whimsyandmetaphor News

Shipping and Sending – Update

Hey, all. I know I’m a bit behind on this, but I wanted to make sure I had info before I made a formal announcement.

Due to the USA tariff … thing … our postal service has suspended all package deliveries to the USA for the foreseeable future. There are apparently some strategies that they’re exploring, but who knows how long that will take.

So, bad news first: Physical book sales to the US have been paused. I’ll let folks know if and when that changes.

Good news: it’s only package delivery, so all the digital books (including the epubs of tFA, when they go up) are still available. And the zines fit in an envelope, so I’m still able to send printed zines via letter post.

Again – so sorry to have to do this. I’ll let everyone know as soon as this changes.

whimsyandmetaphor Blog Posts

September Update

Hello, all.

August has ended way too soon, but here we are.

The eagle-eyed among you will notice that the format of the schedule has changed. I’ve just juggled my schedule, and so, for the foreseeable future, streams will be on Saturdays rather than Fridays. Hopefully this isn’t too much of a bother to any of you.

(Also hint: In case you didn’t hear the shout that reverberated through the Internet, Hollow Knight: Silksong is releasing on the 4th of this month, and Hollow Knight kind of had me by the throat when I played it a few months back, so for a while on the stream, we will be dropping everything in order to play Silksong)

Other than that, The Ferryman’s Apprentice bundles are no longer on sale! Thanks to all who bought them. I have a bunch of sticker sheets left over, though, so I’m going to pop those up as a limited edition on the site until they’re gone. Thanks to those who bought a bundle – it’s been great to test out some of these systems!

Speaking of – one of my goals for this month is to start getting some e-pubs up on the KoFi site instead of just having the physical copies up. I’ve been procrastinating on learning how to do those conversions for far too long. I’ll make an announcement when that finally happens.

As for upcoming projects, I actually find myself in between things at the moment. Having released Hol(l)o(w)metabolism, I am spending a bit of time focusing only on my PhD project and on my longer projects (DR and a couple of others) for a bit. I have no other shorter projects on the horizon for the moment, but I’ll inform people when that changes (though I may have one more cool announcement for you soon, once it’s out of Secret Mode).

Oh, and WMWAC – the latest episode should have come out a couple of days ago. This month we’re doing only streams for that (and stream VODS will be going up) because a) we’re at a point where I can’t do much more recorded video without it getting boring, and b) I’m going to be flat out this month and editing takes time, so in the interest of keeping things running, I’m going to just be streaming until I run out of outline. WMWAC streams will be running fortnightly.

I’m still slated to be at SXSW Sydney, still not quite able to get you my exact schedule. I’ll let you know when that changes.

And … I think that’s the updates for now. Thanks for stopping by, and as always, my social media is in the sidebar if you want to come and chat.

whimsyandmetaphor News

August Update

I really gotta get a better system for when I’m away from my big computer and I need to post these updates…

So, hi everyone, hope August is treating you well. Let’s talk This Month!

tFA promo bundles are still on sale! They’ll be available right up until the 31st of August (and then they go away forever and so do the stickers!), so if you want one, now’s the chance to get in before it’s too late!

The pre-orders that have already come in are only a couple days from being mailed out! For those of you who have ordered one (and thank you for that!), I’ll send a notification when they’re sent, including a tracking number so that you know where the package is.

Oh, and one more thing about pre-orders: After the 10th, Hol(l)o(w)metabolism is available for individual sale as well, in case you’ve been hanging out to for just the zines.

OK, now I’m done marketing at you (for now). What else has been going on?

Well, you’ll notice that unfortunately there’s a couple weeks without a stream listed. This is for two reasons: First is that my computer has decided four of its USB ports don’t exist, which kind of puts a dampener on my ability to plug in all the devices I need at the same time. I know what the problem is, but it’s gonna take a day when I can just pull the computer apart and put it back together again in order to fix it, and I just don’t have the luxury this week. The second reason is that I’m moving house next week, and thus even if I could have it ready for a stream on Friday the 15th, the computer is likely to be in a box that day, ready to be moved the day after. Streams will start back up on the 22nd, though, even if I have to transmit the data through one of those cup-and-string phones you make when you’re 10.

In case you missed it on Bluesky, WMWAC has also dropped to monthly updates, rather than fortnightly, just until I’m moved house and have my feet under me again with my PhD starting back up. Hopefully it won’t be too long, but watch for next month’s update to see where all that’s going.

