My Writing Process Blog Hop

Last week, both Richard Gibney and Tony Noland tagged me in the latest big blog game: #mywritingprocess. Like most popular writing games, I've missed it because I've been quite sick and quite deep into my own novel. Last week was also the first week in over five years I missed #fridayflash. It's been a tough time, so let's lighten it up with writing talk.

The basics of the game are familiar:
1) Post on a certain day (May 19th for me, May 26th for whom I tag)
2) Mention who tagged you.
3) Answer the four questions.
4) Pass it on.

Not too taxing, right? And the appeal is this exposes different processes of different writers. Even Richard and Tony have very different posts. They provided me four questions about my writing process, posed, for whatever reason, in the first person.

1) What am I working on?
Today I'm editing the second novel in a series, We Don't Always Drown. The first hasn't been published, but because I plan this series to run for quite a while, I wanted to do more of the construction in advance. At this point I'm certain it was the right idea as it's allowing me to alter the original to set up continuity for so many crazy payoffs later on. No spoilers, I promise, but lots of zany backstabbing.

2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?
If you accept it as a Fantasy novel, it's not set in our world but isn't Medieval-centric either. I write in the Post-Post-Post-Apocalypse, after the dinosaurs have come back, and the machines rose against us, and sentient thunderstorms chased the machines in suspiciously theological patterns. The world is so splintered that we have magic but very few surviving systems of figuring out how it works, and so if you can keep an automobile running, you might as well stick with it. Triclopes, imps and humans have to negotiate to live together in pockets of mingled fascism and anarchy, because it's really hard to establish a neighborhood when another apocalypse might hit on Tuesday. Hopefully this tells you why I'm not like George R.R. Martin.

3) Why do I write what I do?
That changes wildly based on the project, doesn't it? Last House in the Sky and We Don't Always Drown come from a place of deviant Fantasy; we have enough fake Medieval Europes, and not enough cars chasing brachiosaur convoys. I'm as much a child of Akira Toriyama and Rumiko Takahashi as I am of Tolkien and Homer.

Yet there are other projects that resonated around strong unrests. The novel I wrote three years ago, The House That Nobody Built, was about questioning identity and the prison-industrial-complex-as-Ilium. Elements that get stuck in me tend to turn into stories. I've got several shorts on submission to market right now that came from solipsism and disablism, or my love of places that feel like they can judge you, or my unease with the Magical Girl genre (I stress that the unease is mine – it's a beautiful genre).

4) How does my writing process work?
I always begin with an element of an idea, and almost never with the full idea. The key elements in my writing are character, premise and style. If I get one, then I need to spin out the others from it; if I've got a super-creepy alien spy, then I spin up a premise for her to spy on, and a style that'll make the most of her adventure. Alligators by Twitter started as a stylistic riff on the Twitter conceit; character and premise came about sentences later.

I have a simple formula for composition. On novels, I aim to write scenes, letting actions play out as they do, for at least a thousand original words per day. I seldom give up at that line; it's just there to let me know I can if it's a tough day. It's similar to this for short stories; I go for the scenes that need to happen, caring even less about word count as they tend to be the product of bursts. In all cases my emphasis is to get the small things right and postpone the big things that would distract from composition.

I'm not in that zone right now, as I'm editing. I've broken the novel into eighteen chunks of chapters, about 18-25 pages each. The copy is covered in bolded text (prayers for my future self to re-read a questionable section) and suggestions that came to mind after I composed. "Wouldn't it be cooler if hadrosaurs chased him here?" "Remember that article on volcanic geology? It'd help this." That sort of stuff.

While my health as been poor, I do my best to knock off one chunk per day, and hope to have all the chunks done by June. There are four chapters that I'm considering scrapping and writing entirely new versions of, which would delay things, but a good book that's late remains good, while a bad book that's early sucks forever.

After I have a clean copy, I'll probably read the entire thing to check tonal and plot consistency. If it passes, then I have two wonderful alpha readers who will be happy to tear into it. Their job is to tell me if any emperors are missing clothes. After I dress all my emperors, I go to betas, who I'm blessed to know. They're kind enough to take a cheese-grater to my baby.

So there we have, and all that's left is passing it on.

First, I'm going to side-link to Lise Fracalossi, who has already done this, but was the first person who came to my mind. She's a fellow Viable Paradise grad and an author I expect a lot from in the coming years.

Next, I'm going to invite anyone who found this post useful or entertaining to play the game. Just link your blog post in the comments and I'll add you in here. I'd rather this sort of game be inclusive.

That invitation given, here are four more people whose writing is worth reading.

Ferrett Steinmetz recently sold his Fantasy novel, Flex, to Angry Robot Books. I'm pretty sure he blogs more in a year than I write novels, screenplays and short stories combined. I love reading him discuss writing, and so I'm hoping he'll play along.

Alex Haist doesn't blog terribly often and is presently deep in her own novel. Like Lise, her work is going to be very special to some people, but I'd rather she tell you about it. That is, again, if she plays along.

Peter Newman is a Fantasy novelist and what you might call a graduate of #fridayflash. His first book, The Vagrant, is due out with Voyager in 2015. He's also husband to the delightful and prolific Emma Newman, who I'd also be tagging if she wasn't recovering from ill health and maddeningly busy. I should also mention the two run a wicked podcast.

Lastly and furthest from least, Randall Nichols is one of the most diligent writing friends I've ever had. He will never hesitate to take a cheese-grater to a baby. He's written comics, screenplays, and is presently helping produce a card game. That last is elaborated upon in his latest blog post. I've seen the kingdoms he's cooked up and they're quite neat. Go ask him about Cyber Kong.

Ideally everyone plays along by posting on May 26th, a week from today. And ideally they will tag a few more people as well. But do we live in an ideal world? We'll find out in a week.

Two-Punch Pitches (as many as John can write before he passes out)

Hi, I'm John Wiswell and I write about tentacle monsters and post-apocalyptic optimism.

