One Third Down

Credit to @florin_palamarciuc

Today’s update isn’t major, but I’m happy about it nonetheless!

I’ve finished with the main rough draft for Cheryl and have started on the second character’s draft. These will all be weaved together in the final book, a sort of “A, B, C, A, B, C, etc” format that will balance the three stories and their respective focuses while allowing me to branch out with each character’s origin point.

Marie differs from Cheryl in a few ways. Whereas Cheryl was somewhat distanced from the horrors of the war and the fallout (both literal and metaphorical) that followed, Marie was born and raised within one of these territories. Her perspectives, her beliefs and experiences, all of that will be directly reflective of the climate she is in. Lissi, the small town that Marie seeks to escape from, is both a dying town and an iron prison. Contrast this to Cheryl who was born in eastern Europe (like Marie) but raised in the US, and you have a vastly different tale to tell.

I still have a lot of refining to do with Cheryl’s drafts of course, and bouncing between her template and Marie’s is kind of fun! Marie’s arc deals with some heavier material than Cheryl’s, so it’s a little tricky trying to find a good balance point between too much and too little when it comes to the elements I’m looking to explore.

Like many things in this series, Marie’s environment draws several conclusions from the real world. The scars left behind by the UDF and the Great War are still fresh, and the soviet-inspired blocs and villages that now sit in disrepair reflect that heavily. Old abandoned factories and sealed bunkers litter the dense forests and mountain ranges, and despite once being a part of the Verdusk Empire, Savo (the country Lissi is in) feels distant and removed from some of the Great War’s worse events. (See my other pages on locations and factions within TKP if you haven’t yet, they explain some of what I’m referencing here!)

The grass is usually greener on the other side, right? For Marie’s sake I hope it is. It’s easy to lose the woods for the trees in a place as unloved as Lissi.

That’s all for now, folks. ‘Til next time!

Marching Onward

credit to @anetek for this stunning image

With my primary project taking shape and my outlines moving forward at a steady pace I’ve started to rework my secondary projects too.

The Karsk Phenomenon - or at least, the project that temporary name encompasses - is coming along well! I’ve narrowed a 12-book-mess down to a shorter, focused narrative.

Outlines for TKP are progressing too. One of the three protagonists’ stories is finally ironing out so-to-speak, and the others aren’t far behind.

Important too are the ideas for stories I’ve had during the years-long journey TKP has been on. I’ve mentioned some of these in passing, and I’ll go into a little more detail on those today for the sake of mixing things up! Bear in mind, these are currently still ideas first and foremost, so if they get axed or altered later on don’t be surprised.

F&R is the temp name for my second main project, a far less dark, far more positive story about self-identity and self-discovery. This one indulges more of that fantasy/bittersweet side of my writing that my current project often steers clear from. It’s a simple idea about a journey from A to B, and what F&R learn on their adventures along the way.

The third project, trailing behind F&R is one I’m calling GRIN. GRIN delves back into that darkness that TKP walks alongside - focusing on darker topics and themes while keeping that “light at the end of the tunnel” mantra that seems to be the core to the projects I write, but more on that another time.

I have some other smaller ideas floating about, some happier, some sadder, and one other major story plan that’ll be on the back-burners for what’ll easily be a few years if not longer. That last one is more of an all-encompassing coup-de-grace, the distilling and reinforcing of the other ideas and themes that are core to me as a person and the works I seek to make.

To piggyback off of that point, I can’t write without it having a theme. This probably seems obvious to some people, like “duh, why would you write without an overarching idea or focus?”, which, fair point, but what I mean is: I’ve had dozens upon dozens of story ideas (which is why my main project TKP devolved into a sprawling, bloated mess; too many things in one box). But as cool and fancy and “wow I can’t wait to brute-force this into my specifically designed and planned story” as some of these ideas are, they don’t mean a single thing if they don’t fit with the overall theme or resonance I want the story to have.

