Naughty Netherworld Press's Blog: Naughty Netherworld Press on Goodreads, page 112

Weekend Writing Warriors 1 December 2019 (FA, PA, SF)

Weekend Writing Warriors
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“For a brilliant scientist from an advanced race, you are certainly the most naïve of creatures,” the man retorted. “However, I am quite eager to remove us from this cloying atmosphere of poisons both physical and psychic. The Dream House could not be much worse, so long as we stick together. Very well, then, let’s have at it. Through the corridor we shall go, the pair of us together as one. And Yitzy, we trust no-one but ourselves.”
Click here for last week's snippet.
~Cie for Naughty Netherworld Press~
Notes:This snippet is only six sentences long. It is the last paragraph in the first chapter of Ketil and Yitzy's Adventures in the House of Lost Dreams. The speaker is Ketil Nagel, the spirit of a Swedish extreme metal musician who sacrificed himself to the Elder Gods in the 1990s. Ketil is speaking to Yitzy Yithian, a renegade member of the Great Race of Yith, exiled by his fellows for exhibiting too much compassion, a trait most Yithians consider a weakness.
Earth's Dreamlands, the Elder Gods, and the Great Race of Yith are the creations of H.P. Lovecraft.
The Xura Dream House is the creation of Chaosium for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game.
Ketil Nagel and Yitzy Yithian are original characters created by Team Netherworld.
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Weekend Writing Warriors 24 November 2019 (FA, PA, SF)

I made a new WWW banner using Pixlr, and everyone is welcome to use it if they like.Click the banner to go to this week's Weekend Writing Warriors blog hop.
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“Ketil, my friend, I find you a most humorous companion,” the creature stated. “What have we to fear from Nyarlathotep? We are but two lonely souls, one the shade of a once-unhappy Earthman who ended his own life, the other a creature outcast from his kind for possessing too much empathy to allow him to conduct potentially life-threatening experiments on those creatures my fellows deemed inferior. We are not power-hungry, we have no armies of fawning sycophants prostrating themselves at our feet, we have no money at all, let alone monetary excess. To the likes of Nyarlathotep, we are worthless. I do like it that way. Do you concur?”
Click here for last week's snippet.
~Cie for Naughty Netherworld Press~
Notes:Yitzy Yithian is a member of the Great Race of Yith who has been exiled by his fellow Yithians for displaying too much empathy. 
Ketil Nagel is the spirit of a Swedish metal musician who sacrificed himself to the Elder Gods.
The Great Race of Yith and Nyarlathotep are the creations of H.P. Lovecraft. Ketil Nagel and Yitzy Yithian are the creations of Team Netherworld.
Image copyright Scythemantis on Deviantart

November PAD Chapbook Challenge 2019: Day 19: Another Antonymic Bomb: Loved and Despised

Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
Admirable - AwfulBeautiful - BoorishCompassionate - CruelDarling - DeplorableEnlightened - EgocentricFantastic - FoulGenuine - GruesomeHeavenly - HellishInnocent - IrredeemableJust - JealousKeen - KinkyLovable - LoathsomeMarvelous - MalevolentNoble - NastyObliging - OligarchPure - PretentiousQuaint - QuarrelsomeResourceful - RuthlessSagacious - SadisticTender - TerribleUnaffected - UnjustValiant - VileWarm - WickedXenial - XenophobicYielding - YellowbloodedZany - Zealot
Princess Ondina
Notes:Today's November PAD Chapbook Challenge prompt asked for a protagonist or antagonist poem, or one that incorporates both. I was inspired to do a character study through the eyes of Princess Ondina, a long-ago incarnation of Pepper Baiij.
Princess Ondina was the reluctant captive regent of West Zecor on the doomed world of Zetar 6. She was held in the thrall of her brutal half-brother, King Qweh. One night, Qweh slew Ondina's bodyguard in a drunken rage. The next day, he brought the princess a diminutive thief whom he'd captured as a replacement bodyguard, thinking himself terribly witty. Ondina, however, stated that the little man would make a fine bodyguard and asked Qweh to leave her laboratory. 
Ondina and the thief, whose name was Serab, established an immediate rapport that quickly turned to love. There was little time for amorous moments, however. The world's binary suns were engaged in a battle with one another that would soon turn deadly, and there was no way that the cruel and jealous King Qweh was about to allow his oppressed sister to find joy with a common thief.
In this character study, Ondina compares the attributes of her beloved and her brother.
Zecor or Zetar 6 is the planet from which the malevolent Lights of Zetar of the original Star Trek series originated. I always wanted to write a backstory for this episode and, nearly 40 years later, I finally pulled the trigger on the project. 
The Lights of Zetar are the creation of the late Jeremy Tarcher and the late Shari Lewis. 
All the characters mentioned in this post are the creations of Team Netherworld.
Fetch is the flagship story in Team Netherworld's Yadira Chronicles.

