A Vent: the Freydis Fiasco

April 21, 2024April 22, 2024 Kara Jorgensen8 Comments

**What is written below is my experience with Freydis Moon and what has gone down since last February. Obviously, all of this is from my perspective, and I have not used other people’s names for privacy reasons. I want to use this post to vent everything that has happened this past year**

If you follow me on social media, over the past year or so, you may have seen me posting about how I was getting weird messages/replies on Twitter along with ghost quote rts (where someone who has seemingly privated or blocked you shares you work) on posts that wouldn’t normally get quoted/shared. This freaked me out so badly that my hair fell out over the summer/early fall of 2023 due to the stress of what was going on and the fact that I couldn’t say anything because the person who was behind it was another author within my orbit: Freydis Moon.

Freydis Moon has been unmasked Scooby Doo style as another terrible author named Taylor Barton or Brooklyn Ray. You can take a look at the evidence here if you want more background. The main m.o. with this person was that they would bully people, and when they would say something or try to, Freydis would rile up their readers/followers/friends to take them down. This was often done publicly, but it was often done on Discords and back channels only.

My issues with Freydis go back to February of 2023. I made a post on Twitter complaining about trope marketing since I don’t write or read fanfic, basically riffing off what a friend said. Freydis came into both of our posts and stirred up shit. I got off lighter with insinuations that I was being classist for saying if you have a BA in English, you look at book structure/writing differently (not better, differently). But they went after my friend, even though they backed down and unnecessarily apologized for their marketing opinion. Freydis and another queer author made a whole thread making fun of them and then seemingly booted my friend off a queer author Discord we were part of with the words “bad vibes be gone.” I was pissed. I left the Discord nearly immediately and muted Freydis everywhere. Part of me hoped they might apologize, but that never came.

After that happened, I started comparing notes with another neurodivergent author who had also had run-ins with Freydis and realized there were more and more of us who had this experience of “misunderstandings” that felt ableist. What I mean by that is tone policing, reading into things that aren’t there and then attacking you for it, and ganging up on them with another author/supporter among other things. Between February and summer, I watched another neurodivergent author get into a spat with them after calling them out for bullying. It’s also key to note here that Freydis also masqueraded as another author, Saint Harlow, who often acted as their attack dog. Saint Harlow went after this author, then Freydis got them into emails/DMs and then twisted around what they said. Once again, shitty behavior, but when you throw in that this author was autistic, it takes on a far more obvious ableist edge in that we are often not as socially adept and it’s far easier to trip us up, especially since clarifying leads to over-explaining, which gives the bully more to work with.

By this point, the pattern of ableist behavior was solidifying, especially after going through older spats between them and traditionally published authors, several of whom were known to be neurodivergent. Another autistic author became more vocal about Freydis’s behavior toward autistic and neurodivergent author, and so did I. Neither of us ever named names, and I don’t think I even mentioned that I was talking about a specific person when I talked about ableism being a pattern of behavior rather than a discreet action. That was seemingly enough. When a friend was called out by them, I told them to ignore Freydis (basically doing the opposite of what happened with the other author and because grey rocking is a common tactic against abusive behavior). Someone leaked those chats to Freydis, who then leaked them to their friends. I lost like 10-15 mutuals in like two days and couldn’t figure out why. I later found out it was because they told people I had been “racially harassing” them despite the fact that I hadn’t spoken to/about them in months and never had been racist toward/about them.

By that point, I had had them blocked everywhere, and I mean everywhere. Twitter, Instagram, Goodreads, Tiktok, in my email, even Etsy. Their presence was triggering to me by that point. I went out of my way to avoid them, so there was no way in hell I was going to harass them. On top of that, I hadn’t said anything about any of this on any of my public social media accounts, only within close friend groups. Around this time in the summer is when what I can only describe as cyberstalking started. I would post something and a friend who come tell me Freydis is subtweeting me, even though I had them and their other alias’s account (whom I thought was a separate person) both blocked. I started getting ghost quote retweets on posts about my health or neurodivergence, which was strange since those aren’t topics people would comment on. I would have replies/qrts pop up, then disappear, and I started to think I was losing my mind. More people I thought were my friends unfollowed me, and I stayed silent publicly. I didn’t know how to possibly prove something I hadn’t done, but what saddened me most was that people who I thought knew me, knew my character and behavior over the months/years we had been acquaintances believed I was harassing someone and being racist. I’m not perfect, but I do my best to be anti-racist and continue to unlearn damaging behaviors and thought patterns. If I had done something, I would have apologized and taken responsibility for my behavior, but I hadn’t, especially since I hadn’t spoken to/about them since February.

When Bluesky appeared, I was relieved as they hadn’t arrived and the weird ghosts posts stopped for a time. The moment Freydis got an account there, I blocked them. I literally searched their name every day just to block them. Then, one day I made a post that was meant to be a joke about asexuality and spice (I’m asexual). Suddenly, my post was circulating among Freydis’s people, despite having most of them blocked, and I only knew because a friend came to tell me people were upset with me. I realized they were creeping on my posts again and cyberstalking me with a sock puppet/alt account or by using a friend to evade the block.

