Aiko Aslanian
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aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
Aiko Aslanian
@aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
210 followers 240 following 1.2K posts
I've been writing all my life but it took me 40 years to have a project. Working on my first book. To what end? We'll see.

This account to connect with writers, book lovers, readers, and all things literary.
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aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
The best part about impulse buying books in your 40s is you completely forget you did and it's like a surprise gift when it arrives.

Although I did see @rebeccareyeswriting.com posting about this today and had a vague, "Wait a minute, didn't I....?" moment. And then it came with today's mail!
A copy of the book Sigils of Malice by Rebecca E. Reyes. A scarab beetle spreads its wings in front of some kind of portal I think?
October 22, 2025 at 7:37 PM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
I felt a burning urge to do a #WIPsnip tonight. I think this one reflects the, uh, tonal change I'm working with in this WIP.

Poly teases Fitz (aka Billy, both short for Fitzwilliam) about his evolving feelings about the homosexuals over the centuries.

#fantasyheist
“We’re talking 1850s, sweet cheeks,” said Poly. “By the 1950s this one would bugger anything that waggled its dick at him.” “Poly!” Fitz growled. “So prudish! After 300 years you’d think he’d get over that.” They shrugged and twisted a lock of their hair around their finger. “Well, I found it charming. Two centuries of sexual tension released in one decade. I’m glad I was in my he/him era for that one.” They winked at Cherry, who blushed and looked away. “Oh, I didn’t realize you two were…” Poly laughed. “Oh, we’re not! Never were. Well, other than Billy’d buy a poke off me every now and again back when I was a working girl, before he turned me. Anyway, it’s good to have slept with your friends at least once. Just gets that tension right out in the open. But no, it wasn’t until Lance that our Billy started boinking the offspring with any regularity. I just meant I enjoyed the sloppy seconds through that very gay decade.” Fitz sank his face into his hand, head shaking. “Anyway,” they said, singsong, “what’s this about mermaids?”
October 22, 2025 at 2:53 AM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
Supplemental folders are shaping up
A "Notes" folder with "Brainstorming," "Lore," and "Jokes" sub-documents.
October 3, 2025 at 4:36 AM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
This WIP is quickly getting unhinged.

Mermaid/vampire first communication, enabled by the Babel fish.
“The dolphins?” She rolled her eyes. “Well who do you think wrote the book?” “Um. Douglas Adams?” “Please. As if some human could have known all that. They’ve barely even been to the moon. That was a pseudonym, obviously.” “You are telling me that dolphins are intergalactic space travelers.” “Did you come here to discuss basic zoology or did you come here for information, vampire?”
September 28, 2025 at 1:30 AM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
It's the best time of the year when the drizzle means Limozeen's style goes from Rod Stewart to Bowie.
A damp white silkie rooster
September 19, 2025 at 2:50 PM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
Look what I just picked up and added to my TBR shelf.
📚💙
@elizmanderson.com
A bookshelf with the book quote The keeper of lonely spirits" by e. M. Anderson facing out. Other books on the shelf include rakesfall by vajra Chandrasekera, The shepherd King duology by Rachel gillig, and various other books.
September 13, 2025 at 10:51 PM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
Huge relief for California Kaiser members! No restrictions for anyone for getting the COVID vaccine. I hope everyone can get easy and affordable access but I know it's not going to be easy for all
A screen cap of an email titled "your covid-19 vaccine update." The 2025-26 covid-19 vaccine will be available at no cost for Kaiser Permanente members, 6 months and older. We are receiving vaccine supply from manufacturers and will begin providing vaccines September 15th.
September 12, 2025 at 4:56 PM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
The baby chicks have just started laying the teeniest baby eggs! Because they are now not baby chicks but teen hens! Heens?

Anyway

How it started/how it's going

(Brown egg is a normal store egg for comparison.)
Three baby chicks under a heat lamp so there is a red cast to the photo A hand holding a regular sized brown egg and a white edge that is about 1/3 it's size
September 3, 2025 at 12:47 AM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
When you're trying to get one of your besties to get serious about his writing so he can be your writing buddy
Two text messages from me that he hasn't even fucking read yet that say: I set up a schedule and my goal is to have a draft I'd be willing to let other people read done by the end of October. Goal is to have something that I'd be willing to query by the new year I'm telling you to keep myself accountable and also so you feel like a chud for not working on your writing projects
August 30, 2025 at 2:40 AM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
How bout some kissin'?