A quick example to show how silly it once got:

A protagonist was trying to save her friend because her future self demanded she did! Okay, neat, but her future self was pressured by an at-the-time-unknown influence to force these events along. Alright, confusing but with some potential. That future self was being hunted by a parallel timeline version of the same character who was hell-bent on stopping these events, even willing to sacrifice friends and family if need be to ensure that chain of suffering didn’t continue. It became a reverse-onion of sorts, and this isn’t touching the 9-traincar-timeline structure, or the meta commentary about my other draft iterations, OR the fact that the parallel-hunter protag was working in tandem WITH the metafiction character to put an end to the series as a whole in BOTH senses of the word.

My point is… At least for me, it’s easy to get carried away and lose the woods for the solar system. Reigning in my creative-destructive impulses is hard on the best of days, but I’m genuinely happy that I’ve made it this far (with massive help from my editor, by the way!).

I’ve clung consistently to a spiral motif in most of my works, going ever inward and ever outward. So, like my story concepts and characters themselves, I march onward toward what I hope is a more cohesive and focused future.

To Write is To Live

Credit goes to @philipp_dice for this lovely image

Hey y’all. I’m past the outline stage fully now! The drafts can resume again! I can’t explain how excited I am. It feels so good to be properly writing again (and with a framework too).

I mentioned a while back how I was re-approaching the current story, and that’s what I’ve been doing. I cut down every single idea, stripped everything down to what it needed to be, and shredded (metaphorically) multiple books-worth in drafts to revive my idea as a cohesive, focused one. :Buckle in! This is a long one.

I started with the basic ideas I was handling:

• The idea of fighting against a seemingly unstoppable force

• The idea that that force is massive, all-encompassing, and choking in it’s reach

• The idea that this force manifests via a religious group that uses and abuses that power for their own gains

• And the idea that this force is intrinsically, inexorably linked to the protagonists of the story

From there I figured out the basics for the setting:

• The setting would be an alternate-history earth, a place where a new religion took root in eastern europe - based on the beliefs and practices of herb-brides and witches, practiced by a town far removed from the rest of the world

• This religion would then be co-opted by the nearby countries, changing its principles and adjusting its beliefs to be suited for their “more refined” world (despite the fact that the people of the steppe were by no means bad or ill-minded)

• This religion, now known as Spirality or The Spiral, would bloom, growing in size and power until it branched across most of northern europe

• The world in the modern day (the current millennium) is now dominated by the modern Spiral belief

After that I mapped out the beliefs of this Spirality and it’s offshoots:

• There was a focus on three, a “trinity” rooted in the beliefs of the steppelands and the people of the small town that solidified this religion

• This religion was monotheistic, a matriarchal system focusing on a single holy “Mother figure” Goddess and a sacrificed (either willingly or by force) human martyr who was unrelated (by blood or tangible power) to the Goddess deity, with three Patron Saints guarding the Martyr

• Offshoots of this Spirality that disagreed or otherwise detested the other branches of the metaphorical tree

• These offshoots would form in their own pockets

  • The Rizen: an evangelical denomination of the Spiral, it’s second largest and second-strongest branch; known by outsiders more as a massive militant cult than an open-armed religion

  • The Trinity Initiative: a smaller group who takes the sacred “rule of three” that the Spiral holds and weaving it into every possible facet of life

  • The Final Revolution Movement: a smaller US-based denomination that runs on it’s own calendar (rather than “adopting” the Gregorian calendar as the other denominations have

With these pieces planned, mapped, and drawn, I then set the stage for the modern day, the biggest change aside from the religion itself; the Great Karsk War:

• The Great War was a massive holy war that took place between the twenties and fifties, primarily in the Spiral homeland - a massive empire known as Verdusk

• This great war would be between Verdusk’s Democratic Republic - or VDsmK;the Unified Dimitrigrad Federation - or UDF (our alt-history Spiral-flavored USSR in a sense); the Catholic Empire of Italy, and the Trinity (a conglomerate of opposing factions including those from the US, UK, and various other non-Spiral factions)

• This war would terminate in a day known as The Catastrophe - the day everything in and around Verdusk was annihilated and all people regardless of stance or side were purged by an “impossible force”