During the Trans Rights Readathon this year, I was tagged in a trans author list and one of their followers popped on to call me a serial harasser. Their “evidence” was me complaining about Frey’s clique to the friend from February and the ace-spice joke post (that I later deleted and apologized for). Luckily, the person who saw it didn’t believe the “evidence,” but this confirmed to me that they were doing this somewhere privately and that I wasn’t wrong in believing that they were sowing discord on Discord. During the Trans Rights Readathon, this happened more than once, and someone left a one star review on one of my books calling me a racist harasser, which my friends reported and got taken down. Once again, I still hadn’t said a peep about them.

Two weeks or so before today, I cracked and made a thread on Bluesky about being cyberstalking and how if someone asks you to keep tabs on someone who blocked them, you are contributing to stalking and harassment. I was tired and overwrought emotionally by what was going on but still didn’t name names or use specifics. My friends were being supportive and agreeing when a sock puppet account came out of the woodwork to call me racist [again]. They told a person who was supporting me that doing so was not a “good look” for them. Fortunately, that person saw through the manipulation and told them off. The sock puppet deleted their account and disappeared.

That episode rattled me because of how overt it was. I spent the rest of the week freaked out, and as recently as Friday, I had been pouring out my feelings to my partner about how this bullying felt like it was never ending to the point that I had gone back through interactions to make sure I hadn’t actually done something. It made me question my sanity and memory. I struggle with OCD and have chronic inflammatory problems, and the prolonged nature of Freydis’s bullying took its toll on me. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, my hair fell out from stress.

When the news came out that there was hard evidence that Freydis Moon was Taylor Barton/Brooklyn Ray, I was relieved. Several friends who knew about the situation reached out to me, and I decided to finally post about what went on. Everyone who has interacted with my posts has been very supportive, which I greatly appreciate. At the same time, I have mixed feelings about everything. The non-anonymous whistleblower was part of the crowd that spread/believed lies about me and shut me and several others out of parts of the queer indie romance community. People who I saw joining in on Freydis’s bad behavior are claiming they had no idea, and suddenly, people who have had me blocked for months on Freydis’s orders or word are now unblocking and re-friending me.

While I’m relieved this person’s behavior and real identity have come to light, I have been embittered by what has happened. My character and conduct meant nothing in the face of Freydis’s word because if they said it with enough authority, it had to be true even if there was no evidence. Freydis also weaseled their way into authority positions on projects that centered autism after being ableist and awful to autistic authors. They were actively ableist on their Discords and even made fun of me specifically for being autistic, yet no one pushed back. I’m not ready to forgive anyone who moved in that circle because I think if a new leader for the cult of personality stepped up, they would follow them. I hope they examine their actions and strive to do better in the future.

My sympathy goes out to all the readers who saw themselves in Freydis’s work and the queer, Latinx indie authors who may be harmed in the future due to their careless actions. They all deserved better.

The Narratess Indie Sale!

April 14, 2024April 14, 2024 Kara JorgensenLeave a comment

a grid of book covers. in the center is a dragon and a planet, and around them it says, Indie Sale fantasy, scifi, and horror. April 13-15th

We will be back to our regularly scheduled blogging next week, but I wanted to let you all know that there is one day left in the Narratess Indie Sale, so if you are looking to beef up your to-be-read pile for Indie April, swing over to the Narratess Sale to check out over 200 indie books that are free to $1.99.

The Reanimator's Heart by Kara Jorgensen is on sale for $0.99 for a limited time at all major retailers. mm romance, food tour of 1890s NYC, unbury your gays, forced proximity, a lavender marriage, an autistic necromancer, everybody's queer, murder, magic and mysteries

The Reanimator’s Heart is also part of the sale and is $0.99 at all major retailers and in most regions, so if you’ve been looking to get your hands on it, now is the perfect time to start the series, especially ahead of book 3‘s release in October.

Writing

The New Book Blues

April 7, 2024March 30, 2024 Kara JorgensenLeave a comment

I have a confession: I hate starting a new book.

This probably sounds weird from someone who loves writing, their characters, stories, etc., but the actual starting part is the absolute worst for me. I’m not one of those writers who gets an idea and immediately dives headfirst to bang out 10,000 words in a few days before hitting the wall when they get to the middle. No matter how hard the spirit of inspiration strikes, I never get that sort of burst at the beginning of a story. The beginning is always the slowest part of the writing process for me. I’m constantly having false starts, stalling, reworking or clarifying things. The beginning of a book is about feeling things out and trying to get the shape of it in my mind before I get too far. My process is probably closest to a sculptor using a piece of a marble. They have to inspect the veins and natural curves and weaknesses of the rock before they get too far, lest they ruin it.

I’ve said it previously in other posts about my writing process, but I hate mess. I’m not the kind of person who can speed-run through a draft and deal with the problems later. If I have a super messy draft, there’s a 90% chance I will just chuck it in the bin and move on instead of dealing with it. Because I am mess averse, I tend to be a slower writer but a quick editor. My writing has been gone over so many times by the time I reach the editing stage that the draft is fairly clean. At the same time, I don’t have hyper-productive days with astronomical word counts because that would mean cleaning up a lot of mess later. Occasionally, I do have these days, but they’re often toward the very end of the story when I know exactly where I’m going and what needs to happen.

