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nonesensedAlong with DMing roleplaying groups (currently have 4 campaigns going~!) and playing video games, my absolute main hobby is writing <3
I'm trying to be more relaxed about writing, having more fun with it, since I'm by no means aiming to publish or write professionally. I'd also love to finish at least one writing project this year. Therefore I'm going to be making a little overview list here, as both a motivator and a way to keep track of all my active non-fanfic WIPs.
As much as this list is for my own convenience, I do love rambling on about my projects and learning about other people's writing pursuits, so anyone who likes to, feel free to comment here with questions or to tell me about your own writing! <3
LONGER PROJECTS (with titles)
Once a Bard and His Friends Took a Train
Summary: There once was a man who, when life got too oppressive, used to hide deep in the mines he worked in to sing. Something heard him. Something liked his singing. Something made sure it would never stop.
Fun stuff in it: Characters grieving over the fact that they're attracted to people with gremlin personalities, immortality that's contagious, eldritch horrors(?) who really like music, heists, grifting, found family becomes loose polycule, people refusing to communicate despite their friends begging them to use their words because feelings are scary, random time and space travel, a space train (my sister's deep love for trains and her sadness over the Bifrost Incident's train being 'evil', prompted me to make a good space train to compensate).
Influences/inspirations: Reading Edgar Allan Poe stories out loud to myself (the mood and prose of doing that rather than the content of the writing itself XD), Doctor Who, The Old Guard, The Mechanisms, Leverage, Bloodborne though mostly its fandom, humans as storytellers, the mood of Polygon's "Unraveled" series.
How far I've gotten: 7.6k plot, 5.5k prose. Using this as my "writing whatever the hell comes into my head" project to burn off steam when the projects I'm actually aiming to finish this year fight me. It has its own page now over on my writing blog and will be a collection of short stories, it seems. The first story has been posted~!
Art? Not yet.
Mages and Marriage
Summary: Merek, to most known only as the Chasm for his unnatural ability to cancel out all magic around him at will, has a problem. This problem is a person. This person is Thorzec Esk, one of the ruling High Mages. In their youth Esk and Merek were lovers, but after Esk showed his true colors and took his current position in society by bloody force, they had a falling out. Now, Esk all of a sudden seems determined to reconnect - and to find a spouse for Merek.
Fun stuff in it: The main couple being former-lovers-to-enemies-to-fake-marriage-to-lovers, magic, political marriages, tense dinner parties and balls, working to take down a bad system from within, UST, deliberate miscommunication.
Influences/inspirations: An amalgamation of a number of media influences, everything from The Witcher to D&D.
How far I've gotten: 50k words. It was my NaNoWriMo project back in 2020.
Art? Yes! Lovely art of dancing and fancy clothes exists, as well as this art of Esk along with a quote from the book.
Morning, Evening, Dawn
Summary: Mateo hates his job but loves his coworkers. That's kind of inevitable when you're forced to work for a government in exchange for not going to prison for trying to revolt against it. Still, his work isn't all bad. He does get to help catch murderers at times. He could be content, if it wasn't for that man that keeps showing up in cases again and again, as a random person walking in the background. It's extra unsettling when the man looks directly at the camera, as if he can see Mateo. And then there's that new case they're being forced to work on, with only code names to search for...
Fun stuff in it: OT3, slowburn, heists, toppling corrupt government officials, space, telepathy, teleportation, found family, impossible hacking skills, kidnappings.
Influences/inspirations: Sense8, liminal spaces, the Wayfarer series by Becky Chambers though only vaguely, the Murderbot series by Martha Wells equally vaguely.
How far I've gotten: 52.3k prose, 11.2k plotting. It was my project for last year's NaNoWriMo.
Art? None yet.
Of Elves and Dwarrows 1: Soul-Stealing Elves
Summary: This is a story about four characters: Jale, a young aspiring dwarrow bard who is hopelessly in love with his mountain queendom's youngest prince. Warsa, Jale's older sister and said prince's bodyguard. Fanwa, a fellow bodyguard of the prince and the soon-to-be-husband of a former enemy citizen. Narathriel, a wounded elf traveling through hostile lands to deliver something that will keep his people safer. The local on-going war and an old terrible prejudice is about to make all of their lives a horrible mess.
Fun stuff in it: Culture clashes, complicated courtship rituals, elf/dwarrow relationships along with all the dwarrow/dwarrow ones, pining (soooo much pining), despair in the face of losing a loved one (which gets better), kidnappings, magic, singing, magical singing, steampunk robots, important hairstyles, all dwarrows can grow beards.
Influences/inspirations: The Tolkien fandom and playing around with the concepts of what fantasy "elves" and "dwarrows" even are.
How far I've gotten: 218k words of the story has been written, it's only missing drafts of the final chapter (nr 20) and the epilogue still isn't written. Really want to finish this one day!
