So while I am loathe to break up my number of chapters further with a non-numbered entry, I have dramatic and delightful insights to provide. I freely admit that a big chunk of this announcement is to force myself to hop off the procrastination and push forward with the thing I'm about to announce, but I am also very excited for this and genuinely enjoying the work as it comes along.
Reforged from Ruin is my pride and joy. It is, to date, the longest and likely best written endeavor I have ever embarked upon, and while there are still like, 5+ more arcs to go at Least, and that's not even getting into proper publication and pushing myself to finally engage with (yuck) Kindle, I also freely admit that 9+ months of writing mainly the same project can get a little tiring. RfR is exceptionally good at keeping it fresh, and I've yet to hit any sort of genuine burnout or exhaustion with subject matter, characters, or world, so... yeah, no worries on that front, this bitch got legs and she walkin.
HOWEVER!
My brain is replete with the juice of many moons and wrinkles enough to be a fitted bed sheet folded by a teenager, and that means I have more story ideas. I've mentioned them briefly over on patreon, and you can even see some of them for free on there, but I have come across an interesting dilemma, that being that, despite my desire to avoid pigeonholing myself... I *really* love biohorror. And while RfR does magic biohorror, there are other avenues! My four stories on the backburner are, at least right now: Warhammer 40k but smaller, weirder, and with metaphorical blackjack and hookers; Victorian-era monster-hunter-world type gritty monster hunting apprentice story (with biomods!); true dark urban fantasy with elements of noir; and last but certainly not least, nascent AI learns to be a person by fighting a bunch of world-ending superweapons and kaiju in a sci-fi modern dystopia.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Do all those sound good to you? Especially that last one, the one I've worked the most on?
Too bad babes, this bitch schmoovin elsewhere.
Within the next week, I want to start posting chapters of my latest work, VISCERAE. A trans gamer girl hunts down the most immersive VR game ever conceived off of a forum rabbit hole, only to enter into a videogame world made entirely of flesh. The game is unique, far better designed than it has any right to be, and as much fun as Ilia is having, there is a slowly growing sense of anxiety and confusion as the game seems to get just a bit more real every time she plays, and the weird mechanics start to infest her waking mind and the real world itself. Does Ilia have what it takes to understand what the game wants, who the other players are, and what it's doing to her before it's too late? How much fun can I have exploring biblically accurate lovecraftian transhumanism? What does it mean to lose track of what is real when the whole world is just your senses? What is it that the game, and Ilia, truly want? And what would it even mean, to see a world transformed foundationally into MEAT?
We're up to 3 chapters so far, so not much, but like I said, this announcement is as much me pushing myself to keep going as it is wanting to share it. VISCERAE is likely going to be much shorter than RfR, which, frankly, is part of why I think I can write it at all, compared to the much denser and more long-lived story ideas described above. While RfR updates should continue as normal for now, and it will remain my main squeeze and favorite babychild at least until I reach what feels like an organic endpoint, I am very excited to soon post my new exploration of a modern eldritch biohorror AND my first ever LitRPG! Wish me luck, and I'll see y'all tomorrow for our regularly scheduled updates!