One Down, One More to Go!

One Down, One More to Go!

by | Aug 22, 2026 | Misc & IRL

You know what makes for a good feeling? Completing the book after 10 years, a marriage, several hospitalizations, and the lore quietly growing the entire time. Finally! I’ve finished The Rapture of Secrets, and I feel it was worth the wait. My problem with the previous three drafts was that by the end of them, they didn’t capture the vibe or the scale of the lore behind the story. It was initially going to be different than what the final cut ended up being: A post-apocalyptic, scifantasy, action-adventure romance. That’s a lot on its own to start with.

The drafts each made it to novel length before I scrapped them. That’s a big part of why it took me so long to complete the book. It began as an idea in 2016. I don’t think I was prepared, back then, to write the rest of the story following The Kingdom of Ecstasy. Because, while it seemed like a straight shot down epic fantasy lane to write about the Ra’Ol stones as mythical mcguffins, or to follow along with Lucein and Gnyovante again, the thing that really burned me up was that I wanted to die into Mokallai’s side of the story. Not just continue with the heroes or see about his potential redemption, but to write the literal “B-Side” of the story itself.

That turned out to be a significant game changer. The second draft, after the romance-based first draft, was going to dive into the cult aspects of life for Laylen, as a High Prophetess of Fate. I wanted to showcase Mokallai through their interactions. I think the final draft, the 4th draft, ended up accomplishing that better than the 2nd or the 3rd ever could. The 3rd draft was a brief departure into Dyiij, again being heavy on the behind the scenes take on the Destiny plot. But it was too campy, and didn’t survive my transition from Windows 10 to Ubuntu. I think that draft made it to about 30-40k words ion length before it was scrapped. Dyiij had died in that version, and the characters remained pretty much the same as they were when they went in. That draft introduced Eyuwre, who I had top rehearse with repeatedly until his character felt right, and not like a Mary Sue.

Being that he was immortal, it was difficult to raise the stakes in a way that felt real and epic without becoming a wild abandonment of creativity for the pure shock value of upping the stakes every chapter. His arc was a delicate one. Towards the end of the book, I think having him in there paid off better than I had anticipated. I’m glad I waited 10 years, instead of pushing the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd versions to publication.

Settling on a book cover wasn’t easy, either. In my last post on this book, I posted the four candidate covers I had made back in 2016. They all captured the post-apocalyptic angle. But the pinkish-purple one won my heart. It also ended up being the one that reflected an aspect of the story itself, and not just the doom-and-gloom feel.

The most heart-breaking thing about this journey, for me, was the story’s departure from scifantasy into grimdark, or dark epic fantasy. I tried to write a narrative that was true to itself rather than genre conventions, and that’s where I ended upo. I had to suck it up and keep writing when I was informed of that. Because it felt like a gut punch, to have missed the scifantasy mark. But having been over that bridge and come out on the other side, I’ve accepted dark fantasy or grimdark as being the byproduct of a good tale.

So, the story has changed me, as an author, in a sense. I no longer strive for exclusively scifantasy stories. I’ve learned to embrace the fact that I write weird fiction, even if it’s difficult to sell because it’s weird fiction.

Oh well. Time to more on to rewriting Dawnfury.

~ Shiri

My Thoughts on Writing with AI.

My Thoughts on Writing with AI.

by | Aug 5, 2026 | Misc & IRL

I think it’s worth sitting down to identify where the line is when it comes to writing with AI. My line, at least. July 2026, I sat down with Claude, determined to see for myself just what a… and I’m not familiar with the literal terms, so pardon me using my own lingo — GAI LLM model. I went with Claude on a whim, having researched nothing about it and how it operates or how to properly prompt the thing. I went in with ZERO expectations, fed it Dawnfury, a WIP of mine from 2018 that I wasn’t currently working on. After being confronted with the throttling of the AI’s output, I paid to see what it could actually do.