Art? Yes! I've commissioned a lot of art for this and it's sequels over the years, so I really should see about at least finishing the first book XD
Professor Balance & Equilibrium + 12 Months of Villainy
Summary: Professor Balance is, at best, a B-list villain. He isn't too bothered by that. Not being the main attraction let's him focus on what he actually cares about: medical research and technological innovation. If he happens to most often face the hero Equilibrium in battle, so what? I-it's not like she's his nemesis or anything! Definitely not. Oh, thank the stars, an inter-dimensional invasion, perfect distraction!
Fun stuff in it: Superhero world logic, dramatic speeches, affably evil villains, punch clock villains, BDSM with femdom, inter-dimensional travel, a deep dark secret, secret identities.
Influences/inspirations: Not quite sure any more which exact pieces of media inspired this, but it's a whole mess of meta about the superhero genre with a touch of cosmic horror, but also, erotica. The erotica and the cosmic horror are kept separate, sorry to disappoint XD
How far I've gotten: Was my NaNoWriMo project from back in 2012, but I've revised it a bit since then, so the draft is "only" 38.7k words. As for the prequel, "12 Months of Villainy", it's just an outline, but will be necessary for the rest of the story to work, so in fact 'Equilibrium & Professor Balance' is really more the sequel here... Ah, old projects, how I've learned to pre-plan and plot better across the years XD
Art? Yes! I've commissioned art of both the Professor and Equilibrium.
Secrets in Ice
Summary: Uluk & Anruq are looking for their kidnapped brother. It will be quite the road trip before they catch up with the military that took him. Luckily they're making good and helpful friends along the way.
Fun stuff in it: This is a collaboration with my sister <3 She's co-plotting and making art to go with the story!! The story has siblings who love each other, weird and fun magic, ancient crimes coming back to bite people (literally), giant ice wolves, robot lizard steeds, a guy who really really likes masks, competence porn.
Influences/inspirations: This is just me and my sister trying to cram as many of our favorite tropes into one story as we physically can XD
How far I've gotten: 82.5k words of the first draft. We've planned 16 chapters + an epilogue.
Art? Yes! Nothing up online yet, but there's plenty offline. My sister is crazy talented <3
Travel to Other Shores
Summary: This is a sequel to my fantasy novel "How to sway them". It'll dive into what happened to a number of the side-characters from that story, after that book wrapped up.
Fun stuff in it: Exploring previously established side-characters' backstories, exploring other places than in the first book, people dealing with So Much Guilt, forgiveness.
Influences/inspirations: The previous book aka the only one I've actually finished writing.
How far I've gotten: Less than 300 words of plotting XD
Art? Sort of - there's art for the book before this one.
A Werewolf in October
Summary: Jayla might have moved to Merrihollow on pure impulse (and as a fuck-you to her ex) but having no previous knowledge of the supernatural she did not plan on getting savaged by a werewolf on her way back from an unsuccessful job interview. However becoming a werewolf might be the best thing that's ever happened to her! Well, if it wasn't for the hunters.
Fun stuff in it: Nerds, positivity, found family, meet cute, miscommunications that get cleared up, loyalty, friendship.
Influences/inspirations: The whole "werewolves and vampires" urban fantasy genre as a whole, a number of memes about werewolves and food.
How far I've gotten: I've thus far posted the 7th draft of chapter 1-10 over on my writing blog, am on draft 2 of chapter 11 and draft 1 of chapter 12. 134.8k-ish words so far. Goal is to hopefully finish this before 2022 is over!
Art? Yes! I'm saving some for when the story is finished, but some of it's already online!
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LONGER PROJECTS (without titles)
Placeholder name: The Baron and the Prince
Summary: Having recently taken over the title of baron from his imprisoned father, Ulrec Artero needs to tread carefully at court. Revolution has toppled the old order and installed a supposedly fae-blooded man on the throne - even though he's 'only' claimed the title of prince rather than king. Fae now wander the royal palace of the Maze and half of the court has been replaced by either them or revolutionaries. To keep himself and his brother safe, Ulrec will have to adapt his court manners to this vertiginous situation, and gain the trust of the new prince. Also, why are all these fae trying to court his brother?!
Fun stuff in it: Set in my "Witches and Fae" setting, court intrigues, culture clashes, brothers caring about each other, magic, the rich eating it, revolution, identity games, flirting interpreted as threats.
Influences/inspirations: The political intrigues from 'Dune', folklore of fae/älvor, all manner of court dramas, the Soulborne games' aesthetics.
How far I've gotten: 750 words of first draft begun, 4.4k words of plotting.
Art? Yes! Court portraits of Baron Ulrec and his younger brother Matabec.