Tidbit Tuesday: November PAD Chapbook Challenge 2019: Day 13: A Fetch Story Poem: The Ballad of Gerry Clifford: One So Small

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how can one so smallmake a difference at all?I fear all is lost
Gerry Clifford


Notes:
Fair warning that the explanation for the tidbit is longer than the tidbit. If you are the sort of nerd who enjoys reading about creative processes and what was going on in the author's fucked-up brain, you may enjoy this. If you prefer it when authors shut up and just tell the story, you'll probably want to give this mess a miss.

It may seem a massive--nay, an outlandish and well-nigh unforgivable exercise in utter laziness for me to repackage this poem which I published just yesterday and publish it again for Tidbit Tuesday. However, I have my reasons beyond laziness for duplicating and re-routing this little gem. You see, my muse has returned and I am inspired! The many wild, free-roaming chapters of Fetch are finally being corralled and structured into novelettes or novellas. I don't rightly know which yet. That will be determined when the manuscript is complete.
Each novelette or novella begins with a poem, and this is the poem that kicks off Book One. The artwork, which may or may not end up serving as the cover for the book, was created by Yours Truly using Pixlr. No credit is due to Photoshop, which I used to use exclusively, but Adobe is scummy and is making it so people like me, who have older versions of Photoshop, are not able to access those versions because they want to strong-arm everyone into paying monthly blood money for Creative Cloud. As our hero, Gerry Clifford would say, "fuck that shit." Although it would sound more like "fook that shite."
The November PAD Chapbook Challenge prompt for the day requested a Persona poem, and I was stuck. Then I thought of Team Netherworld's beloved protagonist, Gerry Clifford, and decided to let him take over and write a poem that sums up his personality and motivation in just a few words.

Fetch is an Irish term for an apparition of a person who is still living. Gerry's body is alive, but his brain is severely compromised, and so his spirit is starting to make more frequent astral excursions.
Fetch is the flagship story in Team Netherworld's Yadira Chronicles, and Gerry Clifford is its male protagonist. When Gerry's cognitive abilities became too deteriorated for him to remain at home, his wife, Anne, had him placed in London's Candlelight Ridge Care Center for Memory Loss. On his first day in the center, Gerry encountered Yadira Root, who presented herself as a kindly older woman volunteering her heartfelt help but who was, in fact, a daughter and high priestess of Nyarlathotep.
To Gerry's horror, he discovered that the residents of Candlelight Ridge were being targeted by a malevolent hive entity which appears as flashes of brilliant multicolored light. It quickly became apparent that the entity had a particular interest in Gerry and was biding its time for reasons he couldn't understand. 
Upon fleeing the entity, Gerry found himself in the presence of Pepper Baiij, a troubled caregiver working with memory-impaired patients in an assisted living facility thousands of miles from England in Ransom, Kansas. Pepper had strong psychic abilities. She had been devastated to hear of Gerry Clifford’s diagnosis. His band, Mainline, was a longstanding favorite act of hers.
We have enough Fetchy material for several books. We doubt anyone else is excited as we are, or, in fact, gives one single fuck. We don't care, we give a fuck and are going to unleash our words on the world regardless.

Nyarlathotep is the creation of H.P. Lovecraft. Everything else in this post can be blamed on Team Netherworld.