The beginning of a book is like standing at an eight-way intersection. I have too many choices and I haven’t puzzled out where they all lead yet, so I get decision paralysis. Some people will say just pick something and deal with the consequences. Yeah, no, I’d rather take a few hours or days to figure out what won’t work before charging down a certain path and making a mess for myself. I’m a careful writer, and the fact that the slow start is part of my process is something I need to remind myself each time I start a new project.

I often scare myself when I start a project because I am so slow at first. There’s a little, panicked voice inside of me that’s like, “At the rate you’re going, it’ll take two years to finish this book!” and then, I freak out more and freeze up. This time, I’m trying to remind myself that the speed at which I write exponentially goes up the further along I am in the book. The first five to ten thousand words are the slowest because my brain is still grappling with all the setup and moving pieces that need to be nailed down early on. This is part of the process, even if I don’t like how it feels, and at some point, I need to make peace with that.

The beginning of a book is like a road with nearly limitless paths, and the further I get into that draft, the more side streets are closed to me. The path becomes clearer, and the chance of getting lose diminishes. For now, I will keep going, albeit slowly, and try not to get lost.

Monthly Review

March 2024 Wrap-Up Post

March 31, 2024March 30, 2024 Kara JorgensenLeave a comment

Despite battling tree pollen, I have made it through March! The weather is warming up, the flowers are blooming, and a new writing project is underway. Let’s take a look at what I’ve been up to this month and the goals I set out last month.

Writing at least 20k words of book 3
Proof any audiobook chapters that come in
Grade papers but enjoy spring break
Set up the preorder for book 3
Do a title reveal for book 3
Do taxes ;–;
Read 8 books
Blog weekly
Send monthly newsletter

Books

My goal was to read 8 books, and I read 9 books in March.

The Reluctant Heartthrob (#2) by Jackie Lau- 5 stars, an actor and an autistic programmer get involved, but she doesn’t realize he’s an actor and panics. Super cute, great rep.
Meet Me in Millfield (#1.5) by Jackie Lau- 4 stars, a side story featuring two fans of a TV show who meet online. A sweet, You’ve Got Mail style story with an older female love interest.
Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex by Angela Chen- 4 stars, a nonfiction book about asexuality that I would highly recommend to aces and allosexual people alike.
The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi, 4 stars, for fans of Piranesi. This story is one of those where the further you go, the more you realize the cleverness of it.
Love, Lies, and Cherry Pie by Jackie Lau- 4 stars, fake dating to appease their parents turns into actual romance between a starchy man who is more than meets the eye and a writer who fears she’s disappointing her family. Bonus points for realistic writer rep.
We Could Be So Good (#1) by Cat Sebastian- 5 stars, set in the late 1950s, a reporter falls in love with his best friend who happens to be the bosses son. It’s a story about belatedly realizing you’re queer, love, wanting/having more than you expected, and it is just so friggin cozy and lovely.
Therapy Game Restart (#2) by Meguru Hinohara- 4 stars, I love seeing these two characters get closer and navigate the real world issues that come with being in a long-term queer relationship.
Therapy Game Restart (#3) by Meguru Hinohara- 4 stars, see above.
Ennead (#2) by Mojito- 3 stars, I’m going to keep reading the series for now, but I sometimes feel like I’m missing context while reading these books. I wish there was more dot-connecting or a character chart of gods/characters at the beginning.

Admin/Behind-the-Scenes Stuff

Wrote the blurb for The Reanimator’s Remains
Did the blurb/title reveal for The Reanimator’s Remains
Set up the preorder for The Reanimator’s Remains
Did my taxes (woo)
Applied for a creative writing grant
Signed up for a book promo/sale next month
Finished the formatting and such for the uni literary magazine (for one of my classes, but it’s a lot of work)
Enjoyed spring break with my partner
Stayed on top of grading
Tried some new recipes
Set up the elliptical, though I haven’t used it much yet
Finished a cross-stitch project and got most of the way through another

Blogs

Writing

My next blog will talk more about this, but I hate writing the beginnings of new books. This is the part of the process that is the slowest and most painful part for me, so my word counts have been quite small and sporadic. Starting a new book means extra processing and thinking time, which on one hand is necessary and on the other is maddening as someone who wants to just get into the damn book already. The good thing is that I have the overall plot fairly nailed down as well as the emotional arcs. The Reanimator’s Remains is a story about family, in its various forms, and dealing with trauma. In Felipe’s case, those two concepts are linked in a way that is painful. This story is coming on the heels of my short story, “An Unexpected Question” (TRM #2.5), so if you read The Reanimator’s Soul, I highly recommend reading that short story as some of the details will be important in book 3. Plus, I just think it’s cute. The good thing is that I have all of my admin stuff for this book set up already, like the blurb, title reveal, preorder page, etc., so it should be smooth sailing for a while.

Hopes for April

Write 20k words of The Reanimator’s Remains (TRM #3)
Proof audiobook chapters of The Reanimator’s Soul (TRM #2)
Keep up with the Fungi and Frogs stitch-a-long I’ve joined
Maintain my mental health better (aka refill the well and use your elliptical)
Send out monthly newsletter
Read 8 books
Blog weekly

The Reanimator's Remains · Writing

Introducing The Reanimator’s Remains

March 24, 2024March 20, 2024 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

This week’s blog post is a sort of title reveal/blurb reveal/preorder reveal for book three of the Reanimator Mysteries series.