Placeholder name: The Lesser Evil
Summary: In his early teens, Jeremy and his father escaped to one of the last known settlements only populated by humans. Now his father is long gone and Jeremy himself is part of the settlement's defenses. He does his best to keep his head down and follow orders. As strict and unsettling as life can be here, he can far too well imagine the horrors of the world outside, ruled by people with 'super powers'. This status quo has recently gotten shaken up. A far too cheerful and open young man by the name of Daniel has just joined the settlement. Somehow Daniel has kept a huge reserve of optimism despite the state of the world. Jeremy worries settlement will eat Daniel alive. But who should he really be worried for?
Fun stuff in it: Conflicted loyalties, undercover-to-enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, the ethics of mind control, siblings being a loving team, soft-apocalypse, coming to terms with having unknowingly been an evil minion, heists, fights with super powers, trust.
Influences/inspirations: A number of takes on superheroes and the "people wake up with super powers" trope in general, a number of post-apocalypse games, aaaand a number of "heist/grifting" media like Ocean's Eleven and Leverage. Also, written as a thought experiment about people who can mind control others with talking, like in Jessica Jones comic/show and The Bright Sessions podcast.
How far I've gotten: 500 words of prose, 5.3k words of plot.
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: Mystic Trio
Summary: Elizabeth Walken has been having a rough few years, well, possibly a rough decade. She's the most requested private investigator in the city, but gets none of the respect you'd suppose that'd entail. The rich will treat you like dirt, no matter if you're solving their grandma's murder or not. She can deal with that. What she's not prepared for is the three foreigners who're going around "talking to ghosts", one who is the son of a former ambassador, and did that other one say he's a prince?!
Fun stuff in it: Set in my "Witches and Fae" setting, OT3 becomes OT4, people talking to ghosts, fake royalty that's kinda also not fake, fantasy social media, a wild Mr Collins expy appears and is repeatedly fled, mystery solving, ghosts with last wishes that are less than dramatic, characters who think they're in an episode of Scooby Doo meet characters who think they're in hard-boiled noir detective story.
Influences/inspirations: The board game 'Mysterium' which this let's play by Polygon made me aware of and that I've then played with friends and family. Pride & Prejudice, a number of 'speaking with ghosts' media. Social media in itself.
How far I've gotten: 5k of plotting.
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: N/A
Summary: Sonja's been worried about her work partner for quite a while. It's no secret his relocation to their sleepy little town had to have been a demotion. It's also no secret he's got a bit of the 'gift'. He's good at his job in that way that let's you know he didn't get demoted for incompetence. All this said, when a scary-looking stranger shows up at the office demanding to see her partner, Sonja automatically covers for him. Turns out this will be the start of both a personal and professional mystery in need of solving.
Fun stuff in it: Former-lovers-back-to-lovers, murder mystery, fights against corruption, UST, friendship, magic/super powers, lots of eyeliner, BDSM.
Influences/inspirations: All manner of werewolf media though this has no werewolves in it, all manner of murder-mystery-police-procedurals but mainly the mood and atmosphere of Broadchurch.
How far I've gotten: 11k of plotting.
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: Solarpunk Not-Pirates
Summary: A crew returns to their ship, only to find they've been framed for piracy and have two far too fancy people aboard - one by accident, one by choice. They must now flee the law and try to make sense of why and by who they've been chosen as scapegoats.
Fun stuff in it: Sedoretu-like OT4~! UST that eventually resolves, the kindest of kind souls eventually having had Enough, revenge, flying ships.
Influences/inspirations: One tabletop rpg character I'm playing in a game I for once ain't DMing, the general aesthetics of solarpunk and steampunk all mashed up.
How far I've gotten: 300 words of plotting in Scrivener, way more inside my head XD
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: Witches and Fae
Summary: A look at the lives of three witches, a pseudo-ambassador-mage, a bunch of fae, and a man who hates and loves magic in equal measure.
Fun stuff in it: Loyalty, families struggling to reunite, revenge, magic, slowburn romance.
Influences/inspirations: 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell', local Swedish folklore of fae/älvor, a few images from ElfQuest.
How far I've gotten: Planning for these to be short stories that loosely interconnect. 3k words of plotting, 200 words of actual prose.
Art? Yes! Art of Daun and Alel, two of the main characters.
Placeholder name: Yet Another Vampire Story
Summary: Tom Kerr meets Kim Seong-jin during the post-show celebration he and his then university theater group has at a local diner. They strike up a friendship that lasts years, eventually decades, meeting up whenever Seong-jin is in town. Tom is too busy with work to reflect on the fact that they always hang out at night.
Fun stuff in it: Human not realizing they're friends with and crushing on a vampire, loyalty, desperate actions to save people, slowburn, friends wondering where That Thing is going, people hyping each other up, exploration of the difference between indie creations and mainstream media.
Influences/inspirations: It's mainly inspired by/a continuation of "A Werewolf in October", along with the fun of theater vs backstage chatter and meta in general.
