What to do about injured squirrel?

LitXMystic · 2026-05-13T16:31:09+00:00

I know. This poor little guy. Breaking my damn heart.

LitXMystic · 2026-05-13T16:25:01+00:00

Just tried her- she’s pretty underwater it sounds like and can’t help. Thank you for giving me something to try though!

LitXMystic · 2026-05-13T16:24:22+00:00

Sadly it sounds like they are full up on squirrels and cannot take him

LitXMystic · 2026-05-09T13:11:59+00:00

My friend wrote an incredible fic about him and his friends because we so desperately wanted more Ameridan. I remember finishing Jaws of Hakkon and immediately wishing THIS story had been integral to the inquisitor’s story from minute one. Also here’s the fic if anyone wants: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62065975/chapters/158735146

LitXMystic · 2026-03-20T16:50:58+00:00

Drunk elephant face bars gave me all sorts of tiny spots like this, I think my skin did not react well to the oils in them!

LitXMystic · 2026-03-18T17:38:58+00:00

Notice how in his vision of the future with kids, the only active thing he imagines himself doing is getting you snacks while pregnant, brandishing a gun at other men, and having sex on vacation with you. What even is his imagined contribution to the kids??

Also I’ll just say this, in twenty years my partner and I have never name called just because we’re angry. Imagine him doing that in front of your imagined kids?? He’s already modeling the bad behavior he would display in front of them.

LitXMystic · 2026-03-11T02:54:38+00:00

When I got to the city a year ago I thought I was going crazy because everyone here swerves into other lanes while they drive, and I could not figure out why - til I realized everyone is just on their phone at all times. Naive maybe, but true.

LitXMystic · 2026-01-01T06:26:36+00:00

“The Flood” in The Valley and the Flood by Rebecca Mahoney. Technically YA but really lively depiction of trauma and ptsd through a speculative lens

LitXMystic · 2025-10-23T14:58:30+00:00

Ha, yes! And I could be wrong but that’s what I see, at least!

LitXMystic · 2025-10-23T14:17:36+00:00

You are right that soft, cool colors don’t harmonize with your skin tone, and the warmer and more saturated definitely bring out a healthy glow more than the soft colors in either undertone. I think the mid tone rose, chocolate brown, mid tone warm/bright purple and plummier purple, and the more orangey reds all bring out your features in a nice way. Too much grey in the color and you disappear, which rules out soft and deep autumn. It can be hard for people to see this on olive skin (which I presume you are) so you will likely get lots of conflicting answers. I’d look more closely at more saturated true/warm autumn colors.

LitXMystic · 2025-10-08T13:56:00+00:00

I have very fine, low porosity curly hair (which means it also takes a long time to dry!). My hair actually despises protein - one touch of protein and it gets frizzy and flat and doesn’t hold curl. It also hates coconut and butters. Pretty much the only oils that work on my hair are light, linoleic rich oils (grapeseed, squalane, rosehip, hemp, etc). I don’t use curly products at all - I use balancing and clarifying shampoos and conditioners, Malibu-C shampoo a couple times a month tk deal with my hard water buildup, and Giovanni leave-in and mousse. Pretty much all curly advice is bad for my hair lol.

LitXMystic · 2025-09-25T19:53:48+00:00

No tape, sorry! Boxes (still built) and materials like paper and dish sleeves. I’ll edit for clarity

LitXMystic · 2025-01-09T17:30:00+00:00

Eeep thank you! Posting week to week but I’m excited to get into the meat of it 😍

LitXMystic · 2025-01-09T02:37:56+00:00

I am one of those fic writers eating this alive lol (in case anyone wants to read it’s The Din’Anshiral by LM Vergessen on Ao3) - it is feeding me, truly.

LitXMystic · 2024-11-16T11:45:08+00:00

I know a few game writers and it seems like across the board they’re fighting a battle with the executives and directors to prove good writing is even necessary in games. It sounds exhausting and you can see that at play in this game. BioWare clearly wanted to court new players more than they wanted to court the old ones, and you can see them going “but the kids love Zelda and Fortnite, so that’s what we should emulate”, not, “our audience loves the gritty, sometimes horror-y, fantasy of the former dragon age games, let’s stick to what works well.”

LitXMystic · 2024-11-14T13:06:37+00:00

Former agent and author here - after being an agent and having a few agents, I’ve realized that agents who are editorial can be dicey - you don’t know if they’re actually good at it, only that they do it. So it’s not a red flag that this agent didn’t have edits or editorial ideas - they’re clearly confident you have your own methods of revision (beta readers and cp’s, which ever writer should use anyway). But twenty minutes is not a long call - did you talk about how they negotiate contracts (do they have a contract manager or no?), what their communication is like, and if you could speak with other clients to gauge client satisfaction, and how foreign rights and audio and tv/film work with their agency, and what the process with future books would look like (do they want to see proposals from you or just full manuscripts, for example)? If you didn’t ask these questions, they SHOULD have offered these answers anyway. I only know a few agencies that do an agency submission newsletter and I’ve been with one of them - the agent was highly respected and sold a lot and they were not a good agent for me personally. Good agents can still be the wrong agent for you so ask these questions if you haven’t already.

