–Mother, “Notes on HBRS-15.21”. 3 Years After.
A new sun set.
Liam watched its slow descent from his favored spot in Elysium, his legs dangling over the scorch marks that he’d never quite been able to remove. The rezzers continued to buzz about as they toiled away on these latest repairs a few floors down. So many more had been made these past months as Pandemonium healed from the wounds that had nearly destroyed it entirely.
He sighed, remembering all who had been lost in that fight…
Liam took off his work gloves and guzzled bottled water. This had been a long day as well, and it pained him to see how little he could do to repay the generosity his hosts had given them.
“Taking another break, huh?” Leah called out from behind. “And here I thought you wanted to clear your debt.”
Liam glanced over his shoulder. His old friend still leaned against her cane, an awkward sight for one so proud.
He frowned. “Not all of us get to work without sleep. I’ll have you know that I managed to clean this entire floor by myself.”
“That’s only because half this city still looks at your family like gods,” she countered, “while the other half thinks the same for me.”
“And I keep telling them, it’s fine. Just need some gloves and a mask, and the risk is minimal.”
“Well, it’ll be nothing soon enough. How’s Evelyn doing?”
“Still recovering. Stein thinks she’ll be good to go in a week.” He grinned. “Why? You evicting us out so soon?”
“No reason for you to stay. Cheyenne’s up and running again, and your second kid is free from the womb.”
Liam rolled his eyes. “His name is Marquise. If you’re going to be his godmother, you’d best get used to saying it.”
She grunted. “I swear, Liam. You’re taking this joke too far.”
“Why do you think it’s a joke? You agreed, didn’t you?”
“It’s called sarcasm, asshole. How the hell am I supposed to do shit for your son from a thousand miles away?”
He leaned back, embracing the last light of day. “Just come over here and enjoy the sunset, Leah. Will you?”
She sighed deeply. The clatter of her cane resonated moments later as she closed in, a sharp and pronounced tap against the concrete foundation.
Leah plopped next to him, watching the same horizon. “Not a bad view. Starting to see why you spend so much time up here.”
“Well, might as well get used to it.” He turned over and grinned. “We’ll be staying a while longer.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
She raised an eyebrow. “Huh?”
“Stein is worried about Marquise’s health. He came a bit early, after all.”
“So, all the more reason to get him out of the city filled with infectious cannibals, right?”
“That’s one way of viewing it. Another is that we’ll never be able to handle his medical needs better than here. Until he’s at full strength, any travel is ill-advised.”
Leah scoffed. “Good luck talking Evelyn into that one.”
But Liam only chuckled. “She’s the one who insisted on it, and not before getting the Council’s approval either. I’m afraid you’ve been outvoted on this one, love.”
Her eyes widened. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“Obviously, it won’t be permanent. Good ‘ole Chantelle can barely keep track of my rebellious daughter now that she’s learned to walk, and I’m sure she’ll only get worse from here. She definitely takes after her namesake, and she damn well knows it.
“But we’ve also got other concerns, and it would be derelict of our duties to not see them through.” He met her in the eyes. “How are you doing, Leah?”
“Good.”
“Come on, it’s just the two of us here. You don’t have to hide from me.”
She averted her gaze. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Liam.”
He frowned. “Even after all those surgeries and experimentation, you’ve still got that limp. Stein insists that he’s only a few steps away, but he’s been saying that for months. There’s no telling how much longer it’ll take. If he can even bring you back to your former strength.
“And that comes before your hollowing. We all know how much you lost in that attack. Having someone as versed with this city’s rules as Evelyn can only make it easier to get you back on track before anyone questions your faculties.”
“I’ll be fine.” She grunted. “I don’t need your pity or your help.”
“This is neither.”
“That so? Then what is it?”
“Just some good company.” He stared off into the dwindling sunset. “We both know you wouldn’t accept anything more, anyway.”
Leah said nothing, her violet eyes downcast.