How far I've gotten: Planned to be 25 chapters long. 6k words of plot, 200 words written on actual story XD
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: Youtube people time
Summary: Oscar has achieved a dream job: editor and mod for his favorite Youtube channel! It's not the biggest or the flashiest, far from the first to do actual play and let's plays, but Oscar has had a good experience as a fan and now as an employee. Now, a spanner in the works as appeared: an upcoming guest player has canceled last minute! Whatever shall the production team do~?
Fun stuff in it: Slowburn romance, the awkward yet fun tension of two people who're attracted to each other playing out a fictional romance together without confessing their real-life feelings for each other, lot's of ttrpg fun, fandom interaction with the media they follow.
Influences/inspirations: The fun of getting "behind the scenes" looks at different forms of group-made media (e.g. podcasts, actual play, theater, movies, TV shows), fandom interacting with their chosen piece of media, meta in general.
How far I've gotten: 700 words of plotting only.
Art? Not yet.
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SHORTER PROJECTS
The Sea is Deep
Summary: A stowaway tries to follow her lover to a new life, but something outside the ship keeps calling to her. Then the fleet gets lost in a dense fog...
Fun stuff in it: Well, perhaps not 'fun' in general, but I'm having fun trying to make the creeping ominous danger as eerie and awful as possible~
Influences/inspirations: Art of anything huge and terrible under the sea, but especially giant mermaids.
How far I've gotten: It's technically done, but it was written very rushed, so I want to re-write it to both improve it and also to make it an actual horror story.
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: Pride n Prejudice n A Wizard Did It
Summary: After a strangely powerful mage basically solves hunger, housing and all other ills of society through ~magic~, the local gentry have to deal with that while still powering on. Our dear main characters are part of a group who're taking this chance to live as said gentry. Trying to get into that life is all kinds of challenging - and is it actually something they should strive for?
Fun stuff in it: Awful people getting what's coming to them, balls, masquerades, overly complicated courtships, fancy clothing, friends helping each other find happiness.
Influences/inspirations: Pride and Prejudice obviously XD But also just the whole "genre" of people going to balls and worrying about getting engaged - the whole drive behind this project is me wanting to indulge in that without the background radiation of focusing on rich-people-problems when people in the same world are starving in the streets. Not trying to shame anyone for liking those kinds of stories, I obviously do too! I just have a hard time shutting off that part of my brain that goes "but what about the people who aren't able to be invited to this fancy ball??" whenever I try to enjoy the romance drama - which is weird, because I can shut off that part of my brain for several other kinds of similar plots, but eh, brains are weird ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
How far I've gotten: Less than 400 words planning - very early planning stage.
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: Ship OT3 plotting
Summary: After a successful business deal, a Captain returns to their sentient flying ship only to find a 'kidnapped' local nobleman aboard. It turns out the Ship is eager to set her Captain up on a date and the local customs around dating are...intense. Long story short, they're kidnappers now. Legal kidnappers. Yay.
Fun stuff in it: Set in my "Witches and Fae" setting, your partner also being your wing-man, competence porn, flying ships, playful fights where no one dies but everyone gets to be dramatic, character's hatred of losing being used against said character in loving and hilarious ways, cultural misunderstandings, endless flirting.
Influences/inspirations: The Swedish song "Båtlåt", general steampunk/solarpunk vibes, my need for more stories to have canon OT3s.
How far I've gotten: 3k of plotting.
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: SHORT assassin story
Summary: A not-famous assassin (because she's good at the whole assassin gig and thus isn't about to make a name for herself) goes on vacation and accidentally stumbles upon a plot to murder the local monarchy's rightful heir. She's not all that into monarchy, but when said heir happens to be a very promising one-night-stand-to-be and you're already accidentally mixed up in the plot, why not do a little overtime?
Fun stuff in it: Takes place in my "Witches and Fae" setting, flirting mistaken for threats, threats mistaken for flirting, eating the rich metaphorically and literally (though no cannibalism occurs ;D).
Influences/inspirations: Unsure exactly where this idea came from, but I think it's vaguely influenced by the concept of the anthology "Rogues" without being based on a specific story and also as a direct counter-reaction to several of the anthology's stories.
How far I've gotten: Very early plotting stage, barely 100 words. Mainly doing this to try and write a short project and actually finish it!!!
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: Supernatural Office Romance
Summary: Having recently lost their mother and been kicked out by their boyfriend, our main character makes a rather desperate decision: move to one of those cities. Ever since 'the change', only people with no money and even less sense move to where the veil between worlds has been torn and left bleeding. Getting work as a cleaner in an embassy of some kind will likely lead to...consequences.
Fun stuff in it: The cleaners have a group chat, there's plenty of weird shit that's treated like every day occurrences by most locals, supernatural culture clashes, creepy fae vibes, regular human / half-eldritch demi-human romance, cats.
Influences/inspirations: Podcasts like 'Welcome to Night Vale' & 'Mabel' + the fandom of the Magnus Archives rather than the podcast itself, the Addams Family, the 'character focused' side of Discworld.
How far I've gotten: Very new, only has 100 words or so of setting/plot info.
