DWinchester

Tenebroum's Creeping Success

Well, I think it's safe to say that the new tier was indeed a success. Thank you to everyone that upped your pledges to see what was lurking in the dark...

I was notified by one of my new Patron's that I failed to properly set up discord access for Tenebroum PLUS, and they were totally right. It looks like I failed to do that for Golemancer too. That has been corrected now, so if you wanted to chat on discord, now you can!

So Tenebroum is more than twice as successful as ...

Tenebroum Ch. 66

Ch. 66 - Purified

It was on the next to last day before they journeyed north to Siddrimar that priest-candidate Verdenin had a vision. Not far from the warfs, where the squat and ugly toll tower that held the near end of the chain stood, he saw a beautiful temple to Siddrim rising up to shine its light onto the polluted river. To hear him describe it, it was a building of pure light that would transcend anything that had ever been created before in all the reds, oranges, and pinks of ...

Tenebroum PLUS Ch. 76

Ch. 76 - Saint Erdins Day

Even though he spared a little time trying to locate the mysterious priest that the young guard was quite certain he saw, in the days following his meeting with Brother Verdenin, he never did find anything else. It was as if the strange one-armed man had appeared, spoken to exactly one guard, and then disappeared. Todd never did find the culprit behind the rash of thefts, either, which was frustrating. He was sure that his extra scrutiny prevented the thiever...

Death After Death Ch. 54

Ch. 54 - Rage

Simon didn’t return to his house to take anything with him. Nothing he’d left behind was worth the ghosts he would see there. He had his sword, and that would be enough to get him where he needed to go. There was nowhere in any world he could find solace, but he did know one place where he could get some answers, and that would have to do for now.

The guards had just managed to lift the portcullis by the time they came outside, but with his swo...

A Flurry of Motion that Changes Nothing

That title makes it sound like a bummer, but it's not. It's just - you know those weeks where you are constantly busy, but when you are done you look around and not much has changed? That's what this week feels like to me. Sound and fury signifying nothing and all that. 

You can see from the high points I actually got quite a bit done. 

• Finally posted the new Tenebroum Tier.
• I finished my 17th short story (score is now 16 submissions, 1 acceptance, 5 rejec...
  2023-07-14 20:09:49 +0000 UTC View Post

Tenebroum Ch. 65

At long last, I have completed my backlog project. You know what that means: new Tenebroum Tier. So, if you want 10 more chapters, you can upgrade your Patreon pledge to Tenebroum PLUS, and if you're happy where you're at, that's fine too. I should also note that the $8 Devoted Reader pledge level will also include 20 advance chapters of Tenebroum now (in addition to 10 chapters of everything else).

Ch. 65 - A New Order

The trip to the red hills...

Tenebroum PLUS 66-75

If you talk about any of the below on discord,

Tenebroum PLUS Ch. 55-65

Alright, so this is the first half the Tenebrou

Death After Death Ch. 52-53

Alright - with this update Death After Death is now 10 chapters ahead!!! Took long enough, right?

This week I will be launching a new 20 chapter ahead tier for Tenebroum (because 80% of my patrons are here for Tenebroum,) BUT I noticed today that Simon is developing a small following himself, and we are getting close to 10 patrons on Death After Death. So I may have to add a [Death After Death PLUS] tier as well. What do you guys think? Any interest in that?

Ch. 52 - The...

2023-07-10 13:59:00 +0000 UTC View Post

Submissions: 10, Rejections: 0, Acceptances: 1

The title references my short story stats to date and does not include my novel. Re-Entry is at 2 rejections and counting, but hey - I can look on the bright side, right? Someone somewhere decided that a story I wrote titled Red Skies, was a good fit for their vampire anthology. 

So that's something. This anthology pays a percentage of the proceeds, so I likely won't even make $5 off of it, but now my work is out in the wild. Who knows where it might end up. 

I ...

Tenebroum Ch. 64

Author's Note: You know, when I set myself the goal of a 20-chapter backlog... I had no idea it would take so long to get there. As of today, I am 18 chapters ahead, and this week, if I can find the time to write three chapters, my herculean task will finally be complete. (So, I can start my next herculean task...) 

