ostara vibes

z.m. celestaire  Art!, MicahxAndrew, Original Characters, The Heartwood Trilogy  Leave a comment

well, the release of Promise Me, Lord Heartwood is flying closer with reckless abandon. I’m so ready. Rend Me came and went with little to-do because it was the middle book, I couldn’t get any ARC readers to sign up, and it really just felt like I was sighing my way through it to get to this one.

My proof of Promise Me came and it was very shockingly emotional. It certainly helped that this is the first of the three books I didn’t have to fuss with to get the frame positioned right, so the copy that I got was so close to perfect I felt like it was basically the final copy.

I still can’t get over Andrew’s perfect face. It feels like he is everything he’s always been meant to be.

My experience with Micah in the trilogy has been that maybe I get defensive when he’s imperfect or annoys people because I believe that heroes can fail and suck and screw up without making them less worthy of success. Or because I just care about him too much.

I’ve been working on an IngridxChamomile short story and it’s been brutal. I think it’s been good practice for like, pushing through on a project I don’t feel like is organically flowing at all. I’ve had some good writer friends rooting for me which has helped.

Chami has Keeley Jones vibes in this.

Other Miscellaneous Heartwood Art

Random Traditional Andrew

I’m going to be at Minneapolis Pride in June and I’m trying to be very extra prepared for it. This drawing is gonna go on a huge sign with the logo for the trilogy omnibus.

Lol god this blog has taken me like three weeks to finish and I haven’t written anything

summer palette 2024

z.m. celestaire  Art!, MicahxAndrew, Myoku Needs a Tag, Original Characters, The Heartwood Trilogy, Writing!  Leave a comment

I’m watching Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood for the first time. I will never be the same. But no fanart yet – I’m not done with it.

Anyway, Ostara brings summer colors. Pastels and creams and oranges. Getting the final book in The Heartwood Trilogy ready to launch has helped me enjoy the boys more again, so here’s my latest art.

sketch:

drunken babygirl
promise me andrew sketches
neons
ostara pics 🌸

Checking in

z.m. celestaire  Art!, Myoku Needs a Tag, Original Characters, The Heartwood Trilogy, Writing!  Leave a comment

Well, Rend Me, The Wayward Knight is out in the world! It’s been, as expected, a much quieter release than Deny Me but I’m comfortable with that because I know the people who read Rend Me are ones who really wanted to come back for Andrew and Micah, and that’s kind of been the point the whole time.

I’ve been kind of wandering about a bit with art these last few weeks so I decided to do something simpler: a Micah picture unattached from Heartwood. It turned out REALLY gay AHAH and as soon as I did the pose I knew it was going to be a reprise of spilled sugar…which I didn’t realize till pulling it up that that one was a decade ago already.

HOW do I have Still-Adult pictures of Micah that are A DECADE OLD NOW? what the FU

Anyway I think Micah looks scrumptious in this and I think it’s partly due to the glasses hahaha.

It’s kind of funny because it DEFINITELY makes this old picture of him look like a fucking hobo but that KIND OF IS the phase I was going through after college hahaha. I blame hipsters.

I don’t remember why I did this one, I think it was promo for Book 2 ahah. Moody Micah.

Wanted to print an Ingrid sticker and she turned out SUHEXKSY

less so

This is how we explained my gender to Ronan and it’s been living in my head, so I turned it into a sticker design, and Ryan didn’t like the version I made without a goblin SO HERE WE ARE IT’S SO CUTE

new year energy

z.m. celestaire  Art!, Original Characters, The Gryphon's Solace  Leave a comment

The last time I felt this positively about the new year was in 2020 which turned out to be the worst year in American history in my lifetime. So at the risk of jinxing it, it feels like Team Glasses has put a lot of bad shit and stress behind us and we’re enjoying our hard times paying off.

Without further ado, some art!

I absolutely adore how this turned out, from Ingrid’s crushed velvet to the silliness of the pile of champagne bottles to Chami’s sparkles to how pretty the champagne looks. Feels like a triumph.

Vic and my dad have gryphonWIP which rounded out at 88k now so that’s depressing because I don’t have anything to do except edit Promise Me and I don’t wanna do that haha.

Nico and his baby sister have very Myoku/Shani vibes and might be their spiritual successors especially since Nico is like a cousin/spiritual successor to Micah even if I was able to uncleave Alister from being Andrew, Nico still feels stuck.