Art? Not yet.
I'm trying to be more relaxed about writing, having more fun with it, since I'm by no means aiming to publish or write professionally. I'd also love to finish at least one writing project this year. Therefore I'm going to be making a little overview list here, as both a motivator and a way to keep track of all my active non-fanfic WIPs.
As much as this list is for my own convenience, I do love rambling on about my projects and learning about other people's writing pursuits, so anyone who likes to, feel free to comment here with questions or to tell me about your own writing! <3
LONGER PROJECTS (with titles)
Once a Bard and His Friends Took a Train
Summary: There once was a man who, when life got too oppressive, used to hide deep in the mines he worked in to sing. Something heard him. Something liked his singing. Something made sure it would never stop.
Fun stuff in it: Characters grieving over the fact that they're attracted to people with gremlin personalities, immortality that's contagious, eldritch horrors(?) who really like music, heists, grifting, found family becomes loose polycule, people refusing to communicate despite their friends begging them to use their words because feelings are scary, random time and space travel, a space train (my sister's deep love for trains and her sadness over the Bifrost Incident's train being 'evil', prompted me to make a good space train to compensate).
Influences/inspirations: Reading Edgar Allan Poe stories out loud to myself (the mood and prose of doing that rather than the content of the writing itself XD), Doctor Who, The Old Guard, The Mechanisms, Leverage, Bloodborne though mostly its fandom, humans as storytellers, the mood of Polygon's "Unraveled" series.
How far I've gotten: 7.6k plot, 5.5k prose. Using this as my "writing whatever the hell comes into my head" project to burn off steam when the projects I'm actually aiming to finish this year fight me. It has its own page now over on my writing blog and will be a collection of short stories, it seems. The first story has been posted~!
Art? Not yet.
Mages and Marriage
Summary: Merek, to most known only as the Chasm for his unnatural ability to cancel out all magic around him at will, has a problem. This problem is a person. This person is Thorzec Esk, one of the ruling High Mages. In their youth Esk and Merek were lovers, but after Esk showed his true colors and took his current position in society by bloody force, they had a falling out. Now, Esk all of a sudden seems determined to reconnect - and to find a spouse for Merek.
Fun stuff in it: The main couple being former-lovers-to-enemies-to-fake-marriage-to-lovers, magic, political marriages, tense dinner parties and balls, working to take down a bad system from within, UST, deliberate miscommunication.
Influences/inspirations: An amalgamation of a number of media influences, everything from The Witcher to D&D.
How far I've gotten: 50k words. It was my NaNoWriMo project back in 2020.
Art? Yes! Lovely art of dancing and fancy clothes exists, as well as this art of Esk along with a quote from the book.
Morning, Evening, Dawn
Summary: Mateo hates his job but loves his coworkers. That's kind of inevitable when you're forced to work for a government in exchange for not going to prison for trying to revolt against it. Still, his work isn't all bad. He does get to help catch murderers at times. He could be content, if it wasn't for that man that keeps showing up in cases again and again, as a random person walking in the background. It's extra unsettling when the man looks directly at the camera, as if he can see Mateo. And then there's that new case they're being forced to work on, with only code names to search for...
Fun stuff in it: OT3, slowburn, heists, toppling corrupt government officials, space, telepathy, teleportation, found family, impossible hacking skills, kidnappings.
Influences/inspirations: Sense8, liminal spaces, the Wayfarer series by Becky Chambers though only vaguely, the Murderbot series by Martha Wells equally vaguely.
How far I've gotten: 52.3k prose, 11.2k plotting. It was my project for last year's NaNoWriMo.
Art? None yet.
Of Elves and Dwarrows 1: Soul-Stealing Elves
Summary: This is a story about four characters: Jale, a young aspiring dwarrow bard who is hopelessly in love with his mountain queendom's youngest prince. Warsa, Jale's older sister and said prince's bodyguard. Fanwa, a fellow bodyguard of the prince and the soon-to-be-husband of a former enemy citizen. Narathriel, a wounded elf traveling through hostile lands to deliver something that will keep his people safer. The local on-going war and an old terrible prejudice is about to make all of their lives a horrible mess.
Fun stuff in it: Culture clashes, complicated courtship rituals, elf/dwarrow relationships along with all the dwarrow/dwarrow ones, pining (soooo much pining), despair in the face of losing a loved one (which gets better), kidnappings, magic, singing, magical singing, steampunk robots, important hairstyles, all dwarrows can grow beards.
Influences/inspirations: The Tolkien fandom and playing around with the concepts of what fantasy "elves" and "dwarrows" even are.
How far I've gotten: 218k words of the story has been written, it's only missing drafts of the final chapter (nr 20) and the epilogue still isn't written. Really want to finish this one day!
