#our authors

Happy Non-Binary Awareness Week! In previous years, we posted our recommended books with NB characters and books written by NB authors. This time, we’ve compiled a list of works published by Duck Prints Press that were created by our fantastic non-binary authors and artists!

You can find these titles in the Duck Prints Press webstore and on our Patreon!

(images in text format under the read more)

J.R. Lawrie ( @mottlemoth​ ) brings you three holiday stories sure to make you fall in love this holiday season…

Buy directly from Carnation Books: carnationbooks.com/heartbelight

Full of romance, humor, sweetness, and the perfect amount of heat, this collection is perfect for an evening by the fire.

FOR SERVICES RENDERED

Dr. David Christmas has heard every joke in the book when it comes to his name. Weary of the festive season and from his long shifts in the emergency room, David is also tired of his lonely single life. His only hope for Christmas is a glimpse of the shy but gorgeous neighbour who lives above him.

Christmas-loving Julian has nurtured a crush on the grumpy man downstairs for years now. Still hurting from his ex-boyfriend's cruelty, he hasn't yet dared to say hello. When an injury on Christmas Eve puts Julian directly into David's careful hands, a little healing might be on the way.

KIND OF A BIG DEAL and THE FARRINGDON CLUB

Up-and-coming comedian Zack Wynn splits his time between the stage and the London pizza restaurant where he works, until life hands him one hell of a Christmas present. Richard Garston is the handsome and clever older man of Zack's dreams, but what exactly is it that Richard does?

Soon, Zack learns the truth: Richard's classified role in the British government makes him a much bigger deal than he claimed.

Is Zack ready for the politics and power of Richard's world? And is Richard's world ready for him?

Follow J.R. Lawrie on Twitter: @jrlawrieauthor

Follow Carnation Books and keep up to date on our 12 Days of Queer Romance Holidays celebration: @CarnationBooks

Let Your Heart Be Light is available for $3 in .epub and .mobi formats here: carnationbooks.com/heartbelight 

Duck Prints Press anthologies are available from our webstore and from many retailers and libraries. Stand-alone short stories are available in our webstore and/or on our Patreon.

Want even more? We’ve shared lists for Transgender Day of Visibility in 2023 and 2024 as well!

Duck Prints Press has many asexual, demisexual, graysexual, and other aspec people who write, art, design, and edit with us! The below graphics highlight 19 of these awesome folks. You can find the works listed below in our webstore and/or on our Patreon! Anthologies and novels are also available through many major retailers and libraries.

And lastly, our owner Nina Waters (fandom name: unforth; real name: Claire) is asexual - Duck Prints Press is an ace-owned business!

We asked our authors what software helps them write - and got a range of answers! 

Contributors: Adrian Harley, B. T. Fish, D. V. Morse, not-gwaenchanha, theirprofoundbond, Tris Lawrence, unforth

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Discord 

Tris Lawrence: Lately Discord is becoming critical because that's how I'm making notes for my series bible with a combination of private folders and channels to split out information

(B. T. Fish +1, unforth +1)

Evernote

not-gwaenchanha: I use Evernote for all the ideas, makes them easy to sort. One notebook (or even a notebook stack) per WIP. It lets you interlink notes, use tags to sort stuff. It also has a webclipper browser extension which lets you copy websites or parts of them straight into the notebook which is super helpful for research. Free version can be used on two devices.

Image from the Evernote website...they didn't have anything writing-related, apologies.

Google Suite (G Docs, G Sheets, G Keep)

Hermit: Gdoc for me because my writing tends to happen on my couch/at the coffee shop and thus on my phone a lot (I am totally the person who brings a wireless mechanical keyboard to the coffee shop). I also make use of Google Keep for research notes. And a notebook with some frixion pens.

D. V. Morse: At the moment, I'm tracking things in Google Sheets, which is great (except there's a lot of functionality from Trello that I'm missing).

not-gwaenchanha: I use gDocs to write, mainly because I don't have to worry I'll lose everything if technology decides it hates me, but it also allows me to write from my phone and easily share with my beta. Google keep is where all the "darlings" go when I kill them a.k.a scraps of text that are good but don't fit. It's got a nice integration with google docs, you can send stuff there straight from the doc from the context menu and then move all the scraps into one "scraps" doc 

(unforth +1, theirprofoundbond +1, Adrian Harley +1)

Microsoft Word

Adrian Harley: I have been using the same laptop since 2012, and when the hard drive gave out in 2020, my independent computer repair shop was kind enough to reinstall the 2010 versions of Microsoft Office so I didn't have to pay a subscription for them. It's what I'm used to. The "styles" function lets me find chapters easily, and it's easy for me to leave comments for myself when I see an issue and don't want to resolve it right at that moment. I think the free Microsoft Word, whatever they're calling it, has those basic features too, though I'm not positive.

