. This got brought up in a comment on my last post, so I thought I’d go into a bit of detail about the costs for a name change here where I live in the state of Pennsylvania.