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 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.