...and I write about dinosaurs and giant robots.

...and I write about prison breaks and the succubae who make it fun.

...and I write what lives between Humor and Horror.

...and I write excuses to have magical swords that work the way swords aren't supposed to.

...and I write about sentient puddles and the con men they love.

...and I write about the people who live on the border between empire and anarchy. It's nice this time of year.

...and I write about worlds that have seen so many apocalypses they're considered part of the weather.

...and I write about liars who need to be heroes and heroes who'd be better off as liars.

...and I write about giant monsters and insignificant survivors who need them.

Where John is Going for a Week

So, the Bathroom Monologues have been a little quiet lately, and they’ll be a little quieter next week. I’ve got a fresh Bathroom Monologue for Tuesday, and a Friday Flash ready for the following Friday, but otherwise, I may be off the internet entirely.

Where am I going? Viable Paradise.

No, it’s not a cult. It sounds like a cult. When I first heard Moses Siregar III mention it, I thought he was saying “Bible Paradise,” which made the reverence sound even more cult-like.

Okay, that slogan is slight cult-ish too.

But it’s actually an intense weeklong workshop with several of the leading editors and authors in American Fantasy and Science Fiction. Of particular excitement for me are Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden, two lead editors from Tor, and novelists Scott Lynch and Elizabeth Bear. Lynch is coming in straight off a press tour for Republic of Thieves, which I imagine will be a whirlwind.

I’ve seen a few peers surprised or even angry that I applied to a workshop. I’ve hesitated to write about this, but, what the hell. It’s as though they thought they were about as good as me, and they jumped into self-publishing thinking they were good enough to go immediately, and I’m offending them by taking more pains for craft. It’s a weird position to be in, and I’ve yet to deal well with one of these arguments. Responding to being yelled at by neither a) deflecting nor b) turning belligerent is one of those abilities I certainly need to hone. I have, perhaps, too strong a desire to engage.

The truth is that I push myself very hard in my writing, am enormously self-critical, read as much as I can, and never feel like I do enough. This year my health failed enough that I could no longer keep up my writing schedule, which is a big part of why the Bathroom Monologues are no longer daily. And there are small presses that would take my novels at this point, but I want to run them through a real crucible. There are many things to get out of Viable Paradise, and for a year now this has been the planned precipice. I’m returning to hard subs and publishing plans as soon as I leave.

Friends Theresa Bazelli and Brent Bowen are both graduates of VP and have glowing words for it. Whatever it says about me, I’m most looking forward to critiquing my fellow students’ work, to helping others toward perfecting their craft. That’s a unity I cherish in prose communities.

Yet I’m not excited, as I don’t get excited about many important things. I get excited about dumb things, like going to Pacific Rim with a friend, or an ice cream break at the end of a diet week. The wait for VP feels like learning to walk again, and going to college, and having surgery. God willing it’ll be more fun than surgery, but my head is just in Wait Mode until the minute things actually happen and demand response.

What it will all amount to for you, my beloved faithful readers, is a series of novels that will be worth your time. I will not waste your time.

Bathroom Monologue: The Shoemaker's Profits

Walk two leagues west of the Cloud Hills and you will see The Ascent, the city that was once the first outpost in this region. It was settled before golems did the work of humans, and grew into one of the first cities in the entire Empire of Gold and Jade. It is built into along the steepest slope in the region so that the hands that built it would never forget the feet that supported them.

Everywhere in The Ascent is a fetish for staircase, and every structure in it is only one story tall. There are no houses as there are on farms or in modern cities; instead, every baked clay abode is covered by another overlapping set of stairs, going diagonal, or winding amid each other, and every door is set beneath where someone treds. This way anyone can walk anywhere, and this way every head rests to sleep below where feet will run, and so everyone in the city knows they are not alone. It is a comfort and an obligation, reminding every citizen to rest no longer than they must and to return to service.

These tiers of houses run up to the mayoral residence, above which no one lives. Passages have been built throughout the intricate staircases to carry the noise of all the footfalls in the city up to the apex, and so they echo through the mayoral residence and the chambers of his staff, thus reminding them more than any who they must rise to serve. When policies are unfair, people climb The Ascent with heavier footfalls, or remove their shoes to beat against the mayor's door. At the worst times, the citizens have hurled loads of unwashed shoes at those windows. The shoemaker profits on every discontent.

Bathroom Monologue: Do Not Hug the Golem

A golem is the best friend you could have. Forget sexy succubae. Forget conniving imps. Just because they're your species, or have blood in their veins, or hopes and dreams, does not make them good friends or reliable business partners. In fact, all those features make them distinctly bad business partners on any important business.

One reason you want the golem as a best friend is that it'll never hog the seats during travel. If there's only room for one on the carriage, it'll let you sit. If you only have one steer, it'll let you ride it. It will walk. It will pull the carriage.

Another reason you want the golem as your best friend is that when you're stranded in the middle of The Frontier, it won't kill the carriage’s steer for food. It doesn't eat except when it's confused, and then it'll usually eat you by mistake. Succubae eat you out of boredom.

Once the steer has been cooked and gone rotten, your golem best friend won't turn on you. It won't try to cannibalize your left arm under the rationalization that you're a righty. Unlike imps, the golem best friend also won't run off in the middle of the night, abandoning you once it's obvious that it can't eat you in your sleep.

The golem is a better friend because it will actually carry you back to civilization. You’ll be sick from hunger, utterly useless to it, and it’ll cradle you to its craggy flank until chimneys are in sight. Even when the villagers run at it with pitchforks and torches, it'll stay with you until you get a hot meal.

Now after that, it will run away. It will run like a sissy. To be fair though, all best friends will run away once you're safe and people are stabbing them with farm equipment.

However, very few best friends will then loiter on the city outskirts, hiding behind the biggest tree available, until you're healthy and ready to disembark.