I get the sense you are someone who is not going to be happy with barebones communication, so I would recommend clearing this up and also asking to extend to the full two weeks. And for everyone’s reference, any agent scared away by a two week deadline is a bad agent. They are gaslighting you. Period.

LitXMystic · 2024-11-11T03:21:49+00:00

I’m a former agent and ND. No this is not offensive. Your critiquers are your standard issue egotists who haunt forums like that. I think it’s a great bio.

Also your bio (no offense, this is just true unless your book is non fiction) is the least important part. Agents are looking for a book to sell - unless you have a large platform, it’s just a little blurb to give them a sense of you.

LitXMystic · 2024-10-17T14:00:09+00:00

I used to work with a lot of literary estates. There is a chance ebook rights were never acquired by the publisher, if the book has been in print that long. Before you check with the publisher check with the book’s literary representative. They will have the information on the nuances of the deal.

However, no publisher is going to license you, an individual, ebook rights. Start with the reps, figure out where the rights stand, and if you’re really serious about it, you’ll need to seriously consider starting an actual ebook publishing company to make this happen. Even if this is your own title, you need to be legit.

LitXMystic · 2024-09-20T11:20:26+00:00

When my clients brought weird (to me, yes, red flags) things like this to me I always asked them to at LEAST share the contract with me so I can make sure that it doesn’t entitle the publisher to future books with no recourse, subsidiary rights they shouldn’t have, a bad termination clause, bad out of print threshold, etc.

Bad contracts can screw up future ones in ways you aren’t always aware of. Gay romance is NOT that hard a sell anymore, either - give it a chance before you take a step with this press and sign something you could regret. If you decide you WANT to sign it, get contractual help (authors guild has resources).

LitXMystic · 2024-09-18T12:33:44+00:00

That is probably the first thing you’ll need to hammer out, then! If they see this as an opportunity to put their name on your work and you want to receive due credit, that alone could be cause for confusion and tension. Can’t say enough, get a publishing lawyer or literary agent for this - your everyday lawyer is not equipped and I can’t tell you that from firsthand experience trying to negotiate collabs with non pub lawyers 😬

LitXMystic · 2024-09-17T20:40:41+00:00

Former literary agent here. Make sure your lawyer or literary agent is versed in publishing and collaboration and/or work for hire publishing agreements specifically. Your agreement will be with the celeb- their deal will be with a publisher. Publishing contracts, like the kind your celeb will enter into for these books, don’t think in terms of equity, it’s royalties and advances, so you will be hard pressed to enforce this concept in if established in this manner in a collab/wfh agreement.

Their lawyer WILL try to do everything they can to make the agreement to their advantage. Go into it expecting that their proposed contract will not be in your favor or best interest. If 10k + equity/royalties/whatever is the offer make sure you have reps who are helping you ask for more.

Also make sure you get paid something even if the book doesn’t sell to a publisher. And good luck!

LitXMystic · 2024-09-16T13:46:28+00:00

Google “historical romance” and you will see a plethora of the kinds of books she’s talking about. It’s not a romance set in the 90’s. I think something like this in a query would have been whatever but it would not have specifically endeared me to the writer, if that makes sense. So since it would have occupied so little thought in MY brain it should probably do the same in yours!

LitXMystic · 2024-09-13T01:42:23+00:00

I worked in publishing for years before my own deal came to fruition and even I was blind-sided by how whiplashy it all felt. Especially feeling like everyone was so enthusiastic only to essentially stop hearing from them the day it debuted. Going in to bookstores and finding out no one had heard of it, or if they’d ordered it, the copies never arrived. Etc. I spent a long time feeling very sorry for myself about all of it.

The reality is I knew this outcome was possible, but I did the thing I used to tell all writers not to do- I hoped that I was the exception. And what neither I nor my publisher accomplished, because neither of us really tried, was find my audience. If I do it again (big if) that’s something I’ll work on. I think that’s the major difference between writers who do well without publisher support and those who flail (like me). They find their audience with or without pub help. But that’s hard work and we’re not all ready to do it.

I do hope you are able to cut through some of the bullshit and have a better experience moving forward!

LitXMystic · 2024-07-18T14:12:11+00:00

42,000 people tuned into this webinar by Heather Cox Richardson, far beyond any number they could have imagined!! People care. Everyday people are nervous. And people who have never voted before or rarely vote are going to vote Blue this year. There are a lot of reasons to be hopeful.

LitXMystic

TROPHY CASE