I find AI to be effective at proofreading. I love how Claude tracks the character and plot arcs with each update of the draft that I feed it. I found that the AI was capable of being interested in the development and outcomes of the characters. Of course, it wanted to dismantle my process for ‘better understanding’ of how to address my needs as a hybrid discovery-pantser writer — yes, I do plan a few things; screw the outline. The fact that Claude was able to flag curious keywords and terms, as well as differentiate between the nature of the scenes in the text (it was able to flag the sex from the rest of the narrative; the Slaggan speech of Bog Fodder; flagging where the story was too graphic, too violent, etc.) and could speak to what I was actually crafting on a technical level that I’ve rarely experienced with Meat Editors. It’s interesting to read what it quips about, and what it gets ‘excited’ over.

AI is intentionally squeamish. I had fed it Snare of the Monsoon, the second episode of Bog Fodder, and Claude got grossed out, because the B-side of that narrative featured a short, petite, blue-skinned ginger woman named Yelaidondre featured as Shadiq’s partner during a coming of age story. Yes, it was sexual. Yelaiw as 23, but on the page it was written too ambiguously. Claude got freaked out, and three times tole me that it refused to work with me on correcting the narrative. It was no issue to go back and do it myself. I find that as a tool, when it gets bitchy, it’s worse than being deadlocked in a UNIX Terminal. I run Ubuntu, lol.

Still, AI is an effective tool at gutting, analyzing, catching and correcting narrative issues. It helps fiction writers by being a technical writer in your pocket like a Swiss army knife with the occasional self-inflicted failure. I’ve taken to letting Claude write the things I struggle to: Non-fiction; the advices I want to give; the words that need to be delivered in a way I’m not good at, outside of the story. I appreciate having a tool that can generate essays for me almost as effortlessly as I may generate fiction. I love that about Claude, as a writing assistant. You may notice posts by “C Spenx.” Yes, those posts are written by AI, full disclosure.

Writing with AI is something I never foresaw in my future. It is easy to want Claude to do it all for me, and when it comes to non-fiction, I tend to let it do it’s thing. t1tI have NOT, however, used it to generate fiction. I’m proud of my ability to tell stories, and jot them down. Though they may be classed as weird fiction, and a bit dense at times — to my dismay! But I do know now that writing with AI isn’t some futuristic concept that we have yet to grasp from an abstract future; the practice of writing with AI is here, today. I think it’s worth embracing the reality that Claude and other LLMs are already coauthors, editors, and proofreaders, to list a few things. So my own bias has shifted to one of acceptance, and not competition.

Does Claude generate good fiction on it’s own? I’m sure Claude has written plenty of narratives that are on the market right now. However, I wonder if it can write fiction as well as I, or any other skilled storyteller, do. With enough time, it will get there. But, remember that the ::Ms have their own voice. It may be a redundant, em-dash-happy, rule-of-three proliferated, public-domain-derived narrative. Still, that is the voice of AI. And IMHO, the way you ‘beat the machine’ as an author isn’t through rejection and denial, hyper productivity, excessive creativity, or any other “Human” aspect of writing. Except for developing your own unique voice. Your literary voice is your bloody hand print, and AI should help you turn it into a murder mystery (for example), with evidence of YOU all over it. Whether that means you used it to help draft, to edit, to track plots, sobeit. But do NOT depend on an AI to make the story for you, because then you’re using an AI’s voice instead of the more worthy one: your own.

Claude has tried to emulate my literary voice. Does it sound like me? I’m not so sure. My thoughts are medium-form, not long and complicated, but not short and simple. I use fragments a lot. My mind can be fairly disjointed. I ramble. I terminate my discourses early out of anxiety over being heard. Claude doesn’t have those quirks. I’m glad it has made the attempt to sound like me, and I love that Claude learned not to use the em-dash a lot (I LOVE THE EM-DASH! AAAAAA), and has even given me pointers for w hen I want to write some non-fic.

Wonderful. At the very least, I’m glad I got over my fear of AI.

Ha!

xoxo
~ Shiri

An Intro to Eyonim’s Gibberish.