The title of book three is The Reanimator’s Remains! Book three will be out October 29th, 2024, and you can preorder it in ebook form now at most major retailers. Paperbacks will come closer to release day.

The cover reveal will be later this summer, but for now, you can read the blurb below.

An autistic necromancer, his undead love, and a town built on secrets

When the dead start rising and wreaking havoc in the small town of Aldorhaven, no one at the Paranormal Society wants to take the case; no one but Oliver Barlow. While he knows little of his parents’ lives, he knows he was born in Aldorhaven. Perhaps there, he might finally find out what happened to them or if he has any family left.

The last thing Felipe Galvan wants to do is go to a strange town in the middle of the woods, but for Oliver, he’ll go. From the moment they arrive, Felipe is haunted by memories better left buried and reminded that one misstep is all it would take for him to lose control and become the monster he was always meant to be.

But it isn’t merely the dead plaguing Aldorhaven, something far worse lurks in the woods and in Oliver’s blood. Together, Oliver and Felipe must untangle the magic hidden in the town’s past and destroy it before it can claim Oliver’s life.

What can you expect from The Reanimator’s Remains?

The Reanimator's Remains by Kara Jorgensen, cover reveal coming this summer. Preorder now, out October 29th.
autistic necromancer x undead adhd-er, mm romance, family secrets, the dead are out for revenge, "I would die for you" "Then, live for me.", a spooky forest, a creepy murder town, dealing with trauma, book 3.

I will definitely talk more about The Reanimator’s Remains (TRM #3) as I work on it, but at its core, it’s a story about fighting fate and expectations and breaking cycles. I hope you all will enjoy reading it as much as I’m enjoying writing it. You can preorder The Reanimator’s Remains at most major retailers, and if you haven’t read The Reanimator’s Heart or The Reanimator’s Soul, you still have time to do so before book three comes out in late October. You can also add it on Goodreads.

Writing

Research & the Discovery Writer

March 17, 2024March 16, 2024 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

Something I greatly enjoy is learning about other writers’ processes for coming up with ideas and actually writing their books. What fascinates me most are writers who can seemingly research everything they need before starting a book. Every time I think about it, I laugh. That is certainly not my process.

The problem is that I am a discovery writer who plans their books out only a little at a time. For people who are more consistent outliners and planners, researching in advance might come far easier since they, generally, know what’s going to come up in their stories. I have no idea beyond broad strokes of what’s going to come up. For example, when I was working on “An Unexpected Question,” I knew I needed to research Coney Island, the amusement parks there, and 1890s men’s bathing suits since I knew the characters were going to Coney Island for vacation. What I didn’t realize was I would also need to research restaurants that were there in 1897, the ocean life around Coney Island, whether horseshoe crabs would be on the beach in August, street food in the 1890s, bathing machines, and a bunch of other minor stuff I hadn’t anticipated.

This is typical of what happens when I start writing a story. I have some very general idea of things that I need to research either because I know I will need the info or because I need to nail down what I think I want to do and have to eliminate things. While working on each of the Reanimator Mysteries books, I’ve read up on various occult things or aspects of medical cannibalism in order to decide the direction I wanted the books to go. Research is not strictly clarifying what I need to know but closing paths the story will eventually take.

The true issue is that I enjoy doing research. Someone once asked me, “How do you know when you’re done researching for a book?” My answer: you aren’t until the book is done because something will always come up that needs to be double checked, especially in historical fiction. As someone who is an eternal student and hoards special interests like a dragon hoards treasure, I’m okay with that because research is one of my favorite parts of writing, so I will do it the second I have an excuse to do so. I have gone down ridiculous rabbit holes over minor details that ultimately added up to one or two sentences.

The thing is, it’s probably only going to be a sentence or two, but some of the best ideas I’ve ever gotten came from doing random research. Knowing these minor details, especially in a historical context, helps to enrich a story and create greater depth than if I did all the research upfront. Even if the majority of readers have no idea, I know and some astute readers will pick up on it. It’s like throwing in Easter eggs, and it brings me joy.

This past week I decided to write a scene that involved a horse. I did not anticipate writing a horse scene and have actively avoided having horses in my stories by moving up the timeline for steam powered cars. The problem with horses is that it is very easy to screw them up. Horse enthusiasts will happily tell you that you royally screwed up a scene involving a horse, and I did not want to get an F in horse rep from the horse people. So what did I do? I did a deep-dive on horses in the 1860s for a 3 page scene because I was not getting it wrong. Then, I ran the idea past several people who confirmed I did not royally f up the horse in my book. If you’re a writer, horse people and historical gun people will happily tell that you messed up, and from my experience, the horse people are more than happy to help you get it right.

Some of you might be intimidated by having to do research for a book, but the time and effort it takes is worth it when you can put out a book that feels well constructed and thorough. It’s basically world-building, just world-building based in deep research or the past rather than constructed in your imagination. If you thinking about doing research for a book, I highly recommend not just looking at what you definitely need to know but things you may not use, and of course, read widely by getting works from scholars who are of marginalized backgrounds and/or research about people of those backgrounds. In regards to historical research, there are chunks of history that aren’t taught in schools, and it’s important to remember that when constructing your own books/worlds, so do you homework.

