Lumos

I can think of a few options. 

Warden: 

@ArcturusMesarthim (because he’d take it so seriously and think it had to be his full and proper name) 

@SleepDealer (when Eliza explains that it can be something that isn’t necessarily your actual name) 

@GramophoneNerd (if Paige hacked his Twitter) 

Paige:

@underqueen

@littledreamer 

wanting and not wanting at the same time

in fact i think a lot of aro-ace people really hate that part of themselves, hide it, and struggle for a long time to ‘accept’ who they are and feel any sense of ‘pride’. that’s the feeling i wanted to capture here. the disappointment, the loneliness, upon realising that you can’t feel what is such a wonderful thing. the embarrassment of not being ‘normal’, of being some random sexuality that nobody irl has heard of, and letting down those around you because you can’t be who they want you to be. how desperately you want to change, how desperately you want to feel. but you just can’t.

i know not all aro-ace people feel like this. i know lots of aro and/or ace people feel able to be in relationships, to feel closeness and have partners in other ways. but i think it’s important to be aware that some aro-ace people do feel like this.

the comments on this comic have mostly been great but a few have been very frustrating. a comment it got a lot was along the lines of ‘aw!! you don’t need to have sex to be in a relationship!’. you completely missed the point, hah. this is not a comic about sex. it’s about a lack of feeling, the lack of something beautiful other people seem to have. another comment that popped up a few times was ‘maybe she’s a lesbian’. well maybe lesbians and aro/ace girls have more in common than people think - maybe they both often struggle to accept that they feel no attraction to men, even though society has conditioned them to do so, sometimes spending years trying to force themselves to like men in that way, when they just can’t.

this comic is called ‘wanting and not wanting at the same time’ because she wants to love. but when it comes down to the reality, she can’t fulfil the requirements of that. she wants to love someone forever, to get married and have children and grow old with her soulmate, but she doesn’t want it with this person. or that person. or anyone she meets or will ever meet. a sort of catch 22, i guess.

This questions taps into many veins of frustration I have with society at large. It’s a big issue, so I’m not going to be able to answer it very well in one ask, but I’ll try and summarise. 

I should begin by saying that I do have male readers and have been reviewed favourably by men, and I don’t have statistics on whether more men or women are buying my books. From the demographic at my events, however, I think it would be fair to assume that more of my readers identify and/or present as female. And I think this is probably true of most authors. Studies have concluded that women read more than men and are more active in the literary world, e.g. book clubs and libraries. 

Personally, I don’t think the scarcity of men in the audience at my events has all that much to do with what I’m writing. Firstly, I think it’s simply because women read more than men. 

Second, I think it’s because I myself am a woman.   

Joanne Harris often talks at events about men who have come up to her and happily proclaimed that they don’t read books by women. That they’ve cut themselves off from a wealth of literature just because the author presents as female. I’ve heard stories like this from many a female author. Some men Just Don’t Read Books by Women. And they are apparently proud to declare this to the world. Shannon Hale has also spoken out about the fact that schools have stopped boys from coming to her events and only sent their female pupils. 

The problem begins at an early stage. Frustrated booksellers try to get books about girls into the hands of boys, but find themselves stopped by the parents, who clearly live in terror that their kid is going to grow up gay (which they would hate) and/or bullied if he touches a Girl Book. Like femininity is some sort of contagious disease. 

Society tells men and boys that it isn’t cool to read books by and about women and girls. The same doesn’t apply to books about boys. Girls loved Harry Potter, but the world didn’t judge them for it. Because it’s okay for girls to empathise with boys, but not the other way around. This is a symptom of the deep-rooted misogyny bubbling away beneath the polite face of society, and it plays into why I have such a fervent dislike of the Strong Female Character archetype. She’s praised because she displays traditionally masculine forms of strength.

I want men to feel comfortable reading my books. I want everyone to feel comfortable reading my books. But even if I did change what I wrote in the hope of attracting more men to my work – which I wouldn’t – I doubt it would have any significant impact on the demographic of my audience. Women are happy to show up to my book events and buy my books because they don’t think it’s uncool to read books by and about other women. Until society changes its attitude, many men – especially young men who are afraid of judgement from their peers – won’t feel comfortable doing the same. Hence why female authors are still using androgynous pseudonyms to this day. And why men still feel comfortable declaring to women that they don’t read books by women. 

(Side note: It will be interesting to see if The Priory of the Orange Tree attracts more male readers than The Bone Season, as it has two male POV characters. My suspicion is that it won’t, and that my audience at events will remain pretty much the same.)

This picture is the cognitive triangle, and is the basic concept underlying cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). The idea is that your thoughts, feelings, and behavior make up your mind and your moods, and that they all influence each other. So your thoughts affect your feelings and behavior, your feelings affect your thoughts and behavior, and your behavior affects your feelings and thoughts.

CBT works under the idea that if you change one or more parts of the triangle in a positive way, then the rest of the triangle will also be positively influenced.

This is a great question. You’re right: villains are key to many stories, and it’s critical that they’re strong and well-developed enough for you to sympathise with the protagonist’s struggle against them while also believing in their character. Each of my books so far has had an obvious main antagonist: Nashira in The Bone Season, the Rag and Bone Man in The Mime Order (and, um, that guy at the end of the book). The Song Rising is no exception. I didn’t want them all to be the same, so each time, I’ve thought of the different ways for their ideas come into conflict with Paige’s.  

(I am very proud of the new villain in The Song Rising. I can’t wait to see what you guys make of her.)