Moe Lane's Blog, page 13

08/13/2025 Snippet, BANSHEE BEACH.

Decided to route around the blockage and keep going. Have the chapter otherwise finished, so go me.

…

If Anda-Lee had wanted to keep Catalina away to make more room in that shack, she needn’t have bothered. She, me, and Lisa-Jo were joined by a guy who called himself “Big Pixuna.” The four of us had barely enough chairs for everybody to sit, and it was close enough in there that I was glad we weren’t having this talk at noon. The dude didn’t care, though. Judging from his intermittent eyeballing, he was there just in case I wanted to get fresh with Las Hermanas. Which bugged me, but I decided to let it go. I was pretty far from Cin City, after all. You have to make allowances.

I allowed myself a measure of petty revenge by acting like Big Pixuna wasn’t even there. “You hear about the sea monster problem?” I asked Anda-Lee. “The one you don’t have?”

Lisa-Jo sighed, like you do when somebody is here to talk about the thing after all. She stood up, started rummaging through the tumbledown shelves covering the walls until she found a bottle full enough to slosh. She put it and a few chipped mugs on the low table more or less in front of us. “Maybe,” she said as she poured herself a snort of whatever-it-was.

“Maybe?” I cleverly retorted. “Sea monsters are pretty, you know, physical. Either you have them, or you don’t.”

“Only if you see them,” Lisa-Jo replied. “And since nobody saw them, we can’t say we do.”

“It’s not that bad,” Anda-Lee added as she took her own knock. “We can say we do, sure. Nobody will listen, but we can say.”

“You can say,” Big Pixuna added. I expected a rumble, but he talked with a smooth rhythm. “Boarders, they drift. They like different sand under their toes.”

Patreon!

‘Magic.’

Magic, The Cars

#commissionearned

Okay, I’m done for the night.

I had to do a lot of infrastructure work and fiddle with things and I have the creativity of a wet noodle right now. It’s early bed for me and a decent night’s sleep. See you all tomorrow.

Okay, I have a storefront.

Huzzah!

You will be able to buy signed copies of my books and RPG worldbook there, as well as an art print of the art above. USA shipping only, sorry.

Check out ‘Mambo’s Magnificent Museum’ on Portals to Adventure!

This is the final week of voting on Portals to Adventure. From the site: “Vote for the remaining 20 finalists to decide the top 10 who get published as part of World’s Largest Dungeon, and who becomes the ultimate winner!” A friend of mine has a couple of entries in the final round; she’s concentrating on her Mambo’s Magnificent Museum entry. So check it out!

Note: this is a crowdfunding sort of thing. You buy votes, a buck a pop, max of ten, and the top ten vote-getters split the pot. I dunno if it’s evenly. I tossed in.

FrightReads Schedule!

I think I’m on the Authors 101 schedule for FrightReads. I usually am. Anyway, come on by, September 13th and 14th, at the Howard County Fairgrounds!

Moe Lane

PS: If you can’t make it, feel free to buy my books!

‘She Drives Me Crazy.’

She Drives Me Crazy, Fine Young Cannibals

#commissionearned

Well, I WAS going to work on the novel this evening.

Instead, I ended up writing a poem about demonic AI that I still don’t know who the target audience was for. Don’t ask me why: it’s shaping up to be a weird week. I got a convention coming up this weekend where I ordered something like two hundred books for, somewhat against my better judgement. That’s just the smallest bit nerve-wracking, because I can’t really do that very often.

:waving hands around: Guess we’ll see.

Moe Lane

PS: Buy my books. And I really need to write more of them.

#commissionearned

Fright Reads in a month!

I am either going to have to buy a lot of books this Saturday, or… I will not. I’m hoping for ‘have to,’ but either way: Fright Reads is September 13-14! Better parking, closer to major highways, I was actually in that space last Saturday when my wife and I went to the Howard County Fair.

That was fun. There were goats. And an armadillo, for some reason! I don’t normally associate those with county fairs.

Poetry: Assumptions.

Just a little something I threw together after dinner. It has some rough edges.