“Don’t forget what we’ve learned through this mess,” Liam continued. “We’re never alone so long as we have each other. You’re no exception, Leah, no matter what you might think. You owe it to yourself to let us stick around and be here for you. Only for a bit more. We all love you too.”
She curled her fingers into her palms. Her arms twitched.
Liam patted her shoulder. “Come now, don’t be like that, love. It’s not like I’m offering to put down the next worker revolution by myself. All I’ve told you is that you’ll get to enjoy our company for longer than you thought. That isn’t the worst thing, is it?”
“I just…” she started before trailing off, her voice soft and vulnerable. “I don’t know what to say right now.”
“Don’t say anything then.”
The two sat in silence from there, watching as the sun dipped ever lower. Long rays of crimson and copper spread out from the horizon, shrouding their world in a different shade. There was no telling what would come next as their world darkened further, but they need not concern themselves for now.
Without thinking it through, their fingers entwined a beat, and then they were holding each other’s hands. Her staunch coldness mingled with his boundless warmth. Their eyes met soon after in the last light of day, with Liam’s living, brown eyes staring deep into Leah’s mascaraed, lilac own. No words were needed. Not when they were together like this…
And then they both broke free in laughter, relishing the moment of sheer stupidity that their platonic relationship had manifested.
What else were friends for anyway, if not a good laugh?
Hello again, internet friends.
Yes, we have done it again. We have finished ourselves a novel. No announcement page this time. All notes will be here.
And on that front, I've got some good news, some bad news, and some WTF news.
Suffice to say, this post is going to be quite long…
First, the bad.
There will be no Book 3 for The Hollowing, at least for the foreseeable future. For those who have been following along, week after week, you have my eternal thanks for trusting me to tell this story. It has been a passion project of mine, and if there's one benefit of having Premium, it's getting to see the people trickling in.
But sadly, trying to keep up with this series was taking its toll on me (more on that later).
No, this isn't the "true ending," even if it's been marked complete. I had two more sequels planned, and not being able to spend that time now really, really sucks.
Alas, this is an ending I'm comfortable with. I like to think that even if I died tomorrow, folks would be able to take this semi-open ending and be glad for the two adventures they received, especially because I did not want to end with a cliffhanger. None of this Douglas Adams shit here.
Anyway, that is the bad news out of the way.
There is luckily good news, and that is that one adventure might have ended, but another will soon begin in...
Build or die. There is no between.
Jay Reis never fought for his dreams, nor did he so much as try. But after dying and waking up on a game-like island, he can no longer afford to waste time. Not in this savage, untamed land. Here, all that can save him is whatever can be crafted by his own two hands.
This second chance will not come easily, however. Danger lurks in the dark, and the sun has already set…
Yes, this is very much gamelit/progression. No, it's not a straight numbers grindfest. Having been on this site long enough, the osmosis of enjoyable stories seeped into my subconscience, and I'd love to plant my stamp on this genre next.
Scheduling updates:
- I will be dumping a bunch of chapters at once (TBA) to get the ball rolling, then doing 5x chapters per week, Monday through Friday, ideally around 4:00PM.
- Interlude chapters will come out as bonuses outside this schedule.
- Chapters will be consistent, at ~2.5-3.2k words a piece. Possibly higher occasionally, never lower.
- As of now, I do not have a start date (more of that later)
Story updates, and what to expect:
- Single POV. Any head hopping will come as brief interludes between arcs.
- Morally grey MC. Not needlessly evil, but too self-interested to be good.
- Craft-based progression with complex and unique system mechanics.
- Slow-burn pacing. MASSIVE world to explore.
- No harem/romance.
- Minimal murderhoboing.
- Spooky Eldritch shit.
- Plant monsters.
- Some guy pretends to be Batman.
- More shit happening in a tunnel.
Suffice to say, I've been working on this for the better part of the past 4 months, balancing RL responsibilities, finishing The Beholding, and all my other online activities. I am very exciting to be able to share this story next.
However, the elephant in the closet here is the WTF news.
