"It is clear to me now that, owing to my unbounded vanity and to the high standard I set for myself, I often looked at myself with furious discontent, which verged on loathing, and so I inwardly attributed the same feeling to everyone."
-Dostoevsky, Notes From Underground. Why you should read that book.
Please be aware that many of my stories contain horror elements! Including those below! Common themes include the sea, arthropods, social anxiety, and a feeling of artificiality. I occasionally have the presence of mind to put a content warning on stuff, but there's no guarantee that I'll remember.
I'm back after several days of travel and sickness. There's nothing that jogs the imagination like being violently sick. But! I am now doing very well and plan to actually write something tonight.
Wow! 3k views! Thank you all! I really need to start writing again...
The Inhuman Citizen Integration Project is a comedy about a bug-creature from beneath the earth who has decided to become part of human society, while hiding his inhumanity from those around him.
And this is not a story exactly, but I may as well upload Sancho's Master Has Fallen Off The Horse.
“What kind of question is that? Of course the universe isn’t big, I saw it last week,” said an angel who was passing by, “and it was perhaps the size of a walnut.” The Man Who Only Saw Ugly Things is out. Another tiny storylet, because I haven't been able to finish any of the longer ones. 'Uncharted Maps' ought to be done soon. Either that or 'Organ of Unknown Purpose'. I keep putting them off.
The Star People is out! Not really a story, more of a vague thing concerning the true home of humanity, and also sponge cake.
The Human Game! is out! It's more simplistic than what I usually do, and uses far too many exclamation marks! Oh no! It's about the people who invented being human, if they had existed in the world of a book for small children, except also not that at all. Full of playground mythologizing and cynicism. It will be followed up by at least one more story following the same characters; a character roster can be located here. I haven't forgotten about it.
Had a sudden burst of inspiration and had to write an unusually (for me) short short story, Dates Under a New Moon; the title has been fixed.
The last time our kids were with their real parents was at the mall.
Read "Replacements" here!
The bone, under the flesh of the face— shaping the way that it stretches, bending it and keeping it taut in some places, making it slack and hang sagging in others, covering the skull in a kind of veil— mostly hidden, but shaping the folds.
Read "My Face" here!
“Well, if you aren’t going to tell me, I guess I’ll go see,” I said, looking forward to this memory-lost childhood activity.
Read "It's Nice To Be Back Home" here!
“I do not come in peace,” it had said earlier, civilly and politely.
Clean-Handed Blood, science fiction!
And here's a poem: Mystery Meat
Currently writing: Uncharted Maps of Well-Known Territories, Organ of Unknown Purpose (reworked and on its way), the Stolen Child. Currently outlining: unnamed Portal Fantasy story, the Lacunist, Better Possible Worlds, Violent Understanding and the Velveteen People, Philosophy for Roaches, the Planet of Endless Summer Days, the Human Game! sequel short stories, War (With Flowers), First Law, the Gates of Logic, Imagines, the Anemoiad, Sweet Nothing. Currently swirling around in my mind: something to do with robots, and something to do with bugs. Maybe also some things to do with fairies.
God loves you all, and I'm trying to learn how to love you too.