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

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.

whimsyandmetaphor Blog Posts

Final Twitch Update

Hey all!

Just a final reminder that there’s going to be a Twitch stream on this weekend!

The day is Sunday 16 August, the time is 1pm AEST. The channel is my Twitch channel. The occasion is the release of The King’s City!

I’ll be streaming for about 30-45 minutes, talking about the book, doing a quick reading, and then answering some questions both pre-organised by a friend who I bribed to MC for me and taken from the audience!

You can either bring questions on the day or send them to me in advance at @whimsy_metaphor on Twitter, or in the comments here.

E-books are already available, if you want to grab your copy before the stream, you can do so at Smashwords.

Print books are still coming shortly — we had some Unexpected Setbacks getting the cover uploaded to specifications. I’m really hoping to be able to either put those links up before the stream or announce them on stream. Thanks everyone for being so patient with me — as for me, I’ll just be chalking this one up to experience and telling the story at dinner parties and around the campfire to scare other writers.

But seriously though, it’s entirely my fault and I do thank you all for being patient like this. As soon as I can give a concrete date for when those will be available, I’ll let you know — I just don’t have a date I can point to yet with 100% certainty.

But hopefully I will see you all at the stream (if you’re not asleep, I understand, time zones are weird), and I look forward to interacting with you all!

whimsyandmetaphor Blog Posts

End of January Update

Hi all. At the beginning of this month, I wrote a post about naming the new year, and how I was going to make some changes to my organisational skills this year.

As you can see, while I’ve been relatively on time with my chapter posting (at least, compared to previous years), I definitely haven’t picked up with the blog posts. I’ve been pretty flat out, what with getting home from the holidays and diving pretty much directly into some convention volunteering and then the job hunt. Those of you who follow my Twitter will have seen a few photos of me floating around from Arcanacon, wearing myself out but having a great time doing it. Continue reading “End of January Update” →

whimsyandmetaphor Blog Posts

Changing Venues

Hi all — just a quick update. You’ll see on the Support Me page that there is currently no listing for the Ferryman’s Apprentice hard copies. This is because, as I mentioned a while back, I’m moving a lot of my distribution channels around. The Ferryman’s Apprentice will only be available in e-book for a while (though I do have some hard copies myself so if you desperately need one for some reason, do contact me and we can chat about that).

I hope that the hard copies won’t be offline for more than a month, while I make sure that the changeover is going the way it’s supposed to. I’ll be sure to notify everyone when the print copies are available for purchase again, and I’ll update the Support Me page with all relevant information.

Thanks in advance for your patience and understanding.

whimsyandmetaphor Blog Posts

Transfers

Hi all! Quick update from me!

I’m running pretty flat-out for the convention, but as I said before, I need to make some changes to how things are run. My e-books are about to get removed from sale for a day or two, but they should be back up with all relevant information on the site changed later this week.

Thanks for being patient and understanding!

Update:
As of 4th August 2019, e-books are now up again and available. My Support Page has now been updated with the details.

whimsyandmetaphor Blog Posts

An Update

I realise this isn’t going to be particularly interesting, but I’ll try and keep this short, for those who are interested.

Where am I going?
This year, I’m doing a couple of conventions. I’ll be in Dublin from the 15th to the 20th of August for Worldcon. If anyone will be there, you can find me at the Creator’s Alley on the 16th – I’ll provide some details of exactly which table is mine closer to the date. Otherwise, I’ll just be generally around the convention — if you spot me, come say hi!

I’ll also be at Conflux convention in Canberra, from the 5th to the 7th of October. More details on where I’ll be when will be posted as I get them.

What am I doing?
I have a few projects in the works at the moment. I’ve been working on the Edit Pass Live project still (though I know I haven’t updated that in a while). I’ll have a little teaser of that project available at the conventions, if people are interested in that. It’s a sneak preview exclusive to those conventions, so you’ll have to drop by if you want a piece of that.

The second section of The Ferryman’s Apprentice is getting much closer to being released as an e-book and hard copy — there’s only a few more things to finish off. I hope to be able to provide concrete publication dates sometime next month.

The blog version of The Ferryman’s Apprentice has been trucking along, but as many may know or have guessed, the third season is reaching its end and the fourth is the last season, the big finale, the wrap-up. If anyone has ideas for things they’d like to see in the final between-season content, shout out to me on the blog or on Twitter — I’d love to see if there are any final tidbits of behind the scenes information or things about secondary characters that people really want me to publish before the whole story is over.

The next serial is also in the works, and I’ll be releasing more details about that once the fourth Ferryman’s Apprentice season is starting to draw to a close. Watch this space!

Calls to Action
I’m also going to take a second here to put on the Marketing Hat real quick. Up in the top of the page, there’s a handy-dandy “Support Me” button. If you’re interested in me or what I do, I urge you to go and visit that page. It has such useful information as my Patreon page, info on the best places to get the books that have been released, and otherwise how to support me.

You can also get in touch with me on Twitter, where I am most active on social media.

Marketing hat off now. That’s what’s going on with me for the rest of the year. I’ll update folks with more details when I have them.

Have a great day!

whimsyandmetaphor Blog Posts

Edit Pass Live Stage 2: Task List Update

Update for the Edit Pass Live: Just got past what I feel is enough of a milestone to post the next task list.
Most of what I’ve done is the worldbuilding, but I’ve also fallen down a couple of worldbuilding rabbit holes where I added info that is most likely completely irrelevant to any part of the story or the characters in it. Still, hopefully it helps me round things out in my head. And it was fun — let’s never forget that part.

So here is the new task list, updated with what still needs to be done:

 

Worldbuilding Questions

Completed! See the original list here. I haven’t included it in this post mostly for clarity, but if you’re keeping score at home, that’s where to find it.

In addition to those, I also did a full history of H. Country in the past couple of hundred years, and a comprehensive biology of the non-human species, plus origin story of their people (both true and rumoured). I also ended up rewriting a few of the characters not on the list below.

Some changes are definitely going to require me to change some entire plot points, but then I always knew that was going to be the case.

 

The remainder of these still need doing, however.

Characters who Need Fixing

  • Yerothen
  • Althus
  • Orothias
  • Ette
  • Ithild

 

Timeline

  • Collate all my notes; split into categories so I can easily reference them
  • Create new outline

 

Side note: I really should have collated my notes a lot earlier; it’s going to be much harder now that I’ll definitely forgotten what the heck I was talking about. But hey, since when have I ever made good choices that will make things easier for myself?