• This force would be viewed retroactively as the “Martyr” of the Spiral, the “vessel of Goddess Predzkya”, Marianne

• The Catastrophe would be viewed as a blanket punishment for the sins of the war, the Goddess finally raising her hand to cease the death and terrors of the war by wiping it clean

• In the aftermath of the war, a new faction would emerge and seize control of Europe: the Rizen; this group would then go on to spread, entrenching itself in whatever gaps and holes could be found and pushing the idea that Marianne was the '“one true Goddess” and that in order to stop a second catastrophe her soul would need to be “repaired”

• As such, the Rizen would then push for the search of “Saintbloods”, supposed fragments of Mother Marianne’s power

• And this cycles back to our protagonists, three young woman who want as far away from the Spiral as possible

So we have:

• The world

• The beliefs

• The characters

A set of three:

• The war

• The wipe

• The aftermath

A trinity:

• The Goddess

• The messengers

• The outliers

A story about three things:

• Death

• Depression

• Rebirth

With three poor girls who wish to be freed from the unending chaos of life:

• Cheryl

• Marie

• Fiona

And the Goddess who demands what cannot be easily granted with force:

• Healing

• Help

• Peace

The Spiral encompasses all. It’s limbs grasp ever outward and coil ever inward. Marianne’s Will is unknowing yet all-perceiving.

And now, as I put ideas to paper and protagonists to challenge, I can so happily say:

The Spiral is coming.

What do you look forward to?

Credit to Trey Gibson

When you read a book, play a game, watch a move, etc, what do you look forward to?

Is it the characters and how they grow? They way they interweave and interact or how those characters react to the story at play?

Is it the setting? Do you love when the world is fully-fleshed out and brimming with detail? Maybe how the protagonist’s room is described or the way the light bounces off of shattered glass?

Or maybe you like how the overarching story and themes come together. The reason the antagonist did what she did or the excuses the protagonist gave to keep going down her path.

I’ve always loved a little bit of everything. When I’m building my world the focus is threefold: on the characters and their growth, the setting and it’s details, and the world’s overall themes. I think that’s the best way for me to write, allowing for me to build that perfect story.

On another note, be kind to each other! Spread smiles and love (just like Norbert)! That’s all for today y’all.

The New Year is here!

Credit to Aaron Burden

The new year is here and I’ve been crazy busy trying to find a place to just step back and relax.

2025 has begun and I’ve come at it from a… well, a ME approach.

Be kind. Be patient. Be strong. There (seems to be) an abundance of stress, unhappiness, overall gloom around the world lately and with that perceived lack of connection and support comes a dark weight.

I’m not the most social person; I’m not exactly an extrovert, BUT—

I know that going into the new year we can all do one thing: care for each other. There may very well indeed be a lack of support out there but all that really does is enforce the reality that caring about one another, helping one another, these are what will make stressful times better.

Onto a more personal note!

I’m close to finishing my outline, there’re just a few things I’m stuck on. Art is coming along well too, and I should have some more great updates for that! My goal is to have this first book ready to publish by END OF YEAR! That’s my resolution.

Stay safe y’all. Take care, and see you in two(-ish) weeks!

The New Year comes closer…

Credit to Dennis Zhang

I’m a little late on the blog this month, things have been pretty busy here! I hope everyone is having a great time! It’s weird to think it’s almost 2025. I’ve made a lot of progress on my books this year, both for the main series and some other ideas too!

I found a great editor, have learned a lot about what it means to be not just a writer but how I can be a better one. It’s both incredibly humbling and incredibly exciting and I’m slowly getting closer to being able to show the world my ideas!

On top of that I’ve had two very talented artists helping envision some of these ideas.

I’ll be back in the new year with more progress, more discussions on the things I love, and more overall happiness!

Stay safe y’all. Take care!

It’s winter!

December is here! I always loved winter. I love the decorating and the music; I love the hot drinks and the cozy atmosphere, and I love writing while the snow falls outside.

Granted, it isn’t snowing just yet over here but I’m excited for when it starts to. I’ve been making some decent progress on my outlining too!

