whimsyandmetaphor News

March 2025

Hello, hello. Welcome (back) to the blog.

Here’s hoping this is a nicer news update than at least like. 60% of the other news you’ve received today.

It’s a new year and that means me trying to actually keep the promises I made to myself at the beginning of this year. Yes, I know we’re a whole two months in already. So, to that end, some basic updates on where I’m at:

First, I’m taking a leave of absence from my PhD. I’ll be returning to it in July, so if you’re keen for that project still, there will be updates coming, I’m just not legally allowed to discuss them in public until I’m technically studying again. On pain of the administrators making very grumpy faces at me.

On one hand, this means that project is off the table. On the other, it means more time for writing!

I’ve just submitted a short story to an anthology, and I’m attempting to get Once It Was A Corpse a bit of recognition. I’ve also swung into pulling together the next serial for the blog. It’s still in outline phase, so don’t expect it for a good, long while, but I’m working on it as my main project right now.

This has also given me a bit more time to start working on some admin stuff around here, like cleaning up the website, which I’ve been meaning to do for Quite Some Time. The Ferryman’s Apprentice is kind of horrible to navigate, and that’s been on my list for ages.

I’m also switching this big desktop to Linux, now that I’ve gotten a handle on Linux on my laptop, which will be an adventure. Won’t affect anything you see, of course, but if my social media suddenly becomes full of swearing, well, you’ll know approximately why.

Re: specific projects, here’s what’s going on.

The Ferryman’s Apprentice is finally getting its End Of An Era promo. Post with details to come, but pick up all four books and you’ll get some cool stickers! Sale starts 20 May, and runs til 31 May, so don’t miss out!

Also premiering in March is the YouTube series: Whimsy and Metaphor Write-Along Club! I’ll be writing a novella and talking about it in unnecessary detail. Come join me if you want to see how I work, or want to write something along with me! Details in a post to follow; intro and first episode go up on the 5th of March!

And as always, if you want to grab something I’ve already written, visit my Ko-Fi shop. Once It Was A Corpse is, as always, available for free download. Social media links are in the sidebar.

whimsyandmetaphor Blog Posts

October Update

Aaand it’s that time of the month again!

I said what I said.

Things got Intense this month, but instead of doing this newsletter in my usual update about a bunch of cryptically-named projects style, I’m going to do this a bit more personally. There’s a few things that I should probably let you all know about in a bit more detail.

First off, the general updates: I’m still going on all my side projects, though more chipping away at them than making huge headway. That means I’ve been doing a bit of video editing, plus a lot of game coding, and that’s been eating up most of my ‘free’ time for the last little while. The game is going to take a while to be public access, but the video stuff shouldn’t be too much longer in coming. The biggest challenge there is, since the video is for a series, I need to get to a spot where I can be sure that I’ll have some time regularly to dedicate to filming and uploading for a while. It’s by no means a complicated thing to produce, and it shouldn’t be too hard, I’m just working about at capacity at the moment, and I don’t want to add more deadlines to the schedule before I take a couple off it.

As a side note, I said last time that I was setting up more regular streaming. This was intended to be true, and is still my plan, but unfortunately I’m having trouble getting reliable Internet running. Hopefully I’m onto a solution and it’ll be fixed in the next couple of weeks, after which I can make good on that promise.

Speaking of, there’s a few things coming up in the calendar (I should really get this site a calendar). First off you’re in Melbourne, I’ll be playing an NPC in a LARP at Melbourne International Games Week this Sunday! Link to the info is here, promo video is here. I’ll also be playing in a couple of pre-recorded game demos for Games Week (hint hint: Sunday 6th!), so if you want to see me play a sneaky knight, check out ARC’s stream of Knight, and if you want to see me help demonstrate the TTRPG game design process, in a format where you can follow along at home, come watch the Design-A-Long stream! Schedule for when those go live can be found here.

Now, the … less-exciting but mostly necessary part.

In the last couple of updates, I think I’ve mentioned working on the sequel to Fire Witch. As I’ve been promising on and off for a while. But this is the official statement: I’m shelving that project for now.

This isn’t a decision made lightly. I’m a completionist myself, and I hate starting a story that gets left hanging. I’ve written about three outlines for the book, and I’ve actually written more than 100,000 words towards those outlines. I’ve also scrapped several drafts. The King’s City series has always been a bit of a bugbear for me, but I think it’s finally time to admit that I should set it aside.

The biggest reason is that I don’t feel like there’s any way for me to make it a good answer to the first book. The first book was finished just as COVID hit, and it was a kind of odd story in a few ways. Firstly, it was both a long time in production and extremely rushed. I had been writing the story for several years, but gave myself a harsh deadline to polish and release the first book. The result really shows: the story hangs together pretty well, but the proofreading was really not up to scratch. I also wrote myself into a lot of corners, thematically and structurally.

