Scribblings of the Barn Rat

the collected chickenscratch of an aspiring writer the-barn-rat.tumblr.com

[existennialmemes]

[scrolling social media] Who the fuck is Jimothy?

[a brief internet search later] Ahh yes, ok I understand. Jimothy is my religion now.

[the-barn-rat]

in romanian folklore people with red hair and blue eyes were more likely to be vampires

[the-barn-rat]

I drew some vampires u guys here’s Boss, Brigid and Clancy

[the-barn-rat]

i wrote another 1000 words of urban vampires and finally got to rots eyyy

[the-word-rat]

AND THIS JUST IN I’M STILL FUCKING TERRIBLE AT DOING ANYTHING ON THE WRITING BLOG

[the-word-rat]

Hi! I noticed you hadn't updated this blog for a while, so I was wondering how your works were going? Btw your writing is awesome, I love it so much

Gosh thank you! I am still working on things, but being in teacher ed basically eats up all of my free time. I'm doing a lot of world building at the moment, and hopefully I'll be able to actually write things in the summer.

[the-barn-rat]

oopsie daisy i made a cover concept while i was thinking about the ending

[the-word-rat]

I JUST WROTE A THING FOR NANO AND I REALLY LIKE IT

Within the collective consciousness of humanity, there exists a puzzling paradox: throughout the course of its our history, when our species has encountered a horizon, we have shown an alarming tendency toward assuming that said horizon delineates the edge of existence—that there is nothing beyond, or else that whatever might lie beyond is well outside the realm of human understanding—yet, at once, we are drawn to this horizon, and each subsequent horizon we encounter thereafter, with the pull of a vast magnet on billions of stubborn and ignorant and stubbornly ignorant iron filings.

So it has been for the cradles of civilization, the occupants of which were all so shocked to come across humans from some other land, some other place beyond the mountains, beyond the forests, beyond the seas. So it has been for Earth, once so confidently declared the center of the universe. So it has been for the solar system. So it has been for the Milky Way.

Every horizon conquered—every last one—has given way only to reveal another skyline in the distance, another vanishing point, but we have yet to learn our lesson. When physicists and astronomers began to fathom the concept of universe, of a pocket of being so vast as to be impossible to conceive of within a single human mind, they fell yet again into the same trap which had ensnared hundreds of generations before theirs. Surely this Earth is the only Earth, our ancient forefathers declared, confident in their limited observations. Surely this Sun is the only Sun. Surely this galaxy is the only galaxy.

Surely this universe is the only universe, they say now.

Surely.

[the-word-rat]

I DREW SOME NANO PROTAGS

[the-word-rat]

I HAVE ENOUGH SKELETON TO TRY NANO

I'M GONNA DO IT

I'M GONNA NANO

[the-word-rat]

space dino silliness from a while back featuring THREE ACTUAL CHARACTERS and showing some of the colour spectrum of said beasties

[the-word-rat]

Still nailing down some design aspects in terms of both aesthetic and functionality--it seems like whenever i draw these guys they move somewhere else on the slider between reptilian and bovine--but here at last are some sketches of the first contact aliens i will be writing about in The James Winds.

i like them a lot they are called gheyaal and they are my space dino bbs and definitely without a doubt my favourite creature design i've ever done

[the-word-rat]

ok you know what i'm gonna take a break from the reverence/tumult/catharsis universe for a little while and write the james winds because then i will have two independent books

and i can try to sell both

and neither one will be dependent on the other's success

so

also sci fi

[the-word-rat]

okay so like a bunch of book 2 is going to take place in this insanely old trade port city that's been settled/conquered/occupied so many times over so many years that at this point it's sort of become a city-state unto itself and a common meeting ground for like everybody in the region and in order to pull this off i've been doing one million years of worldbuilding over the past while in order to fully flesh out and develop at least like five of the major contributing cultures and here are some rich people clothing concepts for the big three

notes:

TYRP1 is the gene responsible for Melanesian blonde hair. It is a completely separate mutation from the one that oversees the European hair spectrum.

Of these three only far right dude is an actual character so far (hello nicolae u seem both disgruntled and hotter than expected) BUT THAT MAY HAVE TO CHANGE

[the-word-rat]

pardon me i have been worldbuilding

[the-word-rat]

Book 2 is almost completely skeleton'd out eek.

Two viewpoints from Reverence will not have chapters anymore but I'm adding three so. 8D

[the-word-rat]

WELP. Got my first rejection today. It's actually kind of nice to have gotten that out of the way.

Time to write up another query.

[the-word-rat]

OK SO LET'S GET TO WORK ON TUMULT THEN