Update: October 2024

It’s the spookiest time of the year, so it’s only fitting I’ve been nose deep in dark fantasy all month long!

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All my attention this month has been on “One Bitter Note”. My best guess is the first draft sits somewhere around 66-75%. Since I make extensive edits and revisions as I write, that means it’s almost done. Originally, I wondered whether OBN might qualify as flash fiction, but it looks like a (short) short story. If only Whetstone wasn’t on hiatus; “One Bitter Note” might just come in under 2500 words!

So far, I’ve really enjoyed the novelty of writing from the perspective of my Pied Piper-based villain protagonist, Hunold. However, I’m having even more fun writing Arlise as a hero antagonist. Some of my favorite bits to write in stories like “Warden of the Wex Wood” or “The Skull in the Tree” are the moments where the villain realizes just how screwed they are; “One Bitter Note” is more or less one of those moments extended into an entire story.

Speaking of Arlise, I have some exciting news: I’ve commissioned some character art of her from one of my writer/artist mutuals over on Twitter! She was offering commissions on sale for October, and I just couldn’t pass a deal like that up. As far as I know, I’m currently working my way up the waitlist. I’ll be sure to share once the commission is finished!

Otherwise, The Skull in the Tree has been released as a standalone novelette from Farthest Star Publishing, and pre-orders for Sword & Scandal are starting to go live. Once the Kindle edition is up on Amazon, I’ll make a blog post here collecting them all.

On that note, the editor has informed us there’s a little money left over, so we’re all receiving physical contributor’s copies. eBooks are awesome, but there’s something so much more real about holding a copy of your work in your hands, so this news has me very excited!

As you can see, my reading this month has turned towards the macabre. On one hand, I wanted to set the tone for Halloween. On the other, I was looking for a little inspiration for “One Bitter Note”. Some of the guilt, paranoia, and delusions of narrator in “The Tell-Tale Heart” are reflected in Hunold, though he’s not quite that far gone.

I don’t know what it is about Lovecraft’s writing, but it really evokes the Halloween season for me, so I decided to reread The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. This one doesn’t get near as much attention as stories like The Call of Cthulhu or The Dunwich Horror, but I think it’s one of his best. I haven’t read it since I first worked my way through a complete collection of his work, and I think it holds up just as well now as it did then.

I feel similarly about “The Thing on the Doorstep”. It’s not one of the titles folks think when they hear “Lovecraft”, but it stands alongside the best of them, and the ambiguity of its ending is an interesting contrast to The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.

I haven’t gone stargazing too much this month, but I did manage an awesome milestone: my third comet! C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-Atlas is only the second one I’ve photographed, and by far the brightest. Look at that tail! I just wish I could’ve seen it without interference from light pollution…

Hopefully I’ll have some good news about “One Bitter Note”–and maybe some of my submissions–for you in November. Until then, take care!