Lil remembers when Ozwin kissed her a few years ago; now he's back in town and rumor has it he's looking to court her. I'm sure nothing will happen to thwart his plans.
He had grown into a huge man, at least a head taller than her and broad from farm work and dragon wrangling, a man who would perhaps have made her a little afraid if she had not known from childhood. He tipped her chin up, met her gaze—his eyes hungry but guarded, his usual bravado muted by uncertainty—and she wondered if she really did know him, if proximity was at all the same as knowing. The moment his lips met hers was like being pulled under the waters of a favorite swimming hole, the safety of the familiar banks obscured by water more wild and murky than it seemed from shore.
August 24, 2025 at 8:36 PM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
Oh hey, how about the very beginning? After processing the advice to avoid starting with a character waking up, I realized I could build the world more dynamically than that.

CW: (Fictional) animal harm due to predators
Something had gotten into the dragon coop. Something wild and without mercy. It was a grim sight. Bits of bodies scattered about the pasture. A string of entrails stretched by the feed barrel. A severed wing curled in rigor mortis. A headless dragonling. No, two— no three! The third slumped by the edge of the breeding pool, as if it had tried to escape to its natal waters. Why, oh why did they only take the heads? As if destruction were the point. Lilam surveyed the damage, hands clenched in her hair. She swore quietly, over and over, like a prayer. Her basket of food scraps lay where it had tumbled from her hand.
August 22, 2025 at 12:05 AM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
We'll do a two-fer, since this has both trap (my only example) and bow (one of many many).

This is VERY rough, needs line editing, plus some straight up technical errors, but I'm liking how this scene near the end is shaping up.

Lil's taking things seriously at last; Emic is beginning to crack.
She relaxed her fingers as soon as he stood, but his contracted, curling his hand around hers and pulling her a step closer, a step that hitched her breath. She stood a hands breadth away, looking up into those burning black eyes. She stood, trapped in his gaze, when to her great astonishment he raised her fingers to his lips, then touched them to his heart, feather light, both. He lowered her hand. Held it a heartbeat beyond what was proper. Then he released it. With a bow, he vanished out the door, leaving her alone with the curling sacred smoke and her own hammering heart, as ready and as unprepared as she’d ever been for what came next.
August 20, 2025 at 3:58 AM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
For example:
A page of a thesaurus listing words related to "clergy".
August 19, 2025 at 11:40 PM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
Most reports of crime are exaggerated but we do have problems with roving gangs in my neighborhood. They steal a shit ton of chicken food and the chickens only occasionally push back.
A photograph of 4 male deer in my yard. It's the golden hour, my lawn looks scraggly AF, an there's a chicken in the foreground.
August 19, 2025 at 2:11 AM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
Limozeen believes in you
A very stupid looking rooster. He's a silkie; he's white and should be a lot fluffier than he is. There's something kind of wrong with him. But he knows it and such only half-heartedly is a jerk. He knows his place.
August 17, 2025 at 4:21 AM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
Taking a break from a structural editing to do this because line editing is a nice change of pace.

From the first real conversation the FMC and MMC have.

Kind of a lot of Terms here, but they've all been well introduced at this point in the book so hopefully wouldn't confuse in context.
Lil studied him. His black eyes stood out against his strange light skin. Nearly everyone she’d even known had dark eyes, but she was used to them against complexions as dark as cocoa, offset by their whites and their spirit. Emic’s eyes were as if the Sun burned black in a featureless sky. “You are not Ahdian, I think,” she said. “I am not, Highness.” This time she did flinch. “Oh, please. Please don’t call me that. It sounds so — so ridiculous. Like you’re making fun of me.” The placid expression on his face clouded. Those black eyes flashed beneath the deep shadow of his furrowed brow. “I assure you, I am not. You are the Etheling Allotted of Ahd and with that comes all the honor and respect due the Etheling. I call you Highness because it is protocol and it is proper. You are now royalty. I would sooner cut my tongue out than make fun of you.” He had been so reserved that that fervor caught her off guard and she took a step back, running up against a honeysuckle swathed column. “Oh, I didn’t mean— I know you’re not. You wouldn’t.” She sagged against the column with a sigh. “It’s just so… strange. Like a children’s game. It doesn’t seem real.”
August 11, 2025 at 8:42 PM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
Updated my labels so I'm more clear on what I am supposed to DO when a draft is a given color.

