Mercy Zephyr

It's mostly because I am trying to find out more about writing. I've been trying to read more good stuff, because if I am going to be aiming to write well, I need to aim high. Sanderson's work comes highly recommended. "Varied"? How so? Agent and publisher would be nice; I don't know how realistic of a goal that is for me so far, given the various bits in my background that are apparently "Varied". It's hard to find agents and publishers to pitch to from here that aren't doing alaskana, which isn't the biggest of markets imo.

Issue that might come up in a future project - I might be working on a historical fantasy in the future. However, the language used is known; it does not use Romance gendered pronouns. It would be written in English, which does use gendered pronouns. The lack of gender pronouns would actually be a story element, in the sense that nobody would notice that certain characters are not being gendered in sentences. In English, that would seem to require that I use "they" for EVERYONE. I'm not quite sure how to address this concern.

So, I have been wrestling with this for awhile, and I still haven't figured out an answer. I often hear people advise writers to find their voice, which always seems to be easier to say than do. But this leads to lots of questions... One, since your voice comes with practice, doesn't this just mean "write more"? Is it just natural distinctiveness that doesn't seem worthy of discussing? Two, how do you know when you have developed a voice? What does "having a unique writers voice" do for you? Do you have to actively wield it? Do you need to understand your own voice? Is there specific things you should do to speed the process of developing it? In short, why do we speak about developing our voice as being an important skill rather than an inevitable consequence?

I'm a new author. I just posted my first piece under this pen name, and at the same time lost my day job, so now I get to figure out how to get my output up to pro levels quickly so we can stop being afraid of how to pay the bills. I'm a Native ace transgender woman (she/her), a wife to a great guy who transitioned at the same time I did, and a grandmother. I live in a fairly rural and inaccessible area, which limits my ability to travel around and rub elbows with editors and other authors. I currently write transgender romance/whatever at various heat levels. The first one was medium heat, since the squishy wiggly bits needed to do dramatic work. The one I am drafting right now falls into 'Clean and Wholesome' because it makes no sense to include the slippery bits in context of the frame narrative of 'reminiscing to another character' --- and to my amusement, it might bleed a little bit into Inspirational once it gets out of my hands, which might cause a bit of amusing metaphorical swapping of paint. My family wants me to write Historical Fantasy using the prehistory of the tribe, including the monsters, as a setting. I worry about how marketable that would be - I might be able to get a grant to write it, but I don't know how to sell the finished product and I don't know how I would build a large piece yet. Nor do I feel like I understand Fantasy, since so often it seems like set dressing. Given all that, I am still trying to figure out what to read next, given my background and goals. My well is a bit dry this week. I realize this is an unusually detailed intro, but I don't know how best to ask about some of this in a way that makes sense. My intro has several promises in it that need to be answered/fulfilled. Hopefully I can actually pull those off.