Ch. 64 - Blight

Once the rain started, it didn’t stop until the parched land was transformed into mud. The Lich hadn’t been the on...

Death After Death Ch. 50-51

Ch. 50 - A Quiet Life

It turned out not to be goblins. The villagers seemed to know that too, of course, but Simon hadn’t bothered to ask them. Instead, after a quiet ride to the source of the problem, he just tried the same trick he’d used last time. Suffocating them in their lair would be a fairly bloodless victory. Unfortunately, he found out the hard way that this wasn’t going to be like last time when half a dozen hobgoblins staggered out of the dank hole in the ground. Oth...

Lessons Learned

So, in the last couple months I've been hanging out in some author-centric discords and I've learned a lot of things that have helped current stories and will help future stories. Things like Ads and shoutouts have really moved the needle on some of my existing stories. Tenebroum is closing in on 2200 followers, but even Letter of the Law has benefited. It might break 100 before I finish writing it, and after spending six months without growing at all, that shocks me a little. 

Bey...

Tenebroum Ch. 63

Ch. 63 - City of the Dead

His walk ever deeper was a timeless monotony, punctuated only by death, as Krulm’venor slew each and every creature that crossed his path. Neither the slow-acting slimes nor the dreaded stone borrers could hope to match the fury he could draw upon at any moment, thanks to the nearly limitless power of the Lich that he was tethered to. At first, the fire spirit welcomed these terrible bouts of violence because they were all that could distra...

Death After Death Ch. 48-49

Ch. 48 - End of the Road

They went south for three days, though they didn’t go particularly fast to avoid wearing out the horse. Given that now they were sleeping on the hard bed of the wagon between a row of crates and the wall, Simon considered this a real improvement. In his mind, nothing was wrong with being pressed against a woman as lovely as Freya every night, but he knew it wasn’t permanent. They couldn’t just stay in the wagon forever. It was no way to live.

The f...

A True Milestone

I did it. After three months of waiting patiently it finally happened: I got my first rejection letter for my unpublished Sci-fi novel, Re-entry. 

I don't say this with a trace of irony or self-pity. Rejection letters are an important part of the author's journey, and I'm happy to have started. Sadly, I have a friend when publishing contacts who reached out to submit it to some people he knew in the industry and their response was basically, 'there's no money to be made in Sci-fi/f...

Tenebroum Ch. 62

Tenebroum is back to one time a week for a while. I plan another half a dozen bonus chapters during the rest of the year (1 for Halloween, several for the end of the arc whenever that hits, just like we did with Arc 1)

In the meantime, I am focusing on backlog. I finished Ch. 67 this week, so I am 15 chapters ahead. I'd like to get that to 22 ahead (20 for a new tier, 2 for buffer.) Then I will slow down a bit and focus on maps, playing with AI tools for Audio books, etc. 

C...

2023-06-19 14:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post

Death After Death Ch. 46-47

Seven Chapters ahead! Just three more weeks at this pace and i will fall over dead (or finally slow down as we reach 10 chapters ahead. One of the two!)

Ch. 46 - A Walk Through Hell

Freya tried asking him questions several times as they navigated the small, slippery ledge through the vile sewers, but each time Simon shushed her. He’d already done his best to explain to her that these corpses weren’t zombies, but she obviously didn’t entirely believe him, and he didn’t ha...

Happy Birthday to Me

Well, I did it. I made it another year, and for the first time in my life, I didn't let writing stay something I would do later. Later it a dangerous thing, and I for many years it was always when I was going to do my writing. After I'd read more. After I'd outlined more. After everything else that was more important was done. 

But we never really get there do we? If you don't make time, there will never be time. 

So last July I started writing Letter of the Law...

Bonus Content: Darkest Reflection Ch. 3-7 (complete)

This is the rest of the story if anyone feels like a spot of supernatural horror. 11,500. I rather like how it turned out. 

Ch. 3 - Just a Taste

Now the Marquess was leaning forward and hanging on her every word as Josephine continued to tell her story.

“So he was just sitting there, surrounded by mirrors?” he asked thoughtfully as he considered her words. “How very peculiar.”

“It was,” she agreed. She was tempted to relate the true ...