The only downside to the golem best friend is that it'll break your ribs when it hugs you upon seeing you again.

Do not hug the golem.

‘Z’ is for ‘The Z,’ the world’s only zombie reservation.

‘Z’ is for ‘The Z,’ the world’s only zombie reservation. It’s the farthest thing from appearing in any of my scheduled books, at present the tentative setting for my seventh down the line, and so it’s closing out the A-to-Z challenge.

The Z lies deep in the north-west of The Frontier (see ‘F’), and is the only place in the world that still experiences zombieism. Zombies are very old hat for this world, a vestige of an apocalypse so old there is no record of it. It’s widely believed that zombieism is caused by magical bacteria, which is why The Z is such a quizzical place. That the infected only spawn from this place seems more like a curse.

A nice place to keep your undead.

The geographic area is a mild plateau featuring jungle flora and extreme humidity. Anyone who dies there rises, yet people who spend significant time there and die elsewhere do not rise. Zombies exported from The Z can spread the condition through fluid transfers, yet the infection spreads much less quickly in such cases. This has been documented by Red Brigadier Wisemen (see ‘R’) who were willing to subject themselves to the condition for the betterment of common knowledge. Searching for the cause is impractical do to the myriad flesh-hungry beings that live there, and because of The Z’s wardens.

Regardless of the cause, The Red Brigade has set up a barrier around the entire plateau, and thousands of believers spend their entire lives there, ensuring no zombies escape. They do not begrudge the risen, seeing it as merely the final change and likely one coming from The Fifth, their most feared god. A zombie is a fellow to be respected, just as a farmer who turns into a scholar is. What the Red Brigade do they view as both in service to the rest of the world, and ensuring peace to their undead brothers and sisters. The task is so great that many zealots seek other infections, such as vampirism and tentacalia, to assist in keeping zombies away from their borders.

The Red Brigade also serve to prevent other creatures from entering ‘The Z,’ as zombiefied humans and triclopes are bad enough. A zombie centaur or hadrosaur is much worse. The apex zombie predators are stuff of legend, roaming in the very depths of the plateau, along with a lost tribe of scientists who were allegedly seeking to weaponize the area’s unique bacteria.

‘Y’ is for ‘Yegg.’

'Y’ is for ‘yegg,’ individuals particularly interested in safes. Their particular interest is getting inside them and taking their insides elsewhere, or if the safe is small enough, taking the entire endeavor elsewhere. Preferably to a workshop with good sound-proofing.

Yeggs are common because safes are common, having been left behind by so many civilizations that thought they were going to live longer. Apocalypses destroyed many possessions, but a sturdy box has outlasted many an owner. Most of the known history (and the better part of the gossiped and unreliable history) are from documents found in safes.

Of course, so are the few functional guns and most of the powerful magic items in circulation. Any worthwhile scavenger has to know how to crack safes, and the really good ones get famous. In The Frontier, Kazh Anzhel gained fame for cracking two gremlin vaults, the only person ever known to perform the feat twice. Being human, he was a pride of the Empire of Gold and Jade, even though he was known to rob them as well. His skill with locks was so great that it was rumored to merge all-chemistry, forging keys that opened doors not only in walls, but in the ground, in the earth, and within gravity itself.

Kazh Anzhel quit the safe-cracking business a few years ago on account of apparent death. His daughter, Ninx Anzhel, has done an excellent job honoring his memory by outdoing him. All of her targets are deemed impossible, like a life-sized statue of a tyrannosaur and the stage from the world’s first theatre. She recently stole the ceiling from The Empire of Gold and Jade’s royal palace. Anyone who knows how she did that should contact their nearest magistrate.

Ninx is one of the main characters of Last House in the Sky.

And no, I didn't make up the word 'yegg.'

‘X’ is for ‘Xenophobia.'

‘X’ is for ‘xenophobia,’ the fear of people or things different from yourself. This is most typically applied to one species’ dislike of another; the hatred humans harbor for the imps that enslaved them an apocalypse ago, or the triclopic disdain for how badly gremlins screwed the world over. While no census has ever been taken, it’s presumed the majority of any given sapient species dislikes automatons, robotic creatures that spend their entire existences consuming and combusting sapient species. It’s undetermined whether automatons are xenophobic of biologicals; their constant chasing and consumption might be considered an unhealthy xenophilia.

Loves you to bits.

Everyone’s felt the pangs toward “the other.” You aren’t my family. You aren’t my species. And you comets, they definitely aren’t from around here, and I wish they’d slow down as they plummet from the sky. How can I trust you?

Fear of the “other” is hardly limited to other species or races. The Human Age alone has wide discontents, its hermits who hide in the frozen south, and tens of thousands of Red Brigade pilgrims who left the secular Empire of Gold and Jade for The Frontier. “Misanthropy” was coined describing human opinions of other humans. There’s a political theory that if any species’ population rises high enough, it’ll divide into groups that will set against each other. Imperial economists are looking into this, to either remedy or monetize conflict.

City-states in The Frontier have self-congratulatory reputations as melting pots, where imps are not judged by their ancestors’ failures, where triclopes will tinker with remains of gremlin technology, and where centaurs and nine-legs set aside feuds so ancient that no other cultures understand them. The anthropologically-inclined believe this has only set up different group practices of segregation; consider how the sick or little-familied in Clemency are often hunted for public entertainment. In the city-state of God’s Lap, home of the world’s last skyscraper, many floors of the grand building have low- or zero-tolerance policies for visitors from any other floor. Intolerance finds a way.

And tolerance isn’t always for the best, either. Consider: of 300 gremlin automobiles ever recovered by triclopes who moved past their loathing of gremlin technology, 288 of them self-detonated. It turns out gremlins did not like “the other” touching their things. They’re dead now, but so are the budding mechanics.

‘W’ is for ‘Armed Conflict,’ or, ‘Escalating Hostilities,’ or, ‘Police Action.’