Weekend Writing Warriors 17 November 2019 (FA, PA, SF)

Weekend Writing Warriors
“An altar in the Hall of Nyarlathotep—but of course! Who would not be quite curious to follow a portal in a blasted Hall of Nyarlathotep Worship?”
“I think that this portal may lead back to your world via the Dreamlands, Ketil,” the creature stated calmly. “From my understanding of the sigils surrounding the gate, this passage terminates in Xura. I have never been to Xura, but I have heard rumors of a most interesting house which is said to be a focal point in this realm.”
“Oh, but of course. The House of Great Fuckery,” the man expounded. “And who in their right mind would not wish to go through the House of Great Fuckery?”
~Cie for Team Netherworld Creations/Naughty Netherworld Press~
Notes:Last week's Weekend Writing Warriors post can be found here.
Ketil Nagel is the spirit of a Scandinavian metal musician who sacrificed himself to the Outer Gods of Cthulhu Mythos infamy.
While exploring a long-dead world in hopes of assisting a friend who is in deep trouble with the powerful and malevolent Yadira Root, Nyarlathotep's high priestess and daughter, Ketil met a  renegade member of the Great Race of Yith who was studying the planet. The benevolent creature had been ostracized by others of its kind and did not have a name. Ketil gave his new friend the name Yitzy, which pleased the extraterrestrial giant.
The Cthulhu Mythos, Earth's Dreamlands, Nyarlathotep, the Outer Gods, Xura, and the Great Race of Yith are the creations of H.P. Lovecraft.
The Xura House of Lost Dreams appears in the Chaosium Call of Cthulhu Dreamlands Role-Playing supplement.
Ketil, Yitzy, and Yadira Root are original characters created by Team Netherworld.
Yithian by Paphasi on DeviantArt

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November PAD Chapbook Challenge 2019: Day 5: Antonymic Bomb

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay
adored abhorredbeloved bedeviledcherished castoffdelightful devilembraceable evilfortunate fiendgreat goblinhonored hatedidolized ignoredjoyful jerkkind killerlovely leechmeticulous messnice neer-do-wellopen obstructionpleasant pratquiet quarrelrighteous roguesweet scallawagtidy tawdryunforgettable understrappervital vampirewholesome wagtailxylographing xenomorphsyeomanly yobboszesty zombies
~Cie~
Notes:Today's prompt for the November PAD Chapbook Challenge was to write a pleasure and/or displeasure poem. So I tapped out this cheeky little number.

Tidbit Tuesday: The Yadira Chronicles: Fetch: Story Synopsis

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Gerry Clifford just wanted to die; the once prolific and highly successful musician's talent was fading along with his badly compromised brain's ability to recognize anything of his former life. He was the sickest he’d been in many years, but he still had a job to do; save the targeted souls at Candlelight Ridge Care Home from being absorbed by a malevolent entity whose nature Gerry did not understand in spite of his vast metaphysical knowledge.
Pepper Baiij was a wounded personality with a gift for helping troubled spirits; over the years she fell in love with several of the spirits she assisted and in the end wound up heartbroken. Although she swore she would never again involve herself with the spectral realm, Pepper felt deep sympathy for the gentle, frightened Gerry Clifford. 
When Gerry offered his love and trust to Pepper, she couldn't help returning this most meaningful of gifts as she found herself falling for a man who was at once the most fragile and the bravest of souls she had ever known.
~Cie for Team Netherworld Creations/Naughty Netherworld Press~
Notes:Fetch is our flagship story, the one that kicked off The Yadira Chronicles back in 2014. There is so much love for this story in our hearts, and yet it has been on the back burner for far too long. One of the reasons why I shelved the Carnal Invasion project was to be able to get back to working on The Yadira Chronicles. 
Lesson learned, People. Don't do something strictly for the money. You won't be happy. Or, at least, I wasn't. The Carnal Invasion project arose from a place of financial desire. Now I'm relighting the fire under the project that is my first love.

Rainbow Snippets 9 November 2019

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“For mine poor bougainvillea,” the Mouse Maid declared. “Now, into ze bath with you. Scrub down and I shall prepare ze massage table and fetch ze mistress zat she may watch ze proceedings. What is your name, oh Crusher of Flowers?”
“Christy, and I’m very sorry about your flowers. I will make it up to you, I promise.”
~Cie for Naughty Netherworld Press~
The Rainbow Snippets group on Facebook provides authors with an opportunity to share a six-sentence snippet of their own LGBT fiction, or to share an LGBT book rec from their blog or website.