Tenebroum Ch. 60-61

Ch. 60 - A Public Spectacle

Though it was hard, Todd forced himself to watch as his superiors put the people of Fallravea to the question. It was an ugly business that went so slowly at first that they could only redeem a few souls each day as the cultists and blasphemers denied they were ever involved in any of the terrible activities that the Templars had uncovered. The butcher who had been trafficking in corpses denied knowing that the tunnel dug into the rear of his shop was even ...

Death After Death Ch. 44-45

Ch. 44 - Like Old Times

As Simon took his time killing the two encroaching zombies and moving the table to re-enforce the broken window before more could join them, he tried to remember what had happened next the last time he was here. Even though he’d have sworn that every detail of those wonderful few days had burned their way into his brain, he was surprised to find that they’d been scoured away just like everything else during his time in the desert.

He ...

Bonus Content: Darkest Reflection Ch 1-2

Royal Road is having a contest for the month of June, and the grand prize is a $1000 advertising credit, which is enough to run an ad for about... 1.3 years. It would be nice to have, since I would never spend so much on advertising. So I decided to write a short to take a shot at it. 

Darkest Reflection is a short Lovecraftian mythos story set in the 1920s that wi...

Tenebroum Ch. 58-59

Ch. 58 - A Fitting Sacrifice

This was the second time it had caused the city of Fallravea to burn, and it was glorious. The Lich had done little else but watch things unravel once the Templars had made their appearance. The fighting and the dying had been interesting in their own way, but the longer things unraveled, the better things got. Even though the scents of death had barely begun to mingle with the thick smoke and rank fear that suffused the city, it already made for a better ...

Death After Death Ch. 41-43

Alright Death After Death is now 5 chapters ahead, as promised! This number will continue to rise by about 1 a week until we are 10 full chapters ahead in about a month. Thanks for reading!

Ch. 41 - Keeping Him Safe

For Simon, killing goblins was easy. Staying safe while he did it was a little more complicated, but that hadn’t been important before now. After all, he could always come back and try again, but that wouldn’t be an option for young Gregor. The k...

A New Letter of the Law Cover

Anime wasn't my first choice for Jon, but what can you do right? The original cover was hopelessly dated for these sites, so hopefully this will see some new interest into Letter of the Law. Whatever it is they say about books and covers... it's not true - at least not on the internet. 

This cover will definitely get more drafts, so feedback welcome. I do have a dream cover for this novel in by head. It would be a dark red leather cover with edge gilding in the 4 corners t...

The Long Way Down (Preview)

This story is one of the candidates for my next story. I don't actually plan of working on something new for a few months, but sometimes I need to start something just to get it out of my head. 

The Long Way Down is meant to be a fast-paced thrill ride of a story, so it's pretty unlike some of my other projects. It would be an AR death game in the style of Running Man or Squid Games where people that are down on their luck fight to stay alive. 

In a perfect worl...

Tenebroum Ch. 56-57

Too much? Not enough? I like how Ch. 56 turned out, but I welcome feedback!

Ch. 56 - The Under Temple

They continued deeper into the darkness after that. As the sound of water got louder, the hair became more humid until water began to drip from the ceiling of the narrow winding passage. They waited for the next attack to come at any moment. Instead, the terrible fury of the zombie’s attack had been replaced with an unsettling silence so oppressive it made Todd’s hands tremb...

Death After Death Ch. 39-40

Two chapters brings Death After Death to 3 ahead of the public. I have three chapters on my schedule for next week, so if everything goes well, then next week Death After Death will finally be 5 ahead. I will of course keep posting extra chapters until it is 10 chapters ahead. 

Ch. 39 - One More Time

He could still taste the stew on his tongue as he made his usual breakfast of bread and cheese. That made Simon clench his fist in frustration as he tried to figure out what co...

A Quick Round of Updates

Some quick story specific updates below. I also have two half-finished first chapters for future projects that might yet be my next project. I will post them sometime in the next weeks for feedback. The Garden Path is the yin themed xianxia I mentioned previously, and The Long Way Down, is a cyberpunk death game (Squid Games/Running Man) sort of thing. Whatever I decide my next project is, it won't start until October. There is no way I can juggle 5 stories, but I w...