Potato Nose

Wild card segment 2

My planned format for this story is going to be an alternating switch between third person limited, past tense (from the perspective of Sparhawk) and first person, present progressive (the isekai character Anthony). This piece here follows Anthony and will be directly appended to the first I did when the actual release chapter comes out.

Working on this project has been... enlightening as to how far my tolerance for certain aspects has tightened. Some of it is practice, some of it is ...

Wild Card (working title, subject to change)

It was well after midnight, and a dense gray fog had crept in off the Cimmura river to mingle with the pervading woodsmoke from a thousand chimneys to blur the nearly deserted streets of the city. The Pandion Knight, Sir Sparhawk, nonetheless moved cautiously, keeping to the shadows whenever possible. The streets glistened with moisture, and pale, rainbow-colored hues surrounded the torches vainly attempting with their feeble light to illuminate streets into which no sane man ventured in thes...

Work progress and a temporary shift in focus

So, as you all will know, I've had some difficulties writing of late. I'd chalked it up to my significant health issues this year, which haven't really abated, just become moderately more manageable. Chronic? Probably. But I'm not dying anytime soon, barring unforseen incidents.

However, I've discovered that my writer's block and slugish ability to chart a story seems to be tied specifically to Worm and Parahumans. Looking back, I've been writing Parahumans fanfiction and crossovers f...

Month of September billing paused

Not much to elaborate on. Due to my extended illness and difficulties writing, I'm skipping the September billing cycle. I'll still be trying to write but this is my apology for the extended inability to produce anything. May end up skipping October as well if things don't improve. I appreciate your patience.

Working Title: Bargain Basement Archmage

So I've been working on this one for a little while, and I have several snippets and about thirty pages of background in my current working notebook. Here's a snippet of the introductory chapter that I've worked over and hopefully rooted out the typos from.

---

The stone brick cellar is damp, cold, and musty with years of untended grout that somehow always manages to restore itself to its utterly soiled condition between the time I scrub it each morning and the next. It's a haz...

Not dead yet

So my health has had some issues over the last couple months. It's impacted my pace of writing and my ability to stay in a story. I've wandered between stories I haven't finished, attempting to make headway, but it's slow going and my focus isn't there when I'm sick and hurting. I promise you all I'm trying, and I haven't given up.

April update

So, output has been light for the last month. In addition to needing to help my wife with two separate camping trips with her guild ren Faire guild, there's been a couple side projects I've been working on that won't uninfest my brain, including something that's a combination of a couple public domain things. I'm still assembling the outline on that one, but that outline is still undergoing since revision on the fly so it may be a little while before the reveal on that, unless my muse decides...

Legacy

I've needed to take a small break from Marked. It's been preying on me, a bit, the writing, the editing, the research of both source material and what I've already written, because my notes are haphazard and unorganized and a phone really just doesn't do the job when it comes to large scale organization of documents. I've spent about a week on Reddit reading and doing writing prompts, something to bring back my enjoyment of writing, and I've written something there that I actually think I wan...

Back to Roots 2

I'd had many reasons for wanting to come back. Not to this particular 'now', of course. And yet... where DID the extra energy come from? I had meticulously plotted the path of my reversion, I should have arrived the fourth of August, 1996. Every ounce of mass aboard the station was accounted for. Every bolt, every chip of paint, every-

Ah, hell. Everything except my OWN bodymass. What a staggeringly stupid oversight.

After all those years, thinking I had considered all the angl...

Duality

A one shot story I've been doodling with as a mood exercise.

Duality

As I sit at my desk and discuss possible tactics for getting the mayor on side in rebooting the ferry, I'm also in a Hardy Boys Burger Barn, eating their Triple Bessy, the quarter pound potatoes of American beef with tomatoes, avocado, onion rings, and Hardy sauce. It's a big burger, their best, and I'm going to get to enjoy it for free and without the inevitable stomach ache that follows. I'm skipping lunch t...

My long break

So I haven't put out a new chapter anywhere since early December. This isn't to say I haven't been writing or studying; I've been working on a noir piece that I hope to have the first chapter ready for people to read within a couple weeks. Right now, my outline is looking at maybe 40k words or so, which I intend to release in chapters of around 4-5k. This is subject to change, of course, as the story necessitates but that's just the way writing works, I guess.