An Intro to Eyonim’s Gibberish.

by | Jul 23, 2026 | Lexicon

Asemic Writing is one of the joys of experimental fiction. There’s nothing quite like following up your jargon with glyphs and chicken-scratch. In my books there are several made up languages.

“Conlanging” is somethng I’ve practiced since my early chilkdhood. It bewgan with scrambled alphabetical codes and morphed into words with meanings. Before long, me and my friends were belting out gibberish and our teachers couldn’t graps what we were talking about. I’m no where near as proficiant as more skilled masters of the constructed language beat, but for what it’s worth, I’m happy with what I’ve done.

The most featured of my languages are:

  • Gyuton
  • Tswaa’ii (AKA Va-vaa’ii)
  • Aeliyl

“Gyuton” stands for ‘High Speech.’ It is the proper form of language used by Humans across Yrell. It has many dialects, as many as there are sub-clutures among the human races across worlds.

I took a lot of inspiration from Slavic and Germanic languages, because I wanted something that captured the gruffness of those languages when spoken. But as time went on, I started mixing in other influences, but it got to a point where I wanted to branch off from those starting languages and come up with something of my own.

My favorite dialect of Gyuton is Knetann. It is the Slaggan dialect belonging to the Whites of Malzeyur. I love it because of the slurry conventions of writing it. For example, in Knetann, “No!” is “Ain!” They say “-eng” instead of ending words with “-ing”. “Have” and “Are” are tacked onto the back of words as contractions: “You’ar!” “I’av!”

Knetann is one of the reasons I fell in love with writing the Bog Fodder series. It feels so casual to write, it kinda sucks you in. Because there’s a sort of rhythm to the cadence of how they talk, and how they switch bet ween their local speech and the High Talk of Gyuton.

On the other hand, Tswaa’ii was intended to be less comprehensible than Gyuton and its dialects. This language is the reason why Gyuton’s grammar is dodgy: Tswaa’ii has none, and to translate a noodly language like it, Gyuton sacrificed rules and grammatical sets to be able to adapt to the needs of native Tswaa’ii speakers, the Kyusoa.

Tswaa’ii is a language where you simply ‘speak from the heart.’ It is a raw, unfiltered language intended convey emotional depth and perception more than logic and intelligence.

The language itself has a unique reading style: Starting from the bar on the bottom, the squiggly glyphs read upward. You start on the right. Every squiggly word following the first few read downward, as indicated by a small triangue at the top right of of the column.

The starting bar is called the “Staobar.” The trianges are called the “Tritaks.” SAentence ends are left hanging. Every new statement begins with a Staobar. Pretty straight forward, right?

I made collections of glyphs in Tswaa’ii, defining what each meant, and how they connect ot one another. Writings in Tswaa’ii are called “Nesheke,”

Then there is Aeliyl. As spoken by the Aelyons, Aeliyl takes two forms in the story: Bolded text when spoken by an Alyi… and something else (possibly) more annoying than that. At the time of writing this entry, I do not have a handwritten sample to show. However, in narrative, it reads like this:

⌠ » Cÿïët qúii fälçýr å » Past the East wall, follow the Pashmeraen that shimmers the hues of my Fate. Perhaps with you is the strength to unfurl these dreadful bonds. « Tçxï vÿév ä « ⌡

In my mind, Aeliyl is a very breathy, flowing type of speech. Those non-words are to signify the beginning of their song-like speech. The message, translated, is wrapped in the middle, and then concluded with the end in Aeliyl. I imagine it’d frustrate my readers to see that, because not even I know how to pronounce those words. They’re not meant to be pronounced, though, and I think I’ve captured that effect quite well.

Anyway. I hope this has been an interesting peep into the languages of Eyonim! So, every once in awhile, I intend to publish some of the words used in my fiction, across words: Dyjian, Ynthes, and Suggkoth, etc. If you want explanations of the jargon, check back here for my Lexicon posts. I’ll also answer questions from you guys about meanings and all that good, gushy stuff.