This snippet comes from Naughty Netherworld Press' newest WIP, Duchess Daisy Delphinium's Garden of Erotic Delights. Our protagonist, the fair Christy Ferdinand, has fallen through a wormhole and found herself in the middle of a beautiful flower patch being confronted by a bossy Mouse Maid.

Weekend Writing Warriors 10 November 2019 (FA, PA, SF)

Weekend Writing Warriors
Obscured by a poisonous haze on a world which had died when Earth was young, a humanoid figure stood speaking to a large alien being which towered over him despite his own impressive height. The man expressed concern for the well-being of his companion in their current toxic atmosphere.
“Yitzy, I suggest that we leave this unwholesome world,” the man insisted. “Although you are evidently a fearless and adaptable sort of being whose zeal for the sciences is either commendable or insane, I must be forthcoming with you. Surely even an enormous and rubbery snail-footed monstrosity such as yourself will wind up dead if you breathe the chemical soup of this damned hell-hole for long enough. I cannot put too fine a point on it. I demand that we make our exit forthwith.”
“Very good, Ketil, I concur with your assessment, although I could easily remain in this place and suffer no ill effects,” the creature replied. “You see, I have no lungs as the living among your kind do; my form adapts to whatever gases are present in the atmosphere. However, I am curious to follow a portal that I have discovered under the altar in the Hall of Nyarlathotep.”
~Cie for Naughty Netherworld Press~
Notes:This snippet comes from Team Netherworld Creations' newest WIP, Ketil and Yitzy's Adventure in the House of Lost Dreams. Ketil Nagel is the spirit of a Swedish extreme metal musician who committed suicide in a shocking and ritualistic fashion at the age of 25. Yitzy is a renegade member of the Great Race of Yith who struck out on his own to do scientific research with the goal of helping those who are in danger. Members of The Great Race of Yith normally possess high intellect but low compassion. Yitzy is an exception to this rule and has been ostracized because of a trait considered a weakness by his fellows.
The Great Race of Yith is the creation of H.P. Lovecraft. These beings were introduced in his story, The Shadow out of Time, which was published in the June 1936 issue of Astounding Stories.

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Insecure Writers' Support Group November 2019

Image by Jonny Lindner from Pixabay
Hey, People. As usual, I'm a day late and a dollar short. I kind of forgot that yesterday was IWSG day. So, I'm slipping in the back.
The question for this month was: "what's the strangest thing you've ever Googled in researching a story?"
I don't know, but the medieval sex toys question is as good as any.
I'm kind of feeling depressed about my decision to pull the plug on the Carnal Invasion project. I left the characters in that Universe in an eternal cliffhanger, because it's doubtful that I'll be going back to it. I wanted to get back to the kind of writing that I'd been missing out on trying to keep up with the Carnal Invasion serial. I thought about perhaps doing it as a yearly NaNoWriMo project, but I don't know. It would probably turn out to be just bad writing because that's what I tend to get from NaNoWriMo.
Speaking of NaNoWriMo, I have a theory that the people who tend to enjoy writing that way also tend to be the sort of people who use outlines. I hate using outlines. I enjoy word count constraints for flash fiction because they force me to be concise. I dislike word count requirements on longer pieces. I like doing Camp NaNoWriMo because you can choose your own goal. I usually choose chapters. My chapters tend to average about 500 words. Camp NaNoWriMo works for me. NaNoWriMo does not.
The truth is, between writing my own stories, poetry, blog posts, and book reviews, I probably write at least the NaNoWriMo required word count most days. It just doesn't work for me to confine that all to one project. What comes out is garbage and I can't stand to look at it again. I looked at the NaNoWriMo project I did in 2011 to see if I could stomach editing it. No dice, it still sucked. I took a perfectly okay idea and what came out with the forced word count was something that no-one should read, ever.
One thing I've noticed with the advent of e-books is that novelettes and novellas, which had previously fallen into disfavor, are making a comeback, and I couldn't be happier. I could write and edit a novelette or even a short novella in a month. A full-length novel is something else again.
For those of you who are doing NaNoWriMo, power to ya! I had to finally admit that in all honesty, I really and truly hate writing that way. It is very likely that I won't do it again. I may see you at Camp NaNoWriMo, though.
~Cie~