The book is so weird in tone. Pastel aesthetic for major parts, childlike eldritch horror, and nonstop gallows humor.

Anyway, not weird in tone, but if I write a thing, it's pretty much always going to have mental health and queer rep. The mental health discussion is sort of the point in particular

When he's not making wet heartbeats, he can be found on The Magnus Protocol from
@rustyquill.com, @shadowsatthedoor.bsky.social, @themooncrown.bsky.social and SCP Archives. He's also the producer of Octobers Children- a jack of all trades!

Feed Derrick's Lizard: www.indiegogo.com/projects/eel...

I have a feeling when I open the finale draft (which I think is at least an hour atm) I'll have editor thoughts about things that should be cut.

TMC led to more discipline with writing novels, and writing this novel might have helped me figure out how to tell a fairly straightforward story

An audio drama set in the same universe would be so fun though. Just not with any of the current characters I'm working with

The world it's set in has an economy and all of this lore that would be fun to build another story around. I've learned a LOT about writing working on this novel.

Ah, in case anyone is wondering about the lack of anything on the feed - I haven't had a working PC capable of doing much sound work at all since July last year.

I'll figure it out, and probably soon! But in the meantime, other bills must be paid 👍

If I DO delete the account from twitter, it'll have to be after I make a feed announcement to be sure listeners know that there is no longer an official account in that space.

In all honesty, I doubt anyone would care enough to use it, but I might as well be cautious. 🧍

There's a subreddit, but I really don't have (and as you can probably tell, haven't had) the mental bandwidth for focusing on TMC focused content. I'll of course still post relevant updates here as they come up!

My reasoning for leaving TMC up is just a worry about potential misuse of the handle.

All of this is null if I'm unable to publish anyway. Promoing TMC has been a hard journey I'm too tired for self publishing 😰 I have hope

Structural changes, and potential identity changes, here we go.

I *could* do it, I have ideas, but I would have liked the journey be from point a to b.

The more I think about it, giving Nate's POV room to breathe separately might do him more justice. Focus on Sonya overcoming institutional trauma and building trust, along with Damian's bipolar and identity.

hm

As it is now he looks cruel because his story is about grappling with the idea of the soul. It's a longer burn.

And the thing is, the resolution would be a bit "did they fix everything? did they really?" and then going "NOPE! HAHA! GOTCHA!" at the beginning of book two.

It does mean hollowing him out a bit here unfortunately and saving his backstory and POV to be told in a potential part two, or another project. I have faith that his character arc would be great. And maybe it would ultimately be better if separated, I'm not sold on that but it's certainly possible.

Cutting his relationship with his ex to one book risks losing the nuance of toxic relationships. Though, I have some ideas! I guess this book can be a focus on Sonya and Damian's POVs and leave Nate as a side character. He's not here just for rep, he's a fully fledged person, so maybe that's better.

I mean it's ALWAYS been a twisty cosmic horror katabasis but I've been taking out huge chunks of Dante references 👍

Every thousand words I cut leads to another two being written, I'm SURE there's a lot to be pared down but as it is now even a halfway split is two chonkers

I really like the new additions and things are becoming more coherent, the "solution" for the MCs is making more sense, but AHHHH