Two of the three characters are mostly ironed out and the details surrounding them are getting filled in steadily (if slowly). The history of this world is also coming along well, the hard part of course is going to be figuring out how it can all be brought to life properly.

I’ll be excited when I can update all of this with the news that I’m properly writing again, and while I wish I already was I want to make sure I do this right.

Until then, have a wonderful winter everyone! I’ll be back with one more blog update before the end of 2024.

Winter on the Hills

It’s mid-November now, and it’s definitely getting colder. I’ve always loved winter, but ti’s sad to see autumn fade away too. Outlining has hit a roadblock as well! I’m stuck on the last chunk of the puzzle but like with all of my writing issues I’m sure it’ll be revealed if I hit the brick wall hard enough.

I’ve been planning on getting more Polaroid film too, as it’s been a hot minute since I’ve done some photography! I’m thinking of adding the memorial drawings I’ve done to the site as well under a separate wing. I’ve got a few other things cooking as well, like more game pieces and a section for books I’ve read too!

I’ve never been one for traditional Thanksgiving meals, but I’ve kind of never been one for most “traditional” things. My thought process is erratic and uneven and messy even when I need something laser-focused.

Enjoy the snow everyone! Have a wonderful time, happy holidays, and I’ll be back beginning of December to share the next update.

The Rule of Three

The number three has always been a favorite of mine. Past, present, future; day, night, the in-between.

My current series is founded on that same rule of three. There are three protagonists, three “eras” and three primary Spiral denominations. There are three “worlds”. Each of our three “Saintblooded” protagonists has a unique power based upon their personality.

With that in mind, I’m planning three stages for these books: the basic outline, the detailed outline, and the rough draft: this then shifts into the rough draft, the refined drafts, and the final draft.

Every day I get closer to finishing this! It’s taken so much time and work but I’m happy to say I’m making steps (even if small ones) toward this series being released.
I hope everyone’s November is going well, and I hope winter is enjoyable! I’ll get back to the writing for now.

All Coming Together

(I love bats)

Hey world! I’m a little behind on the blog this month, been busy planning!

I’m slowly ironing out the world for this story and putting all of the pieces in place.

I’m starting from square one, making sure the world, the dates, the lore, all of it is congruent and with purpose. A lot of my old work is more or less being axed or set aside for this (which stings, but it’s the right thing to do here).

I’m slowly getting more art done, slowly getting more ideas ironed out, and slowly figuring out how to take each step closer toward the goal!

I can’t wait for everyone to see this world. That’s all for this one!

A good burrito…

It’s October! That means my birthday is getting closer, which also means I’m one year older on this grand place we call earth!

But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I’m here to discuss my books today, and I’m going to ask you a silly question.

Would you rather have a huge burrito filled to the brim with a dozen different things? And I mean massive, breaking apart at the seams with so many wild crazy flavors that it’s overwhelming?

or

Do you want a good burrito with carefully selected flavors and just enough to make it that extra bit fulfilling?

I have a story drafted, a world built, an endless list of documents and ideas I’ve been cramming into my current books. This was to span between nine and twelve books not counting spin-off titles.

I was shooting for a burrito with everything I could cram, whether or not those ideas fit in the first place.

I’m scaling my ideas back now and resetting my world while keeping the ideas I initially loved and wanted as the focus.

This is going to be a series about being whole, about overcoming darkness, about moving forward.

This is a series about Cheryl, who lost everything.

This is a series about Marie, who watched her family give everything away.

This is a series about Fiona, who nearly gave herself up trying to chase others.

And this is a series about Marryanne/Marianne (I’m still debating on if I want to just spell that the normal way), who wants to be whole again no matter the cost.

I’m going to make a damn good burrito by cutting the bloat and fat off of the old recipe. With that said, I look forward to keeping everyone updated! The final journey begins!

Closer to the Beginning

Me when fall

Hey y’all. Been a minute! I didn’t even realize September was close to done until today. Looks like I’m slacking on the blog for once!