But most important, I took a four-year hiatus from writing anything. I won’t get into all the details right now, but suffice to say that I changed a lot in that time. The story I shaped then won’t fit into the ideas I have now. I’d have to make a lot of compromises to keep the story on the tracks I set for it, and I haven’t found a way to jump those tracks that would still result in something satisfying.

So I’m setting it aside. I think if I ever come back to this story, it’ll be a total rewrite, especially given how much the production of the first book suffered due to that self-imposed crunch. I’m not promising I will, but I’m not ruling out the possibility, either.

This changes nothing about the immediate future: I’m still mainly working on shorter stories and projects while I get my degree. I’ve got a longer project in the works (another serial for the blog) which is currently codenamed DR, which is progressing through its outline currently. I’ll update more on that as I get through it.

I’m sorry to the people who were looking forward to the sequel for Fire Witch; I know I did leave it on a cliffhanger. I’ll be putting up notices in the book page on the website and on my store page, and the store page is only going to stay up as long as I have copies in my current supply to sell. I won’t be reprinting them. And I am sorry that this blog got so long, but I figured this decision deserved as full an answer as I could give it.

I hope I can make up for this by providing many other stories in the future.

That’s it from me for now. As always, shorter thoughts go on the medias social, find them in the sidebar. Til next month, Whimsy out.

whimsyandmetaphor News

August Update

Full disclosure, when I was going to write this, I not only misread the list and thought the last time I’d posted was in June, but also forgot it was August and thought it was September, and that I’d gone three months without writing anything. So, you know, that’s how my day’s going.

But! Updates!

Once It Was A Corpse has been out for while now, and the first round of physical copies has been sent out! Thanks to those who ordered or purchased. It’s been really good to have something released again.

Those Ferryman’s Apprentice box sets are also on their way! Full announcement later this week because I don’t want to clog this post with details.

Those things out of the way, I’m starting to prioritise my next projects. At least one game upcoming (though if I get a free afternoon I’ll try and touch up Glint and see if I can’t get that one step closer to release).

For a while I’ll be focusing on the PhD, for obvious reasons, so releases are probably going to be slow and mostly short projects. But I’m starting up streaming again – I’ll be streaming every Saturday, usually starting late morning, AEST. Link is in the sidebar, or just look up Whimsy and Metaphor on Twitch. I’ll usually be playing games, but that’s just going to be an excuse to have something to occupy myself while I talk to chat. Do not expect skilled gameplay.

Anyway, as always, I’ll be on Tumblr and Bluesky until I post the next update. Look for the Ferryman’s Apprentice update in a few days (I’m just delaying it so as not to spam you all with messages).

Hope everyone has a great August!

whimsyandmetaphor News

July Update

Whoof. This month.

I don’t think I’ve had the time to properly update people, but Continuum was a delight as always. Caught up with a bunch of people I haven’t talked to in too long, narrowly missed catching up with some others for whom the same thing goes.

And then, of course, my life was immediately eaten by my PhD again. I’m coming up on my second big assessment, so that’s taking up a whole chunk of time. More from the Museum soon, though, I promise …

However! It’s not all stalling and ‘coming soon’ news. As I announced recently here, I have finally launched Project Butterfly, now with its proper title, Once It Was A Corpse! If you didn’t catch that, you can find out more about it by clicking this link here, or if you trust me enough to drop a hard-earned zero dollars on a nice PDF without seeing the blurb, then you can go straight to my Ko-Fi shop and pick up a copy. Digital officially releases today (sorry, physical copy folks, I need just a few extra days to get shipping sorted for your copies).

In addition, I can now announce that I’m going forward with a promo for The Ferryman’s Apprentice 4! It feels like the end of an era, so I kind of wanted to do something special for it. So I’m going to be crowdfunding some cool boxes for you all to put your copies in. Details TBA, but it’s not going to be long now til that’s properly announced, with dates and everything.

In the meantime, I’ve accidentally promised a couple of new projects, so expect some YouTube links to start going up, and if you wanna hear my incoherent screaming about coding, then please do go ahead and find me on Tumblr or BluSky (links in the sidebar). You know you want to hear my misery.

Until next time!

whimsyandmetaphor News

Announcing: Once It Was A Corpse

Hey hey all! Guess who’s back at making things!?

The long-awaited Project Butterfly is here – and it has a cover and everything!

Image of a book cover with a blue background. The text at the top of the page reads "Once It Was A Corpse"; more text at the bottom reads "Lee Cope". Between the two, there is a butterfly with brightly coloured wings.
Click on the cover to see details!


This is a little short story/novella I’ve been working on for a little while, but it’s finally morphed into something I think is worth putting out into the world. Here’s the important details:

What is it about? Illegal salvage divers. Dead butterflies. Broken promises. Several corpses. Beauty. All the good stuff. Dark fantasy with a bit of dystopia.

