Hi! I'm Lucy (she/they), a neurodivergent, gender-ambivalent arospec ace academic librarian who lives in southern Illinois with a frankly ridiculous amount of yarn and books. I write sometimes. I knit, love cozy low-stakes video games, enjoy podcasts, and cry over fictional characters regularly. I am terminally online. Feel free to reach me at lucymason217 (at) gmail (dot) com or:
Bluesky
Threads
I have a couple of books out. Yay!
If you like:
Childhood besties to lovers
Fake dating but whoops! Real feelings
A pun-loving himbo who respects his ace wife
A marriage of convenience for free college tuition
A grumpy girl struggling with depression and being loved unconditionally anyway
Ownvoices asexual rep
You might like Ace of Hearts, out with Ninestar Press now! Mind the trigger warnings (internalized acephobia, acephobia, stalking, gaslighting, kidnapping, mention of an incarcerated parent, mentions of alcoholism, fatphobia, emesis) and take care of yourself.
If you like:
Grumpy/Sunshine
Sapphic romance
A demisexual lesbian witch
A panromantic asexual mermaid
Body swapping shenanigans
Yearning
Mermaids that are Predators, Actually (clawed hands, razor sharp teeth)
You might like The Endless Sea Between Us, out with Ninestar Press now! Mind the trigger warnings (bigotry, violence, coercion, kidnapping, sexism) and take care of yourself.
Stuff in the Works
I have a short story under contract! I can announce more information in April I think, so watch this space. It is called You, Me, and the Sea, and it is about an aroace fisherwoman, Masie, who meets an aroallo siren, Marlowe—who is, by all accounts, a menace (fond). Because she doesn't feel attraction, Marlowe's illusory magic slides right off of her, and a lifelong platonic bond is formed. If you like platonic devotion, nonbinary wrongs, and ownvoices aspec rep, this is the story for you!
I have a short story in editing about a nonpartnering aroace woman in her 40s who hires a one-day emergency contact for a medical procedure on her town's subreddit. Surprising no one, it is another story of ownvoices aspec rep and platonic bonds set in a contemporary world.
Knitting Grief WIP (novel): when Grace Baker's sister Ren unexpectedly passes away, she is left dealing with everything Ren left behind—including a massive stash of hand-dyed yarn and an online knitting community that just might be where Grace has belonged all along.
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I have lots of big feelings about Pride. Overwhelming joy that some people can celebrate their right to live how they want, with who they want. Frustration at the gatekeeping, of course. Fear at the direction my country is moving, getting even more hostile to LGBTQIA+ individuals every day.
But mostly, I’m tired of waiting—waiting for equal rights, waiting for society to become kinder and more accepting, and waiting for to find a unicorn publication that wants my short stories. I can control at least one of those, so I am yeeting them out into the void. I have started a Ko-Fi!
Check out Emergency Contact, a contemporary story about a nonpartnering aroace woman who hires a local nonbinary menace on her city’s subreddit to be her emergency contact for a medical procedure.
Less overtly pride themed is my old horror short, The Canvas Becomes Her, which I wrote during my first stint in the library: an art student paints something monstrous into existence.
This is my first time exporting as an epub, so if it is unsatisfactory in any way, please reach out and tell me what I can do to make the format better or easier!
Update on Common Bonds 3: we’re over halfway funded! Hooray! If you missed it, my short story “You, Me, & the Sea”, about an aroace fisherwoman named Masie and her aroallo siren platonic soulmate named Marlowe who definitely eats people (but would never eat Masie), is in this! And if we meet a certain stretch goal, we’ll get an AUDIOBOOK which I would be super stoked for.
I’m sorry for barging into your inbox so many times the past few weeks; I promise next time I send out an update, it will include the next section of Celebration WIP, which is now titled Happy For You.
I have two books out, both queer.
ACE OF HEARTS (2022) from Ninestar Press is a M/F asexual romance about childhood best friends who get married for free tuition but whoops! Real feelings ensue.