My apologies for the qui...

Refuge in Audacity 6

Chapter Six

Dinner was an unusually quiet affair; much of the banter and noise of the event was suppressed by the presence of not merely a male, but an auspicious one. Rincheg in particular appeared anxious as his eyes continually went to the Precept, only to drop his eyes if Gaxter even glanced in his direction. Gretchen wondered if it was because Rincheg was old enough to remember the old warrens-- he had been just the right age to be thinking of trying to join the goblin hosts early...

My mental block

I apologize to you all.

I write from a place of hope; one factor common to most of my stories is that they start out from trouble, tragedy, and strife. Trials assail my characters but slowly, through the things they experience, their circumstances improve. They fight, they learn, they overcome, and eventually they get to a better place.

After the events of the last couple years, and especially the last few months, my hope has cracked. My belief in the possibility of things get...

My thanks

It's been a rough month and a half. My mind has been scattered, my concentration poor, my inspiration cold and even my ability to reach for language and set it on a page felt hollow and empty. Bare, like a cabinet in an abandoned house. But I'm finally writing again. Progress is slow, but it's progress all the same. To all of you who have shown such great, great patience and understanding with me, I offer my most heartfelt thanks for the faith you placed in me that I had trouble placing in my...

Forty-Eight Hours: 1

Forty Eight Hours: a Worm Shortfic

There's no feeling in the world quite like when you look at your high-school yearbook and realize that a third of your graduating class is already dead.

It's not a good feeling. The overwhelming majority of them were assholes and elitist pricks; in Dyson Valley High School I had four friends total, all from our affectionately named 100 Row Losers, and I've kept in touch with none of them. Of those friends I made an effort to touch bases with o...

An apology

The last month has been less than optimal for me. My writing has stalled pretty hard due to some health concerns and a significant loss of coordination on my right side. Like an idiot I've been putting off seeing a doctor about it, but I know it's only a matter of time before I knuckle down and do it. Not that we can really afford the visit even with insurance, much less any treatment that visit will require.

It brings to mind the dark humor of gen Z as they cheerfully and blithely re...

Refuge in Audactiy 5

At long last, it continues! I've had this bubbling on the back burner for... entirely too long. But I finally have a new chapter available for my patreon people!

Chapter Five

The rest of the sieving went quickly. Varnon's strength gave out mid way through his second lap, but Precept Hannuth simply instructed him to swap the strapping of his shield and continue with his off hand as before, which got Varnon most of the way through his third lap before he was barely able to lift ei...

Marked, Interlude G

"Try it now."

Axel hesitated. "You close everything up in there?"

"Yeah!" Gilbert called back. "Everything's clean. Hit the juice."

There was only a moment's pause, and then Gilbert saw the flood lights for the backyard coming on. "Fuck yeah!" Axel shouted out to him. "That did it! What was the problem?"

Gilbert grinned as he wriggled out of the crawl space. "Bro, rotten wires. Got them swapped out with some spares from my bag, capped them off good."

"Fuck...

Marked Chapter Thirty-Four

As we get closer to Greenheart, we start to see people camping out, around small campfires and tents. Ahead, I notice a weird looking, mottled green bubble about twenty feet across, the left third of which is occupied by a massive trunk that's wider than the bubble itself. I try very hard not to think about the fact that the trunk isn't actually the largest I've seen here, nor draw conclusions about the height that suggests for the trees themselves.

"Tiny Hut," Nax in...

Marked, Chapter Thirty-Three

Stepping out of the portal from the Mansion is perhaps the scariest thing I've ever done. Nax is tightlipped with both Chalmer and I about the nature of the threat she suspects, only stating that it has unquestionably moved on, and that if Muckertown survived, it was solely because the attacker hadn't cared enough to kill them all. 

I'd guessed that there were things that were dangerous to dragons and apparently, I was right. A dragon's natural predato...

