My journey to write this story began the moment I was born. Along the way, a few moments shaped the weaving of it. The first came in 2019.
Scrolling through Instagram, I came across a comic strip that drew me in. I traced it back to Tamen de Gushi by Tan Jiu, a webcomic that opened the world of Girls' Love (GL) to me. The more I explored the genre, the more I realized how few stories truly captivated me.
Reluctantly, I decided to explore Boys' Love (BL) and discovered a vast world I could lose myself in. Both genres have their own quirks and storytelling problems. The difference left me with an uncomfortable question, and before long I was angry.
Why did stories about women get so much less attention?
That's how Half in Fire was born. At first, the premise was simple. One of two women dies. Sometime later, the other receives a letter inviting her to unravel the mysteries left behind. I asked my partner at the time what he thought of the plot, and he encouraged me. I wrote the first chapter that same day, in May 2020. By December, I'd finished the first draft.
The story was still incomplete. As I faced the challenges of publishing, I realized how much more polishing Half in Fire needed. I revised it intensely in 2021, barely touched it in 2022 and 2023, then threw myself back into it in 2024.
It took a journey of self-discovery for me to see this story as more than art, more than a way to express what I felt and how angry I was at the disconnection I saw in the world. Numerology helped. So did books like Women Who Run with the Wolves. Above all, there was my awakening to the energy of love in 2016, something I only came to live fully in 2023.
I understood that Half in Fire was also a chance to share what love can do. I mean love as a revolutionary force, beyond the ideal of romance. Love that transforms, connects us, lights a fire in us to evolve, and changes the world profoundly.
We are coweavers of our own realities within the Corchesweave. Feeling, finding our rhythm, and vibrating are how we reconnect with ourselves and with the whole.
Writing this story was a delight. I hope Akiko, Maia, Kiara, Saymon, Hikaru, Cron, Trix, Denden, Maeva, Takashi, and Alícia touch your heart. I hope you have as much fun reading Half in Fire as I had writing it. Above all, I hope it inspires anyone who wants to tell rich, many-layered stories from a diversity of perspectives.
The world's richness lies in its diversity.
I'm still writing Fragmented Universes. Up next? Half in Darkness.
There's so much more to come!
✨ Luna, with you, I'm whole.
✨ Paulo Henrique Melo Tarcha, Carlos Guilherme, and Luis Fernando Ribeiro Rodrigues, for being my first guinea pigs and giving me such valuable insights.
✨ Jemima Collazos, for the incredible proofreading (still in progress, haha).
✨ Cosmic Weavers Nico and Ju, for walking this path with me with so much love.
✨ Daniela Vitalino da Silva, for opening my eyes!
✨ Rayssa Bissoli, for your emotional insights.
Songs That Inspired Me
Disparate Youth — Santigold
When You Came Into My Life — Scorpions
In the Name of Love (feat. Bebe Rexha) — Martin Garrix
Beautiful Crime — Tamer
Kisses,
Gratesoul for reading!
This work is a living act of weaving and coweaving. It keeps changing shape and asks to be copolished. I have many projects in the works with others, so please be patient with me as I make updates.
This work is also a metamorphosis. It has now revealed what lies at its core, a creative mythology.
In writing it, I had to burn away old habits and choose new gestures.
✨ Language. I transmuted negative phrasing. Where I might have written "I didn't understand," I affirmed what resonated. Where I might have written "I didn't feel it," I gave voice to what I did feel. It's easy to say what something "isn't." To say what it is, you have to embody it. That made me go deeper into my characters, to feel them, perceive them, and vibrate with them fully.
✨ Time. I broke with the Gregorian calendar. I moved the story into the Gaia lunisolar calendar, a living time cowoven with the moon, the sun, and the body. Time once trapped in lines began to spiral.
✨ Blood. Akiko bleeds. The story says it plainly. "The blood came rushing down." Her cycle is inscribed in the story. Every mention, from "my Enchantress" to the body feeling its own flow, restores the feminine's right to mark time with its own blood.
This book is a doorway. It lifts the veil on archetypes and rhythms. There's so much more to explore.
If you feel the she-wolf calling, here are some books and paths to dive into.
Women Who Run with the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estés. About the wild woman and the myths that sustain her. I swear, you'll go in one woman and come out another. It's an awakening! You'll watch your whole life play back in your head as you read.The Heroine's Journey by Maureen Murdock. A much-needed awakening to the feminine journey.Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici. About the destruction of the feminine throughout history and the witch's power as a creator.Invisible Women by Caroline Criado Perez. For those who love data. Brace yourself, though. The anger will come.The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. A classic on the condition of women.The Mother of All Questions by Rebecca Solnit. Essays on silencing and speaking up.Other mythologies and studies of goddesses, for anyone who wants to extend the creative roots of the sacred feminine.
May this note be an invitation.
With every word affirmed, every cycle lived, every acknowledgment of blood, the she-wolf awakens.