Just declared my second NaNo project

I feel like I talk about These Subtle Fires ( #VictorianWIP) a lot but I haven’t actually introduced it, so let this double as a WIP intro thread

TSF was one of my earliest WIPs, started around age 9. It follows the lives of two childhood best friends, Arianne and Raymond, as they navigate life in Victorian England as well as their own feelings towards the people they’re becoming, and their growing feelings for each other.

It shows how you can change the toxic behaviors you inflict upon yourself and those around you, specifically the people you love. It’s a hard story because it also deals with growing into your own (queer— they’re both bisexual) identity. It also deals with neurodiversity—

in circumstances where it isn’t entirely understood.

Most of all, it’s a hard story because it’s my own. I used this WIP to make sense of all the things that were happening to me while growing up, including all my traumas, mental illness, and toxic behaviors when I didn’t even—

realize that those things were what they were because they were (mostly) a product of my upbringing. But I’m healing now, so I feel that the time is right to finally tell this story.

I grew up alongside these characters, and I hope you grow to love them too