October Fiction

So, I was gently pinged on my Patreon that I don't do a lot of status updates. I appreciate the reminders, so I'm going to try writing up a monthly post of everything I serialize on my fantasy website.

As usual, I'm still working on posting a chapter a week so I can get to the six year mark (only a year and a half to go) and have 300 consecutive chapters posted.

  • May I Lead This Dance 13-14: This finishes up my short (19k word) story about a straight trans girl coming out to her parents during the High Society season of Tarsan. It is connected to Second-Hand Dresses.
  • Raging Alone 16-18: I went back to serializing Raging Alone because it's an important story that I went to get out about toxic masculinity but also the need for support structures. I also wanted to show another coming of age story in the desert which focuses on the “high stress means more powerful magic”.

This month is the second where I joined a new community and decided to work on my short story game, which is one of my weaker skills in writing. Like everything else I'm planning, almost all of these are part of my “phase one” stories which will be my focus until Desert Child is finished; that is the official end of phase one and beginning of phase two.

Well, one exception. Looking for the Wrong Thing is technically a phase two story, however I haven't properly dated it.

Most of my stories are set during the harvest season, except for Offers of Blood and Candy which is “Halloween but in winter”.

  • Offers of Blood and Candy: Gris prowls the village looking for blood or breath. However, someone appeased his hunger by setting out a bowl of candy. It works, but there are always someone who doesn't believe in the traditions. This is a story about violence, depression, and suicide idealization.
  • A Missed Chance for Royalty: Halis always had a crush for the beautiful woman in her life, Meram. Meram, on the other hand, didn't seem to notice… at first. This is a short, lesbian romance set at a county fair.
  • Foxhole Duties: Majoril, Ronamar, and Craid are pinned down in a foxhole with a magical sniper trying to kill them. It is wet and rainy and everyone is hurt, but they had to survive. This is a short action/drama piece.
    • It also ties into Ronamar's For Glory which hasn't been written yet.
    • Majoril's other story, Promises Made, was written last month and was a story homage to Johnny Cash's Don't Take Your Guns to Town, but with Majoril's grandson many years later.
  • Looking for the Wrong Thing: This is the first story set in Hidanork, a country to the east of Kormar. This dramatic story that explores how society had developed a way of ensuring genetic diversity by allowing mostly anonymous mating during the annual moots and the mother-focused culture. Also a little bit of spring break in Florida coupled with various tournaments. It has sex but is not graphical.
    • This ended up being five chapters because of scene breaks and algorithms (I break chapters if there is an hour break or a scene that would be boring or repetitive).
  • Curse of the Blood Corn: Finally, at the last moment, I finished a story about marital infidelity and rural curses. What starts off as a husband confronting his best friend who is sleeping with his wife ends in a bit of a twist. This has violence and some frank discussion about sex, but nothing really graphic.

On the coding side, I also filled in a bunch of details on various pages and working on scheduling logic for the front page of fedran.com.

Overall, I feel pretty good about my output in October. The question will be if I can continue this progression into November, but I'm hoping for at least one short story a week in addition to my chapters.

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