‘W’ is for ‘Armed Conflict,’ or, ‘Escalating Hostilities,’ or, ‘Police Action,’ or... what's the word...?

First he heard them. They were late, two hours since dawn, before crawling out of their holes, camps all hidden under the palm canopies, all out of sight. Three days of failed attempts to siege his position and their smartest decision had been to sleep where his crew couldn’t see them. The humans came groaning, and rustling over brush they couldn’t name, and scratching at infections they’d never seen, and hid. Hees heard them hide in the great walls of foliage below his hill, and glanced three eyes down into their pocket of the valley, at the lip of the only slope leading up the only high ground for a quarter of a league. It was a bump in the terrain compared to the canyon walls east and west, but it was the only foothold available if your empire wanted to siege across to the Uncanny Valley’s western cliffs.

Hees remained at the precipice, flies crawling through his hair and ears, and raised up the sauropod leg that ought to have been his breakfast. It sweated more than he did, and he smeared it across the trees around him, painting their bark with gore. So did Matou and Yaw’s crews, and Alpee and Hamam, even though they’d been up the entire night butchering. Further up they burned pyres of the stuff, dispersing a stench unbearable even with gum stuffed in his nostrils, and he glanced between all the panting and painting triclopes, then up to the southern sky. Only the faintest hint of smoke over the pissavas, and no rumbling yet. Doa was a day late.

Ten, then fifteen, then eighteen green and yellow uniforms in the basin below, their petty two-eyed lives leading them to believe they were hidden amid tall brush. The Empire’s soldiers wore trousers and sleeves, not at all suitable to this boiling climate. Yet they judged Hees and his crew as savages for painting the trees with carrion in their underwear. He heard them. They had the same number of ears as Hees and yet seemed to think he couldn’t hear them.

“Superstitious…”

“What is that smell?”

“I can hit that one.”

And the creak of a bowstring. Two bow-strings amid the leaves, distinct while attempting harmony. He prayed south for Doa to hurry, and for the smoke to hasten.

He jerked the stump of leg up and caught the arrows with two wet thucks. Then the foliage below parted, from the ground to the canopies, and his three eyes drowned in hundreds of humans. They unleashed a swarm of gilded arrows, glittering as they sailed up the slope. Hees rolled inland, but Yaw was struck in the shoulder, and their crews cried, and everyone reeled from the slope, leaving access bare. Into that nudity rushed flanks of humans behind tower shields, beating rhythms with spears, beneath the watch of their archers in the trees above.

Hees fell to the pens, but husky Alpee was already there, yanking an arrow from the wood and drawing its head to slash the bonds. Hees yanked open the cage and hollered inward, two heavy hoots, and their theropods spilled out. Three days of siege and they knew where they were allowed to feast. Twice as long as he was tall and tails erect behind them, swaying and sibilating, snapping their fangs. He spanked one in the hindquarters and snatched its head-crest, riding along its side back to the cusp of their ridge. The monolophosaurs didn’t care about archers, and they considered tower shields good landing spots. Hees had to release as his steed leapt off the ridge and on top of three humans, craning its jaws over their crumpling shields to gnash at them.

"Monolophosaurus" by Michael Skepnick

The monolophosaurs didn’t care about archers, but they felt pain, and they soon shrieked with it. The ground palpitated as the Empire’s specialized archers peeled through, spitting lightning up the hill. Three days their wizard snipers had finally arrived. All Hees could do was swing his sauropod arm and hurl it over the ledge, smashing one of the bastards in the face and painting him with gore.

The throw earned his perch a blast from their snipers, and the ground beneath his feet exploded. Alpee’s crew had to catch him, and two looked in his eyes, and he blinked assurance that he was alive, and they dumped him in the ferns. Good men and women, one and all.

His triclopes went to the ledge with javelins, and loosed the trebuchets, made from trees and launching stumps. He felt their impacts in his guts, a satisfying alternative to breakfast, until one half-fossilized stump froze still in the air. Then another, and a third, an insult to all triclopes, as those wizard snipers caught projectiles. In the next instant, they reversed and plummeted into the ranks of triclopes.

He inhaled in shock, and the stench of carrion painted everywhere made him retch. He must have wretched south, for several strings of smoke greeted his watering eyes, thick in the nearground.

“About time,” he muttered, rubbing a fist to his lips. A three-eyed banner waved briefly above the pissavas before it was ditched, and its triclopic owner ran for his life from his cattle. Doa. Three days was long for her to find and goad automatons into chasing her crew, but this close, autos would stay for the smell of biologicals.

Hees backed from the slopes, tugging at anyone near him, and hollering for them to fall back. The first Auto Drones punched through the tree-line, perfect spheres of rust and steel, smoke billowing their asses. They rolled at him, but he had high ground, and so they rolled at the Empire of Gold and Jade first. Wizard snipers sprayed them with lightning, and some drones stuttered, but were immediately climbed over by their kin. Dozens climbing upon dozens, fiery ports opening in their hulls, sucking in spears and arms and bodies.

Some Auto Drones ignored the feast of humans, spiraling spherical bodies up the slope and heading immediately for his fragrant high ground. They’d probably never smelled anything so appealing, and he left it to them. Already the jungle trembled for the crane arms of greater automatons, Mammoths and worse tearing near, who would soon impregnate this entire league of the Uncanny Valley. No one was going to be able to cross it. What a shame. He saluted to the scurrying humans before departing to find and congratulate Doa.

'V' is for 'Vampires,' their dynasty and apocalypse.

'V' is for 'vampires,' that mildly evolved undead. An executive zombie, really. According exclusively to one series of accounts from the annals of the triclopes, this strain emerged shortly after an apocalypse of meteors wiped out all dinosaurs and most plant life. The skies were blotted out by seemingly eternal clouds of ash, which were the perfect circumstances for vampires to give living a shot.

A vampire's best friend.

