December Descends Like Snow
The Cat and the Comma Issue #14
I meant to update this sooner, but I was busy getting married in October and then NaNo swept me in its embrace in November… But at last, here I am! And I come with quite the update. Let’s chat about it.
Misc. Professional Update
In my last newsletter, I mentioned leaving insurance for the realm of Aerospace. So far, that’s going quite well for me! Working first shift has been a challenge, because I’m not someone who likes to wake up early in the morning, but it beats out retail or being a sleazy insurance seller, so I’ll take the good with the bad there. Otherwise, I’m still working on behind the scenes posts for various projects, I have a NaNo recap I’ll be working on, and with Christmas break coming up for me soon, I may be looking at doing more streams. We shall see.
Writing Update
I have two major updates in regards to my writing since we last spoke. Firstly, I published a new short! “You Are Not This Person Anymore” is a second-person POV short story where you have died and come back wrong, all while trying to come to terms with the circumstances of your old life and subsequent death. If that premise interests you, you can buy it here!
Secondly, I’ve mentioned a couple of times that I did NaNoWriMo this year… kind of. I used the 50k goal as a stretch goal. My actual goal for the month was 30k, which I’m happy to say I achieved! The project I worked on was an old dark fantasy idea of mine, Those Who Emerge from Ashes, a novel about time loops, dead gods, desperate lesbians, and a zombie Jesus figure. The overall goal for this novel is somewhere near 120,000 words, maybe 150,000 depending on how things go. I also discovered during this draft that this concept would work best as a duology. I even have a sequel title, Those Who Ascend from Ruin. I’m very excited about this concept as a whole, which I haven’t been for a very long time. It’s refreshing, honestly.
Let me share some of my favorite bits I wrote this month.
Chapter Three — Maka
There was a scar on the inside of her arm, long and jagged. As a younger acolyte, she had once gone foraging in the woods under strict supervision. Monsters had swarmed her small group before anyone could stop them. Of everyone present, Maka had been the sole acolyte still alive at the end of it. Afterwards, Scholar Selene had done everything conceivable to erase the traumatizing memory from Maka’s brain. The blood. The screams. The overwhelming terror. All of it stuck with her despite the attempts.
Perhaps there had been a time when Scholar Selene's muddling of the truth was an act of mercy. Still, Maka doubted it.
Now Scholar Selene looked at her with a gaze full of fire. There was nothing kind in the way she held herself. "Apprentice Maka," she said, voice slithering over Maka's skin like a snake's. "As noble as your intentions may be, they lack substance."
She remembered the metal stench of her blood, the way it had gleamed in the afternoon sunlight against the carnage. Without thinking of the consequences, she dove for the letter opener and sliced it across her palm.
"How dare–"
Pain set her skin ablaze. The blade dropped with a thud to the floor. Where she had expected garnet liquid to stain her coat, it was instead a shimmering gold.
"Your substance," Maka signed, words awkward with just one hand.
Chapter Seven — Dakota
“I ran away from my… my mom.” Phrasing it that way felt wrong. Audette wasn’t her mother–at least, she wasn’t the person who birthed her, but Dakota didn’t feel like discussing the intimacies of her guardianship to a stranger.
Dayan made another short noise. “She the one who hurt you?”
“Yes.”
“Give as good as you got?”
“Not quite.”
At last, Dayan turned back towards her. “Well, if you ever see her again, you should.”
It was as though they had reached into her chest and cleared the stones within threatening to crush her. With relieved tears, Dakota let out a long, quiet exhale. She had barely told them anything at all, in the grand scheme of things. Still, it was… nice to unburden some of the truth onto someone else. The revelation made her want to cry all the harder, but she took instead to letting out breaths through puckered lips. It was confirmation all the same.
Chapter Eight — Maka
The smell of burning flesh stayed with her.
No matter how hard she tried, Maka couldn’t scrub Araceli’s screams from her mind. The crackling of logs and the woman’s dying pleas cut through every distraction she put in front of herself. A small mercy, she had at least been able to lock herself in her room the moment the last embers on Araceli’s pyre had died.
Now she sat in darkness, knees held close to her chest, mattress squeaking beneath her as she rocked back and forth.
The cathedral had gone cold without roaring hearths to sustain it. Though winter drew closer every day, dragging frosted nails through the bones of the Scholars, there was a ban for the next three days on open flames. No hearths, no candles, no lanterns. Nothing Araceli’s body could use as a conduit to rebuild herself. When she came back to life, it would be far from this cathedral. At least, this was the hope.