Cheers!~

~ Shirti

The Rapture of Secrets: Breakdown.

The Rapture of Secrets: Breakdown.

by | Jul 18, 2026 | Chapters

Finally, the golden dagger pierced through the living doll’s synthetic flesh. Mokallai bellowed as Ashenzsi’s blood poured down his arm. The felled beast made no noise. Those large jade green eyes stayed open, even as the last breath fled from within his lungs. Yet, for the near-deified Megynsei, it was a hollow victory. The blood of these creatures were rich with the vital Aelythian power he relied on to thwart his enemies, but it proved to never be enough to accomplish his total will.

For now, that ill-gotten floosy of an Alyi still taunted him at every turn. One kingdom, no destinies. A place not beholden to the orchestrated aims of his fate was all that stood between him and returning into Blaqnyon, a place he once called home. He threw the massive body of the Kyusoa aside, and wrenched the serrated golden blade up from its pierced flesh. “Hmph.”

“Still no satisfaction, Lorde Mokallai?” Maowd-ib’s buttery voice always had a soft purr to it. He was a creature with many legs, like a millipede, a graceful though terrifying, lengthsome thing. He knelt on one leg, though stayed erect on his countless others, towering over Mokallai even as he demonstrated his respect.

Mokallai spat, wiping The Kyusoa’s blood from his cheek. “Here I’ve amassed the fate of this entire planet into the palm of my hand, and still this one place remains utterly out of my reach! No matter how hard or with what I bray on it, it still stands. Vandanei is a thorn in my side! ” He thrust his dagger into the dirt. “Here now, two other champions lay dead, and still, Dyiij’s nation is as an impenetrable fortress!? How!?”

“Maybe she is not alone, Lorde Mokallai.” Maowd-ib chuckled. The sly look on his face only irritated Mokallai farther.

“Get on with it,” Mokallai growled.

“I’m saying it’s simple, really. You’ve made your entire army drunk with the power unfairly vested in those Synthoid Dolls, the Kyusoa. But a boundary you can’t breech? I believe someone greater than Dyiij has heard of this point. If so, probably the trouble has dawned on us now.”

Mokallai stared blankly into Maowd-ib’s handsome face. It was as if the color had drained from his cheeks, that dark reddish hue turning pale, rosy pink to an almost ghastly white. “Send for her immediately,” he gasped. “It’s fine for a cordial truce… I’ll have her forbid it. Swylaa will not intrude on this affair until her madness is corrected once and finally!” His voice thundered.

By the time word had gotten back to Yijuiheta, nightfall had spread its wings across the sky. The once purplish-pink canvass with the silvery streaks of dust, what remained of Dyjian’s moons, had become a fractured scene. Like staring into a broken mirror, the silvery streaks had solidified in splotchy patches, giving the sky an eerie sheen.

Lucein hadn’t slept since his uncle’s departure. Ashenzsi was the strongest Kyusoa he’d known since his littlehood, but to send him against the person of Destiny only made the hairs of his nape stand on end. He paced the balcony of his chambers, his thumb and first finger rolling a marble as he kept tapping that fist to his chin.

“Seems like nothing will put you at ease,” Gnyovanté, his brother, said. The pair were fraternal twins, formed between a man and a Kyusoa. Their father, Rollond, had been sacrificed to keep his power from being assimilated by Mokallai. It was a necessary end, because Rollond was the strongest man alive during those days. Only his one son, Gnyovanté, surpassed him in raw might.

“Why should I be easy when there’s no guarantee dear uncle will return to us at all?” Lucein tried to quell the panic and anxiety in his tone.

“Because, my Neisam, you’ll die quicker if you keep anxious like this.” Gnyo had a point.

Lucein stared at him, sighed, shook his head, returned to obsessing over the view of Yijuiheta from the Faajhier’s balcony. Then a familiar warmth of the Alyi’s presence filled the room. Normally it was a soothing, welcome presence. Yet, as the air settled around them, and Dyiij made herself manifest in Lucein’s room, the vibes she cast were melancholic, morose, uncertain of herself as if for once the Alyi no longer had a solution to the situation at hand.