Progress: Two chapters from Red to Orange this weekend :)

Tomorrow: Unfinished chapters 😱
Screenshot of my manuscript labels, which are organized by color: Bold Red: Unfinished > 50% Bold Orange: Unfinished 50-90% Red: Structural Review Orange: 2nd Structural & World Building Review Yellow: Continuity, Details & Line Edit Green: Ready for other eyes
August 11, 2025 at 5:25 AM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
Today I started diving into a structural edit, which is really finishing the draft (bold orange and red indicate different levels of unfinished chapters) & trying to improve the pacing. I know the WHAT of the how is still feeling weak, so that's percolating right now.
A screenshot of a list of chapters and scenes in mostly red, but some are bold orange or red, or light orange.
August 9, 2025 at 4:13 AM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
Ok I wasn't going to be weird the first time you mentioned this, but since it's a running theme I have to show you this recorder I found in our yard. We live on 5 acres & it appeared, pretty clean, where the chickens hang out. A space I've cleared before. It definitely summons the dead right?
A wooden recorder that is almost certainly haunted
August 9, 2025 at 2:13 AM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
Eep! Woot woot. I can only make squeaky noises because I think the roughest, ugliest, holiest (as in, has the most holes) of drafts is done, right as I hit my arbitrary word count. It's more of a glorified outline held together by placeholders in many places, but I love editing so here we goooooo
A screencap showing 80,130 out of 80,000 words
August 7, 2025 at 8:35 PM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
A snip from chapter 1; MC Lilam is contemplating waking up her sister or Kepi, the dragonling sleeping with her.
A runt and a male, Kepi had been slated for the dinner table until Kes had convinced their parents to spare him for vermin control. Kes was fiercely attached to the little creature, who in turn bestowed most of his affection on their mother, whose tolerance for house dragons was conditional at best. She often suggested a roast, fat little specimen that he was. Lil in turn liked to point out how often Mother sneaked him scraps throughout the day, which she denied with a huff and a twinkle in her eye. Despite Kepi’s daytime disloyalty, he would only sleep with Kestrid: her nocturnal contortions created nooks irresistible to a small, heat-seeking creature, even if he had to resettle himself frequently.
August 7, 2025 at 5:49 PM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
This is in the print issue of The Onion this month; in searching for it online, I came across the real ICE recruiting page and this is barely a satire.
Photograph of a full page add from The Onion, a satirical newspaper that has the hardest job in journalism trying to be more ridiculous and extreme than reality, reading "ICE is hiring!" U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking for highly motivated, morally indifferent individuals to join our team. Open positions include:(bullet point) Senior Goon (bullet point) Racism Enforcement Officer (bullet point) Unmarked Van Driver (part time). Experience with children a plus. usajobs.gov
August 6, 2025 at 6:36 PM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
Pov: your cats look like they got cheating at a Coldplay Concert
A tuxedo cat and a creamsicle cat on a bed with a white bedspread with their paws touching but leaning away from each other. They look like they are holding hands (but actually it's because their claws are stuck on the bedspread).
August 6, 2025 at 3:11 AM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
JJ, new here and undisputed queen. An apt successor to the previous queen, who abdicated last fall after 20 years of benevolent rule, though the cuddle quota was always high
A small grey tabby, face in focus, background blurred.
August 3, 2025 at 3:03 PM
aiko-aslanian.bsky.social
Cricket, kind of an idiot
A fat tuxedo cat sits in an antique high chair looking at the camera in surprise, looking kinda suspicious
August 3, 2025 at 3:00 PM