Marked, Chapter Thirty-One

I make use of the customer bathroom for its stated purpose, washing my hands thoroughly. The bathroom is relatively clean but I still refuse to touch the water knobs or the door handle with bare hands, using my paper towel to open the door before tossing it into the almost full trash can. I feel the caffeine hitting me and giving me the much needed alertness but I've got a touch of headache behind my eyes and refreshing myself with Second Wind doesn't do much to soothe the dull ache in my cal...

Marked, Chapter Thirty-Two

As I look at the devastated interior of my Hidden Lodge, I can see that Nax was rather understating the damage. Whatever came through that wall didn't just break in, it tore most of the wall down. The damage looks to be centered on the wall where the window was, the specific shuttered window that I instructed the minion to shove the meat out of. Dirt, roots, sod, leaves, and rocks are scattered across the wood floor, the table overturned, both trestle benches smashed, and the bath ...

Marked, Chapter Thirty

I'm lying on my back under open sky. Above me, stars shine in a darker night than any that has graced the Eastern seaboard in the United States in the last hundred years. Wispy clouds mask patches of the sky, their sullen charcoal tones subtly visible against the background pitch black. The most striking thing, though, are the five moons in the sky of varying sizes and colors, none of which is quite so bright or large as Earth's moon, although the pale lavender one is almost as big, and a lig...

Marked, Chapter Twenty-Nine

I feel drained. It feels like it's been the longest day of my life, and it's just barely past noon. Despite the mid day, the angle of the sunlight streaming through the southern windows of the library tell unmistakably that it's November in New England. The air in the library almost feels chillier than outside, although I'm sure that's more because I'm not walking in direct sunlight now. I pick a book more or less at random from the nearest shelf and meander over to where Nax is seated. I don...

Marked, Interlude F

Clink. Clink, clink. 'Hear the glass slosh and tink, tilt it back and have a drink. Count to ten and start again, clink so you don't have to think.' 

Danny couldn't remember where he first heard that sarcastic little ditty. College? Later, at the Union? Earlier, from a friend of his father? Yeah. That was the one. Someone not so drunk, all the time, less violent, than his father, less of a temper- but that was a sliding scale, wasn't it? 'The base is up and the n...

Marked Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I'm not prepared for the sudden emotion and memory that hits me upon entering the hospital room. It's been a week since I was in one myself. Somehow, despite everything that's happened in the last seven days it's still raw, fresh. Moreso than I would have guessed given how little I've thought of it this week-- or is it that I've simply been too busy? I feel a wave of something like vertigo unsteady me for a second.

I force myself to something like equilibri...

Marked Chapter Twenty-Seven

It doesn't happen. Whatever I thought I would be able to do here, I'm stopped at the desk. "I'm here with Father Salvador DiMaggio and Bishop Wellhausen," I repeat. "They're here to-"

"Look, girl, you just said yourself that you're not family of Mrs. McKinley, and you're not on the approved visitors list," the desk nurse tells me in the sort of voice that clearly states she's had it up to here with people who think they're the exception. "You can wait over there for the f...

Marked Chapter Twenty-Six

I slip out the library door, walking past the rows of shelves, to see Nax seated at the table, but Chalmer nowhere to be found. I walk up to her, taking a seat next to her, and pick up one of the books she has stacked nearby. It doesn't escape my notice that it apparently takes her around three seconds to read a page. "Where's Chalmer?"

Without looking up, she replies, "Went off to use the privy."

I blink. "Do you have flush toilets back home?...

Marked Interlude E

Intellectually, Colin knew that he'd been lucky to get off with a warning. Bugging the chapel in advance of getting a warrant had been questionable at best, but the clincher in Director Piggot's tirade had been the one he'd placed over the confessional. Colin hadn't thought much of it-- it was a convenient location about the middle of one of four walls in the church. When the director had heard about it, though, he'd briefly thought she would have a stroke. 

Part...

Marked Chapter Twenty-Five

After the last couple days in Eberron, riding in a car feels a little weird, anticlimactic, after two dragon flights. Three, counting this morning. The street passes us by as we drive, Bishop Wellhausen and Father DiMaggio conversing about church business that I have no real touchpoints with. I content myself with watching the world pass by the car. Well, not content, but more endure.

I don't want to be seeing a doctor. It's a waste of my time and theirs. But it's either ...