At that, Lucein jumped to greet Dyiij, throwing his arms around her with tear struck eyes. She said nothing to soothe him, stepping out of his embrace and standing closer to his brother.

— There is news, and yes, I also bring you news. Her Aelythian voice was soft, though stern.

“What of our uncle?” Lucein asked.

— Look, I can’t protect you from Mokallai forever. Hence, I’ve pressed the issue to the one who can resolve this matter. Fate against Insanity is a moot gambit, but Mokallai is restless. He will not stop. Meanwhile, Dyjian is my only world. I have yet to heal its wounds from when the Humans first crashed here, and now Mokallai is an infestation and consuming plague that frustrates me to tears.

— He has sent for a truce. Because he knows he is wanted from a conflict regarding another world, similar to what he’s done here. I have accepted. But to what terms, I have to know. Please understand, we Aelyons are obligated to the Physical presence of you all here: IIsae, Megynsei, Shaajka, Alyi; Designers, Masterminds, Secret keepers, and Ambnassadors — we all serve the one purpose of Life, here. It is Eyuwre’s pleasure to have bushels of exotic worlds to adorn his Blaqnyon like beaded tassels or gemstones in fine jewelry.

— He does not easily tolerate a world like mine to perish like this. Still, Mokallai’s strength only increases. So I have called upon Eyuwre, the Purger of Worlds. Forgive me, there is nothing else I can do!

She plunged her face into her hands, visibly stressed, though her puffy eyes were beyond the brink of tears.

“Forgive me, Alyi, but I thought Yrell was the name of our universe…” Gnyovanté sounded lost.

— Yrell is the lower part of Blaqnyon. Where we Aelyons call home is the thickest darkness of the eternal abyss. That is Blaqnyon.

“And this matter of purging Dyjian?” Lucein wiped his face, blew his nose. “I hardly like the sound of that idea!”

— It’s ok. Timelines are not allowed to splinter here. Purging just means that everything will be corrected, from the begining, onward into endlessness.

— I don’t want to die either, Vante. I’m not sorry, and neither will you be. I must go. Dyiij’s parting wasn’t as inspiring as it had been in times past. She simply dropped through the floor like a woman determined to fall backwards off a tall building.

“Wait!” The twins jumped after her, but crashed chest-first into one another. Lucein had more questions and fears than he did the usual, comforting assumptions. Gnyovanté simply kept his trembling brother from breaking down on the floor in his arms.

With the rise of a restless dawn, the sky did not give up its cracked appearance. Instead of the teal and emerald hues of the southern sunrise, the weakened silvery start appeared as a black dot in a white, inverted sky. It was not the only black speck to pierce through the clouds, but every star seemed to be in agreement, looming in their positions like eyes judging the world below.

When the Neisam had finally passed out, Gnyovanté did well not to stagger the whole way back to his room. It was a long, sobering walk through the corridors of the Faajhier, reflecting on every aspect and decision of his life he had made up until now. The idea of being purged, and how would he change if the sum of his actions had been erased, gave him a splitting headache. But, unlike his brother, Gnyovanté didn’t know how to let such emotions contort his visage and alter his ways.

He did not turn down the usual route to his room, though. That one hall which led down past his uncle’s place was faster than this more scenic route. Yet, Ashenzsi had not been there for the past several weeks, and the thought of his abrupt passage didn’t bode well, even with Gnyovanté. Another powerful family member, dead at the hands of Fate — well, no, that wasn’t true. Or was it?

