Two hours past midnight, I sit on my bed as the TTC train blinks outside my window, a car flaring its alarms and interrupting my train of thought. And just as I complain, it shuts down.

Today’s the day! My book is out, and to celebrate, I went to watch “Alien: Romulus” with a couple of friends. The clock struck twelve as the credits began to roll, and as I checked my phone, I didn’t even realize that a four-year effort had concluded with the release of A Tapestry of Yearnings.

Not sure what brings more horror: the terrific (in a good way) movie about xenomorphs, genetic experimentation, and the human spirit, my ever-present absentmindedness to such a personal achievement, or the more palpable and universal horror of the future. What will become of my book? Of my series? Will I ever be able to finish all nine books?

Who knows!

 This is not the moment to be concerned about it. And look at that, the TTC train has moved on, and so should I. Were my thoughts to contemplate the specter of all I yet need to write, of all nine stories of Nine Hollow Bells (eight remaining) and all eight of another, yet-to-be-named series, my mind would follow that of one of those first-casualties in Alien movies. I would freeze. I would stop. I would die.

Gods, what a good movie. It’s been a while since I saw such an engrossing horror story.

So, let’s get to the point. Why should you, dear reader, give my stories a chance?

Because they’re fun! Obviously. But more than that, I feel that the chains of marketing force me to enumerate a series of tropes and easily digestible tags with the potential to make anything viral. A bore, for you and me. However, the chains are as tight as a facehugger. They constrict my neck, but provide enough oxygen to gestate the awful blend of DNA that will create the ultimate life form!

Ok, that link got out of hand, but nods to Alien and Shadow aside, here are some things you might expect from A Tapestry of Yearnings: female protagonist, fantasy, magic (to a lesser, secondary degree). Guild wars! Economics! Actual mercenaries fighting one another. Okay, it happens once, not the focus of the story. The throes of a trial for custody. A god, in the flesh. A necromancer doing necromancer things. New races! – furries will enjoy that one more than the rest. A deep dive into the life of an isolated city. Have I mentioned economics? Made fun, of course. Oh, two implicit and one explicit sex scenes, well-written and with purpose (of course, everything else is well-written, and of course, I’ll say that. Why wouldn’t I?) More tags, more tags? Oh, shared bed, that seems to be a thing. Or is it? Strangers to roomates, the new, less exciting enemies to lovers. Family conflict is a given. What else, what else? As you can see, tags and tropes aren’t my thing. Well, tropes are, to a degree.

I am now consulting a list of tropes. Give me a moment.

Reading…

There is no MacGuffin here, thank the gods. Our bad guys can aim, but we never see them fire. Oh, it’s a medieval world transitioning to the Renaissance, so we do have crossbows, but no gunpowder. That one is boring, locks civilization development in a predictable trajectory that I don’t want anywhere near close to my world. Have I mentioned we have magic?  

What else, what else?

Dealing with sexual orientation? I mean, it’s talked about, but not the point. So no, discarded.

Eww with the hero’s journey. We don’t like predictable, formulaic structures in this house. We do have plenty of side-quests! Or side-plots, all connected, but staying on the side for a while. No chosen or evil one. No mentor. No powerful artifacts. Damn, I’m letting fantasy down here. Wait, we do have lots of characters, and it’s the beginning of what I hope will be an epic storyline.

No heir to the throne though. There is only one throne in Baelfyre Port and Bael has an eternal claim to it. Tsk, tsk, tsk, let me skip ahead…

I’m out of fantasy and back into horror. Alien did tick a lot of these boxes.

Meh, you get the point. We offer stuff, both traditional and not.

Let me bring this to a close. It’s two AM, another TTC bus dragged itself to the stop outside my window, the first stop, the one where they wait, and it’s blinking in the darkness as some sort of lanternfish waiting for prey.

But boy don’t I write fast? We’re about 783 words in and it took me about twenty minutes. If I wrote that fast for fantasy, maybe this whole endeavor wouldn’t be that scary.

I do enjoy taking my time with it, and hopefully, you’ll enjoy it too!

A Tapestry of Yearnings is out! I need to pause and revel in the moment, but I’m simply exilerated. Not believing it. Part of the course, the moment will pause, and I’ll look back and…

I’m not sure. Four copies of the book sit on the mess that is my book collection. My bookcase arrives on Saturday. Today is Friday, but I mean next Saturday. In the meantime, about 40 books sit on the floor. Four of those are copies of mine. One is a proper, author’s copy, the others are pre-release copies so that I can see how it prints.

I still can’t believe I wrote it. Chunky little thing. Spoilers for Romulus, but it’s like my own little xenomorph baby, so cute, cooing in its little pod (the cover, I guess). I just hope it doesn’t morph too fast into this uncanny valley monster that will destroy my self-esteem, my time, my capacity to love writing. I don’t want to have the dreaded problems George RR Martin has.

Although, I do want that level of fame.

But that’s irrelevant. I write because it’s fun. And I hope you will have fun reading my stuff too. If you get out of it a quarter of what I did writing it, I’ll consider myself well served.

The train, if such a caterpillar hooked up to electrical lines can be called a train, just left again. More like the blend of a bus and a train, much like an Alien is a dna mix of…

You know, I must stop with the Alien callbacks.

Delirious tangents. I should go to sleep.

Except I can’t, or I’ll miss my seven am trip to Banff. I’m bound to stay awake until then, and to pass the time, I’m writing this little thing, to announce to the world that my book is out there.

I’ll do a proper book release later on, once I return next Friday.

So many future possibilities, but even if I end up like good old George, I would count myself lucky. The true horror, the one that Alien captures oh-so-well, is that we are specks of dust in the vast darkness of the cosmos. Insignificant. My true fear is that these series will amount to that. To nothing. To ink wasted under the illusion that I have a shred of talent.

Ah, great thoughts for 2 am. Ghosts and demons are meant to come out in an hour, but in my mind, it seems they share my tendency to be overtly punctual.

Hope you enjoyed my fears. Now, please keep my nightmares unreal by reading my stuff.

Thank you!

I hoped a train would be back, but no luck yet. Maybe next I glimpse out the window. Maybe next time I see my amazon page, there are more readers out there than people in this pseudo-station.

Now, it would be really terrifying if there was someone standing out there, randomly walking by, or worse, staring at my lit window, probably the only or one of the few out in the building. Better yet, past the little station and a bridge, there is nothing. Half of it is the lake, half is wilderness, all under the mantle of the night.

But look as I might, there is no one there.

Unlucky.

Post three-hour-airplane-nap edit: Do not let me write at 2 am in the future. “A shred of talent.” Gods, was I dramatic there. I have a healthy self-esteem, I swear. Still, good window into my consciousness at the time I guess.