Writings
It doesn’t matter if it’s silly, or even absurd. If it makes you smile, or laugh, or think — then that’s the world one tick better.
My Stories So Far
The Curse Of Snishwimble
10,000-word middle grade graphic novel
Artie just wants a quiet life of drawing, painting, and trying to one day become a real artist. When this goal puts him on a goblin’s list of ‘who-to-torment-today,’ Artie fights back. He even manages to catch the creature – but that just makes things worse.
Instead of one magical-sneeze-inducing, lovesick goblin to deal with, Artie faces a dozen of his relatives – all with kooky destructive powers and chaotic personalities.
Artie has two weeks to fight, flatter or befriend this group of goblin nobles determined to make sure he never makes art again. They use everything from basic bullying to a literal army of dust bunnies to stop him. Between one night of barraging ink blots and another of a rampaging pet tortoise, Artie worries he’ll never get back to his life of paints and inks again because a single misstep could have him cursed to typhoon-sneezing for the rest of his life.
THE Agency: First Paige
22,000-word YA metafiction graphic novel
Paige isn’t crazy about her new job. Then again, she’s the only one at THE Agency that’s not already crazy. A marketing agency for supervillains was never on her career radar – but it got her off a mad bomber’s to-explode list. So, so long prosecuting attorney fast track, hello literal mountain of HR paperwork. Goody.
The only thing making the chaos even mildly tolerable is knowing THE Agency has been secretly sabotaging its clients for decades. Despite the crazy fashion designs, the improbable hideout architecture and the science-defying weaponry, she’s saving lives. She helped dissuade a possible client from becoming a super villain. She used a ray gun that one time. She may even save the world in a month or so if the boss will give her the right project.
When that opportunity finally comes, and the first step is – die – her enthusiasm vaporizes. It doesn’t matter how many times they repeat ‘temporary’ or ‘greater good. It’s a no-go. Nuh-uh. Of course, if she doesn’t follow the plan, THE Agency, and all the loveable nutcases in it die, the villains start winning without their sabotage and the world ends, maybe worlds end. Double goody.
The Gray Gala:
Any Number Of Ways This Could Go Wrong
22,000-word YA fantasy with multiple endings
I’ve always thought Cinderella was… weird. She was horribly mistreated by her family, but was always happy and kind and unrealistically hopeful. If I got an invitation to a ball in her circumstances –
a) I would not want to go with her family
b) I would seriously question who is sending ball invitations - especially to me
c) It would take a lot more than the promise of mingling or <gasp> dancing with strangers to get me out the door.
The Gray Gala focuses on Maya, a similarly-minded secretary given a mysterious invitation and the seven disastrous outcomes that go through her head before she even makes it to the dance floor.
Currently there are seven endings, but there are a fair number more in the works. It’s very cathartic to further traumatize poor Maya. She’s got a gothic horror and a Fae-deal gone ridiculously wrong already planned for her future.
Start ‘Em Early
ursery rhymes for
graphic designers
Start ‘Em Early was a book I wrote to give out as Christmas gifts to my graphic designer friends – and to experiment with an in-home letterpress. I hand drew the illustrations, designed the very simple layouts (both for kid-friendliness and to accommodate the restraints of the machine). Then I sent the art off to be turned into plates by the wonderful artists at Box Car Press. Then I inked, pressed and stitched the pages together to create a nursery rhyme book for graphic designers and their toddling graphic-designers-in-training.
I still have the plates and the machine, although my letterpress inks have likely glurmed* by now. However, I’m never against pulling old hobbies out of the closet of doom.
Path Of The Lost Flame
The passion project I write on every time I need an escape or to let off some creative energy. (I’ve had a lot of creative energy to let off - which explains the current word count.)
Path Of The Lost Flame is my longest project both by years and by word count. It’s an epic fantasy about one immortal witch wandering through history, positive that she’s the Chosen One. (Death himself told her she was, so she believed him.) But she never seems to find that one Grand Destiny™ she was promised. In the meantime she stumbles … a lot. She was the witch from Hansel and Gretel in a roundabout way. She’s in a lot of stories in a roundabout way, (the three little pigs were blacksmiths she apprenticed under) and it’s only when she begins telling her own story to a determined-to-be-helpful monk, that she faces who she really is through his eyes and his tests.