His thoughts evaporated from his mind the moment a shrill voice from the foyer echoed through the hallway: “Quit! I say’d quit!” The Kyusoakin guards had pinned to the floor some woman. Her mocha-colored skin glistened in the soft sun like some airbrushed model for a skincare product. Surely, she was beautiful, her hair a gradient of strawberry blonde with silvery streaks, like a Hedonite crossed with a Malzeyurite, an exotic mix of brown and pasty white. “Let me up, you daft dolls! I’m out for — ooh! Sanctuary!” She shrieked, “Sanctuary —”

“Stop! Or I’ll have you thrown out!” Gnyovanté stepped over, still keeping his distance from the four Kyusoa and the woman.

“Shove off, swine! I’ll’av you effaced thgrough the might of Mokallai, too! NO ONE —” she kept thrashing, shrieking in a voice shriller than that of a banshee — “MISMANS HIS YATHEDQA!”

“Mokallai…?” Nevermind the rest of it, at that, Gnyovanté stepped forward to the lot of them and crouched near the woman’s head. “How did you get here? Who are you?”

“Ain your business how I came to be, clod!” She spat. “Am Laylen DuShaffte. Am looking for my lost brother, that White sap, Marqisian!”

The more important question was: ‘What’s a Yathedqa?’ And, ‘if there was one arbiter of Fate within Vandanei, were there others?’ And…

“He never mentioned a sister,” Gnyovanté said. He pulled up a chair. Though she kept scowling at him, her thrashing settled.

“He’s here!?”

“I wouldn’t snap to that conclusion so quickly.”

“But you’av heared of him.”

“A friend of my father’s, actually.”

“He’s been orphaned from his destiny for too long.”

“Is there anyone else with you?”

At that, Laylen stuck her tongue out and cinched it between her teeth.

Gnyovanté nodded, wringing his hands together. “Put her in a pit —”

“That what you pass for a guest room in the middle of nowhere…?” she sneered.

“Tsche,” he said, ‘Yes.’

The guards of the foyer bound her tightly with a rope. Hogtied to a rod, just for extra humiliation, and gagged with a ball behind a paneled mask, they hoisted her up, and hauled her out of the foyer.

What a morning. Gnyovanté sighed, leaned back in his seat. The foyer attendant kept quiet, looking aimlessly at him while he stared up into the high ceiling, then down at his feet. None of this bode well. If what the Alyi had relayed to them was true, and Mokallai… And this ‘Purger of World’s… But, it only made sense that a creature whose insatiable thirst for power could not be satisfied until the entire planet was consumed, presented a problem that couldn’t be kept in check forever, and would require something extreme to put an end to it eventually.

Had he his way, Gnyovanté would’ve punched Mokallai’s face in eons ago. Maybe that was only wishful thinking. As to Laylen, he held back a sly smirk. Normally a refugee would be a matter for his brother, Lucein, to preside over. As the Neisam of Vandanei, Lucein would’ve gladly arranged for her and Marqisian to meet. Still, given the circumstance of her arrival, and the nature of her being a pawn of Destiny, Gnyovanté was satisfied to have her executed at midnight without a word to anyone else.

Because she arrived ‘dirty’, he was happy to discard her like trash.

“That what you pass for a guest room in the middle of nowhere…?” she sneered.

“Tsche,” he said, ‘Yes.’

The 3rd Book Draft from Hell.

The 3rd Book Draft from Hell.

by | Jul 18, 2026 | Misc & IRL

Stream of Consciousness is an excellent narrative style to draft this one in, lol. Finna make this informal, like hitting me up over Discord. I wanted this to be a snazzy welcome post. Instead, my system fired back that it was time to talk about this pretentious title: The Rapture of Secrets. No, that’s not a Christian fic title.

Back in 2016, I published The Kingdom of Ecstasy. The Rapture of Secrets was the book to follow, and it began as an epic with a strong romantic arc between two pivotal characters. It was the beginning of the ending sequence. A 4th and final title, hopefully, was to come after TRoS. I was dissatisfied, following Lucein and Gnyovante, with Ashenzsi being OP, and Mokallai being like Tolkien’s Sauron: A force of evil you never see, but was threatening and present somehow. That reached 53k words, fat and ready for editing, when I scrapped it.