(unforth +1)

Miro (formerly RealTimeBoard) 

not-gwaenchanha: it’s an endless white board. Great for visual plotting. You can put in sticky notes, tables etc. I also like to upload images to it to make a private moodboard for the story.

Image is from the Miro website.

Notes App (IOS, Android)

Adrian Harley: I prefer to use the Notes app on the go. It's just as easy as Google Drive, it doesn't freak out if I'm not connected to the internet, and I have to copy and paste the text from any portable software to my document record of choice anyway. 

(B. T. Fish +1, unforth +1)

Notion

theirprofoundbond: There is a desktop version and an app, with syncing between both. You can use it for writing but I prefer Google Docs for that. Instead, I've built myself a wiki, basically. My "Writing HQ" contains: current editing projects; word count table to track my daily word counts; gallery of my WIPs, which is pretty and motivating, and each "card" contains metadata and promotional info for each project; calendar for my posting schedule; and a gallery of completed work. Notion is incredibly customizeable with great documentation to help you get your head around all the possibilities. It'd be a great home for a worldbuilding bible, too, I think!

(B. T. Fish +1)

Scrivener

unforth: I use Scrivener for organizing my notes and research, its flashcard system is great for that.

Tris Lawrence: I live and die by a combination of Scrivener and Sprinting. Scrivener was the first piece of software I found that works the way my brain works, from the scrap documents to writing in the margins to index cards, and being able to organize it roughly but have it export pretty when I need it.

D. V. Morse: The main software I use is Scrivener, right up until it's time for critique/beta reading. Then everything goes into GDocs. I've experimented with mind-mapping apps with variable results.

Adrian Harley: Scrivener was incredibly helpful for my novella when I decided to turn it into a novel. It let me keep track of different drafts by chapter, so I could note which versions my writing group had already looked at. It also was easy to add in the "flashback" narrative that I've interspersed throughout the book.

Image from the Scrivener website.

SmartEdit Writer (formerly Atomic Scribbler)

B. T. Fish: It's a free word processor that has all the functions of Scrivener that I need and none of the confusing extras, is default dark mode, tracks my word count by scene and by entire project, and allows me to document and organize my writing projects from one-shots to novel length works. I use Discord for collaboration and have occasionally used Notion to organize writing prompts and story bible information, but most of that I also keep in Smart Edit, so it ends up being a bit redundant.

Image from the SmartEdit Writer website.

Spotify and Pandora:

not-gwaenchanha: because music helps my brain switch into the writing mode

unforth: I definitely use Pandora, music helps a lot

(theirprofoundbond +1)

Sprinto

Tris Lawrence: I cannot survive without a timer somewhere, because that's how I can force myself to focus in 20-30 minute spaces. 

StayFocusd

unforth: it's an extension that shuts off internet access for a specified amount of time, and it helped me not get distracted by All The Social Media. (I don’t use Chrome anymore, but when I did…)

@/porcupine-girl chimed in from the comments to mention that Leechblock is a similar extension for Firefox!

Trello

D. V. Morse: I've always loved Trello for organizing workflow and really need to get on that again. 

Tris Lawrence’s Word Tracking Spreadsheet

Adrian Harley: I have also tried a bunch of different software to track word count, because Number Go Up makes my brain happy. Can I recommend Tris's spreadsheet? That got me through a few months.

Tris Lawrence: I am slightly laughing that I didn't call out my own tracking spreadsheet. Probably because I've been SO focused on notes lately that I haven't gotten new words in uhhhh months. But obviously, yes, when writing I live and die by that as well! I love my charts. I loved the charts on the old NaNo site and wanted them year round. I wanted to be able to set goals and see how I was doing. I wanted to do comparisons. I wanted to see writing across weeks, months, and years, and it helped me learn that zero days and fluctuation were OKAY.

Image from Tris's 2022 spreadsheet blog post

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What is your favorite software to use to help you write? We'd love to hear from you!

Have a question for us? Drop us an ask anytime!

Love what we do? Consider supporting us on Patreon or ko-fi.

