To Your Inconvenience
lovingly
It’s Sunday in the CEST time zone. So here you go.
First of all, to anyone who has read, shared, talked about, commented on, or simply thought about Quiet Little Journeys, I want you to know that it blows my mind every single time.
I signed up on Substack this year, end of January, after recovering throughout all of 2024 from how drained I was after working in a toxic ghostwriter job up until 2023 (with a side-serving of breast cancer also in 2023; life really did not use lube).
Twitter, my contract partners, and most of the readership of the genres I ghostwrote in back then truly stole my joy to create. Just the thought of that time was (and is) suffocating. I wasn’t with a good agency. The contracts, as I know now—two years later—were simply the worst kind of contracts a ghostwriter can end up with.
If your bubble is sour and angry, the air you breath is sour and angry, too. So when I left that job, my agent back then told me if I ever write again, I will never find an audience, I’ll never put another word down, because without the comissions and the guidelines of people who studied writing and have a better grasp on the craft, writing isn’t valuable anyway.
Growing up in a toxic home, not having gone to university or having any education when it comes to creative writing, that wasn’t the first time I heard those words. And hearing them from an agent, a person working in the field—well, take a guess.
You’re always smarter after, I suppose. And when 2024 came to an end, I had worked through most the damage done and decided to never write another word.
Until I started scribbling scenes and sentences one random day, early in 2025. Chunky, stubborn sentences on whatever I could reach—a napkin, paper scraps, the back of a paper bag, my arm. It haunted me a little, to be honest. It would find me in the weirdest moments, at night, at work, in cafés, by rivers, and the urge to just get the sentences down—never more than half a page—was something I could not fight or stop.
The more it happened, the longer the scribbles got.
In the end, before January had even ended, I had to touch my laptop again, had to open Scrivener once more, create a new file. It was a little uncomfortable at first.
I often refer to QLJ as my silly, little project, but honestly, it’s kind of a big thing for me personally. I don’t know where it comes from. It’s not a genre I wrote before. It just started to happen. And it is very stubborn about continuing to happen, I suppose, because even though the first draft is finished, it doesn’t give me space. QLJ is rather persistent to exist.
Maybe, one early morning, at 4:44 AM, I stumbled into a small, odd shop. Who knows. Augustine forgot she was ever there, maybe Asteria forgot, too. Perhaps I can’t seem to re-home Little Sir Menace to a character because it was me who got him first.
Why is that all relevant, you may wonder.
Well.
Not enough that people subscribed for free to continue reading, a whole bunch of you went and took out paid subscriptions.
I panicked a little, to be very honest with you. Because it’s just my writing. I’m not having a degree in writing. I’m not officially published. And I do not count the things I ghostwrote under my former pen name as published.
I honestly can’t put my fingertips on it. I can’t wholeheartedly “feel” your lovely words and compliments, but know that they make me smile and they often find me when I drop into a hole.
Imposter Syndrome has shovels, yes.
One last time, before we get into the point of this post: thank you so much—follower, subscribed Fiend, paid Fiend, it doesn’t matter much because your interest in my writing is healing things neither of you broke.
And for that, I can never be grateful enough.
Grateful, however, is the key for the next part.
For those of you with a yearly paid subscription or anyone marked as “Founder” by June 30, 2025, you’re not just getting an exclusive series anymore.
You’re getting a small, bratty gremlin made real.
Yes. That is Little Sir Menace. And he is being 3D printed as I put this post together. I placed the order a few days ago.
He'll be about 6cm tall (2.36 inches for my imperial Fiends), which is technically tiny but emotionally massive.
As the OG Fiends may notice, Little Sir Menace wears a different armor. He will receive this one as the story progresses, likely in the next two chapters. I had to add this to the plot, because obviously, I did not know I will be 3D-printing him.
His cracked self, with the crumbly armor was a nightmare to print with the first company I had a testrun with, so when I changed companies, I decided to give him a more printable look.
And not to sugarcoat on this: Getting him from drawing to 3D-printable model was a lot of work. This little animation? Yeah, don’t ask.
Putting this video together? Hahahahahaha.
Never again.
Aside of these (few) challenges, finding and picking the right company was somehow even more work. And I think the mad final boss will be the paperwork needed for me to ship them under my pen name rather than my legal name—I’m German after all, there’s paperwork for everything.
A Small Warning
The company I placed the order with can not print him in color. So each one will be hand-painted. By me.
Yes. I’m laughing just like you.
I did not run a test print with them. As you can see in the video, the lance was a bit too long, which I didn’t care about for the animation, but they had to make some adjustments to it for him to be able to stand once he is printed.
