I don't often get a chance to talk about the world and what it means to me as an author.

Part of it is... like being a stage magician. You don’t get to see what’s backstage. I move my hands, the pretty girl in the sequined outfit assures you in the audience that there are no wires, and then I make magic.

I feel like... If I told you, your eyes would glaze over and you’d stop caring. Any author probably feels the same. Maybe any artist.

“I painted this.” They say, and the crowd goes “Ooooh”

“I painted this using a combination medium on a stretched canvas with techniques culled from-”

[snore]

But I think we want to talk about it.

I know I do. I want to share with you how good it feels to create something. I want to convince you that you too can create something. Anyone can be creative.

*****

In my mind, there are many worlds, and in each world there are many lives. I have the unique privilege to visit them and share them with you. I often feel inadequate in conveying their beauty and ugliness, their majesty and corruption, but I want you to see them! Feel them in your heart, just like I do.

As an author I want to convey everything. I sit in a beautiful theatre and I get to watch the best movie ever. And then, as I leave the theatre, I have to scribble down everything I just saw on a notepad and hope to god that I got all the details. When I fail... I fail you.

*****

When the thing that once called itself Sasaki’s daughter, the thing that once called itself Katarina lon Pavlenko, and the Sentinel sat down in the deserts of Bel-Arib and discussed the end of the world, I was there. When Darius, Odessa and Kayelinth had their own discussions in the deserts of Bel-Arib, I was there.

(oh, I’m not spoiling anything; I feel like I’ve left enough breadcrumbs to lay a carpet all the way to the Emerald City in the Land of Oz.)

I left you a couple of clues in- Oh. I haven’t actually published those stories yet. I wrote them, they’re sitting there, ready to go, but I haven’t published them, yet. So I can’t actually talk about them. Look forward to it.

*****

Okay. The World. I made this. Well, I made She. A nameless Goddess of unfathomable power and majesty and... overwhelming disinterest. She made the universe, said, ”Everything should be fine” and then immediately fucked off. That was her role. Nobody in the world knows She exists- ehhhh.

None of this means anything to the people of the World of Aggenmor. I’m just sort of setting the stage to talk about the world of Aggenmor.

I’ve tried talking about the world before, here and there. The problem is perspective. An ant knows what an ant knows. It builds its little city and does its little thing. A dog walks by the anthill. Does the dog know about the city it just ruined? Does it care? Does the man walking the dog in the vacant lot where the ant nest resides know or care?

Perspective.

The characters are ants, with an ant’s perspective. They don’t know why things happen, only that they happen, and when things happen, it’s unrelentingly catastrophic, bleak, and inexplicable.

The disembodied head gashed his teeth at her, jagged, tumbled things stained red. “There are things in the world, Katarina Pavlenko.” It growled up at her from the wooden box. It sneered up at her. “Endlessly hungry, endlessly thirsty, eager to pounce upon the unwary.” it grated.

“Yes, but my Goddess is strong.” She replied simply, closing the lid on the box. As the box closed, the shadow covered its face in darkness. She glanced up at the sky and was horrified to see a gigantic hand likewise closing a lid over her. Darkness closed around her once more.

Katarina puts the monster’s head in a box and closes the lid. She is unfathomably more powerful than he is. She looks up and sees that she herself is likewise in a box.

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There are many layers of perspective. I want to reveal everything; take you back behind the stage and show you that it’s all smoke and mirrors. Or maybe just step back once and give you a larger perspective.

You see, each story has clues in it. A piece of the puzzle. Maybe several pieces. I really wanted to tell a massive, epic story that covers tens of thousands of years, but I know my limitations- I don’t have the ability to write something that epic, that grand, that sweeping. So I tell small stories, and I give you clues, because it’s my hope that you take these clues and understand there’s a bigger, deeper, wider story lurking just beneath the surface.

But all you get to see is from an ant’s perspective.