So you knock off most of the sauropods, and most of the giant plants. That left the mammals in control, which is when vampirism really took off. The World of Night, where rats and fanged birds carried the plague across the entire continent. Tribes of infected centaurs and humans laid waste to any straggling healthy civilizations.

It was vampirism like the world has never known since. There were so many that they were forced to hold each other back and let blooded critters breed. They farmed people, region by region. The imps and centaurs still live where vampires stuck them, claiming ancestral birthright, even though that birthright was a nightmarish pen. The wars of that period were of impatient vampires against cultured ones, killing each other over the expiration dates of mammals. And then there was the apex predator.There’s the legend – the awesome legend – of the infected tyrannosaur rampaging the south coast. It never spread the disease because it just ate anything it came across – centaurs, dorads, anything. Your people hid in a cave? Then a bat flutters in, and before you realize it, the bat turns into a vampire tyrannosaur and he’s eaten your entire tribe. I love that people believe it’s still skulking in the volcanoes of the south. I don’t even care if it’s real. Who doesn’t want to believe in a vampire tyrannosaur, blending in with lava mist or drinking sharks at the bottom of the sea?

Surprisingly unsafe from inventive vampires.

If it’s still swimming around, it’s almost all that survived. Because under the torrents of dust, they were unbeatable kings and queens, spreading their disease at will and treating the planet as a buffet. Then the planet closed for business by clearing its atmosphere. It was the first morning in nine hundred years. The sun crawled across this continent, frying skinny-dipping biters, their ranchers and warlords, some fleeing in the forms of bats or wolves, though still more standing slack-jawed in awe. They’d thought the sun was a fairytale.

Funny that they all turned to fairy dust. I hear faeries eat vampire bones, and pay handsomely if you can find some.

Hands-down, the best apocalypse. It was just a sunrise. A little twinkling of a nearby star, checking to see how we were doing and eradicating most of the undead in existence. If only it was that easy to get rid of tentacle monsters.

'U' is for 'The Uncanny Valley.' You probably saw this coming.

‘U’ is for ‘Uncanny Valley,’ something you’ve doubtless heard of by now. The Uncanny Valley is a titanic canyon dividing the continent, running from the north-edge of the ocean and splitting into three smaller valleys at the most southernly border. It is so vast that it is the only thing that has prevented The Empire of Gold and Jade from colonizing The Frontier in the west.

The Uncanny Valley sports several unique features. Its basins are notoriously warm, supporting multiple broad jungles that themselves are home to most of the world’s deluxe-class sauropods like brachisaurs and tyrannosaurs. The northern region is the exclusive home of gryphons, and the world’s only manticores live in its southern region. These large biological creatures have also attracted most of the world’s remaining automatons, holdovers from the Gremlin Age, who hunt sauropods and manticores alike. In addition to its vastness, these dangerous inhabitants make it still harder to cross. There are families of triclopes who advertise their ability to help you cross, though it is some of the most hazardous work in the world.

A unique geological feature, The Uncanny Valley is believed the result of an apocalyptic quake that split the continent, but it predates any written history. It has famed depths, creases and cracks in its basin allegedly running deep into the core of the planet, or to the origin of the World-Ocean. He first succubae were discovered slumbering deep within its crevices, along with structures like underground temples that also predate any doradic or impish culture. Optimists believe answers to the world’s apocalyptic cycle could be down there. Pessimists think succubae are the beginning of the awful things you’d be better off leaving alone down there.

Though a wonder of the world, most cultures stay away from The Uncanny Valley. Its wildlife is too dangerous to approach unless you’re deliberately rustling sauropods or farming gryphon feathers for all-chemistry. The Empire of Gold and Jade have plans to build a bridge across its gap, yet no structure of such a size has been erected for the entirety of the Human Age. Humanists consider that a good reason to build one.

UPDATE: This addition is for Larry Kollar, who in a previous post asked why the Uncanny Valley doesn't flood. After all, if it's a canyon stretching from ocean to ocean, it ought to be wetter than it is. I meant to be ambiguous about this, but not so ambiguous as to not answer it at all. The Empire of Gold and Jade has charted the southern end on the Uncanny Valley, which terminates in a half-frozen ocean, and found it mildly above sea level, and usually quite waterlogged, if not lake- or river-logged. Their attempts for expansion in the south have mostly been ocean-based with their fledgling fleet. However the northern edge has never been charted, in part due to the extremely hot climate, and in part due to the high population of gryphons. Human eyes may never have laid upon the northern opening of the Uncanny Valley - something my fiction is going to go into, and which makes a little mum about.

'T' is for 'Timeline,' dedicated to Richard Bon.

‘T’ is for ‘Timeline.’ Richard Bon asked for a comprehensive timeline of my fictional world, and while I don’t want to spoil everything, I am willing to lay out a thousand years for T-day. I hope he enjoys it!

0 Years – The undetermined baseline of modern history. Many cultures and apocalypses are believed to have existed before this period, but are not widely recorded or recognized. Triclopes, Nine-Legs and Centaurs had something going on around this point. Much less afterward.

~1 Year - Apocalypse of Sauropods

-Sauropods, theropods and winged creatures, thought to be long-extinct, return in enormous numbers; reappearance unexplained.

-Cities trampled, ancient diseases reintroduced, various civilizations collapse.

~10 Years – Lands both east and west of The Uncanny Valleys become grazing land and hunting grounds for dinosaurs. Anyone who wants a civilization better be discrete.

~150 Years – Gremlins amass enough technology to erect anti-sauropod strongholds and safe zones. Progress begins.

~250 Years - Apocalypse of Gremlins

-Gremlins launch flying cities that sauropods cannot touch.

-Lightning cannons used to police populations of sapient creatures; immediately regulate what technology other species may have. Show favoritism to submissive tribes of triclopes.

~280 Years – Gremlins “adopt” triclopes as laborers.

~315 Years – Gremlins “adopt” imps as pets; begin breeding them like show-dogs.

