Wretched Gifts is back with part 18.

Parts 19 - 21 are ready for publishing and are waiting for their respective Fridays to be uploaded. I am part way through Part 22.

I hit a stumbling block lately. I know what happens next, but I'm not sure how to get there.

has been kind enough to share some music with me that has helped in this process. If any of you out there have any inspiring music you'd like to share, I'd love to hear it.

Post it in the comments for us.

Also, for those who have been reading In Bloom, I have more I can post and will do so if there is an ongoing interest. Perhaps during the week.

Welcome back. I suppose I should welcome you back to our den of vice and sin with a post.

Hello readers.

Since the site is down, the next post will be when it is back up.

This is really the only place on the internet to post it.

Bluesky doesn't allow text-posts. Other sites have character limits.

I hope FA comes back.

Hello to my small community of readers.

It is time for the next Wretched Gifts post. Just like the previous one, this post is quite long. In order not to artificially split sections, I will be posting the entire set today. I will try to post again next Friday and get back on schedule. I hope.

There is a part of me that is worried I won't have time to write or edit. Since I last posted Wretched Gifts two weeks ago, I've had maybe two evenings to add to the story and even less time to edit.

In any case, I hope you enjoy this week's post. It is. . .graphic. And things will begin to get more and more graphic as the story continues. We are about to enter into the arena of the unwell.

What portal does the child now see
Wherein the void
Is all remains of me

What tine shall quiver
Whilst tide draws in
And lays at our feet
A bounty of sin

That which lie buried
In pillory of brine
To be ravaged
Exposed
Espoused
Without

Bones, scour
Meat, devour

Therein a doorway
A threshold of flesh
I see them

Do fleas flee a corpse when the blood is cold?
Or when it ceases to flow?
Abandoned in liminal sway

Neck stretched
To find perspective
Dusk on a drop
As it falls away.

You taught us to claw,
Put us through your speech.
If I'm a red anchor,
Then you're coming with me.
And on the way down,
You can sleep with the fish.
As we go into the blue
We can both reminisce.
So you better hide
Or learn how to climb
'Cause you're coming with me
Yeah, you're coming with me.



Sometimes I feel like I'm made out of TV static and cigarette smoke. My reflection is the sound of a dying dial-up modem and a floppy disk spinning up to proper RPMs. I leave a shadow that consists entirely of the smell of burned rubber, ozone, and lies. My blood is caffeine and spite.

The world ended and nobody noticed. Not even me.

I have had no time to do anything this week. I've had 16 hour work days back-to-back-to-back.

No writing has happened. No editing.

There's even a few things I wanted to read and haven't been able to. As soon as I am home, I fall asleep. There hasn't even been time for regular life maintenance. It has made me aware of a few things.

One: I have not been able to meet interpersonal obligations. Tonight is the first hour I have had to myself since last Sunday. I fear that I may harm people who do not deserve it, people who were counting on me. Not only does this pain me, but it makes me anxious that those people may drift away because I can't meet expectations.

Two: There will come a time where I will not be able to keep up with the weekly pace I have been. I try to write a page or two per night, but that seems impossible lately. I may have to shift to submitting twice a month for a while until things calm down. My experience is that they rarely do. Temporary extra work too quickly becomes permanent.

Three: I have more in common with some of my characters than I first thought. I am more than just tired.

If I miss posting this week, or next, please forgive me. There may be only a few people who read my story, but I still want to keep my promise to post every week for those that do. Every reader is important to me and I don't want to have them drift off and lose interested because I couldn't get work out.

Sorry, everyone.

The Wild One

The Bones of You

To the Sun

No Good Mr. Holden

No Way Out but Down

I Am in Great Pain, Please Help Me

Citizen of Glass

Cannibal Within

Greensky Greenlake

In the Pines

Devil Like Me

Reduced to Teeth

Degausser

Broken Bottles

First Prayer

Mosquito Song

In This Shirt

Solitude

And So I Watch You From Afar

Golden Ticket

Cycling Trivialities

Misanthropic Drunken Loner

The Humbling River

Ne Me Quitte Pas

Let Me In

The Last Man

Fade

Citizen Erased

Tongues & Teeth

Falling in Line

Hope for Now

The Bird that Lived in a Burning Tree

The second Adult-Rated section of Wretched Gifts will release next week with Part 10. It was not intended to be exactly 5 parts later, it just happened that way - I promise.

(This Space Intentionally Left Blank)

7th February 2025

I am filled with terrible choices and a bit of writer's block. I keep rewriting the current sections. I am just not happy with them. I have a hard time capturing complicated action. The way that I see these stories unfold, there's just too much to see all at once. I'm not fast enough.

Still, I promise to try.

As a side note, how you humans and monsters can consume caffeine astounds me. My horns lost their velvet long ago, but caffeine makes them feel like they're in their first peel all over again. I thought that Monster was for monsters, but turns out you actually need a liver to drink it. I think this is how EDM was invented.

Thursday, 30th of January 2025

Friday promises to be rather busy, so I thought I'd upload early.

Thank you to everyone who has been reading so far. I hope you continue to do so, and I hope I can continue to add material at this pace until the story is finished.

23rd January 2025

I'm excited to update tomorrow and have you all meet someone new and a little less arcane.

I've spent a lot of time editing this week in hopes of giving a better finished product. I tend to ramble and I think my sentences trend heavily towards running.

