I started a new story, Out of Hell, a few days ago, and it is up to 5,000 words. The story begins three years after swarms of poisonous bats claimed the night for the first time. The many deaths and dangerous nights shut down long-distance travel and broke established commerce. Terese and Leon live on an island with others who have learned how to come together to increase their chances of survival. The two get off to a rocky start until the death of a mutual friend brings to light Leon's desire to leave the island.

Bowling with Aliens - 11600+ words. Reena has yet to realize just how off the beaten path her new friends are.

Bowling With Aliens

Now at 10,000+ words. I added about 1,000 words today, meaning that I managed to write 3,000 words during the school semester. It's not much, but it's a huge accomplishment considering how busy I was with my last semester of school. I have hope for this story as it is one where, whenever I sit down to write for it, I can. There is no sitting in front of the computer screen with my mind wandering to other things. If I can continue to work out the plot ahead of where I'm at with the draft, every thing should continue smoothly, and with any luck at a faster pace.

The tone and purpose of the story is developing nicely. Reena lives in a world that is simply unfit for her intelligence and ambition. It should be unfit for any human being. She finds herself stifled under an oftentimes subtle but always pervasive authority. There will be moral conflict along the lines of "don't bite the hand that feeds you" and "when is violence justifiable?". She will make friends. There will be good times.

I didn't put much time into any thing else creative. Just notes here and there and the occasional RPG post.

"Bowling with Aliens" now at 6000+ words. It's pretty much the only thing I worked on during break, in part because I did a lot of traveling. I'm starting an activity log now, in the hopes that if I see a ton of check marks by "RPG" and not a lot by "writing", I'll feel ashamed and write more. It's not a count of length or time spent, but simply a count of sessions. Even small sessions add up. Wish me luck, as now I have quite a number of ideas for stories that I could potentially be working on. :) Forward with gusto into the new year!

Works in Progress

I've been working on creating and outlining basic plots for several new stories. I've done some writing of the actual drafts as well, but mostly just written down the details of the world and what not so that I might pick up any of the stories at any time. You can consider each title a working title. Here is a synopsis for each:

"Bowling with Aliens"
Reena hates the bungles, short bowling-ball shaped aliens who have alleviated many of Earth's social ills in return for human labor.
Progress: Draft begun: 2,900 words

"Reborn"
Eten and his wife Itonia fight through a difficult pregnancy to give birth to a child who holds the secret for escaping a pervasive symbiote that perverts the meaning of life and death.

"Shadowmen"
Cherel thinks she's going crazy when she meets a humanoid life form that sneaks into her house at night looking for "ripples" in space-time.

"Duress"
A lone traveler in the desert falls prey to the Travelers who seek to pass on their obsession with a certain well-guarded apple tree in the hopes of getting rid of their own desire.

"The Messenger's Plight"
Chemaux finds herself pursued when she agrees to carry a letter for a stranger in return for desperately needed aid. An illustration related to this story can be found here.

"Standing Out"
A small, bird-like creature breaks open the simple lives of a hidden steppes village when its pursuers trip the intruder alerts.

I also wrote several comic scripts for a comic based on "The Lost Sheep Trilogy". I figured that the original had such a bad, redundant plot that it would do better as a sci-fi parody. Also, the characters are fun to joke around with.

50-card Pickup

We are currently fine-tuning the rules for the game and creating templates for the proto-type cards. Although we had to extend the art contest for the game due to Vicki's surgery and to receiving fewer entries than we had hoped, we are using the submissions that we do have to create the proto-type cards, and I have drawn a few filler images for some of the missing cards.

I have created several clay models for the candles but have not made any molds yet.

I have also been drawing concept art for Vicki's game that she is co-developing, Lights of Myndell.

Also, the webcomic that I write for and Nuri draws, Seeing in Stereo, has been released. And for our ArtistAlley podcast, we're doing several episodes on selling at cons.

Lastly, Vicki created a redirect page from my old site. <3