Art? Yes! I've commissioned a lot of art for this and it's sequels over the years, so I really should see about at least finishing the first book XD
Professor Balance & Equilibrium + 12 Months of Villainy
Summary: Professor Balance is, at best, a B-list villain. He isn't too bothered by that. Not being the main attraction let's him focus on what he actually cares about: medical research and technological innovation. If he happens to most often face the hero Equilibrium in battle, so what? I-it's not like she's his nemesis or anything! Definitely not. Oh, thank the stars, an inter-dimensional invasion, perfect distraction!
Fun stuff in it: Superhero world logic, dramatic speeches, affably evil villains, punch clock villains, BDSM with femdom, inter-dimensional travel, a deep dark secret, secret identities.
Influences/inspirations: Not quite sure any more which exact pieces of media inspired this, but it's a whole mess of meta about the superhero genre with a touch of cosmic horror, but also, erotica. The erotica and the cosmic horror are kept separate, sorry to disappoint XD
How far I've gotten: Was my NaNoWriMo project from back in 2012, but I've revised it a bit since then, so the draft is "only" 38.7k words. As for the prequel, "12 Months of Villainy", it's just an outline, but will be necessary for the rest of the story to work, so in fact 'Equilibrium & Professor Balance' is really more the sequel here... Ah, old projects, how I've learned to pre-plan and plot better across the years XD
Art? Yes! I've commissioned art of both the Professor and Equilibrium.
Secrets in Ice
Summary: Uluk & Anruq are looking for their kidnapped brother. It will be quite the road trip before they catch up with the military that took him. Luckily they're making good and helpful friends along the way.
Fun stuff in it: This is a collaboration with my sister <3 She's co-plotting and making art to go with the story!! The story has siblings who love each other, weird and fun magic, ancient crimes coming back to bite people (literally), giant ice wolves, robot lizard steeds, a guy who really really likes masks, competence porn.
Influences/inspirations: This is just me and my sister trying to cram as many of our favorite tropes into one story as we physically can XD
How far I've gotten: 82.5k words of the first draft. We've planned 16 chapters + an epilogue.
Art? Yes! Nothing up online yet, but there's plenty offline. My sister is crazy talented <3
Travel to Other Shores
Summary: This is a sequel to my fantasy novel "How to sway them". It'll dive into what happened to a number of the side-characters from that story, after that book wrapped up.
Fun stuff in it: Exploring previously established side-characters' backstories, exploring other places than in the first book, people dealing with So Much Guilt, forgiveness.
Influences/inspirations: The previous book aka the only one I've actually finished writing.
How far I've gotten: Less than 300 words of plotting XD
Art? Sort of - there's art for the book before this one.
A Werewolf in October
Summary: Jayla might have moved to Merrihollow on pure impulse (and as a fuck-you to her ex) but having no previous knowledge of the supernatural she did not plan on getting savaged by a werewolf on her way back from an unsuccessful job interview. However becoming a werewolf might be the best thing that's ever happened to her! Well, if it wasn't for the hunters.
Fun stuff in it: Nerds, positivity, found family, meet cute, miscommunications that get cleared up, loyalty, friendship.
Influences/inspirations: The whole "werewolves and vampires" urban fantasy genre as a whole, a number of memes about werewolves and food.
How far I've gotten: I've thus far posted the 7th draft of chapter 1-10 over on my writing blog, am on draft 2 of chapter 11 and draft 1 of chapter 12. 134.8k-ish words so far. Goal is to hopefully finish this before 2022 is over!
Art? Yes! I'm saving some for when the story is finished, but some of it's already online!
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LONGER PROJECTS (without titles)
Placeholder name: The Baron and the Prince
Summary: Having recently taken over the title of baron from his imprisoned father, Ulrec Artero needs to tread carefully at court. Revolution has toppled the old order and installed a supposedly fae-blooded man on the throne - even though he's 'only' claimed the title of prince rather than king. Fae now wander the royal palace of the Maze and half of the court has been replaced by either them or revolutionaries. To keep himself and his brother safe, Ulrec will have to adapt his court manners to this vertiginous situation, and gain the trust of the new prince. Also, why are all these fae trying to court his brother?!
Fun stuff in it: Set in my "Witches and Fae" setting, court intrigues, culture clashes, brothers caring about each other, magic, the rich eating it, revolution, identity games, flirting interpreted as threats.
Influences/inspirations: The political intrigues from 'Dune', folklore of fae/älvor, all manner of court dramas, the Soulborne games' aesthetics.
How far I've gotten: 750 words of first draft begun, 4.4k words of plotting.
Art? Yes! Court portraits of Baron Ulrec and his younger brother Matabec.
Placeholder name: The Lesser Evil
Summary: In his early teens, Jeremy and his father escaped to one of the last known settlements only populated by humans. Now his father is long gone and Jeremy himself is part of the settlement's defenses. He does his best to keep his head down and follow orders. As strict and unsettling as life can be here, he can far too well imagine the horrors of the world outside, ruled by people with 'super powers'. This status quo has recently gotten shaken up. A far too cheerful and open young man by the name of Daniel has just joined the settlement. Somehow Daniel has kept a huge reserve of optimism despite the state of the world. Jeremy worries settlement will eat Daniel alive. But who should he really be worried for?
