Bubble Tea Report # 3🧋
On the page
Current newsletter status: alive, scheduled, and increasingly suspicious in the way all writing projects become suspicious once they develop momentum.
March is the month where I apparently decided the best possible use of my time was to alternate between craft advice, literary bloodshed, and defending misunderstood writing clichés.
This month, I’m sitting over 100 subscribers and 1000+? views, which means this little corner of the internet continues to attract exactly the kind of readers I was hoping for: people who enjoy fantasy, sci-fi, dangerous wonder, legally binding nonsense, and the occasional emotional support beverage.
Thank you all.
Here’s what’s on deck:
March 17 — Craft tip #5: How to Kill Your Darlings like a Manic Serial Killer
March 26 — Craft tip #5: How to Kill Your Darlings like a Manic Serial Killer
March 30 — Write What You Know Was Never Bad Advice. Hubert Selby Jr. Did Exactly That.
Yes, there are currently two March entries for Craft Tip #5. This is either a scheduling hiccup or proof that I believe in killing darlings twice just to be sure. Or I am just a sadistic with craft advice. either of these are plausible.
And because I clearly do not believe in pacing myself like a normal person, April is already lined up too:
April 2 — Craft tip #6: Three Acts, One Rubber Chicken: What The Secret of Monkey Island Can Teach You About Plot
April 9 — Craft tip #7: A Fairy, a Forest, and a Destiny Problem
April 16 — Craft tip #8: Your Taste Buds Are Doing More For Your Prose Than You Think
April 23 — Craft tip #9: Why do I write what I write?
In other words: structure, fairy-tale problems, food-based craft analysis, and me publicly explaining my creative damage like a professional.
As one does.
I noticed that people are enjoying the articles on how video games can teach us to write better and I researched two classic video games that do Plot extremely well. One of them is The Secret of Monkey Island, from a time when Lucasfilm could still tell a story without making the audience feel like they were watching three different outlines fight in a parking lot.
The other is a Zelda classic that still holds up after twenty 26 years.
Project update
Project: The aftermath of finishing a series
Status: I completed the Starforge series, which sounds very calm and dignified written out like that. In practice, it feels less like “I finished a series” and more like “I crawled out of a very specific emotional weather system and now I am blinking at daylight.”
Tiny win: The ending is done. The books exist. The ideas that had been haunting me for years have, at minimum, been forced into paperwork.
New projects in the works:
Status: Now that one series is complete, my other ideas have started reproducing in the dark like beautifully dressed narrative gremlins.
I’ve been working on essays, lining up craft posts, and poking at the other projects that keep hovering around my desk demanding food, structure, and attention. Which is to say: the usual.
I started and finished the first draft of a new project called Oh my empress, a lesbian Romansty where a Conwoman falls in love with an empress, both want to overthrow the empire in different ways. Did I borrow the plot from the 2016 Korean erotic thriller The Handmaiden, Sure let’s go with that. I just wanted to write powerful women doing powerful shit but, cannot because society[?].
The part I loved writing
From Why do I write what I write?
“Some obsessions do not leave. They just get better sentences.”
I enjoy a line that sounds reflective and vaguely threatening at the same time. That is, unfortunately for everyone around me, extremely on brand.
The funniest thing I wrote
“The local thieves’ guild cleaned the sewers and unionized the miners and electrical engineers, then filed the paperwork under COMMUNITY OUTREACH, because nothing says civic pride like extortion with a mission statement.”
I remain deeply committed to writing institutions the way they deserve to be written: with accuracy, hostility, and a little decorative lighting. Most be all the years of working in an office with unlimited red tape.
Current problems
Problem #1: I am now scheduling posts in advance, which has given me entirely too much power and not nearly enough supervision. Which technically isn’t a problem so much so as What should I write before someone else writes it better.
Problem #2: Every time I think I am writing “a quick craft post,” it grows extra limbs, develops opinions, and starts demanding a thesis.
Problem #3: My queue now extends into April, which is either called planning or foreshadowing. At this time, the authorities have not confirmed which.
Random quote I’m taping to my forehead
“Some obsessions do not leave. They just get better sentences.”
Why it’s sticking: Because unfortunately that appears to be the thesis statement for both my writing life and several of my personality defects.
Listening loop (a.k.a. my brain’s soundtrack)
Still emotionally rotating between:
Video Game music: Water on YouTube
Fahrenheit Fair Enough by Telefon Tel Aviv
Belfast by Orbital
Mood: bureaucratic dread, mystical paperwork, and the sensation that every scene has a hidden clause waiting to ruin somebody’s life.
What it does to my writing: It makes every paragraph feel like it knows something I do not.
Bubble tea of the month
March beverage energy: Maple Brown Sugar Chestnut with Boba.
Honorable mentions: Kale Boost tea and coconut mango boom from Hey Tea.
Why this one: because if I am going to spend the month killing darlings, defending “write what you know,” and explaining my artistic damage to the public, I deserve a drink that tastes like a reward and a warning.
I also survived a matcha tea suggestion from Strawberry Girl and a Thai iced tea recommendation from Trashlett , which is proof that my readers are either supportive or trying to build me into a more powerful form.Enough jokes. I love my readers, and I’m genuinely glad people are reading this and enjoying what I write.
The other non-bubble tea drink
(I know. Blasphemy.)
Whatever has enough caffeine to let me stare down my draft and lie to it convincingly. Usually coffee, plus mineral water with electrolytes for the illusion of responsible adulthood.
Next month’s intention
Finish the March lineup cleanly, survive the April queue, and keep building this newsletter into the kind of place where craft advice, fiction, publishing chaos, and emotional damage can all sit at the same table without throwing anything.
Goal: keep the posts sharp, weird, useful, and honest.
Secondary goal: continue pretending this is all under control.
Tell me in the comments which upcoming post you’re most excited for — and, as always, tell me what bubble tea I should get next month. I remain extremely vulnerable to beverage suggestions.
Xiào kǒu cháng kāi, and as always—until next time. 🧋✦
Alex