Reanna: The Plural Positivity Word Conference's Admission Changed, So We Won't Be Able To Go. The Organizers

Reanna: To eat the fruit of wild strawberries again.

When I was a kid, I saw some wild strawberries growing around Westgate. (That's a school I went to.) I picked the tiny fruits and ate them. They were sweet. I wish I could find that plant again one day.

The Murder After: Profile

Title: The Murder After (links to Amazon) Series: Terrance's Story #1 Genre: mystery, dramadey, psychological fiction Year self-published: 2024 (through KDP)

Copyright status: CC BY-SA 4.0. (Do what you want as long as you give credit and use the same license.)

Blurb: Terrance is one person to a body and lives in Lakewood, Colorado. One morning, he woke up next to a dead body. Now, he wants to know what happened one night because he became a suspect in an investigation. Do you want to know what happened too?

Format: chapbook Page count: 52 (fifty-two)

MPA rating: PG-13 Reasons: some language, violent death (off screen), drama, suicidality

Price: $5.95 Note: This is specifically SL's story.

SL: I should point out that I tried narrating in the British dialect. Our official story is that I was challenging myself. Then, I learned the second person is Terrance's natural perspective, but I was too lazy to change anything. So if I sound like an American trying to sound British, that's why. (Please don't get mad at me for saying "closet" instead of "wardrobe.") [T: I roll my eyes and go with it.]

Reanna: What do writers have to do to get some attention around here!? We'd like people to buy our books and give them a chance.

Do we need to parade our minority status?

We're bigender!

We're Mexicain-American!

We're plural!

Do we need to share our discourse opinions?

Like we're gonna do that.

We don't want discourse.

That's not why we're here.

In our pinned post, we have a link to a master post listing the books we self-published. But no one seems interested in them. What are we doing wrong!?

Reanna: I don't think I'd ever realize I'm bigender without my headmates. I'd have probably just continued thinking I'm making it up.

It happened in 2022. The feeling may have been triggered by a dream Chaz had in 2021 (link to the dream.) It caused his form to go back and forth between male and female. This happened so much that he made a character to make it stop.

Then, we did research on trans men for a scrapped story idea in February. I noticed a desire to be a man, but when I imagined a full transition, it conflicted with my womanhood. So, I told myself that I was making it up, that it was the research talking.

But the feeling didn't leave.

A desire to be a man while remaining a woman. I didn't know why I was feeling this way. We felt confused. There was so much conflict.

Then, on April 19, Brian was thinking about all of this. He realized something and said, "I think we're bigender." Because I represent the body, it means that I'm bigender. The conflict stopped because the word fit.

Without Brian's realization, I would have still felt confused. Without Brian's realization, I would have continued dismissing my feelings as "making it up."

SL: The flowers we got our mum yesterday have roses, so F.M. and I plan to remake the cover of The Year After with one of them. We already took the picture.

The current cover has a white carnation with pink stripes. It represents love that wasn't shared. We only used it because we got the flower on our birthday.

But a red rose represents true love. The Year After is a romance after all. Plus, we used a rose for The Murder After (a yellow one representing friendship.) Here's a link to that cover.

I'm glad we can use roses for both books.

SL: I've thought about putting The Muder After and The Year After as one book because of how short the first one is. Except they're different genres. One is a mystery/dramadey, and the other is a romantic dramadey. So, I don't think it would have worked.

But I might have a solution: make The Year After a second volume instead of a proper sequel. It makes it a continuation of the story without combining anything. I just need to start from chapter eight. That won't be hard because all it requires is changing the chapter names. (I write a chapter twice then type. That's how Reanna and the other headmates treated Carnival.)

Reanna: If we ever develop a fanbase, I wonder if it would primarily be fans with physical copies of our books or fans with digital copies we put in shadow libraries.

I wish we had a way of knowing if someone read our books. Let's try asking. If you have a question about our books, send it in the ask box.

Reanna: I made three posts about my anxiety, but I decided to delete them. This should be more private. Sharing in detail was probably making it worse. I thought it would help, but it didn't.

I am feeling better now. Have a good day!

SL: Hey, why don't I publish The Development Before as a book instead after I finish Terrance's story? It'll be in order, and people might buy it. I didn't think about that. People love looking behind the scenes!

F.M.: I'm based on a real person, and sometimes, I worry about what might happen to me when my source dies.

Will I die too? Will I deactivate and become a statue in the Stone Garden? Will I stop existing? Mary and Reanna would be devastated!

My source is in a band, and seven (going on eight) years ago, one of his bandmates killed himself. I formed from a fear that he'd be next. Maybe that's why I'm so worried.

I can already imagine myself sitting in a corner of the headspace and thinking, "oh my God! He's dead! What's gonna happen to me!?"