~350 Years – Gremlins perfect automaton technology; relations with triclopes terminated.

-Automatons begin work in construction, maintenance, medicine.

~400 Years – Triclopes return to ancestral territory in northern Uncanny Valley. Seem to be building strongholds as though not trusting this to last.

~550 Years - Apocalypse of Autos

-Gremlin technology turns against them; all flying cities crash, explode; gremlins go extinct.

-Gremlin technology ‘automatons’ hunt and consume all living things. Motives unknown.

-Imps escape extinction; seek refuge in far west; establish underground cities with dorads and humans.

~580 Years - Automatons have tough time with sauropods, gryphons, cyclopes; feuds begin; automatons amass more greatly near Uncanny Valley, entrenched in warfare they’re not programmed to recognize they’re engulfed in.

-Every other life form still relatively screwed; nomadic cultures reign.

~650 Years – First rumblings of an “Imp Empire” far out west.

~750 Years - Apocalypse of The Shock

-Continental electrical storm fries majority of automatons; divine intervention?

-Imps claim responsibility for The Shock; “befriend”/”enslave” humans for labor in expanding a magic-based empire.

~770 Years - Imps formally establish empire in the far west, based on magic and manipulation of elements; magically-enhanced agriculture becomes food source for many cultures.

~820 Years - Impish empire flourishes throughout regions west of The Uncanny Valleys. Dissidents flee east.

~900 Years - Imps undertake great project to “wake their ancestors” for next great age.

~920 Years – Triclopic scholars uncover imp fraud; imps did not cause The Shock; minor war breaks out between triclopic tribes and imps.

~930 Years – Triclopes, Centaurs, Satyrs have minor land-wars with imps over ‘sacrifices’; humans begin to flee enslavement in favor of tribes in the east.

~980 Years - Apocalypse of Demons

-Imps’ ancestors, The Demons, awake and set planet on fire.

-Half of the world’s imp population dies; millions from others species perish.

-Beginning of a pan-species war against Demons, sweeping eastward.

~981 Years – The Human Age

-Golden Emperor and Jade Empress, both humans, unite their tribes, use all-chemistry and golems to stop tide of Demons.

-Humans now most populace species in the east; Golden Emperor and Jade Empress establish a proper empire. The Human Age begins.

~1000 Years – Massive campaign undertaken to document world history undertaken by humans. Other focuses applied to all-chemistry and agriculture.

~1010 Years – All non-human species begin to flee the east; Empire of Gold and Jade provides some groups with treaties to keep land in ‘The Frontier,’ lands west of The Uncanny Valleys, or to serve as second-class citizens domestically. Religion is outlawed. Mass exodus of Red Brigadiers.

~1160 Years – Large number of golems attempt to rebel against The Empire of Gold and Jade; are defeated and destroyed. According to government records, there are no casualties. Viewed as first apocalypse to be stopped by a ruling empire.

~1190 Years – The Empire of Gold and Jade begins to move west of Uncanny Valleys; claims to need land for expansion. Triclopes and Red Brigadiers declare formal war against them.

~1200 Years – Massive famine that government records as having no deaths. Thwarted by all-chemical agriculture. Recorded as second apocalypse averted by the standing empire.

~1260 Years – Present. Things are going great, according to government records.

'S' is for 'Sauropods.'

‘S’ is for ‘sauropods,’ the great beasts of burden in The Frontier. They were considered either extinct or purely mythological for much of pre-history, until that one apocalypse where millions of them returned from the dead. Where exactly they’d gone or how they’d returned is still a mystery, the very answers trampled beneath their titanic feet. And while they wiped out a few minor civilizations with their come-back, they’re generally easy to cohabitate with today.

‘Sauropod’ is a wildly misunderstood word that is often used to refer to all dinosaurs and anything dinosaur-like. Even dactyls, which have more in common with giant birds than anything, are referred to by the name.

"No, you tell her she's not a sauropod."

The most famous strain are deluxe-class sauropods. Convoys moving between city-states will often purchase brachiosaurs, using their sheer size to scare off raiders. Ankylosaurs, too, are favored by impish convoys, as their tails double as defensive weapons in skirmishes. And though not technically “sauropods,” would-be heroes have been trying to saddle tyrannosaurs for a thousand years. No one’s made it work, but the first one to succeed is going to be famous, and probably win their first war by intimidation alone.

Sauropods are generally misunderstood by those who don’t directly deal with them. Often theropods are lumped in with them, and because of the fame of brachiosaur and hadrosaur pods, they have a reputation for gigantism. In fact most sauropods and theropods are smaller than humans; compsognathus is so insignificant that, even though numerous, it is considered a common pest or food source in much of The Red Crescent. Most cultures are plentifully exposed to sauropods and ought to know they range wildly in size, but they simply don’t care. They only care when they’re being attacked by them, or betting on the hadrosaur races up north.

'R' is for 'The Red Brigade.'

'R' is for 'The Red Brigade.'

The Red Brigade is the dominant sect of a disorganized religion worshiping five absent gods: The Bold, The Wise, The Provider, The Deceiver, and The Fifth. These gods are explicitly abstracts, not thought to inhabit a distant plane like other religions, and are seldom anthropomorphized. Rather, someone who wears the red jacket or wristband of the Red Brigade strives to embody one of the five, and their good works in that form are considered both prayer and divinity.

Exact practices vary wildly based on your geography, and there is no central body governing The Red Brigade. The most common form of The Bold is the soldier or warrior, such as those insurgents fighting against The Empire of Gold and Jade’s incursion into The Frontier. The Wise are most commonly scholars or strategists, while The Deceivers are most infamously spies who infiltrate other societies. Most cherished are The Providers, such as parents, educators and farmers. The Fifth god is seldom mentioned by name, and is the only one for whom, after you converted to its ways, you cannot convert back.

