Hail and Well Met, Newsletter Friends!

Chapter Four of Short Steps, Red Sky at Half Past Four in the Afternoon, has been published!

“Rough day? Those consultants sound like a real piece of work.”

Crowley jumps, keys rattling as they leap out of his hand onto the hallway carpet.

“Jesus Christ Anathema.”

Anathema Device is Crowley’s neighbor across the hall. Two years in, he’s stopped wondering at the fact that she always seems to know what’s going on at Brimstone. She’s probably a witch, scrying into the flower vase that Ms. Tracy keeps on her desk. The crystals and wind chimes and weird decks of cards certainly support that notion.

“Do you think you’re gonna get restructured?” she presses as Crowley retrieves his keys.

“No idea. They haven’t even talked to me yet.”

“Excited?”

“Not even remotely.”

Sorry it's on the later side, incidentally. I'm reading The Wealth of Nations, which is very long, and also I've been gripped by some sort of malaise from either stress over classes or vitamin D deficiency.

Avid readers of Short Steps (if Short Steps has any readers that could be called avid? I think it does) will recall that chapter three mentioned some artwork by one Warlock Dowling. As promised, that artwork is included here for your viewing pleasure (but only two artworks, because I'm not an artist, and I got tired of fighting with photo editors)

Judith Beheading Holofernes by Caravaggio

The Disrobing of Christ by El Greco

Perhaps I'll try and make more once I'm less mad at online photoshop ripoffs (What do all the buttons mean? Why can't I undo that part? Why does doing the same thing I did last time yield different results? Hang on, did the buttons change???).

On the WIP docket: surprisingly, not Short Steps. I filled a (very dark) Tadfield Advertiser prompt prompt on a whim last week, and got kind of hooked on the idea. I think it's a balance issue---Short Steps is great, but comedy is hard, and sometimes you just need a break and a little writing stretch to get back on track. The title is Hellebore, and you can read the first two installments on the kink meme, although it's mostly a draft that I wrote in one fell swoop at seven in the morning (and also, again, very dark, proceed with caution). The current plan is to finish the rest of it, clean the whole thing up, and move it over to AO3 at some point.

Other previously-mentioned drafts are still kicking, just moved to the back burner while I work on Hellebore and Short Steps. I'd rather not be doing a two-week update schedule, but it may be that that's just how the chips are gonna fall for the next little while.

-unsmilingchuck