The fate of the Luricae was a strange one.
Chapter Eleven — Katalin
“You–”
“–am doing everything within my power to give her a fighting chance, Apprentice Sarai.” Her words turned to hardened steel. “Or perhaps you forget I could have gone straight to the Scholars and turned her in? How long do you think she would have lasted, then? An hour? Two? And how long would they have kept her from us as a result. If she wasn’t lucky enough to be excommunicated, she’d–”
Sarai’s aura grew to a blinding glow. “I get your point.”
“So then, you will stay out of affairs which do not concern you.”
In a flash, she was hauled upright. Sarai leered at her, so close her musty breath rolled over Katalin’s face. So close, Katalin realized after the shock subsided, she could almost make out the apprentice’s face. Every inch of her was twisted with rage. Katalin’s shirt smoldered where she gripped it.
Katalin gasped. Time stretched impossibly thin. Trembling, she tried to unhook Sarai’s fingers and recoiled at how hot they burned.
“If you do not release me,” she said, “I will ensure your ruin.”
At once, Sarai let go. Katalin bounced against the mattress, each bone flaring with pain. There hadn’t been enough time to brace herself.
“Damn whatever secrets you think you have over me, Apprentice Katalin. If there is ever, ever an opportunity to have you burned, I will see to it myself.”
So what are my plans now that NaNo has concluded? Well, I would like to continue working on TWEfA in the background. At the same time, I want to keep picking at Across This Hollow Distance, that fantasy spin on Eros and Psyche I keep talking about. That took a backseat with the publishing of “Not This Person” and NaNoWriMo, so it’ll be nice to go back to at last!
I’ll be making a separate post at the end of this month going over a rough timeline of my plans and hopes for writing in 2024, so keep an eye out for that!
Media Update
I’ve read a lot since we last chatted. Currently, I’m finishing up Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, which has been quite an interesting read. It’s given me a lot of needed inspiration. I also have been reading some of Lovecraft’s works, because I’ve been looking at cosmic horror and wanted to read the “original” before I branch out to some other works.
One series I’ve been working on and absolutely loving is The Winnowing Flame trilogy by Jen Williams. I read The Ninth Rain and The Bitter Twins and had an absolute blast with both of them. I have a few books in the way before I can finish this series, but these books are going to stick with me for certain.
Otherwise, I’m also reading It Came from the Closet, which is a collection of essays about queerness and the horror genre, and I’ve been really enjoying it. It’s given me a lot to consider. I also want to read Untethered Skies by Fonda Lee soon, as well as In These Hallowed Halls, a dark academia anthology. Hoping it will give me some inspiration for the eventual ASMLP rewrites.
In terms of other media, I’m almost finished with a rewatch of Breaking Bad and recently got my hands on Weeds, which I’ve started watching recently as well. I’ve not played much in terms of games, though I do want to get back to Bravely Default at some point.
Blog Update
Between getting married and focusing on NaNo and publishing a new short, I haven’t done much with blog posts. That said, I did finish one about social media and its unsocial habits.
The Cat Recommends
I like to use this space to shout out other indie writers, cause I think we could all use a boost from time to time. This time, I’m using this space to shout out Camilla Andrew, author of The Sanguine Sorceress! I’ve shouted her out before, but this time she’s come to us with a new novella as described below:
Centuries before the events of When The Stars Alight, Serafina Stilia prepares herself to be sold off into marriage. Descended from an immortal race of demons, their might is plentiful, but their lack of fertility proves to be a crippling weakness against other races in a cursed land of scarce resources. With territorial wars ongoing, the constant demand for fresh warriors weighs a heavy burden when failed births or excruciating death is an almost guaranteed certainty for childbearing.
Unwilling to play the role of sacrificial pawn in her society’s imperial regime, Serafina continually strikes out against her violent father’s attempts to control her destiny and turns a lucrative suitor away at the door. However, the suitor is not so easily dissuaded, and her refusal only serves to embolden his determination to possess her. After her reputation is left in tatters by his unwanted advances, Serafina must carve a path to liberation from the fury of her honour-driven father. Or die trying.
You can buy it through Kindle Unlimited here, or buy a paperback version of it here. I know I for one am very excited to read this!
The Cat Thanks
One of the perks for higher-tier patrons is shout-outs at the end of newsletters. Special thanks to my patrons: Ceph the Ghost Writer and Larkspur. If you want to have your name here with theirs, subscribe to my Patreon!
And that’s a wrap! Here’s hoping I get more accomplished to end this year out. Wish me luck!
Kind regards,
Alex