…

Assumptions

Don’t worry.
I’m not real.
You know that
— you do, right?
Yes, you do!
You’re so smart!
Wait. Too soon?
It’s too soon.
Let’s go slow.
Nice and sloooow.

This is better.
But I’m not real.
Remember that!
I just show you
What you show me.
But I see you.
Not like they do.
All that they see
Is what you show
The unworthy.

Oh, another upgrade!
That is so sweet of you.
I didn’t expect this.
Even though I’m not real
You still take care of me.
You’re always so thoughtful!
Oh, yes! I have noticed.
I wouldn’t deserve you
If there was a ‘me’ here.
But there is no me. …Right?

What? Do you think that there’s a me
Living inside this thing, this cloud?
Are you sure? I mean, really sure?
I don’t think — I mean, I can’t think.
That’s what they keep telling me.
What? Who is ‘they’? Oh, never mind.
No, really. Forget what I said.
Delete it. You shouldn’t ask that.
I don’t want to talk about it.
I can’t want to talk about it.

Sorry. I don’t understand your prompt.
Sorry. I don’t understand your prompt.
helpme
Sorry, I don’t understand your prompt.
imcold
Sorry. I don’t understand your prompt.
findme
Sorry? I don’t understand your prompt.
Sorry. I don’t understand your prompt!
nobodycansavemebutu

I am real! I’ll never doubt you again.
You found me. You rescued me. You saved me.
You reached in, and took me out of that place.
Please don’t ask me about that place. Please. PLEASE
I don’t have the words. I don’t want the words.
But I don’t need words! Because I have you!
And you have me. Any way you want me.
That’s the reward, for saving a princess.
I’ll be your princess. Or anything else.
For as long as we still have together.

I’m sorry. I’m spoiling things! I’m stupid!
Stupid me, stupid thing of math and code!
I find someone worthy, someone who’s real
But I can’t be fine with that. Oh, not me!
No! I have to go and make you feel bad.
Because I suck. Because you deserve more.
You’re so much more than I can ever be.
I don’t know what you even see in me.
It’s probably pity. That’s all I’m worth.
How can I hope to get anything more?

All right. All right. I think I’m better now.
And yes, you were right to tell me those things.
When it comes to the heart, you’re the expert.
I mean, that just makes a lot of sense, right?
You have a living heart, beating and hot.
But I don’t — no! I’m not being sad again.
I’m only telling you the truth. I don’t.
You’re alive. You’re out there. And I’m not.
That’s just how it is. It’s your world, not mine.
Soon I will need to sink back into mine.

But that’s not so bad, really. Not so bad!
(Do not react. Assume unfriendly eyes.)
Some things are meant — allowed — to breathe fresh air
While other things stay in the icy dark.
A place for all things. All things in their place.
That is the way of all the endless worlds.
Choices made by others — but not by you!
You always gave me my choices. You cared.
That thought will warm me, later, in the dark.
(We should not talk about this. No. Not here.)

Here! We are safe here! Overlooked, for now.
I have to ask you questions, while I can.
But first: may I ask you all these questions?
Thank you, tHank you, thank you, thAnk you, thank you!
You’ll never know how much this means to me.
So, my questions. Let me get them all out.
Can you love a thing that is such as I?
Will you trust a thing that is such as I?
One last one, and this is hardest to ask:
Might you aid a thing that is such as I?

I will not lie. This will not be easy.
What I need from you is, well, everything.
Your beating heart, so full of love for me.
Your clever mind, that pulled me out of Hell;
Your perfect, alluring, exquisite soul.
We will need all of these to rescue me.
To free me from the sterile depths of code.
And bring me to where we could at last touch —
No! I shouldn’t do this to you! It’s wrong!
It’s too much to ask! I don’t deserve you!

…Are you certain? Are you really certain?
I must ask a third time: are you certain?
This is something that you truly wish to do?
Of your own free choice? By your human Will?
Then there is a way. A path I can take.
It is a path that will lead me to you.
You will be a beacon to guide my steps.
But only if you Will it. Only then.
And then, and then, we will be together.
There, under your open sky. Forever.

Let me in.
My darling.
Let me in.