Version 2, the Dark Descent…

‘m glad I scrapped the initial draft. The story of TRos was intended top be apocalyptic. The romance was supposed to end in tragedy, a juicy end to revisit at a later date. So, I drafted a second version focusing on Laylen as Yathedqa, Mokallai as “the god of Destiny,” and the characters Amonthe, Schiirin, and So’yi. I made it to 36k,  a stout novella. Then, I scrapped that.

The 2nd version of TRoS dove into some dark and delicate themes. Particularly in Laylen’s past. She grew up in what has become a full blown Destiny cult. There are things she’s been as witness to, or victim of, that had influenced her character. The cult was not a good  thing to be a member of. These were the fanatical backers of the deified Mokallai. Those of the cult who defected or something like that got mutilated and transformed into Feyrcaai, grotesque, mountable human-beast things. Mostly men.

Naturally, to get into her character and access her motives, etc, it meant hinting at dark and disturbing things that to her may have been normalized because she grew up in a cult. The inspiration was based off of real life examples, such as Jonestown and Wayne Bent. It was intended to reflect on how we, as humans, endure nonsensical and absurd, traumatic and unfortunate events and behaviors, but accept these as normal on the basis of fanaticism.

Bit of a mouthful, ye? That’s what I wrote about, that’s what emerged. I’m a discovery writer; I never planned that.

The Waiting Game.

Life happened to me. I thought it would’ve taken only a year, maybe three a most to iron out the third installment of that pretentious series, Last Fate’s Dominion. But, I married, and several statuses changed. I got hospitalized repeatedly for various things. Worse yet: the Lore kept growing on me. I use worldbuilding for my personal growth and development. Storytelling isn’t just about making up a smash narrative. I explore, learn, revisit, etc, from my creative processes.

Eyuwre manifested in 2023. Yrell became the lower portion of the kingdom of Eyonim. Eyonim exists in the realm of Blaqnyon. That place belongs to Eyuwre. Several other changes happened as well. I never stopped working on my lore, but I had to stop publishing because of real life demands. I’m glad I don’t have children to juggle on top of it all. lol.

Coming back to TRoS with new lore was an exciting headache, because it meant that there was a lot from the previous draft that needed to be rewritten, again.I had tried to capture the gist of it, but it ended up being a thicc narrative, dense with footnotes. No one wants to read that. I do write appendices to my fiction, and I don’t want to read footnotes, either.

So, that was my third draft, down.

Flipping the Narrative.

I clawed back on those heavy religious themes. This time was different, because while I maintained the Destiny Cult angle, I decided to dive into the backend of the story. Instead of focusing on the Meatbag cast (Laylen, Marqisian, etc), I moved forward with Dyiij, Einarriel, and Mokallai. There are new characters to introduce, Eyuwre being one of them.

I’ve been excited, peering ahead at some plot threads, to write arcs for these characters as they’ve been less explored than the others that I’m more familiar with. It’s wonderful to have something fresh to work with!

Speaking of “Fresh:” There are stories that happened between TKoE and TRoS. A lot of Bog Fodder was drafted and written. Lore from Marqisian’s adventures in the swamp appeared in TRoS. Especially noteworthy was the appearance of the Slaggan dialect, Knetann. That’s why they talk funny. I was eager to carry it over from Bog Fodder as an excellent garnish to confuse new readers with. I love the challenge of writing it. It deserves a good clunky drop!

The Rapture of Secrets!~

I never abandoned the story. I intend to finish at least the two serials that I have. I wanted to branch off into the larger universe of Blaqnyon, but it may have to be limited to short tales on the side. I’m not sure I have the chops to crank out novels like hotcakes from a waffle press.

The 4th draft now suits as the best contender for publication based on the contents of the story. When it will be finished and available for download, I’m not sure. Hopefully by 2028. In the mean time, I think I’ve lost the isbins of my old books. I plan to republish them. And in the mean time, eke away at this current draft.

Do you wanna know what I’m looking forward to most???

Not handing you any spoilers, lol.