Book 1 is currently on one of its final rounds of editing, and that means this project is closer to becoming a reality!

I’ve been taking breaks recently from writing this current series, focusing instead on writing my fantasy and cyberpunk/warhammer inspired ones as a bit of a palette cleanser. On top of that, I’m writing another book, one that’ll probably be a sort of ‘final project’ as far as order of importance goes.

I love writing. I could do it forever. But at the same time, I only want to write a story or a series of it’s something I want to say. Each thing I write needs a purpose, a meaning, a soul of its own before I can justify sending it out to the world.

Cheryl and her dance of destiny will be coming soon. I’m so excited to share it with the world. I hope everyone else loves this universe as much as I do.

That’s it for now everyone. Stay safe and have fun!

September’s here!

I’ve never been a big fan of summer. The other seasons are always far more preferable to me. I love the cool rainy weather and blooming flowers of spring; I love the beautiful colors and autumn vibes of fall; and I love the quiet, soft, calm feeling winter usually brings.

Halloween is always fun. I love dressing up for it, even still. It’s funny, even with my books I prefer setting the stories in my preferred seasons (with Book 1 being the exception it seems, as that’s primarily over summer).

It helps me to get into the right mood for my writing if the weather is something I can jive with. I love rain and storms and cloudy weather.

I don’t have much in way of book updates this time around, sorry y’all! I just wanted to gush about the seasons.

Fall is on the way! The story continues…

It’s almost fall! Fall and spring are my favorite seasons (though I usually love winter too). It’s been an interesting year, and I’ve been working hard on these books. I want them to be as good as I can make them!

I’m hoping that I’ll be able to move forward in the publishing process for book 1 soon. My personal edits are almost ready, and after that I can ship this thing back to my editor.

Book 5 is coming along too; the first draft is roughly 3/4 of the way done. Book 7 is early on but still doing good too. My other series idea is a few chapters into its first draft as well.

I don’t have any other major updates at the moment, so here’s to a good fall! It’s nearly cozy time everyone.

Marryanne, Eve, and Yelena; representing chains

Hey world!
So, I think it would be fair to say my series has a lot of symbolism in it. From the characters themselves to the lesser Gods of the Rizen cult to the very concept of the Abyss itself.

Marryanne is, for all intents and purposes, the key to this series. Nothing else would have come to be if not for her.

Yelena is one of the stand-alone parts of this. She means something both old and new; the past and the future, the old self becoming the new, the self-realizations one has when they grow and evolve and learn, and how those realizations can hurt equally as much as they can help.

Eve is the other standalone. A separate character from the series but still equally important. In a sense, Eve is the guide. They help spur things along when the path is too dark to find, or the weight is too heavy to bear.

Pictured: me whenever Fatal Frame does anything scary (I couldn’t find the artist for this one :( )

The Fatal Frame games have an interesting relationship with weight.

The first is about discovering what happened to a manor in the past and feels a bit more dissociated with the death and weight of the series as a whole to me.

The second game is far more personal; Mio and Mayu, the leading characters, are siblings drawn to an old dead village. There they become intwined with the village’s past and descend into the madness that overtook the place. The twins must make a final choice before they leave, and that choice is intertwined with death itself.

FF3 is far more intimate with its relation; the protagonists are all survivors in some form, their loved ones taken from them without choice. As they are drawn into the ‘manor of sleep’ that is the game’s setting they are confronted with an ever-encroaching choice: to follow their loved ones into the abyss or to reject their beckons and continue living.

FF4 focuses more on medical malpractice and the lengths some go to bring their loved ones back. It ends on a somewhat bittersweet note though.

FF5 is where things get rough. The game has a heavy but not exploitative focus on suicide, on dying and the beliefs one passes with. All of these games have some sort of ‘chains’ on them, a weight that never quite eases but 5 is far more open and far more relentless with how visible and how heavy those metaphorical chains are.