It is also dogma that Red Brigadiers change from one phase to another as is needed by their people. Most Red Brigadiers are yetis, centaurs or humans, though it is spreading among triclopic peoples. Secularists pin the recent trend in triclopic Brigadiers on it being such a time of strife for them, what with their presently losing a war to foreign secularists and all.

‘Q’ is for ‘Question,’ OR, The First Apocalypse

‘Q’ is for ‘Question,’ and the most common question asked is, “What was the first apocalypse to hit this world? What started it?”

There’s a myth about that. Nowadays it’s impossible to imagine the world without apocalypses. The gremlins thought it was their turn, built automatons to do all the heavy lifting for their empire, and the autos turned on them. An electrical storm reduced the autos to blank statues. The dead rise. The bourgeoisies rise. It’s as natural as seasonal cycles. Yet if you consult the oral legends of the oldest races, the centaurs and the nine-legs, and the remaining records of the gremlins, you find common references to a First Apocalypse.

All land that we now is actually the decomposed shell of the World Turtle, which once swam either among the stars or in what today we call the World-Ocean. A big son-of-a-something, and healthy, such that all the world’s plants grew from its shell. Since it was green, most of the flora were forests. Thick jungles that consumed lumbering beasts, toughening the sauropods and cyclopes, so that all life was hardy, ruled under the Four Gods.

And there were gods, captains of this Great Ship World Turtle. One would wander down to its slippery head and whisper, “I feel like inventing ‘East’ today. Find a new direction and name it that.” And it would comply, because turtles are prone to peer pressure.

So one day the Goddess of the Sky climbed down the World Turtle’s neck and whispered, “You notice that yellow thing up there that makes days possible? Swim over to that. I want to know what it tastes like.”

Then she climbed up to the highest point on the World Turtle’s shell for the best view of the sun. But while she mounted, the God of the Depths climbed down the World Turtle’s neck. He whispered, “That nasty thing’s hot. How about we dive? See what’s under these infinite waters?”

Then he scampered off to the apex of the shell, expecting to get the best view of his desires. Yet as he ascended, the Goddess of Mystery rode the rivers between the plates of the World Turtle’s shell down to its ear. She cupped its beak and whispered, “Why did we ever start going forward? We never saw all of what was at the beginning of creation. Can’t you go backwards for just a few eons so we can appreciate what’s back there?”

To the World Turtle’s credit, it began to dip under the waves while it about-faced, conceding to two demands at once. Upturning so dumped a thousand sauropods into the surf and enraged the God of Boldness, who had been teaching them beach sports. He tumbled down the World Turtle’s slope, jabbing a javelin into its scalp to hold on. “What do you think you’re doing?” he chastised. “We’re making headway. We might see where creation ends if you just kept the bearing. We need to find what else is out there.”

The Goddess of Mystery hadn’t yet departed, and so contested his virtue. Their argument whirled into a tempest, the ferocity of which was only split when the Goddess of Sky and God of the Depths coming roaring down at each other. The desires of the four were irreconcilable, and none were willing to go second. They argued for so long that some of the lesser critters had to develop free will just to go on living, and they would have kept going forever if the World Turtle hadn’t stopped. Its continental body drifted, listless, unable to obey so many commands.

The Four Gods quit its head, unable to argue the World Turtle into submission with three dissenters. After it became obvious none could coerce each other, they split separate ways. That’s why none of them had alibis.

Tragedy struck at dusk. Jungles suddenly wilted to nothingness. The continental shell cracked and powdered into soil. Countless species died from the sudden shock of the modern world being born. Mortals rushed to the great head and found it dangling under the waves. Someone had drowned the World Turtle.

There were only four capable of such feats, though no one saw which God did the deed. Sky accused Depth, Depth accused Mystery, Mystery suspected Boldness, and Boldness pointed fingers at them all. They dragged each other to Celestial Court and have spent all known history simultaneously arguing four homicide cases. It is very difficult to out-argue someone who is nigh-omniscient and exists outside time; more difficult still to reconcile four such people who are all intentionally playing obtuse for argument’s sake.

And while we wait the eternity for the verdict, everyone has ignored the very possible fifth cause: the World Turtle may have drowned itself in the strife of indecision, or to rid itself of the godly masters. It can’t be asked, though, and that first dusk was a confounding one for the cyclopes and sauropods. There was all beloved life, drifting on a dead turtle, with no supervision from the Gods, and mildly curious how their fellow surviving life-forms tasted. It’s small wonder things went wrong after that.

‘P’ is for ‘People.’

The menu.

‘P’ is for ‘People.’ The singular is ‘Person.’ Succubae think you’re not one.

Succubae are one of those creatures most people didn’t think existed for many ages. They claim to have existed since the dinosaurs died out the first time, and bear a strong dislike for their egg-based fetishes. They’re a difficult creature to reconcile with our materialistic notion of life, since they’re not from this plane of existence, and largely take physical bodies to play with their food.

To themselves, they are people. They have souls, minds, wills, personalities. Things that evolved don’t. Things that evolved, including triclopes and humans, are chemical soup in attractive packaging. You’re shaped like a person in the way that a chicken nugget might be shaped like an egg. They hate eggs.

What exactly disqualifies all intelligent life from being people is hazy. You might imagine that an entity that had to eat other sentient entities to survive might insist those entities weren’t people in order to assuage guilt. Succubae claim to never experience guilt. Guilt is a chemical thing.

‘O’ is for ‘Optimism.’

‘O’ is for ‘Optimism.’ If the apocalypses have revealed one thing about sentient life, it’s that the optimists are the only ones worth paying attention to. Pessimists and optimists die alike, but the former die having accomplished less, and having been far less entertaining to watch.

This perspective formally began under the Gremlin Empire, who used spores to observe the behaviors of lesser beings. Triclopes, nine-legs, centaurs and the like were reality television, and gremlins would drop supplies on tribes that behaved in entertaining fashion.