Personal Life

The Discomfort of Trying

March 10, 2024March 9, 2024 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

Remember back in my discussion of social media and the devaluation of the arts, I mentioned how AI “art” partly arises from the discomfort of trying and being bad at art and how many tech bros don’t want to try to actually learn how to create art because a) it’s hard b) it takes time c) being bad at something is uncool d) caring enough to try for long periods is also uncool. That is vastly oversimplified, but you get the point.

In my infinite wisdom and procrastination as I work on book 3 of the Reanimator Mysteries series, I have decided to take up cross-stitching! Yes, folks, Kara is learning a new craft, and ironically, this time, there is no mental breakdown that has set it off. I was in a mental health low when I decided cross-stitching looked interesting, so maybe, I followed my usual pattern anyway, but I had been putting it off. At first, I wanted to finish “An Unexpected Question” and didn’t want to use my craft project as a procrastination method, which was sensible because I would have absolutely done that. Then, I kept putting it off, despite having AIDA cloth, hoops, floss, and a simple pattern. Why was I actively intrigued by projects and cross-stitchers I saw on Instagram but kept not starting a project?

Because what if I sucked at it? What if it was too hard?

I never thought those words exactly; I just sidled away from the project, putting it off for another day. When I finally realized what I was doing, I was pissed. Kara Jorgensen does not cower before a new craft project. Hell, my life’s goal is to be decent at every craft I can possibly learn, and if I can construct whole plastic canvas village sets, I can do a six by six inch cross-stitch pattern.

To force myself to actually start, I decided to participate in a stitch along (I’ll use SAL as an acronym for it here on out). SALs are when a cross-stitcher releases the pattern in pieces week by week, so week one you do the frames of the piece, week two you do a part in the upper left corner, week 3 you do part of the upper right, etc. In this case, it’s the Femurs and Fungi SAL by Fine Frog Stitching, which is supposed to have a sort of science goth, dark academia nature aesthetic. I saw it on Instagram and thought it looked really cool, so I bought the pattern, ordered all the materials on the list, and prepared myself to start the project in April. After following another SAL from a different creator a few months ago, I had always hoped to join one but never committed. Part of the fun with them is sharing your pieces each week to show off what you’ve done. It’s like having a community to cheer you on and having a sort of cheat sheet in case you get stuck since you can check out what other people have done with the patterns.

By joining, the SAL, which begins in early April, I set a deadline to learn the basics of cross-stitching. Most SALs are roughly advanced beginner to intermediate in terms of skill level, so I knew I would need to do a semi basic project to learn the ropes before I could do the SAL. A few weeks ago, I finally picked up my AIDA and hoop after watching like ten “how to cross-stitch” videos on Youtube. It didn’t look difficult, but that anticipatory anxiety remained. In a fit of oh-for-fucks-sake, I stuffed my fabric in a hoop, measured the center with a chalk pencil and got started, and guess what happened?

I sucked. Yes, I could follow a pattern since they’re very similar to plastic canvas patterns. Yes, I could put my stitches in the same way each time. But I struggled. I couldn’t find the holes in the AIDA, I couldn’t separate the floss properly and spent half an hour untangling it, I couldn’t thread the needle without taking five minutes to do so, and I couldn’t figure out how to hold the hoop without making my hand cramp. At one point, I did like twenty white-knuckled stitches and put it down. There was that little voice whispering, “Maybe this craft isn’t for me,” but instead, I stepped back and thought, “What am I doing wrong, and where can I make my life easier?”

I invested in a needle threader. I have a minor hand tremor that makes threading difficult. I already used one for plastic canvas yarn, so I bought one small enough for cross-stitch thread. One problem solved. That problem finding the holes on the fabric? Turns out, I was using the wrong size needle. I got the proper size, and the process is now significantly easier. A cross-stitcher on Youtube posted a video of how to properly pull the floss to separate it, and once I figured out that technique, the floss no longer tangled.

The vast majority of my problems were caused by inexperience, not ineptitude or a lack of innate talent. If I had someone teaching me, they probably would have taught me the tricks of the trade, but since I’m teaching myself, I needed to hunt down the things that are common knowledge to those who have been doing it for a long time. That isn’t true of just the world of crafts. Everything has those bumps that beginners don’t know about, and you can either throw down your hoop and give up or seek the answers yourself to figure out how to get past them.

The progress I’ve made over the past week has been significant. My stitches are no longer so wobbly or lopsided. I can find the holes in the AIDA much easier, which means I stitch faster and with more fluency. I’ve done creative projects long enough to know that there is always a skill acceleration, then a plateau, then another acceleration, etc. as you level up whatever skill you’re working on. At some point, I’ll hit another wall and have to go back to consulting my more experienced friends and the lovely people of Youtube who share their knowledge for free.

But the point is I’m learning by doing. I’m enjoying and trusting in the process of learning, even when it’s frustrating. Doing any sort of artistic endeavor is difficult, but if you want to learn it, do it. Do your homework, research the supplies you need, and dive in knowing you will be bad at it initially. The only way to get good at something is to actually do it, so trust the learning process and don’t be afraid to look for help online. Take this as your sign to use that craft kit or start that project.