THE ENDLESS SEA BETWEEN US (2023) from Ninestar Press is a F/F demisexual romance about a grouchy witch, a firecracker mermaid, and destroying men who think people owe them something for being a “nice guy.”
Happy Pride, from your friendly local genderqueer arospec ace!
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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When the pairing is so good that it doesn’t matter if you see it as romantic or platonic. What matters is that you see them and know that one is not complete without the other. Frequently bought together. Do not separate. If you separate them one of them will bite you
Good news: I finished Wound Up. If you haven’t heard me yapping about it online, Wound Up is my latest adult achillean ace romance novel. Noah Wakefield is a high-strung, spreadsheet loving asexual yarn shop owner. When his new neighbors file a zoning complaint against him, he must work together with his frustrating and flirty rival yarn shop owner, Benjamin Tasch, to make the Southeast Missouri Fall Yarn Crawl happen and save his shop.
Alpha reader feedback was very positive! It’s got a long way to go, but I’d love to develop it into something worth reading, whether it nets me an agent or I summon as much executive function as I can muster and self-pub, if there are no bites.
But the title of this newsletter is momentum, and I haven’t touched on that yet, so let’s get into it. I quit writing for seven years. I tend to keep doing what I’m doing. So once I stop, it’s hard to start again. I’m trying to keep my momentum by continuing to write, at least a little. It’s hard, because you can’t pour from an empty cup, but I know if I don’t keep writing, if I stop for any significant amount of time, I’ll end up taking another years-long hiatus, and that is NOT how you improve your craft.
So I have been working on and off on At Loose Ends, the sapphic age gap sequel to Wound Up, and A Cold and Distant Star, a complete rewrite of my shelved aroace space opera from 2017 or thereabouts. I have also been working on promoting my author brand, with middling success, on Instagram and TikTok. My Ace of Hearts giveaway just wrapped up Friday, so I’ll be mailing those out this week; ditto my Endless Sea Between Us Indie April giveaway.
I’m also trying my hand at something new: serialized short stories. Let me explain.
This weekend I was at a baby shower when it hit me that I never celebrated anything in my own life as an adult. I did not celebrate graduating high school. Or college. Or grad school. I did not celebrate writing my first novel, or my second. I did not celebrate getting my first promotion at work. I fell victim to the amatonormative, allonormative idea that as adults, marriage and babies are the only things worth celebrating. And it gave me a plot bunny: what if I told a series of short stories about a nonpartnering aroace woman who started a business throwing nontraditional, amatopunk parties for things like divorce, singlehood, passing a particularly heinous class, coming out, medical anniversaries, enforcing boundaries, or—as I say in the first installment—surviving Wednesday?
So here’s what I’m gonna do: I’m gonna write a minimum of 500 words a month for this particular project, which I am calling Celebration WIP. I’m gonna share them at the end of each newsletter. And if I ever wrap them up in a coherent manner, I might self-publish them also so they’re available in ebook format, not just in back issues of newsletters.
TW: My main character, Luna Ayala, is nonpartnering aroace woman who is childfree by choice, and being childfree is important to her, so this will come up. Take care of yourself and if this is a difficult subject for you or you’re not up to reading this content, that is totally fine! It will be clearly labeled and I will include specific TWs before each installment.
thank you, as always, for reading my nonsense. You’ll hear from me—and Luna, and a quirky rotating cast of supporting characters from Celebration WIP—again in June.
Celebration WIP
Part 1
TW: mild cursing, lack of enthusiasm for the nuclear family structure, including childrearing; disrespectful language
I was twenty eight years old when I realized I’d probably already had my last socially-sanctioned celebration, despite being—statistically—only a third or at worst halfway through my life. The years remaining to me stretched out ahead, and I couldn’t bear the thought of not celebrating anything just because I didn’t want to get married or have kids. The last fancy dress I’d worn was my high school prom, a full decade ago. And that would not stand.
“I just think it’s bullshit,” I blurted, because there were no such thing as inside thoughts for me.
