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There's really no way to blog, for me, where I don't sound like an egomaniac. With that preface, let's talk about reading.

This year I read 5 whole volumes of Journey of Elaina, more reading than I do in most years.

Something that sometimes surprises people when they get to know the author behind unjust depths is that I just don't actually read much fiction anymore. I used to read a lot as a kid and almost everything I read back then is stuff I just wouldn't read for pleasure now. Generally I don't reach for a book almost ever. I keep up with news, look up strange information about military conflicts on shady websites and apps, and I read nonfiction when something catches my eye. I research historical people and events trying to get ideas for my own writing. When people ask me for book recommendations I generally don't remember the titles of books except one: I remember "The Wages of Destruction" and I tell them to read that. I really like that book! I actually go back to it sometimes. Anyway, recommending that usually tides me over since I basically never talk to most people twice.

I guess at this point you could say I am "not much of a reader." I think that reading is very valuable and everyone should do it. However, I can't deal with most books. My tolerance for books is really, really low. While I love bad slop fiction in other media, like in comic books or animation, bad books just make me kind of mad and feel like I'm wasting my time. If I don't immediately like a book or come into it liking it I probably won't give it more than a glance. I'm too close to "writing"-- not only do I write fiction, but all of my academic life was spent doing critical reading and critical writing on literature. When I read, it's hard to turn off those voices and sink into the spectacle. The last book that surprised me was Re:Zero, which I ended up really loving and have collected most of the paperback novels sold in English-- and that was a light novel so its like. Does it count? I feel like I was always going to love Re:Zero in a way I just was not going to love like, any booktok darling book. It's the same with Journey of Elaina. I cheated there though-- I already watched and liked the anime.

Obviously they were both always going to be a hit with me.

Sometimes people want me to read their work. I always try to bow out of doing this for a few reasons. Generally I will give them the most solid excuse-- I am a busy person and I don't want to commit to critiquing other people's work. I have a certain belief about criticism too-- personally I think nobody actually grows from a stranger's advice, no matter how much they might admire that person or think they are skilled. I think I am a bad critic of other's work and cannot help most people become better writers. (This is where you can GET ME by saying that I can't do that because I am a BAD WRITER myself-- fire when ready.) I believe that writers get better by grouping up with peers who have similar interests and aesthetic loves and working together. I think peers critiquing each other's work and reading and writing together is the best possible way that people can develop that muscle, at least if working from zero.

Anyway the other reason is I just don't like to read for fun most of the time so I'm nobody's target audience. I will go "sorry, I hate books" and flee the scene, leaving all befuddled. Doesn't she write a novel? What is her problem? How can she write a novel when she doesn't read 20 fiction books a year? (Well: partly *because* of that, honestly.)

It's always awkward, but the thing is, I already assume everyone hates me, which is freeing in such situations. If you hate me for not reading your work, then you just go in the same pile as the rest of the human race and you aren't really special. I'm the only special one, the special most horrible and evil lady in the universe, whom everyone despises.

Anyway my mental illness aside, I've *tried* to read more like, non-LN capital-f capital-b Fiction Books especially from the like anglosphere "queer rennaissance" that's happened since the 2010s to now where you do see books with lesbians in them, and even transgender people sometimes. But I haven't found a single one I've really wanted to read. (By the way, I really don't like recommendations from almost anyone, so this is not an opportunity to do so-- I will probably just ignore it at best. Because I am the most special horrible and evil lady.)

Visual novels are even worse-- I would really much rather have a book than a visual novel and by the transitive property you should understand how much I don't like them.

You might be wondering at this point, how do I have the nerve to expect people to read my work when I'm not much of a reader myself?

The thing is that I don't-- while I'll sometimes get emotional about not being read or having my work known and accepted among fiction books, intellectualy I have always been realistic and accepted it's kind of a doomed endeavor to write Unjust Depths. Because of what it is, because of my own ethos for it, because of my own capabilities-- I know it is not possible for it to achieve normative metrics of success. It will always be a "bad book" that has "failed" if we compare it to basically any other published work in the ways which we typically consider fiction-- most notably it is unfinished! It is available for free online so it has no sales. It is not the concern of either traditional criticial establishment nor almost any independent critical apparatus. There is one podcast about it. I'm realistic that in the grand scheme of things it is nothing-- but I am not going down alone! Cultural work generally is in a crisis as the publishers and distributors wring out more pennies from starving artists working under more aggressive and exploitative conditions for less compensations; while independents struggle for recognition in saturated markets, trying to find their niche in a social media landscape slowly being invaded by spam-churning robots trained on the very platforms they try to use. I couldn't be "successful" anymore even if I tried to be-- soon by design none of us will be able to achieve the levels of such "success" we saw and dreamed of in our youths.

Anyway, politics aside, for me, I love writing, and I think writing stories has a potential to touch people and to show them things that other media cannot and do not.

So I try to do my best within my limited means and abilities to reach even a fraction of that potential which I see, hope for, and believe in.

And I put it out for free because have you seen this shit? Nobody would publish this madness. And if they wanted to do so I wouldn't trust them with it anyway.

Anyway. It's not just noble and romantic to engage in doomed activities, it's also necessary. Everything decent in the world seems doomed, and we uphold our ideal visions by struggling even if it seems meaningless, and even if the effort appears contradictory, even if you are not going to profit from it-- especially if you are not going to profit from it. I won't see all the people who are smiling at my work, the reader's readers who finally feel seen by something-- and nobody will see me not reading any books. Except my wife.