So buckle-the-fuck-up friends, because oh boyyy…
For those who have been following this site's updates and drama, there was a recent beef between two author discord servers, where some people were violating site rules in one server, and the other leaked a list of possible offenders in order to get everyone banned. The end result is the "Top Reviews" getting axed, now replaced by "Similar Tastes".
I was in both of these servers the whole time. Yes, yes. I was apparently a member of the witch hunters guild as well as the coven of witches, and I've got to be real with y'all, after all this shit hit so many fans, I still have no idea which was supposed to be witch (pun fucking intended D:). If you want to know how ridiculous the whole ordeal became for those of us stuck in the crossfire, the guy who leaked the list for "review boosting cheaters" ended up with screenshots circulating around of him boosting reviews within the hour. Like, the head witch hunter kept a cauldron in his garage(!), and he wanted to get 100 people banned over the thing he was doing.
But all of this is noise. I really do not give a shit about angry internet people being angry on the internet. That shit is fucking Tuesday in the land of me.
The problem for me is that, even if I avoided the rule-breaking (and therefore never got banned nor had my name plastered across the internet), the association was enough to ding my account with a warning by RR's staff. I am now in a spot where if I have a single infraction on my account, I'm permabanned.
No, I won't complain. I understand where they're coming from. Their hands were tied the second this became a public spectacle.
But... It's about here where I have to bring up the toll that writing here takes on me. I work full time, write anywhere from 20-60 hours per week, and never sleep. I haven't had a vacation in the past 4 years, always spending that time on one writing project or other as I've tried to gain traction. I've never paywalled content, nor have I recruited folks to mindlessly boost me to the top. The absolute worst you've seen me do is split chapters halfway through with the finale on my personal site, a slight nudge to encourage you to join my email list, lest you want to possibly buy a book from me somewhere down the road.
It isn't even fair to say that I'm putting out my work for free either. I run a loss of about $50 USD a month balancing everything from my personal site to the ads I bought to raise The Hollowing's profile. If you're here now, then chances are you clicked on a picture of Leah sitting on a throne with her titties out. I am genuinely motivated by nothing other than getting my name out there while telling stories I find interesting. Obviously, going full-time has always been the long-term goal, but if people get to enjoy my shitposts-masquerading-as-literature in the meantime, then why not? Feels like a win/win to me.
Suffice to say, this discord melodrama has completely derailed my plans to launch Crafted In Chaos. I lost a bunch of shoutouts I'd arranged to give my series the best chance possible, and I spent the weekend in bed stressed that I'd just surrendered a year of my life and hundreds of dollars because other people in a chatroom were up to no good. That time should've been spent on line edits and workshopping, not trapped having to field endless DMs about my role in breaking the internet.
We've kinda moved beyond this initial shock, but I'm still in a difficult spot. You might all be wondering a few questions right about now.
When is this new series dropping?
I don't know.
But you're, like, still going to post it, right?
I don't know.
How much did you pre-write in preparation for your launch?
~200,000 words and counting, or 80% of The Hollowing + The Beholding combined.
...After all that hard work, shouldn't you at least try?
Logically, I should. But it would be devastating for me emotionally if I were to put everything into this series, have it start to succeed, and then get blue-balled with a ban because of some minor infraction. I write for my mental health. Not to throw it down the toilet.
So what's the plan then?
Currently, I'm in a holding pattern of sorts, waiting to get clarification that everything I planned to do to boost my visibility is still above-board. If there's even a hint that my time/money will get wasted, putting myself in that position just seems like a terrible idea. Again, this takes a lot out of me, especially since the reward tends to be 3-4 polite comments per month. Yes, it's nice, but no, it ain't enough for all this OT.
So, yeah... Sucks that this is where we are currently. I was so looking forward for this to be a positive and uplifting post about another series I'd put my heart and soul into, but such is the case that we're all going to have to wait and see what comes next.
And of course, if you've made it until here and still have questions, I'd be more than happy to answer.