My sister buckled her seatbelt and raised an eyebrow. “What’s bullshit?”
“That everyone gets parties centered on traditional life events like weddings and babies and milestone marriage anniversaries, and people like me are shunted to the side after we graduate just because we don’t want a nuclear family.”
“Why do you think you deserve a party?”
“I don’t know. For being alive? For passing A&P? Because it’s Wednesday?”
“Are those really party-worthy events?”
“Uh, yes? Why wouldn’t they be?”
“I don’t know, it just seems—”
“Yeah. It seems like we only celebrate how well we perform social norms. And people who don’t contribute to that culture don’t get to celebrate shit.”
“I just think it’s important to celebrate the things that really–”
“Matter? Hmm?” I couldn’t stop interrupting her. “And nothing matters as much as coupling off and popping out kids?”
“Why are you being like this?”
“Why aren't you being like this? Are you only okay with it because you’re married and planning on having kids? Because it doesn’t affect you?”
“You’re just doing this for attention.”
I counted to ten before I responded so I didn’t say anything rash. “Yes. I am. Because humans want attention sometimes, and if they want it, they deserve it, and we need to stop glorifying just one way to live. I think my single, child-free life is just as worth celebrating as anyone else’s.”
“So you want praise for…existing,” she said skeptically.
“No. I want praise for surviving. Life is hard. If we never celebrate surviving the hard things, what is even the point?”
“Good for you. Start a movement, I guess.” The conversation was clearly over for her. She turned up the radio, the very obvious signal that she didn’t want to talk to me anymore.
We’d just left a bridal shower, which was fine. It was fine to celebrate getting married. But I couldn’t escape the nagging feeling that what should be celebrated is the commitment to what makes you happy, not the act of subscribing to social norms. And if I was committed to myself, why didn’t that deserve celebration? I fished my phone out of my pocket, opened Canva, and started scheming.
Luna’s Adult Party Service?
No. People would hear adult and make assumptions because it was often used as a euphemism for sexual.
Luna’s Celebrations.
I liked it. It wasn’t just traditional parties.
I would help people recognize anything, everything—because life deserved celebrations.
Have you seen the new show? It's on Tubu. It's literally on Heebee. It's on Poodee with ads. It's literally on Dippy. You can probably find it on Weeno. Dude it's on Gumpy. It's a Pheebo original. It's on Poob. You can watch it on Poob. You can go to Poob and watch it. Log onto Poob right now. Go to Poob. Dive into Poob. You can Poob it. It's on Poob. Poob has it for you. Poob has it for you.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
three fun and sexy facts about me: 1.) i have a slight fructose intolerance which manifests itself mostly in me getting violently ill whenever i eat garlic. 2.) i have “delayed phased sleep disorder” aka my body wants to sleep during the day and stay up at night. 3. i am extremely sensitive to sunlight and cannot be in direct sunlight for more than like five minutes without getting burned or overheated.
extra bonus fun and sexy fact: the one and only time i stepped foot in a catholic church, someone spilled hot coffee on me and i got a bad burn on my chest and had to leave before the service started
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
✓ Live Streaming✓ Interactive Chat✓ Private Shows✓ HD Quality
Anya is LIVE right now
FREE
Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming
❤️: what’s the working title?
🧡: what were previous working titles/ideas?
💛: what is the title based on?
💚: how long have you been working on it?
💙: how has the idea changed between starting it and where it is now?
💜: where are you in the writing process?
🖤: what are your MC names?
💔: give a brief character bio of your 3-5 MCs
❣️: which scene has been hardest to write so far?
💕: what has your favorite scene been?
💞: which future scene are you looking forward to writing?
💓: is it part of a series or standalone?
💗: what genre is it in?
💖: are you planning on publishing it? if so, how?
💘: give us a huge spoiler
💝: who has your favorite character arch? give a brief summary
💟: how is your style different in this work compared to previous ones? has it more shifted for the story or just developed in general?
Lucy Mason Writes @lucymasonwrites - Tumblr Blog | Tumlook
