All To Paint You Broken

Inspiration

To be honest, the only plan I had when I started this project was “sapphic”. After my long history of trauma with my own sexuality as well as my first published works starring men or non-women, I had to see if I could do it.

Long story short: I really couldn’t lol.

Although somehow this ended up as my longest first draft ever at 90k thanks to Scrivener, I can’t say I had fun with most of it. I certainly did it, but most of it felt pretty off and forced. I don’t feel like I was able to draft a cohesive or interesting magic system, and that’s always been my issue with trying to create magic around art. I had a whole scrapped project about time-travel paintings (exactly like the Owl House ones).

I also couldn’t really nail down either of the lead characters. I was over-thinking them and their dynamic in a way that I don’t with male-presenting characters, trying to make them not too much like me but not stereotypes but not boring but not too cutesty. It sucked lol. Both of the supporting characters were totally fine, even the hired mage bad guy was fine. It was just Sepia and Kasi I couldn’t get. Kind of a bummer lol. This one will never get published. Probably. At least not without an abundance of work on it.