Fun stuff in it: Conflicted loyalties, undercover-to-enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, the ethics of mind control, siblings being a loving team, soft-apocalypse, coming to terms with having unknowingly been an evil minion, heists, fights with super powers, trust.
Influences/inspirations: A number of takes on superheroes and the "people wake up with super powers" trope in general, a number of post-apocalypse games, aaaand a number of "heist/grifting" media like Ocean's Eleven and Leverage. Also, written as a thought experiment about people who can mind control others with talking, like in Jessica Jones comic/show and The Bright Sessions podcast.
How far I've gotten: 500 words of prose, 5.3k words of plot.
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: Mystic Trio
Summary: Elizabeth Walken has been having a rough few years, well, possibly a rough decade. She's the most requested private investigator in the city, but gets none of the respect you'd suppose that'd entail. The rich will treat you like dirt, no matter if you're solving their grandma's murder or not. She can deal with that. What she's not prepared for is the three foreigners who're going around "talking to ghosts", one who is the son of a former ambassador, and did that other one say he's a prince?!
Fun stuff in it: Set in my "Witches and Fae" setting, OT3 becomes OT4, people talking to ghosts, fake royalty that's kinda also not fake, fantasy social media, a wild Mr Collins expy appears and is repeatedly fled, mystery solving, ghosts with last wishes that are less than dramatic, characters who think they're in an episode of Scooby Doo meet characters who think they're in hard-boiled noir detective story.
Influences/inspirations: The board game 'Mysterium' which this let's play by Polygon made me aware of and that I've then played with friends and family. Pride & Prejudice, a number of 'speaking with ghosts' media. Social media in itself.
How far I've gotten: 5k of plotting.
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: N/A
Summary: Sonja's been worried about her work partner for quite a while. It's no secret his relocation to their sleepy little town had to have been a demotion. It's also no secret he's got a bit of the 'gift'. He's good at his job in that way that let's you know he didn't get demoted for incompetence. All this said, when a scary-looking stranger shows up at the office demanding to see her partner, Sonja automatically covers for him. Turns out this will be the start of both a personal and professional mystery in need of solving.
Fun stuff in it: Former-lovers-back-to-lovers, murder mystery, fights against corruption, UST, friendship, magic/super powers, lots of eyeliner, BDSM.
Influences/inspirations: All manner of werewolf media though this has no werewolves in it, all manner of murder-mystery-police-procedurals but mainly the mood and atmosphere of Broadchurch.
How far I've gotten: 11k of plotting.
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: Solarpunk Not-Pirates
Summary: A crew returns to their ship, only to find they've been framed for piracy and have two far too fancy people aboard - one by accident, one by choice. They must now flee the law and try to make sense of why and by who they've been chosen as scapegoats.
Fun stuff in it: Sedoretu-like OT4~! UST that eventually resolves, the kindest of kind souls eventually having had Enough, revenge, flying ships.
Influences/inspirations: One tabletop rpg character I'm playing in a game I for once ain't DMing, the general aesthetics of solarpunk and steampunk all mashed up.
How far I've gotten: 300 words of plotting in Scrivener, way more inside my head XD
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: Witches and Fae
Summary: A look at the lives of three witches, a pseudo-ambassador-mage, a bunch of fae, and a man who hates and loves magic in equal measure.
Fun stuff in it: Loyalty, families struggling to reunite, revenge, magic, slowburn romance.
Influences/inspirations: 'Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell', local Swedish folklore of fae/älvor, a few images from ElfQuest.
How far I've gotten: Planning for these to be short stories that loosely interconnect. 3k words of plotting, 200 words of actual prose.
Art? Yes! Art of Daun and Alel, two of the main characters.
Placeholder name: Yet Another Vampire Story
Summary: Tom Kerr meets Kim Seong-jin during the post-show celebration he and his then university theater group has at a local diner. They strike up a friendship that lasts years, eventually decades, meeting up whenever Seong-jin is in town. Tom is too busy with work to reflect on the fact that they always hang out at night.
Fun stuff in it: Human not realizing they're friends with and crushing on a vampire, loyalty, desperate actions to save people, slowburn, friends wondering where That Thing is going, people hyping each other up, exploration of the difference between indie creations and mainstream media.
Influences/inspirations: It's mainly inspired by/a continuation of "A Werewolf in October", along with the fun of theater vs backstage chatter and meta in general.
How far I've gotten: Planned to be 25 chapters long. 6k words of plot, 200 words written on actual story XD
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: Youtube people time
Summary: Oscar has achieved a dream job: editor and mod for his favorite Youtube channel! It's not the biggest or the flashiest, far from the first to do actual play and let's plays, but Oscar has had a good experience as a fan and now as an employee. Now, a spanner in the works as appeared: an upcoming guest player has canceled last minute! Whatever shall the production team do~?