Monthly Review

February 2024 Wrap-Up Post

March 3, 2024March 3, 2024 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

February managed to come and go so fast, but I finally feel like I’m hitting my stride this year. The semester is in full swing, I shoveled snow a few times, and I’m finally working in earnest on book 3 of the Reanimator Mysteries series. Let’s recap the goals I had for February and see how it went.

Put together the elliptical and use it
Do the bulk of the historical research for The Reanimator Mysteries #3
Start actually writing The Reanimator Mysteries #3
Proof any audiobook chapters that come in
Stay on top of grading
Blog weekly
Send out monthly newsletter
Read 8 books

Books

My goal was to read 8 books, and I managed to read 12! Some were short or graphic novels, but DAMN.

Paris Daillencourt is About to Crumble (#2) by Alexis Hall, 4 stars, a romance-adjacent story about a highly anxious young man, a baking competition, the adorable gay Muslim dude who finds him cute, and the mess he gets himself into (see Goodreads review for some quibbles regarding this book)
Galatea by Madelline Miller- 4 stars, the story of a statue-turned-human taking back control of her life
Of Socialites and Prizefights by Arden Powell- 4 stars, a social-climbing woman is cursed by a jilted suitor to turn into a wildcat every night unless she finds true love’s kiss. Turns out that might be a butch mechanic from the other side of the tracks.
Taproot by Keezy Young- 4 stars, a ghost and a medium bond over plants and try to figure out how to make their otherworldly relationship work, very cute and fluffy
Shtup Me at Sunrise (#0.5) by Felicia Grossman- 4 stars, the prequel to the Once Upon the East End series, featuring a headstrong woman determined to take her place in a society that has seemingly rejected her
Ghostland by Colin Dickey- 4 stars, a nonfiction book about how ghost stories come to be and what they say about our society
Of Honeymoons and Wildcats by Arden Powell- 4 stars, the companion story to Of Socialites and Prizefights where they go off to a cabin and find something very cute
The Sitcom Star (#1) by Jackie Lau- 4 stars, an overworked TV star and writer accidentally runs into one of her childhood friends who helps her relax and more
Vampire Forensics by Mark Collins Jenkins, a nonfiction book about how disease and irregular decomposition team up to create vampire legends
Therapy Game Restart (#1) by Meguru Hinohara- 4 stars, Shizuma and Minato are back to figure out how to navigate their first real relationship along with new jobs and complicated feelings
A Haunted History of Invisible Women by Leanna Renee Hieber and Andrea Janes- 4 stars, a nonfiction book about how women who live outside the norm become legends and ghost stories
The Invisible Man & His Soon-to-be Wife (#3) by Iwatobineko- 4 stars, really cute fluffy volume of this manga with good blindness rep

Admin/Behind-the-Scenes Stuff

Researched about ghosts for book 3
Researched about the undead for book 3
Did character sheets for book 3
Outlined a chunk of book 3
Helped a former student with their poetry book
Celebrated my partner’s birthday (more like a bday week since I had to work on their actual bday)
Stayed on top of grading (mostly)
Refilled my creative well with tons of reading
Started learning to cross-stitch
Began putting together the elliptical (oops)

Blogs

January 2024 Wrap-Up Post
Social Media and the Devaluation of the Arts Part 1
Social Media and the Devaluation of the Arts Part 2
Reintroducing Myself
February Newsletter

Writing

This month I decided to refill the well as much as possible and plan out the beginning of book 3 of the Reanimator Mysteries series. While I had hoped that I could start actually drafting it, I’m excited to get started in March. I know where the story is, generally, going and the main threads that the characters will follow. One of the first things I need to figure out before writing a book is how the two main characters’ emotional issues will intertwine and fit with the rest of the outer story. Once I figured that out with Felipe and Oliver, things clicked, especially after I bounced ideas off my partner. The beginnings of stories are the most daunting for me. I’m mostly a discovery writer (who does minimal planning), so there are still so many paths left open at the beginning that I become overwhelmed and get choice paralysis. I know by the halfway point, I’ll be fine, but I know the first act will be done in fits and starts as I figure things out and narrow down the path forward. If you’re interested in what’s going on in book 3, check out the Pinterest board and the playlist I made on Youtube. All vibes are subject to change.

Hopes for March

Writing at least 20k words of book 3
Proof any audiobook chapters that come in
Grade papers but enjoy spring break
Set up the preorder for book 3
Do a title reveal for book 3
Do taxes ;–;
Read 8 books
Blog weekly
Send monthly newsletter

Personal Life

Reintroducing Myself

February 25, 2024February 26, 2024 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

Since a lot of people read my blog and followed along after my two part blogs on how social media/capitalism are decimating the arts, I thought I would reintroduce myself (and because I deeply needed a palate cleanser blog that wasn’t me yelling about capitalism).

My name is Kara Jorgensen (they/them), and I am a queer, nonbinary author of nine books. As a little background, I have a BA in English and biology and a MFA in Creative and Professional Writing, and besides writing, I’m also an adjunct professor teaching freshman writing classes and creative writing. I’m an eternal student who loves learning new things and deep-diving into research for my books or whatever interesting thing crosses my path. If I could continually go back to get degrees/study new disciplines, I would. Some of my favorite things to research are the 1890s, food history, Ancient Egypt, medical history, diseases, folklore, and the history of crafts/art/fashion. There’s definitely more that I’m missing, but those tend to be what I gravitate toward most.