I want to tell you about the world before The Terror of the Long Night. I want you to know what The Terror of the Long Night actually was! I want you to know what the Void of Oblivion really is.

*****

Lately I’ve been struggling with the relationship between Alysia and Daveth. There’s a powerful dynamic there. She wants him, but will only accept him on her terms. He’s convinced she wants to stick a sword in him.

And juuuuust when things seem to be going her way and she’s juuuust about to break down and try and seduce him in her awkward, never-been-around-men way... he goes and sleeps with another woman.

The Order of the Wolf have excellent senses, so she knows whenever he’s done it, and that turns her into a boiling pot of frustration. I kept telling myself, “You need to resolve this” and I kept putting it off. There are other things to focus on.

Anyway, I was dreaming last night, and suddenly I woke up and I knew exactly how to handle Daveth and Alysia. My body is ready. 心の準備。The stars are in alignment. Everything is for this one glorious moment.

Okay, maybe not glorious.

*****

The more I write in my world, the less I care about this one.

When people are screaming about X actress wearing Y dress at Z event, I am riding through the strands of aspens, golden leaves falling around me as the northern winds blow, an edge of cold promising the winter to come.

When people froth at the lips and flop and flail and babble incoherently and make bold declaratives about [political figure/ ideology] I am instead grinning uncertainly and yet defiantly across a shattered pillar at a young dragon as we play a deadly cat-and-mouse, endlessly circling, each probing for weakness, each waiting for the fatal mistake.

I am there as the goddess is torn from the sky by a nightmare of myth and legend. I am there to bear witness as an angel, suddenly bereft of her god's sustaining force cannibalizes her sisters in a desperate bid for survival. I am there on the hill, arranging troops for one last push at the castle. I am there at the castle, ordering more conscripts into the vanguard. I am there in the van, white-knuckled grip on a splintered pitchfork, tasting adrenaline and fear in my mouth like bad copper pennies.

It's my hope that I can share my world and all it's delights and nightmares, but it's my goal that I can actually tell the stories of that world that my mind travels in.

*****

I’M PUTTING TOGETHER A TEAM- kek. I’m putting together a bunch of short stories that need to be told and need to be shared.

I’m also editing another book I wrote ten years ago. Two books, actually. No spoilers here, except to say it takes place roughly twenty or so years after the events of Seventh Seal.

I really really really want to tell the story of Glory the Morningtide, but I feel like I just don’t have the skill to do it. Also... there are parts that are intensely uncomfortable for me to write, and I need to overcome that before I feel like it’s ready for publishing.

After the Seventh Seal is finished, I’m going to publish a bunch of short stories. Things that take place before Katarina’s story. Things that take place during Katarina’s story. Things that take place between Katarina’s story and the Seventh Seal. Things that take place during the Seventh Seal that I’ve alluded to. Things that take place after the Seventh Seal. Little bits and pieces. It’s my hope that you’ll enjoy them.

*****

Lately I’ve been writing a story with the tentative project name called “Fuck this Isekai World”. I can’t stand isekai, so I wanted to write an isekai that shows my disdain and contempt and loathing for isekai. Instead, it turned into something completely different.

*****

So, first there’s Katarina the Witch Hunter.

Then there’s The Seventh Seal.

Then there will be The Cauldron, which is a bunch of short stories.

Then I’m taking a break from Aggenmor to write something completely different, and then back to Aggenmor.

I will move on to what’s tentatively titled, “The Motley Group” which is another Aggenmor story.

One man! Alone! Betrayed by the country he loves, now their last hope in their hour of need.

Okay so that’s a lie. It’s not at all like that.

I’m trying my best to work on a story tentatively titled “Rhiannon the Blood Wolf” but I’m having a hard time getting traction on it.

After that, and again, if I’ve developed as a person and as an author enough to write about it, I will tell you the story of Glory the Morningtide.

Once I do that, and you read all the stories again, it’s my deepest hope that you will have found all the pieces necessary to unlock the puzzle that is Aggenmor.

Thank you for your time.