Fun stuff in it: Slowburn romance, the awkward yet fun tension of two people who're attracted to each other playing out a fictional romance together without confessing their real-life feelings for each other, lot's of ttrpg fun, fandom interaction with the media they follow.
Influences/inspirations: The fun of getting "behind the scenes" looks at different forms of group-made media (e.g. podcasts, actual play, theater, movies, TV shows), fandom interacting with their chosen piece of media, meta in general.
How far I've gotten: 700 words of plotting only.
Art? Not yet.
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SHORTER PROJECTS
The Sea is Deep
Summary: A stowaway tries to follow her lover to a new life, but something outside the ship keeps calling to her. Then the fleet gets lost in a dense fog...
Fun stuff in it: Well, perhaps not 'fun' in general, but I'm having fun trying to make the creeping ominous danger as eerie and awful as possible~
Influences/inspirations: Art of anything huge and terrible under the sea, but especially giant mermaids.
How far I've gotten: It's technically done, but it was written very rushed, so I want to re-write it to both improve it and also to make it an actual horror story.
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: Pride n Prejudice n A Wizard Did It
Summary: After a strangely powerful mage basically solves hunger, housing and all other ills of society through ~magic~, the local gentry have to deal with that while still powering on. Our dear main characters are part of a group who're taking this chance to live as said gentry. Trying to get into that life is all kinds of challenging - and is it actually something they should strive for?
Fun stuff in it: Awful people getting what's coming to them, balls, masquerades, overly complicated courtships, fancy clothing, friends helping each other find happiness.
Influences/inspirations: Pride and Prejudice obviously XD But also just the whole "genre" of people going to balls and worrying about getting engaged - the whole drive behind this project is me wanting to indulge in that without the background radiation of focusing on rich-people-problems when people in the same world are starving in the streets. Not trying to shame anyone for liking those kinds of stories, I obviously do too! I just have a hard time shutting off that part of my brain that goes "but what about the people who aren't able to be invited to this fancy ball??" whenever I try to enjoy the romance drama - which is weird, because I can shut off that part of my brain for several other kinds of similar plots, but eh, brains are weird ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
How far I've gotten: Less than 400 words planning - very early planning stage.
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: Ship OT3 plotting
Summary: After a successful business deal, a Captain returns to their sentient flying ship only to find a 'kidnapped' local nobleman aboard. It turns out the Ship is eager to set her Captain up on a date and the local customs around dating are...intense. Long story short, they're kidnappers now. Legal kidnappers. Yay.
Fun stuff in it: Set in my "Witches and Fae" setting, your partner also being your wing-man, competence porn, flying ships, playful fights where no one dies but everyone gets to be dramatic, character's hatred of losing being used against said character in loving and hilarious ways, cultural misunderstandings, endless flirting.
Influences/inspirations: The Swedish song "Båtlåt", general steampunk/solarpunk vibes, my need for more stories to have canon OT3s.
How far I've gotten: 3k of plotting.
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: SHORT assassin story
Summary: A not-famous assassin (because she's good at the whole assassin gig and thus isn't about to make a name for herself) goes on vacation and accidentally stumbles upon a plot to murder the local monarchy's rightful heir. She's not all that into monarchy, but when said heir happens to be a very promising one-night-stand-to-be and you're already accidentally mixed up in the plot, why not do a little overtime?
Fun stuff in it: Takes place in my "Witches and Fae" setting, flirting mistaken for threats, threats mistaken for flirting, eating the rich metaphorically and literally (though no cannibalism occurs ;D).
Influences/inspirations: Unsure exactly where this idea came from, but I think it's vaguely influenced by the concept of the anthology "Rogues" without being based on a specific story and also as a direct counter-reaction to several of the anthology's stories.
How far I've gotten: Very early plotting stage, barely 100 words. Mainly doing this to try and write a short project and actually finish it!!!
Art? Not yet.
Placeholder name: Supernatural Office Romance
Summary: Having recently lost their mother and been kicked out by their boyfriend, our main character makes a rather desperate decision: move to one of those cities. Ever since 'the change', only people with no money and even less sense move to where the veil between worlds has been torn and left bleeding. Getting work as a cleaner in an embassy of some kind will likely lead to...consequences.
Fun stuff in it: The cleaners have a group chat, there's plenty of weird shit that's treated like every day occurrences by most locals, supernatural culture clashes, creepy fae vibes, regular human / half-eldritch demi-human romance, cats.
Influences/inspirations: Podcasts like 'Welcome to Night Vale' & 'Mabel' + the fandom of the Magnus Archives rather than the podcast itself, the Addams Family, the 'character focused' side of Discworld.
How far I've gotten: Very new, only has 100 words or so of setting/plot info.
Art? Not yet.