Besides writing and reading, I’m also a crafter. I have been creating art in its various forms for as long as I can remember, but I’m particularly fond of crochet and plastic canvas. Soon, I’ll be getting into cross-stitch (and hopefully embroidery as well) as soon as my supplies come in. One day, I’d love to get back into painting and drawing more, but for now, that sort of creative spirit is relegated to my bullet journal spreads. Stickers and planner supplies, like washi tape, are another weakness, especially when I can support my favorite artists in the process. My aesthetic preferences tend to be on the Gothic side, so if you ever see my crafts, please know that they’re either super colorful or Goth ninety percent of the time.

If you noticed that I have a lot of special interests, it’s because I’m autistic. In my books there tend to be a lot of characters who are neurodivergent, mentally ill, and/or chronically ill because I am all of the above. Growing up, I didn’t see many autistic characters that reflected my experiences or who were queer, so my most recent books, The Reanimator Mysteries series, has a queer, autistic main character that embodies many of my experiences.

Speaking of my books, all of them have queer characters, and they are all paranormal, historical fantasies set in the 1890s. My first series, The Ingenious Mechanical Devices, is set in mostly in England while my last three newer books are set in America. If you’re interested in checking out my books, I highly recommend The Reanimator’s Heart, which is about an autistic necromancer who accidentally reanimates his murdered crush. Together, they go on to solve his murder and others, and I promise there is a happy ending. It’s in ebook, paperback, and audiobook. You can also check out The Earl of Brass, which is my first book and is free in ebook form. If you want something a little less heavy, I would suggest Kinship and Kindness, which features a trans man fox shifter who wants to unionize the shifters at the Paranormal Society and accidentally falls for a strapping werewolf who is leading a delegation in his father’s stead. All of my books are available at all major retailers and in library systems.

You can also join my monthly newsletter. If you join, you’ll get free short stories for The Reanimator Mysteries series along with a stand alone sapphic novella called Flowers and Flourishing, which features a trans woman MC, a jaguar shifter, and a gorgeous painting. In each monthly newsletter, you get writing updates, a dog pic, and a morbid research tidbit. Plus, whenever I write a short story, you get it for free.

If any of this sounds like your kind of thing, I hope you’ll stick around. On this blog, I will post more about writing as a craft, book research, author updates, monthly wrap-ups, and the occasional rant/essay on topics I’m passionate about.

Writing

Social Media and the Devaluation of the Arts: Part 2

February 18, 2024February 18, 2024 Kara Jorgensen5 Comments

Last week in part 1, I discussed how video-based social media has screwed over artists and the artistic process. While you don’t necessarily have to read part 1 to understand part 2, I will be building upon those arguments today.

Scrolling through Tiktok, a woman making miniatures flashes across my screen. With a pair of long tweezers, she places a dozen tiny books onto a bookcase, one after the other. The cuts are evident, but I know that even someone with a deft hand and lots of practice picking up tiny things would struggle to put these itty bitty books on a shelf and have them look artfully arranged. I wonder how much time has gone into creating this video. Was this a time lapse or a rehearsed arrangement of books? Have the other books been glued down to avoid accidentally dumping or upsetting what’s already been placed down in this diorama of a library? But I’ll never know. The moment the last book hits the shelf, the camera pulls back to reveal a quaint, cozy library done in 1:12 scale. It zooms in on a few details before looping back to the beginning.

There’s something about miniatures that I love, though I don’t make them myself. It’s a replication of real life but on an inhuman scale. It’s a very human thing to build houses for ghosts. To decorate them to honor some unseen presence. We relish the work and time we put in making something the hypothetical inhabitant would like. Dollhouses pick up where our temples or homemade altars left off, and it’s comforting to know humans never truly change.

I follow a bunch of people who make miniatures on Instagram and Youtube. Miniaturists often make their own pieces for their dioramas or buy them from independent creators who specialize in a very specific niche like making tiny, lifelike vegetables or weaving itty bitty carpets on a bracelet loom. Under a video of someone rolling out and painting a clay cabbage, a commenter asks how much they cost. I wince at the responses to the creator’s honest answer. “FOR A CLAY CABBAGE?? I COULD MAKE THAT FOR $3!” says the questioner, and others quickly chime in to tell the craftsperson what a rip-off their price is.

The Price of the Aesthetic

If you’re an artist of any type, I’m sure you’ve heard someone complaining about the price of your work, whether it’s a $5 ebook or a $300 full color art commission. People don’t understand the amount of work that goes into making something. It isn’t just the cost of the materials or even the time it takes to make it. You’re paying for skill. It’s the same reason you can make yourself a cheeseburger and fries at home, but you pay $15 for the same thing at a restaurant. The chef knows what they’re doing, and you’re paying for their expertise. Yes, you could make that clay cabbage at home for $3, but do you have the experience to know what clay works best or how thin to roll it without tearing it or how to paint things in a way that makes them seem lifelike? In the amount of time, effort, and material you used to figure it out, you’ve probably spent more than you would have if you bought it from a professional.

When I commission artwork of my characters from my favorite artists, I do so because I know they can do a better job than I ever could. I’m paying for their skill, and usually, I’m underpaying for that skill. Most artists I know do not charge what their work is worth, and even then, they still get told they’re overcharging or trying to rip people off. No matter how little a creative charges, it will always be too much for someone. With the way social media algorithms demand artists to perform in videos, I wonder how much worse this will get.