Since then, it’s been the optimists who made things work. They renovated the destroyed remains of old cities into new shelters. They scavenged the last technology, pushed progress, and in the Frontier, have even gotten old species to cooperate. You’d never have expected humans to forgive the imps for enslaving them, yet now they are routinely traveling partners. Those who think the struggle is worthless perish. Those who embrace it might change the world for the brief time they live in it.

Nowhere is optimism more embraced than The Empire of Gold and Jade. Despite its tyrannical reputation, it has done more for the study of external magic and formal physics than any culture in hundreds of years. They possess the only cities where the sun never sets, and command the weather to serve their crops, and their military squads, like the Storm Guard. That they frequently use their optimism for their gain at the expense of others reveals a little something about optimism: menace is just fear of someone else’s optimism.

'N' is for 'Names.'

‘N’ is for ‘Names.’ Theresa Bazelli asked if I’d talk a little about the naming conventions of my world. Here’s hoping she approves!

"She reminds me of your uncle..."

The world has seen several dominant cultures, and thus its share of naming conventions. Modern humans have hyphenated names, like Teffes-Ro. The first part is the personal name; ‘Teffes’ is no different than ‘Danielle’ or ‘Mohammed.’ The name usually consists of one or two syllables, including a consonant from the name of a male in the family and a vowel from a female in the family the parents wish to commemorate. Most parents decide to commemorate themselves.

The second part is an external name, often connoting family or a tribe; ‘Ro’ is similar to ‘Smith’ or ‘Goldstein.’ Most of the oldest and most vaunted family names are monosyllabic and privileged, including ‘Ro’; converting your name to one for the status can get you killed by someone protective of their familial or tribal brand.

This two-named form has existed regionally for at least two apocalypses, but was rendered the standard by The Empire of Gold and Jade who sought to count and categorize all citizens. This allows them to allot food subsidies, golems and military police, as well as organizing taxation. They pride themselves on knowledge.

The “Ky” Movement is an opposition, seeking people to give up their family or tribal names and use only “Ky.” To some it’s rebellion against the empire; to others, it’s a means of escaping their past. Converting yourself to a Ky is a lot like declaring bankruptcy; you forfeit all possessions and rights to others. There are so many people with the name that many law organizations will give up pursuing someone with the name. Few people live under the name for long, finding its stigma of worthlessness too dangerous. Others like Mahut-Ky, the villain of The Last House in the Sky, don’t care about or even enjoy the stigma. Stereotypes can be used as weapons.

Names are much less standardized in The Frontier. Many species have taken the old gremlin behavior of naming their families after things; one of the protectors of God’s Lap changed their family name to “Walls,” to become synonymous with the station they commanded.

The most famous gremlin convention was combining words, such as “Hillneath,” “Vineguard,” and “Skylane.” This invariably described a precious site, and then the people and slaves belonging to the site. Only imps and triclopes still bear names from this convention, having deeper affects from the gremlin empire’s slavery and breeding campaigns. They’re hard to shake, culturally.

'M' is for Automaton 'Mammoths'

‘M’ is for ‘Mammoths.’ 

You never think you're going to
have to fight one of these. Be ready.

Automaton Mammoths are the largest automatons still known to roam the planet after The Apocalypse of The Shock. The Shock was a continental electricity storm that wiped out most mechanical beings, much to the relief of biological beings. They’d been a real pain, never tiring in their adventure to shovel all life into their furnaces. The surviving biological species still haven’t figured out why the autos keep doing that. Surely there are more efficient fuel sources.


Auto Mammoths range in size with most deluxe-class sauropods, and are typified by their size, their treads, and that most of their appendages are construction tools, suggesting these were once what the gremlins used to build their empire. Today they can dig several cranes into the shell of an ankylosaurus and drag it into their combustion chambers.

Auto Mammoths reside mostly in the Uncanny Valley (see ‘U’), presumably because only this region sports acceptable prey. Here also reside most of the world’s deluxe-class sauropods and theropods, like the brachiosaurus and tyrannosaurus, as well as cyclopes, manticores and gryphons. Because of their curious penchant for seeking biological matter to combust, Mammoths require the largest prey to continue operating. Auto Drones often move in small packs alongside Mammoths, picking off smaller prey or bits of deceased larger prey in a mechanical symbiosis. It’d be beautiful if it hadn’t killed so many awestruck scientists.

Sunday is for Empire of Gold and Jade

Since E-day was for a story and not a proper entry, I'm dedicating this day of rest to The Empire of Gold and Jade. Consider it giving tyranny equal time.

The Empire of Gold and Jade is more of a corporation than anything these days, but keeps the name and aesthetics for impressions. It is the first successful human empire in recorded history. It was founded 280 years ago after the Apocalypse of Demons, when the Golden Emperor and Jade Empress merged their tribes to fight off the fiery invasion. From the smoking remains of the east, the mighty newlyweds carried culture. It was hard to stop them from taking over after that, what with all the demons having devastated the populations of more powerful or established species.

The Empire of Gold and Jade has an immaculate history. It is deeply progressive, seeking rational explanation for most phenomena in the world, and it is that approach for which its citizens believe they have successfully staved off any apocalypses. They regulate most enterprise and banned religion, though critics question if the Empire, its rulers and founders have not taken on divine status. It presently rules the eastern half of the world’s known continent, up to the Uncanny Valley, which blocks passage to the west. They are working on that.

They have noteworthy achievements in architecture, including the invention of “whitestone,” a self-cleaning building block that makes for very tidy houses. They also invented golems, which have revolutionized industry with free labor that never needs to consume anything like some automatons we might mention. They even have a very humane prison where they keep any captured monsters. The tales those imprisoned monsters have to tell about how humane the prison really is makes up the plot of The House That Nobody Built.

They are the perfect ruling class for this world, according to government documentation. Government invented and controls the printing press. According to government documentation, they are sure they will never be hit an apocalypse. One hasn’t come in 280 years.