The weight of these same kinds of ‘chains’ is present in my books too, though not as a symbolism for death or grief as much as the all-encompassing weight of mental struggle. The Void, the Abyss, whatever title gets slapped to it, it is more than just a dark omnipresence but a feeling, a thought, a memory, even a sound that evokes those least-liked memories in a person.
Okay, now for something lighter! Don’t want to make you think my work is just about cults and death and violence, just part of it!

I’ve come up with other series ideas over the writing of my current series. It isn’t going to take a backseat, far from that in fact. It’ll still be the prime focus, but the need to write something else that’s lighter in comparison has been growing on me since I began drafting this series over 10 years ago (holy cow it’s really been a long time).

My focus now, aside from editing Book 1 and drafting books 5 and 7 is focused on drafting the first manuscript for my next series. It’ll still have weight to it, still be dark and have those chains at times, but it won’t be nearly as constant.

Flea and Rorschach, that’s all I’ll drop for now!

Pictured: Art from the game Elden Ring. This piece has probably influenced the fantasy idea I’ve been brewing more than any other thing.

Project Zero and the Abyss

Hey folks, writing is coming along good! Book 5’s first draft is roughly halfway done! My final edits of book 1 are also coming to a close soon, and I’m looking forward to the moment I can send it off to my editor.

Pictured above: me when literally anything happens with my books

The ‘abyss’ of this story is kind of a personal one, and writing about it is both freeing and taxing in equal amount. It’s also kind of eerie writing about something so dark at times, but this is a story about winning a war, not a battle.

Speaking of eerie, I finally played through Fatal Frame 1 through 3, and that was something else! I love those games, with 3 being my favorite by far. Rei is braver than most people for sure.

Pictured: me when literally anything ever happens in Fatal Frame (credit to Terri Wiseden!)

The first book’s cover has been finished too! That’s another exciting thing. I’m getting closer to publishing with each day. That’s all for now! Peace out world!

Art, Snakes, and Knowledge

It’s weird having my work start to take a full, tangible shape. It’s no longer just an idea or just some words on a document, but a real, graspable thing.

I’m in the process of getting the art for my book cover back currently, as well as having another wonderful artist create character art for the website. Seeing other people put my ideas and words into reality in their own creative way is so… exciting! Having their spin, their creative freedom filtered over my ideas and seeing how they translate my scrambled mess of thoughts and ideas into something real is just… Wow.

I’m so excited, so thrilled, so nervous, so worried. I’ve been replaying both the Metal Gear Solid series and Alan Wake 1 - partially for the inspiration they helped to originally give me and partially because I love (and in the case of MGS love and loathe) these games. I recently finished painting a resin statue too. It looks terrible, but there’s something fun in it too. It’s calming in a way.

I’ve been working on my sketching abilities too, need to keep the tools sharp right?

I’m terrified the world won’t like my books, but at the same time, a part of me is okay if it doesn’t. I’m writing these for myself as much as anyone else, but if others love my work, then I’ll be happy too.

I’ll slap a picture or two below to show what I’ve been up to!

The sketch I did! Neighbor’s dog included.

I love how the picture makes the paintjob look even worse.

Anyways, that’s all from me today!

Games, books, and other bidness…

So, I’ve been working on making this website for a long time. I’m scatterbrained on most days so it can be hard to form enough thoughts and energy into something precise.

I’m working on a lot of things at once here. I’m hunting artists for cover art and other exciting things. I hope to have backgrounds, character art, etc. all that jazz so that my stories and dreams can better be realized. I can’t wait to show off their great work! On top of that I’m writing book 5 (about halfway done with the first draft) and re-editing my first book so that my editor doesn’t give up hope on me! (I kid, thank you Susan, you’ve been amazing!)

I’ve also gotten into DnD recently with some friends, I’m still trying to practice guitar, and I might get into painting miniatures (40k has consumed my brain lately).

I’ve got a million ideas, both for this book series and two others I hope to write some time in my future. We’ll see how that goes. Check back here in like 10 years or something.

I’m also going to be reading more books, and I’m excited for that too!

Take care world, I hope I can make someone else’s day better.

The beginning of something more!

So I’ve decided I’ll be writing a blog to catalogue the progression of my books, story ideas, and personal adventures!