As someone who crafts and writes, I know the time a project takes, the toll repeated motions can have on the body, the costs of materials, and the amount of energy it takes to learn a skill and hone it over years, but what about those who don’t? I think back to that Tiktok video of the woman placing tiny books on a shelf. I wonder how many people watching the video understand how much work goes into making each of those miniature books. Yes, they look uniform and nearly perfect, despite there being several dozen of them, but that is due to hours of labor and years of skill. They don’t look perfect because it’s easy. They look perfect because the artist knows what they’re doing. And now that work is been distilled into thirty seconds of “content” on Tiktok, being watched by people who may have no interest in miniatures or how they’re made or anything this artist is doing beyond consuming shifting pixels on a screen. The ratio of people who know what they’re looking at to the people who don’t is getting worse the further the video goes outside its target audience, and the more that happens, the more the demeaning comments flow in.

The shift to splashy thirty seconds or less videos is doing a disservice to the arts. A very common format on Tiktok is someone making something with half second sharp cuts between steps in the process. Thread the needle, needle into fabric, row, row, row, row, progress shot, tada. It forces the artist to condense their work and process into what I like to call the aesthetic of productivity. It flattens the creative process to the bare bones of each step, making it almost prescriptive when the art of creating the piece is not meant to be a tutorial. This format doesn’t leave room for contemplation or mistakes or reevaluation, just forward progress, a march to the finish before it’s onto the next Instagram worthy piece. It’s slight of hand that hides the work in favor of the sparkly product, but when we hide the work, we hide the skill, the meaning, the way we’re truly supposed to experience art.

Bob Ross wasn’t a cool artist because he made a shit ton of paintings; it was because he made the act of painting accessible and enjoyable. He took his skill and time and taught others how to make art and be fulfilled by the process of adding happy trees and embracing mistakes. What we’re seeing now is antithesis to this. It’s all product and capitalist consumption, no process or joy or fulfillment. When we take out the most fulfilling parts of creating and what allows us to express ourselves, we not only devalue what makes us human but the skill that artists have cultivated through years of practice and work.

Who Let the Tech Bros in?

I won’t get into my long winded rant about how the devaluation of the humanities lies squarely with white supremacy and its besties, capitalism and fascism, but for now, trust me when I say that the greater accessibility of higher education, online tutorials for nearly anything, and the ease of sharing marginalized voices via social media coinciding with a massive devaluation of the arts and humanities isn’t a coincidence. And as if smelling the blood in the water, tech bros have caught wind of the devaluation of the artistic process and sought to capitalize on it.

First, it was NFTs plaguing the art community, and now, it’s AI generated “art.” “Art” because art requires a certain level of humanity that a computer can never emulate. “Art” because it’s a plagiarist, and plagiarists don’t deserve credit for their work. And most importantly, “art” because it isn’t art; it’s an approximation of what the unskilled, uncaring, and uninterested think art should be. The worst part is, we’ve helped them get there with each high production value, no substance video.

For years, we have been devaluing the humanities. It started again in earnest more recently with the championing of STEM fields above all else and was compounded by the mass denigration of people who majored in the humanities (despite the fact that their skills make them more employable, even outside their respective fields). This has all been further heightened by the well-established misogynistic feelings in regards to needle crafts, clothing design, and artisanal products. Many of the crafts or types of art we see on Tiktok or Instagram were considered “women’s work” and were taken for granted or not seen as serious art for centuries, and now, that the queerness of many masc traditional artists is more obvious, there wasn’t enough “traditional masculinity” left to uphold the arts against the patriarchy. Techno grifters quickly realized they could cash in on those who wouldn’t dare debase themselves by dabbling in the arts and being vulnerable enough to be bad at something.

AI tech bros, whether they know it or not, are selling hyper-capitalist, patriarchal art. It requires no skill, no talent no practice, just stealing the hard work of legions of unseen (and probably marginalized) people. You can’t get more capitalist than that. At the core of it is instant gratification and accolades with none of the process or emotion that goes into actual art. And where do they show off these new masterpieces? Social media. Because as long as we’re quickly scrolling and haphazardly liking, we won’t notice the woman in the painting has seven fingers or that the pattern on her dress makes zero sense or that the piece has no emotional impact or intention. All that truly matters is that the tech bros have colonized a space that was inhabited largely by marginalized groups and filled it with easily consumable trash.

If the process no longer matters and the product barely matters beyond how many follows, likes, and retweets we garner, it’s no wonder that AI “art” has proliferated like a fungus. AI “art” is the culmination of the devaluation of art on social media because all that matters is pulling as much “content” and money from a piece as possible. Unfortunately, I don’t know what the solution is besides legislation cracking down on AI due to copyright issues, but there needs to be major push back from artists and art appreciators alike against the shiny-fication of the arts and the way it flattens the process and the meaning of the pieces themselves. Only by pushing back against the hyper-capitalist algorithms and trends can we truly move toward something more equitable and sustainable for artists.

If you want to help your artist friends, show off their art, like their quieter posts, and support things like UBI and other social safety nets that allow artists to more comfortably flourish. It isn’t too late to turn the tide.