PAMPERING TIME

ATLA TIME

TRIO TIME

holidays 2023

z.m. celestaire  Art!, Holiday Drawings, MicahxAndrew, Original Characters, The Heartwood Trilogy  Leave a comment

Kind of like with the Emotia drawings, I’m going to start this as a Christmas master post.

I think I’m going to add a few finishing touches for this but there’s something freeing about posting on my blog where I know nobody will see it. It’s been a pretty “curated” art year for me which is fine to an extent but definitely adds pressure. This Christmas drawing literally came about because I told myself I was going to have all week to see if I could come up with a good one, thus relieving the pressure of making the perfect drawing, so I ended up making the perfect drawing haha.

Looking at that 2020 drawing though with the whole cast in the house kinda makes me want to do another one like that though. It’s always been one of my favorites.

SO IS THIS THOUGH COME ON

Micah’s gauges? His snowflakes? HIS NAILS? Andrew looking DAINTY AF? come onnnnnnnnn

Also I pulled this up on my iPad and realized the only finishing touch I actually need for sure is my signature lol. I kind of want to add a border or something but idk

Through the years we all will be together.

2009
2010
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022

gryphonWIP

z.m. celestaire  Art!, Original Characters, The Gryphon's Solace  Leave a comment

THIRTEEN YEARS AGO I guess I had just started Sun-Walking, so I guess even without participating in NaNoWriMo (recently exposed as harboring a moderator who was grooming teen writers so I’m fucking out), November has always been a productive writing month.

I’m 40,000 words 55,000 words! into my latest project which is a huge departure from the type of storytelling I’ve done before. It’s first person with three distinct POVs, and I’m 40k in but not even at the third act yet. I’m pretty excited, it’s looking like a great great story with some of the tightest and best writing I’ve ever done. It certainly shows the effects of being actively engaged in the writing community for the last nine months, and this is just a first draft. I’m feeling a bit frustrated that I set out with the intention to tell another Andrew/Micah story because the MCs are not ENTIRELY like that but they’re certainly somewhat parallel and related, which makes me just feel like I wasn’t able to write new characters. Even though that’s not true, because the gryphon in said gryphonWIP is nothing like Solveig (or Fionna), the little sister is brand new, as are all of the characters in the city. It’s really just Alister and Nico who have some overlap with Andrew and Micah’s dynamics, but not a lot. I’m working really hard to uncleave them from any other characters which ended up meaning Alister’s ash blond haha.

I made it to 50k WITHIN November (I did 5k before the start of the month) and I’m so proud. I’m about to tie up Act II and the slow burning shitheads FINALLY kissed.

This ended up being a bit of a thesis statement which unsurprisingly means this whole fucking world I created is an analogy for the threat to gay rights happening rn baha
Blond Alister gives Jaime Lannister and Draco Malfoy vibes but Im going to chalk that up to a skill deficit atm
Stella is a 17 year old firecracker and I’m obsessed with her

Oh yeah here’s new Lucienne > Claire

IT’S LIVE!!!! EEEEE

z.m. celestaire  Emotional Breakdowns, The Heartwood Trilogy, Writing Journey  Leave a comment

Well, I survived the preorder week of hell and GOT MY PERIOD TODAY which would explain why I was so wretchedly anxious and sad beforehand so that SUCKS.

But now I’m not, even though I had a dastardly day of pitching because I let my dad talk me into trying at Uncle Hugo’s, even though that 70 year old autistic man had NO interest in buying Deny Me hahaha. I mean, actually, Moon Palace was really nice and I’ll probably do some events there next year. And I got to tell my dad all the cool stuff that’s been going on around my release and he wanted me to read some of the awesome reviews I’ve gotten. And of course he’s been very kind about the not-so-awesome reviews I’ve gotten (most of which seem to be for completely individualized reasons which I do of course respect) and talked about.

I got into sticker-making last weekend partly as a means to cope with the wait for my book to come out and also because I decided to take part in a market at Nine Keys Apothecary a few weeks before my book reading there haha. So I was like “ok yeah I can sell my book but bitches love stickers” and…here we are.

So let’s see, I know Next Chapter is going to carry a few of my books, as is The Paperback Exchange. Moon Palace might, and I also emailed them, and Dream Haven, and Next Chapter about events. Tomorrow I’m gonna be on a book podcast!

Oh yeah and The Kiss is gonna be on the cover of a magazine in October??? what the butt

my silly baby boys, look how we fly