If you've read up until now, thank you. I hope you keep coming back.

Sometimes hurt we thought was in the past rears its head and demolishes the day. Demolishes joy. Shatters will. How many times will I need to reassemble these pieces? It's boring. And annoying. I'd rather be doing anything else.

Emotions are a burden.

Friday 10th January 2025

I have resolved to post new sections of Wretched Gifts weekly. Hopefully, doing so will provide some excitement for readers and some time for me to put the story down on a page.

After much consideration I have chosen Friday evenings as the update time.

Section 4 of Wretched Gifts will be uploaded this evening.

Next week, Section 5 will be posted. It is the first section with graphic content. You have been warned.

For those wondering, I am currently editing the 10th section. Hopefully a month's time will see more sections added. Sometimes these lives are difficult to pull from the aether to share with you.

Other places and people can be loud in my mind for a time, they drown out others with their need to be shared. Someday soon a Bloom will come. I have seen it.




If you like to read, I hope you'll take some time for stories of mine.

Nothing would make me happier than to know that someone else carries this story with them and thinks on it from time to time.

I have finally been able to post the first parts of Wretched Gifts.

Part 4 to be posted next week.

If you like to read, I hope you'll take some time for stories of mine.

6th of January 2025

Once more around the sun. As the winter deepens and the new year is marked, developments are happening with regards to securing images to act as covers for submissions. I have received my avatar image and uploaded it.

All of the other three artists have submitted works in progress. It appears that most will be done very soon.

I have tested the submission system and now know how to use some of the html to make submissions easier to read. I don't imagine that many would want to download the .pdf.

The malaise has passed and I am excited to start posting work here.

A malaise. That's not supposed to happen.

Balls.

1st of January, 2025

It's looking as if the first character commission will be completed before the icon is. If that's the case, I'll have to do a intermediate icon image. When the first character commission is complete, I will post the first chapter. Then I hope to add a new chapter every week to two weeks. Right now, my goal is to average a new page every day, but life often has other plans. We'll see.

I find myself thinking of my parentage on long winter nights when the veil thins and fey magic surges.

Finvarra is often refered to as a king, but like all fey, their flesh is infinitely mutable. Finvarra loved to be whatever their flesh craved in the moment and nore often than not that craving was cruelty.

It is this trait for which I am able to sense the flood of fey magic on the solstice night but unable to use it.

Cernunnos, however, is a watcher. He is the eyes of nature - the deer-headed man. I have inherited his demeanor. But he does not speak, and so never told me of his coupling with Finvarra.

I find that it falls on me to share the stories I have seen, so that the burden of knowing, the burden that lays across on my father's ancient shoulders is lessened. I wonder, too, if a capricious mood took Finvarra one day and rather than cruelty they felt compassion. Did they sculpt my flesh to match my father's. Was I a gift? A burden?

When the nights are long, and my father's eyes burn blue and leave glowing trails between the trees and in doorways, I think of how those eyes burn with knowledge he can never share.

I wonder, too, do my own eyes burn? Is my own head a prison? After all, that is the only trait they two ever shared.

Saturday, December 21

I have only gotten a progress sketch from one of the artists I've commissioned. It looks fantastic. It has made me excited to post.

The artist has agreed to post to their socials the same time I post chapter 1 here. I hope it works out.

Speaking of hope, the other artists I have commissioned have been radio silent. It has me worried. I'm not an artist, so I have no idea about what is a reasonable timeline or what their queue is like, but I'm trying not to bother them at the same time wanting some kind of communication.

It kind of makes me feel that there is something to AI image generation, though I am loathe to admit it. As someone who has to sift through and identify AI in my professional life, I hate the use of AI for writing. It's obvious and insulting and lazy. But, then there is a part of me that thinks, "I could have just generated an image for free." Shouldn't I feel that the art generator AI is just as lazy and insulting? Perhaps it's just because drawing is a skill I don't have and don't understand.

The golden rule keeps me from using AI, but I can see the path that people walk to rationalize using it. Forgive the pun, but it really is a slippery slope.

In any case, my trouble now is trying to secure an Icon before posting the first chapter. If not, I'll have to come up with a temp.

Sunday, December 15th

I've secured another artist to make work for my thumbnails.

I'm not sure why I'm making these journals. I've never been the social media type. But something feels good about the journaling - tracking my progress towards this small goal is really nice.

One of the artists asked to see some of my work. That was nice, too. I hope they like it. I hope all of these artists I've commissioned enjoy the process of visualizing my characters. I'm anxious to see if they see what I see in my head.

Friday the 13th of December

I have commissioned three artists. One to make a profile image. Two are making character art based on description cards. I have secured permission from one artist to use these as thumbnails.

There is a third artist I am hoping to commission if the timing is right.

I've been excited to post the start of a story. I want people to read it. I don't know why people seeing it feels so important.

I have never been a creator. I've never made a thing that is special to others. I think that's what I want - to know that something I made stays with someone, moves them, makes them feel something. I'm no musician. Nor visual artist. But I think I can do this.

It is December 9th, 2024. I've made an account here. Blue Sky and Cara and Instagram are all image-only platforms, and that is part of the reason. I think maybe this might be the place for subject matter, too.

My next step is to find and commission two artists. One to create an Icon, the other to create the custom thumbnail for my first few submissions.

I hope to submit a new section every week once this is done. Maybe it will eventually reach an audience. Here's too hoping.