Mel Waverly

@melwaverly.bsky.social

Author of sapphic fiction. 📚🏳️‍🌈
Eater of cheese.
Chaser of cocker spaniels.
My TBR list is too long 📚

melwaverly.wordpress.com

@melwaverly.bsky.social Pinned

WIP 1 which has an identity crisis right now (taking opinions on the name, fwiw) is about two hopeless women who play music and fall in love over 421 pages.

Readers say: "It's good," "OMG you hopeless lesbians, just say it," "This is SMUT!" "So 90s," "Your characters made me feel things."⬇️

#SumLuv

tropes for These Words Remain Unsaid spice level 🌶️🌶️ second chances fake dating sloth burn 🦥❤️‍🔥 friends to lovers ❤️ drummer jokes found family "If you've ever wanted to read a book that makes you scream "Just fucking say it - GAH!!!!" then this book is for you. Julie and Izzy were best friends, in a band, and in love with each other. The only problem was they only knew about two of those things! Eight years later, Julie returns to Canada trying to rekindle her friendship. Yes, just her friendship. Izzy, however, wants nothing to do with her, except that she really does, she’s just afraid of getting hurt again. Julie’s persistent if nothing else, and convinces Izzy to work with her again. Forced proximity is good for the love life, eh! There’s road trips, cows running in the field, a glow-in-the-dark toilet seat, and a lot of drummer jokes before they “finally...FINALLY!!!” (according to my editor’s notes) get together!Julie Gatensby and Isabell Brewer have been friends since Julie save Izzy from a mishap with some iced tea in the 8th grade. When they start a band together, they finally start to feel like things are starting to click. After a concert at a local bar, their friendship is put to the test - and fails. Eight years alter, Julie returns home to Lindsay, Ontario, in the hopes of regrouping after a disastrous breakup from her band, her job, and her boyfriend (all on the same day). She also hopes she can finally put to rest any confusion she has about her former best friend, Izzy. Perhaps even rekindle a friendship that has long since ended. Izzy, however, is less receptive to Julie's overtures. Years of hurt on both sides make their friendship strained. Thankfully, everyone else around them seems to see what the women simply cannot: they are meant to be together. If only Izzy could admit her feelings for Julie. If only Julie could get over her self-hate. If only one of them would say what they really want. If only someone would turn off the home shopping channel. And if only everyone could stop telling drummer jokes.One good thing came from the night: the showcase. It was sudden, inexplicable, and impossible to pass up. It made little sense to Julie that Hailey was promoting her rather than the band she’d spent months producing, but she wasn’t inclined to ask too many questions. This wasn’t Julie’s big break. She didn’t believe in those. Big breaks were the result of years of tireless work. The showcase was just a small step in a long line of small steps. But people would hear her songs, and with Hailey throwing her support behind her, Julie had no doubt doors would begin to open. Then there was the other thing. Julie had told herself that walking around the party with Izzy on her arm was just a bit of harmless theatre—a misunderstanding they were too polite to correct. Then the realizations she’d been running from for years caught up with her, all revolving around one thing. The kiss. Even if it had started as a charade, all of that shattered the instant she kissed Izzy. She could no longer deny what she felt. That sent Julie’s thoughts splintering like light through a prism—which is to say, her brain had gone thoroughly, spectacularly lesbian. Julie didn’t know what that meant. Okay, she did, but she didn’t know what to do about it. Not yet. Jenn would have an answer. But that would mean admitting Jenn was right. Fuck, Jenn was right. Mel Waverly - A Playlist for Second Chances, chapter 41
📚 Ellie Rhymer! Spaceships and Scoundrels 📚@ellieyellu.bsky.social

Let's get pitchy with it, #SumLuv 🧡 I wanna get hype seeing you get hype about your project If you don't have a pitch deck or a book trailer, that's totally cool! Write us a 🔥 one-liner with all the bold, precise, exciting language you can fit in it and edit up your favorite excerpt 😍

Romance Writers Summer of Love #SumLuv @EllieYellu Day 14: Pitch Time! Post your best pitch! Pitch decks welcome (Don't forget alt text)
@melwaverly.bsky.social

So. very. superstitious. Thing I love about theatres is they are two very different spaces during and before/after performance, **and** back and front of house. The audience is in open, public, visible (ish) but behind the scenes, it's cramped, chaotic, and often labyrinth like. Fun juxtapositions

@melwaverly.bsky.social

S'all good! I was curious how you ended up here though. You're very welcome regardless, but yes, double fiction. Shannon's actually a nurse in a cardiac ward in 1969/70 who goes ice skating with her love interest a not-so-elegant skater named Jacqueline 😊

@melwaverly.bsky.social

this is how I *write*! (I blame theatre) but to figure out what my characters are doing while they're talking, to figure out how they pause, how they react, how they put emphasis on things, I basically just act it all out! It's fun, but my dog thinks I'm weird.

@melwaverly.bsky.social

Don't compare yourself to anyone else. Have your fav authors. Admire their writing. But comparing yourself to them is a 0 sum game. You won't write like them because you are not them. You are you! Plus, those authors are likely trying not to compare themselves to their fav authors

#LGBTQWriteAThon

@melwaverly.bsky.social

I don't do the sports thing, but I do do the music thing and it's the same with my musicians. They are different people performing. It's a space (sometimes physical, but not always) where they can just *be* (also: teehee, I said do do)

@melwaverly.bsky.social

I was also thinking the same re: women. I briefly considered just writing "women, you know what I'm talking about" but sadly, not all women get that experience (thinking of my trans fam here). But yes to all of that. Safety, privacy, the sheer amount of women-taking-care-of-women that happens there

@melwaverly.bsky.social

1) These are hypothetical questions for authors about our characters, yeah? 2) Yes. the P in PWHL = professional. 3) Shannon w/could've been a pro had she not been born in 1941. There were no women's teams, and no boys' teams would take her. Though, she held her own with her brother's pond games

@melwaverly.bsky.social

Of course. Nothing to do with all the cute girls playing softball. Nope I definitely wasn't thinking about any of that. Just baseballs and bats and um...linedrives up the 3rd baseline. ⚾

@melwaverly.bsky.social

Save for the softball playing lesbians who were like "it's our time!!!!" I remember I went to the baseball hall of fame the year they opened the women in baseball exhibit. 10/10 young me was thrilled 1992 and 1993

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