How do I get hold of it? Glad you asked! It’s available free as an e-book or for a couple bucks for a zine. Head over to my Ko-Fi store to pick up a copy! Digital available on the 10th of July. Physical versions are being sent out on the 20th, but orders are open now.

I cannot express how glad I am to be back in the saddle of making and publishing things. Please enjoy (and share with people who might like a quirky little dark fantasy story).

whimsyandmetaphor Blog Posts, News

The Museum of Lost Cities

History is full of blank spots. Places where we have lost knowledge we once had, because it was not recorded, because it has been broken, because it was removed from the records.

This is where the Museum of Lost Cities exists. This Museum is dedicated to not just presenting what we know of history, but to highlighting the things that we can’t know — may never know.

In other words, yes, my PhD project has finally gotten off the ground!

The Museum opens with an exhibit titled ‘Eurymachia’, exploring late Bronze Age Greece. Apparently, a new dig site has been found on an island off the coast of Greece that may shed more light on the Bronze Age Collapse. The Museum of Lost Cities has worked with the archaeologists at the site to put together a virtual exhibit showcasing some of the finds from the site, even before most of the archaeological community have had a chance to put together what it all means.

I’m super excited to show this off to everyone. The exhibit opens for a first tour this weekend (Saturday 30th, 6pm AEST), and then as a general exhibit starting this Monday.

All the details are on the Museum of Lost Cities website. There’s a teaser trailer on Instagram, too, if you want a bit more of a visual.

Hope to see some of you there! This is gonna eat my entire next two years, so yeah … there’s going to be a lot on this blog about it.

whimsyandmetaphor Blog Posts

May 2024 Update

What happened to this month? Seriously. It’s been one of those ones that feel like both two days and about six years.

I’ve travelling since last time I updated: there’s been a big family event that I went up to New South Wales for. It was great, but as it goes with these things, it takes longer to get back in the routine of normal life as I spend travelling.

In new news, though, I don’t know if anyone reads this, and furthermore if anyone reads this who will be at Continuum, but the [program has just been released]! And I’m on it! I’ll be on the Cyberpunk In The Age Of Social Media And AI panel (Friday 5pm), the Blended Plot Structures panel (Saturday 4pm) and the The Editing Mines panel (Sunday 10am).

Games projects have been sort of taking a backburner at the moment, so although I’ve started playtesting Glades, it’s going to be a while before I really start to make progress on the edits. It has come to my attention that I completely forgot to put any kind of currency system in the game, so that has to be remedied, for a start. But overall, it’s actually playing better than I expected for a first shot.

Project Butterfly has its new draft, and I’m debating on a release date. I think it depends on how much I like the version that comes out of this round of edits. It’s been in the works a while, so I’m not anticipating as much messing around with the characters and tone as there would be in a first-first draft, but still, you never know exactly how much there is to do til you’ve started picking things apart.

PhD project is so close to launch—I think I have exactly one more thing to do before I can start revealing details. Expect details on Monday, both here and on my other social media (see the sidebar!)

The Ferryman’s Apprentice 4 should get its Official Launch Announcement around the 20th, too, so keep your eyes out for that! I’m just finalising one or two things on that, too.

I hope to see some of you at Continuum! But otherwise, keep an eye out for the project launches, reach out on social media if you want, and I’ll keep you posted for the next update!

whimsyandmetaphor News

April 2024 Update

Gonna be honest with everyone for a sec, I wake up every morning genuinely unsure if it feels like April hasn’t arrived yet or should already be nearly over.

Also taking a moment to register my displeasure at the weather, and my lack of enthusiasm for the encroaching Cold Times.

Anyway. The stuff you’re actually interested in.

Projects have been developing steadily. As I write this, I’m about to start the second session of my playtest for one of the TTRPGs I’ve been working on. There’s only a couple more systems to figure out, and testing it for balance, and I might be able to start releasing details rather than keeping it all Secret Squirrel (though any developer knows that the first couple times you say “I think it’s nearly done” are always the hubris talking).

… Maybe I should start codenaming projects.

We’ll call that one Glades.

The project we’re gonna call Project Butterfly has just crossed a major hurdle and has a new outline. And of course, the big, important ones: PhD project and The Ferryman’s Apprentice 4 are both due a big update soon, but I’ll do a separate shout out for those.

I’m actually particularly glad to be working on Project Butterfly. Not that the PhD isn’t extremely exciting, and it’ll be so nice to have The Ferryman’s Apprentice finally all tied up. But Project Butterfly is going to mark my first new piece of original fiction finished since 2020, the first thing that’s not trying to finish an old project or working with other people’s ideas. I needed the break, but it’s good to be back. I can’t wait to reveal more info about that one.