So other than that, I do not know how he will look when I receive the little army (I ordered 30).
If you’re a yearly paid subscriber or a founder, one of them is yours.
If you’re not, that’s between you and your god.
Going by that, 20 of them are already scheduled to go places. One stays home with me, and another one will go live with my boyfriend.
He doesn’t read my writing, it’s not his genre, but he deals with all my weird, random questions like “is silver-made a good insult for a French fork?” and other unhinged plot-related messages, and he asked to have one, so naturally, he gets one.
I don’t know if the leftover 8 will also find a new home. There’s still a whole day until the clock hits midnight after all. If, by the morning of July 1st, some are still unclaimed, I’ll have to think about what to do with them.
They may become giveaways. Or perhaps I’ll check the numbers again and see if I have enough left for the monthly paid Fiends. They may be enlisted to protect me from my demon(s). They may unionize.
Who’s to say.
What Happens Next
Once my army of Little Sir Menaces arrives and have been painted to their questionable final forms by yours truly, they’ll be shipped out to you. You’ll spot me in your DMs and of course, you will have to tell me where to ship him to.
I’m paying for shipping just as I paid for each of the Little Sir Menaces. You just need to promise me to love him and to keep him safe.
I’ve read about taxes, and as long as I properly claim on the box what is inside and that it is a gift and that you paid nothing for it, there shouldn’t be any tax-costs on your end.
The goal of them arriving at your destination is December 2025, so that you have a little smug-looking clay knight by the time this year ends.
However, that means, depending on when your package finds you, you will know the ending before everyone else does as the last chapter of Quiet Little Journeys will be published December 31, at 6 AM, when the Four-Fourty-Four closes for one last time.
Not sure if that’s a blessing or a curse, but don’t worry, I already know which smiley I will use to reply to the message that will inevitably find me once you read it.
Of course, if anyone does not want their gift—for whatever reason—I’ll keep it here. No hard feelings. Just let me know when I drop by in your DMs for the address.
Which, honestly, can take me a while.
The Menaces are still in production, shipping to my place will take a bit of time as well, and then I still have to paint them. Aside of that, I am still looking for the right kind of paint (I need it to have a clay-like tone, for obvious reasons). I also want him to have a little bit of shine, so I might need to coat him with lacquer, too.
Which is initially why I had to move this post from end of August to today, June 29—because painting them will take me the longest, and I want to have a bit of a time buffer as I am also working, raising my daughters by myself, writing the Mini Series and Suture Garden, editing the first draft of QLJ, doing Sunday Reads, planning an apartment move, learning Japanese, and whatever smaller project I pick up along the way and take home like a lost raccoon.
I’m also looking for a male voice to do voice overs for QLJ, so that process is also taking up some of my time as I have to listen to samples, contact people, and so on.
(But that’s okay, I’m a Capricorn. I’m not alive when I’m not forcing the universe to have 72h a day)
On a More Serious Note
I genuinely did not expect Quiet Little Journeys to be as loved as it is.
When I started sharing my silly, little project, I never imagined I’d have this many subscribers—let alone more paid ones than fingers on both hands.
Thank you for returning my joy to create to me. You never stole it, but you got it back for me anyway.
And while I can never truly make up to the yearly paid Fiends/Founders for paying that much money for something I offer for free, I hope that a 3D printed Little Sir Menace for you to hold is at least a small sign of how absolutely awed and grateful I am.
Here’s “chaos in boots” again, as Fenner would say.
I’ll try to paint him that way. I’m not a painter. But I’m going to do my best.
Please love him anyway.
That’s it!
You’re welcome. Or not—that is out of my hands.
PS: The post image? Yeah. That’s the cover of the physical copy of Quiet Little Journeys. The one for editing purposes only.
Don’t mind the cat, I haven’t decided yet if it’ll have 5 eyes or 8. Currently, it has 7. If you’re up to date with QLJ, you already met it.
Also, did you know that placing orange dots to make them look like eyes is the most godforsaken task when you’re using Canva???? Hated it.
I am literally tearing up right now, and you know I don’t do that for silly little real life.
The fact that you have gone through so much (um hello cancer survivor?? 😭) and people have been beating you down and telling you lies about your talent, and yet you’re still here and still making literal magic for all of us… I just can’t.
You are such an inspiration to me and I am SO so happy for you that you are finding your audience. Pledging a paid subscription was literally the easiest decision I’ve made all year. Your writing is so special and so are you 🥹
Now go hit your friend on the head again to get rid of all these yucky nice emotions that neither of us can handle 💀
Oh my goodness this is so sweet. LSM is SO cute haha. What an incredible thing to do, and that’s after you already do so much incredible writing and reading.