Our monthly “created works round-ups” are Duck Prints Press’s opportunity to spotlight some of the amazing work that people working with us have done that ISN’T linked to their work with Duck Prints Press. We include fanworks, outside publications, and anything else that creators feel like sharing with y’all! Inclusion is voluntary and includes anything that they decided “hey, I want to put this on the created work’s round-up!”

Check out what they’ve shared with us this month…

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Strife by Smehur / @smehur

art || darksiders || no ships || general audiences || no major warnings apply || complete

summary: Strife playing with his magic on some long forgotten world.

TUMBLR - INSTAGRAM - TWITTER

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Ikarose by Elsin / @lostinthewinterwood

fiction || the good place || platonic or familial || kamilah al-jamil & tahani al-jamil || general audiences || creator choses not to use warnings || 1,105 || complete

summary: Icarus, in dual.

(or: what's it like, to be Kamilah Al-Jamil?)

other tags: Character Study, Relationship Study, Canonical Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Mythology, Magic, A Study in Metaphor, Narrative Ghost Tahani Al-Jamil

AO3

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in hellish darkness (even skulls shine like stars) by nottesilhouette / @nottesilhouette

fiction || percy jackson & the olympians || platonic or familial || teen & up || no major warnings apply || 2,098 || complete

summary: Nico and Reyna make their way back from Greece, the Statue of Athena in tow. Along the way, they talk about loneliness, being left behind, and love.

other tags: cw: depression, cw: PTSD

TUMBLR - AO3

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Not a Spiral but a Spring by Shadaras / @shadaras

fiction || quanzhi gaoshou | the king's avatar - hudie lan || platonic or familial || fang xuecai & team thunderclap || teen & up || no major warnings apply || 44,628 || complete

summary: Team Thunderclap trades Captain Xiao Shiqin to Team Excellent Era in exchange for Liu Hao—slotted to become Thunderclap's new captain—and He Ming.

Thunderclap’s Vice-captain, Fang Xuecai, is uncertain how this trade will impact the team in Season Nine, but he's going to do his best to ensure the team plays their best. After all, a team is more than one person; losing their captain shouldn't mean losing their identity or their spirit. However, Season Nine of the Glory Professional Alliance will test this belief in a myriad of unexpected ways...

other tags: ESports, Toxic Workplace Relationship, Friendship, Teamwork, Character Study

AO3

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Happy reading and happy creating! 😀

Welcome to our monthly “round up” of fan creations and original works by people involved with Duck Prints Press! This list is “opt in,” so you bet our creators made a lot of other things, but these are the ones they wanted to share with y'all this month!

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The Sin by Artcake / @artcake

art || criminal minds || m/m || aaron hotchner/spencer reid || mature || no major warnings apply || complete

summary: Based on the classical painting "the Sin" by Heinrich Lossow, priest Aaron Hotchner and nun Spencer Reid steal away for some intimacy, even when kept apart.

TUMBLR - TWITTER

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the ember in the dark by Catherine E. Green / @ombreblossom

audio || the magnus archives || platonic or familial, m/m || martin blackwood/jonathan sims || teen & up || no major warnings apply || 05:17:10 || complete

summary: "Will you kill Jonah Magnus? If you do, Jon will, assuredly, take his place," Annabelle said. "What would you do to save Jon? What wouldn't you do?"

Martin leaned against his fist, eyes closed. "Alright. What would it entail? This - thing you want to do."

At the end of the world, Martin makes a different choice. With unlikely allies Annabelle Cane and Agnes Montague, Martin enacts a plan to save what they can of the world and - more importantly - Jon.

other tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Kissing, Fix-It, Season Five Fix-it, Canon-Typical Torture, Minor Georgie/Melanie, Pining, Canon-Typical The Desolation Content (The Magnus Archives), Canon-Typical The Beholding Content (The Magnus Archives), Podfic, Podfic Length: 5-6 Hours, Podfic & Podficced Works

TUMBLR - AO3

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World Domination > Romance by FuziPenguin / @fuzipenguin

fiction || transformers (idw) || platonic or familial, poly (one gender: male) || starscream/thundercracker/skywarp; starscream & wheeljack || teen & up || no major warnings apply || 3,409 || complete

summary: Wheeljack helps Starscream discover something about his romantic orientation. And for once, a lab accident is not Wheeljack's fault.

other tags: Established Relationship, Aromanticism, Self-Discovery, Friendship, Explosions, Injury, Post-War

AO3

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