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 ...

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 poss...

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, ...

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 y...

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.

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The stone brick cell...

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...

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 d...

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 organ...

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....

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 w...

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...

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 g...

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 ove...

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 pr...

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; i...

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 d...

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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 chillie...

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...

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...

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 ...

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 s...

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 ...

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 c...