"Okay, so what are you doing?" is what you didn't ask, so of course I answered!
This IS interesting so frankly I think you SHOULD have asked.
NOTE: This is the exact same as the email you must’ve gotten a few minutes ago, just that I ALSO wanted to say that I have updated my Posts I recommend you start with page. I wanted to say this because I’ve gotten a couple new subscribers recently, and the old version of that post wasn’t that good. But now it is, so go check it out!
Hello. I am simply here to ramble about my creative projects. Mainly the writing ones, plus a couple semi-related art ones. I am writing this partly to motivate myself because I’m doing horribly. Let’s get started!
Short fiction
I have 6 pieces I am actively working on, at least one of which I may or may not consider sending out to a literary magazine. Here are their titles + a little bit about them:
I'm going to eat your pelvic bone and there's nothing you can do to stop me (a dramatic script format with dialogues + little descriptions of actions in between, plus footnotes and surrealist dialogue between two characters who are maybe the same person but one is cannibalizing the other [self-cannibalism?] and that’s without the added context from the Hindi parts [the footnotes + some of the dialogue] which let you know more about the world they’re in & the fact that this whole thing is [redacted, I’m not spoiling any more].)
Empty! (I started writing this one out of bitterness from seeing a bunch of pride month social media posts while also being a closeted trans man; miserable, but that’s why we write. This one is about two abysses. One of them crawls into the narrator’s mind, and so into the narration.)
Repent. (this one was borne from shame! Again, miserable, but that’s why we write. This one is also about music and being enhanced by it, in a way. You’ll see when you read it.)
ASCEND ASCEND ASCEND ASCEND (this one is… fun, that’s all I’ll say. I have a subset of short fiction that’s just 2nd person POV where the narrator is yelling at you [or ‘you’, rather] and those are my favourites to write. The more unhinged the narrator the better.)
Two Best Friends Stab Each Other To Death (I had a vision while wandering around consumed with dread, so this was born. This one also involves shame and repentance, but also more emphasis on reincarnation than ‘Repent’ has, along with an emphasis on a friendship between two deeply broken people.)
I am contagious (TRIPLE WIN FOR SHAME AS A TOPIC ON THIS LIST AYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY; but also sometimes, when my friends say something made them think of me, I jokingly say, “haha I’m a parasite that has made its home in your head” and at some point I thought, “that would be a pretty cool horror idea, actually” and so here we are.)
I also have 5 other pieces which are works-in-progress, but I haven’t touched them for a while so I don’t consider them ‘active’. Those pieces are in the stage of progress where they simply marinate until I’m ready to go back and finish them. Here’s a little about them as well:
Created / Creator /// Muscles / Soft Curves (working title. Body horror, surrealism, kind of abstract in some ways, I don’t want to go more into detail; I first wrote it in 2021 and only later saw its full potential, I’m going to edit & rewrite significant portions of it.)
I have made your smile into a medicinal tea. (this one is mostly a friend vibing with another friend and showing off a tea collection, except of course the teas are all a bunch of different varieties of smiles, used for some type of magic.)
To my dearest friends — (POV of what-might-be-a-robot who made a bunch of friends and is now dying and writing one final letter.)
The weight of things (I don’t know how to describe this one. There’s surrealism as the narrator tries to have a normal day [nothing is normal, ever, even in the real world]. There’s a sense of insignificance & despair, but also with, “grit your teeth and hold onto whatever shred of optimism you have with everything you’ve got”.)
Like Cures Like: My 'Brilliant' Thesis for Why I Need To Be Punched In The Face Posthaste (partially a short story, and partially an academic work set in the late 21st century after reality got ripped up a bit; this worldbuilding is relevant for at least three of my future projects, set in the Great South Asian Rip in Reality)
I might submit at least 3 of those out there somewhere. Maybe 4. Not the 5th, I want to have PDF attachments (i.e. other projects) in the footnotes of that one, maybe even some other experimental stuff related to the worldbuilding of that setting.
Anyway. There’s also all the incomplete short fiction that’s just shelved as of now, there’s just… there’s so much of it. So, so much. Cobwebs digitally growing over them at this point. Layers of dust so thick they’re like frosting on a cake except you put too much pressure on the thing you use to squirt the frosting so it’s just a lot of frosting, just excessive, you’d throw up if you tried to eat all of it and– point is, that is what the dust on all that other incomplete short fiction is like. With this category of WIPs, I tend to start work on them spontaneously when it just ‘seems right’. Their fate is uncertain.
Serialized fiction
loaf is still on hiatus because I’m so tired, and I realised that I did not have nearly enough buffer episodes prepared. Whenever I relaunch it, I’m probably going to rewrite the episodes too. And have a separate newsletter for the serialized story. And maybe have more of an outline, at the very least in terms of the broader plot points.
I have another serialized story which I had started way before loaf, and it was called Travellers on a Train. I hope to restart that one at some point too. Again, with more buffer episodes and with more of a clear idea of the major plot points.
Long-form fiction
My main project, Kriya Petri, is partially on break. Mostly because I want to focus on the worldbuilding. Plus I also want to make some art and conlang1 more for it. I had completed the first draft in… 2021? 2022? 2021. I outlined A LOT. And I think that that process is finished as far as the first book is concerned, so my next step will be to draft the second draft. I wrote what I called the one-and-a-half draft, before I realised I needed to outline & worldbuild more, so that at least gave me some idea of what the draft might look like. And again, first I want to conlang a bit and make some art. Because the world that the books are set it, Fillor, is an entire creative project even without accounting for the books. I want to get more visuals for it. Maybe even get to making the music of that world2, but before the 2nd draft I definitely want the visuals & conlanging so the music can come at some later point.
That’s a lot!
“Okay, so what are you doing?” is still a valid question even after all of that, because in what order exactly am I doing it? Especially when taking into account the fact that I’m busy with non-creative stuff as well? And also taking into account the exhaustion, dread, despair etc etc etc?
Well, I’m going to outline some stuff for the serialized stories, though I won’t draft them for a good while.
So, currently, the queue is like this: One or two of those short/flash fiction projects. Then work on the Chamkra gods’ language. Then a bunch of worldbuilding-related art, both for Fillor and Chamkra. That alone will be a lot, so I’m not adding onto the queue until all that is done.
So mainly it’s going to be short fiction, worldbuilding, and art. And I will be posting about all this stuff onto my blog as well.
I have no particular way in mind to end this post, sooooo I hope you’re all doing well! Both in your creative life, and in your personal life. And professional life. And also just in general. Bye!
Conlang = constructed language. The conlang in question is the Fillorian conlang. I also have another conlang for loaf, which is the Chamkra gods’ language. Both languages are my main projects as far as conlanging is concerned.
I plan to make a whole new music system for Fillor with a 31 EDO tuning system. “EDO” = ‘equal divisions of the octave’, so 31 equal divisions of the octave rather than the regular 12 divisions we are familiar with in our own world.