Writeblr Introduction
Suppose I should introduce myself per the writeblr Very Friendly Suggestions. I'm PB, or peebs if you prefer. I publish my books under the pen name Victor S. Dale. I'm in my 30's, bisexual, dyspraxic, and as behooves a man of my standing I'm also grappling with considerable depression.
I like to write, like it a lot and I always have. My main WIPs are: a clockpunk love story titled The Clockwork Boy, a Lovecraftian Horror Romance titled His Impossible Brushstrokes and a 30s-punk portal fantasy serial titled Thereafter. I also dabble with fanfiction these days, DM me for a link if you're interested but I'll be real, it's mostly Kpop Demon Hunters and weird Tokusatsu stuff. Mostly coherent and concise synopses of The Clockwork Boy, His Impossible Brushstrokes, and Thereafter follow below.
Thereafter
Thereafter is the name of my Serial Novel series. Book 1 The City After The End was released in 2024-25, and followed nocturnal museum guard Michael Sørstrand and his adventure in the post-apocalyptic fantasy world of Therafter, the city built out of the detritus of countless destroyed worlds.
Book 2: Voidhearts, follows Michael's fellow former portal fantasy hero turned hero hasbeen, Alicia Thorn. Alicia once united the tribes of Steppeworld against the tyranny of the Dragon Thane, and she's been silently pissed off she can't call for more emancipation wars from the various bullshits of life ever since. That, however, is not her only concern.
The Exalted Heroes of Thereafter are still reeling after the reveals and betrayals of book 1, and in her effort to mend the various rifts that have formed, Alicia uncovers a considerably more existential threat, both to her and to the fragile ecosystem of Thereafter.
Something is happening to The Scavengers that feed the refugee city by making expeditions for food and supplies to the clouds of detritus of destroyed worlds in the void. Alicia doesn't know what, but her efforts to find out are regularly stymied by Deepspeaker Lia, the Steppefolk woman who function as a de facto leader of the group.
It all comes to a head on an expedition where everything that can go wrong, and a few things that ostensibly couldn't, goes wrong. Lia and Alicia find themselves stranded deep in the Void, and while they still don't work particularly well together, they have to try to have any chance to make it back to safety. If, that is, whatever happened to the other scavengers doesn't happen to them first.
Thereafter 2: Voidhearts is a story about love, hate, hope, and despair. It's a tale of survival, memories, and what awaits in the unknown. It's also queer as hell, which I personally think is rather nice.
Thereafter is released on a chapter by chapter basis via Buttondown, with new chapters dropping on the 1st, 10th and 20th of every month until book 2 is completed. To subscribe to new Thereafter chapters, please visit the Buttondown site. Archived chapters can be found here
The Clockwork Boy
My NaNoWriMo 2022 novel was initially conceived because I couldn't find much fun MLM genre fiction to read, so I decided to get myself good and wedged into that niche. The story follows Jake, who's stuck in a dead-end job of machining gears and sundry parts as well as lifting heavy things until a small, yet deceptively strong young man crashes into his life, and also his arms. The young man is called 13, his entire body from the neck down is made out of impossibly complex clockwork parts, and he's on the run from multiple powerful people and factions.
13 is stronger and faster than anyone has the right to be, but several broken parts hold him back. Jake is immediately smitten by the complex mechanics of 13's clockwork body, not to mention his sad, blue eyes, and so vows to help repair 13. The complexity of the task at hand is only increased by the two being pursued by local goon squads as well as other clockwork-bodied people with numbers for names.
The world of The Clockwork Boy and the Hearts In Clockwork series, provided I get around to writing more of these things, is languishing in a peculiar type of anarchy. The Age of Steam has come and gone and after a series of destructive colonial wars known as The Coal Wars, the power of government and nation has all but eroded. In their place, an alliance of powerful merchants and holders of capital keeps an iron grip on what passes for law from their seat in the massive tower known only as The Spire. Their power is exerted through monopoly and other economic maneuvers, but also by their rowdy Enforcers, who rule through intimidation and sheer brutishness.
13, as it turns out, is part of The Clockmen, a hitherto hidden faction within The Spire, whose acerbic leader is working to create an elite force of clockwork-powered individuals to overthrow The Spire and their enforcers, but even within the clockmen, agendas differ. 13 was originally made to fight and kill rogue clockmen, but so objected to this that he fled, searching for his memories and what freedom could be found.
Jake and 13 eventually find themselves under the auspices of The Northwest, an underground worker-owned coop parts workshop that takes them in and offers them succor in their time of need. In the relative safety of The Northwest's hidden workshop, Jake and 13 get the time they need to perform the sizable number of repairs needed, and perhaps ask the question of what they are becoming to each other and what comes next.
The current status of the project at the moment is going through the old rewrite and editing wringers. I'm currently having the thing beta read and I'll make whatever changes I need after that before attempting to hook an agent to help me get the thing published. In the meantime, I post about it a lot. If you want to be up-to-date on the most recent rambles in the setting, check out the tag list post here
My final goal with this project is to somehow get it published and, provided I am not met with immediate scorn and ridicule, get started on writing one or more sequels. I don't have the entire series planned out or anything, but I have several stories in this universe planned, and I know where and how I want it to end.
His Impossible Brushstrokes
My 2023 NaNoWriMo entry and occasional Lagrange point of my life. Continuing the trend from last year of writing novels that I wish someone else had written already so I could read it, Brushstrokes is a male-led queer horror with a mspec protagonist, exploring the shared points between love and fear, admiration and obsession, and art and madness.
The story follows Oscar Skerry, an obsessive San Fran art critic who goes to progressively more extreme measures to understand the works of his favorite artist, a pan-European enfant terrible by the name Tomasz Gildebrant. Gildebrant is an obscure artist, whose paintings nevertheless go for exorbitant prices on account of his cult appeal.
Following the thread of an art patron going berserk and attempting to destroy a Gildebrant painting by eating it, Tomasz unravels the urban legend of Gildebrant Psychosis. This sickness allegedly drives some who see a Gildebrant painting into acts of brutality, depravity, or the profoundly absurd, and Oscar starts to suspect there is something deeper and darker going on than repeated failures of the mental health system.
Seemingly out of the blue, Oscar gets an invitation to join Gildebrant in his home in the southern Carpathian Mountains. Eager to get to the bottom of things, and share his theories with Gildebrant, Oscar accepts.
Once there, two things become readily apparent. One, Gildebrant is incredibly charming, so much so that Oscar finds himself doubting that Gildebrant could be the man behind the dark, disturbing paintings he obsesses over. Two, there are way too many things not adding up, like how the doors to his guestroom in the Gildebrant household lock automatically at midnight, and how many pairs of shoes fill Gildebrant's hallway.