Speaking of the PhD, keep an eye out over the next couple weeks: I need to get back into running the Museum and its social media, so I’ll be doing an announcement here. I know some people tried to get into the Museum through this blog before I went on leave, so hopefully those people are still interested now I’m restarting.

Finally, on upcoming projects: DR is pottering along, though it’ll be a side project for a while, so as not to take too much time away from the PhD. I’ve also started working on SC, an updated version of a project that I’ve tried to write before but never quite succeeded. It’s even more side-project, though, so don’t expect any major updates about that project for A While.

For shorter things, now that Hol(l)o(w)metabolism is out, the only small project that I have going right now is the one I’m working on for WMWAC. I have a couple of ideas cooking (a couple of game ideas, specifically), but proper details will have to wait til I’ve done a bit of mechanics testing and I’ve actually got an idea on how to fit the darn things together).

Oh! And for any of you who are interested in the whole “sightings of relatively unknown authors in public places” thing (in the least creepy way), I’m going to be At A Place Doing A Thing! South by South West Sydney (SXSW Sydney – 13th to 19th October) has for some reason approved my request for attendance! I’ll be doing a talk about my PhD project as part of a panel, possibly one other thing that I won’t announce til confirmed, and of course, wandering around the convention checking out and supporting the student projects, and generally being present as a person attached to a corporeal form. Full schedule available when I have it. Come find me and say hi!

That’s it for now – come buy The Ferryman’s Apprentice, and until next time, I’ll see you around on the Internets!

whimsyandmetaphor News

Whimsy and Metaphor Write-Along Club

A title card with white writing on a blue background, and the green Whimsy and Metaphor logo in the corner. The text is chaotic and written in several different fonts. It reads "Whimsy and Metaphor Write-Along Club Announcement!"
Title card by me
Border art: corner PNG, designed By Chenxin from PNGtree

Announcement time!

This is the Whimsy and Metaphor Write-Along Club!

It’s a little YouTube series I’m starting, where I write a novella and record myself doing it, talking about my process, and answering questions as I go. Feel free to write along with me, or just come along for the ride!

The full details are in the Introduction video linked above, but the first episode also up, so you can dive straight in once you have an idea of what it’s all about.

Hope to see some of you coming and writing along!

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

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 Blog Posts

Announcing Cyborg Stories

So, just a few comments on this – it’s more of an announcement than a real post, so I won’t take up too much of your time.

So this is about that university degree that I’ve signed up for this year. I’ve had a half a Masters degree hanging over my head for several years now, but ended up deciding to pick a different degree.

Anyway. That’s a story that I’ll save for the eventual autobiography, or a panel sometime. The main point is that for one of my courses, I have been required to create a website and some content for it, relevant to digital media somehow. I’m going to be focusing mine on how stories can be presented differently in digital spaces, and how digital spaces and traditional media spaces can be combined.

So, because I’m never one to waste good content, here is the link to the blog, called Cyborg Stories. I’ll be reposting the content here (with links of course, so that I can be sure I didn’t plagiarise myself), which will consist of at least one essay piece, possibly two, and a couple of recorded ‘podcasts’.

I’m not currently decided on what will happen to Cyborg Stories after the course. After all, I barely keep up with content for this blog as it is – I don’t trust myself to keep up with two. But I do have a couple ideas, and I think the blog will continue to see use. After all, I was blown away that I even managed to get the URL ‘Cyborg Stories’ – I’m not just throwing away that kind of lucky break.

In the meantime, enjoy the content. It won’t be too much of a departure from the normal stuff over here, just a little more … focused. You know, sticking to one theme. And an actual schedule.

Something like that.

Enjoy!

whimsyandmetaphor Blog Posts

The King’s City Update

The King’s City appears to have finally gotten through its technical difficulties!

Thanks to all of you who came to the launch, it was great fun and it was lovely to interact with folks a bit!

As those of you who were at the launch may have been shown, I am putting together a list of people who are interested in a copy of the print book. As a thank-you for waiting and being so patient with me, I’m sending out copies of the print book with free bookmarks!

If you are interested, please drop a name and e-mail address in this form, where you can also let me know if you are interested in the book being signed or personalised, and I’ll be getting in touch with everyone to organise those ASAP!

And just so everyone knows, I won’t keep the names and e-mail addresses after people have received their books and bookmarks. I’m not keeping them for marketing, and I’m only sending e-mails about getting you a copy of The King’s City and a bookmark.

I’ll be collecting e-mails until this time next week, so if you want your copy and bookmark, make sure you sign up before 26 August 2020.

If you drop your e-mail in the form, I’ll get back to you about copies soon. If you want to just wait for the regular release, links are now imminent.