I also have a persistent urge to continue to upgrade and update the site. That way lies madness, I’m aware. But the urge is there. Maybe just a little CSS … as a treat …

And that’s about it for relevant news. If you’re keen for more random thoughts and unrelated news-like objects, please do check out the social media icons in the sidebar. This year is only going to spiral further out of control, so I hope you’re all keen for the oncoming trainwreck!

whimsyandmetaphor News

March Update

Hello, hello!

So here we are, 2024. I can’t say that I was entirely expecting to be on hiatus for as long as I was, but that’s the way things turned out, I guess. I’m sure all the details about what’s been happening since 2020 around here will come out eventually, but for now, I’m just going to stick with a general update and some Important Things To Know Going Forward.

First off, as you’ve probably noticed, I’m retiring the ‘blog’ part of the blog for now. I’ve kept a selection of the old posts (not all, but a good portion) up on the Blog Archive part of the site, just in case you want to go back and find something, but I have no plans to add to that as of now. If you want my thoughts, the social media in the sidebar has your back.

Related to that, I’ll be starting monthly update posts here, so there is a reason to follow the site (beyond accessing the stories). Standard author newsletter stuff – what I’m thinking about, what I’m working on, and the fun, frivolous stuff I get to inflict on you because it’s my update template and I’ll put what I want on it.

So, what have I been working on? Well, sometime in early 2020, I got somewhat abducted into, somewhat adopted by the tabletop gaming and game design sphere. In addition to running events and things like that, I’m working on a PhD in urban play, transmedia storytelling, and interactive narrative, among a bunch of related fields. I mention this here because it’s probably going to feature prominently in the updates for the next little while. Yes, I’m making an Interactive Experience, and yes, it’s open for anyone to join. I’ll start releasing updates and explanations soon, so watch this space …

But, oh whimseous one, I hear absolutely nobody asking, back in 2020, you released a book and promised there would be a sequel! It has been three and a half years since then – surely you have been working on something that involves words! And yes, you are correct, if I had gone three-odd years without writing a single word of fiction, I might have ended up on the news and not for one of the good reasons. However, it’s still going to be a while before I start releasing any long-form fiction again, and I’m afraid I can’t tell you exactly when it will be. Definitely don’t expect anything on that front until next year.

However!! Do not despair, I’m not going to be just bombarding you with life updates and nothing else. In addition to the PhD project, I’m also working on a bunch of smaller projects, including a small text adventure game, one or two TTRPG projects, and some short stories. Expect updates about those in the coming months.

In a more immediate sense, I’m just organising my thoughts (and doing some final formatting updates on) the final Ferryman’s Apprentice book! You’ll be able to finally get your hands on the hard copy/e-book pretty soon, so don’t go too far. I can neither confirm nor deny the presence of commemorative events.

So welcome to the site, or maybe welcome back. I’m keen to be writing again, and I hope you’re keen to join me.

whimsyandmetaphor Blog Posts

Hiatus Update

Yes, I’m finally admitting that I’m on a formal hiatus.

I kept telling myself I wasn’t going to do it, but I’ve had some pretty major life things to plan for, and it’s just swallowed all of my time this year. No — that’s not even it. Honestly? I’ve just been piling too many things on my plate for too long, and little things, like blog posts, keep slipping off the sides. I would love to do something about that, but unfortunately I’ve committed myself to too many things that I can’t pull the plug on right now.

But! I’ve got a new draft finished for the next blog serial, and I’m working on the sequel to Fire Witch. I’m also still working on the Secret Project that I keep teasing about Cyborg Stories (Go follow the blog over here if you want to catch that when it comes up!). The Ferryman’s Apprentice 3 is just about launched, too. So I’ve got things in the works. I just … need a little time before I can start communicating with everyone again.

You’ll see a couple posts come out here soon. I’m running Game Dunk Online again (go check out the details here if you’re interested in tabletop games! We’re super fun and cool people, we promise!) and I’ll of course be shouting about that here.

The eagle eyed will noticed that I’ve unlaunched my Patreon page. It’s currently in the process of being repurposed. It will be back! But it was always a little hodgepodge and duct-taped together, and I want to start fresh and really think about the purpose (and also I want to be actually regularly creating content) before I start asking people for money again.

Of course, if you wanted to send a few bucks my way, you can always buy one of my books — the instructions and links are all there in the The Stories pages. E-book and hard copy are both available.

I may or may not write a longer post at some point about the concept of work-life balance as it applies to my 2020/2021. A lot of it isn’t too personal, it’s just that the entire post can be summed up by “and then I realised that that number of things was Too Many Things”. But I can give the brief overview version sometime if it turns out that’s something people are interested in.

Anyway — upcoming Game Dunk Announcements are imminent, but don’t expect anything here for a while. As the creative projects start coming back online, so will the blog. Stay safe, everyone.