#p:dr

OH BOY.

In the world of Topiary Black and Deerfield Run, future sight has been attempted, in a form, by all manner of corporations, ambitious (if eccentric) individuals, and selfish hobbyists. Then, in a concrete-lined basement in the Pacific Northwest, a 53-year-old-ocularist named Artur Belinsky collided some particles and accidentally created the God Machine.

When it inevitably leaked, because nothing that knows everything could keep anything from anyone forever, every pocket of every culture cried out in discordant tones. Governments tried to gain access so they could restrict access. Anthroposophists theorized about the existence of the akashic records. Philosophers struggled over the mind-bending implications of a real-life Library of Babel. Cults of opinion on social media churned into armed protests on the steps of every institution (secular and otherwise), waving signs that read: UNPLUG. They tweeted it to all their twitters. The Vatican dispatched investigators to validate this “God Machine” as either blasphemy or miracle (though the paperwork was already filled out for the former before boots hit the soil in Pacifica).

See, there’s a problem with a machine that knows everything. Where do you point it? What if it doesn’t want to listen?

Tagging: @saccharinemornings, @erin-writes-stuff, @midnightstreetwanderings, @byjillianmaria, @doux-ciel, @hilunawrites, @ghost-possum, @zmlorenz, @doubleviewfinder, @els-writes, @dantedevereaux, @tlbodine, @hypotheticalwriterquestions, @hazeywrites, @reeseweston, @dotr-rose-love, @katabasiss, and @quilloftheclouds. (Let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from tags future tags).

I’m not prepared to fully answer that at this time, but here’s an excerpt from Topiary Black that may hopefully tickle your worldbuilding curiosities:

No one wanders into the barrens where once we grew corn and wheat, and the suburban sprawl stretched from one horizon to the next. Excepting the runners. No sensible souls cross the cordons, anyhow. There’s a quiet out there. You can hear it in the steady weaving of trumpet vines up the siding of a hundred empty houses. In the patter of windswept leaves across deserted baseball diamonds, bursting with wild grass and sunken with cottontail warrens. It’s the quiet of the steady progression of nature, reclaiming order from chaos. It’s the sound of humanity in retrograde.

And—there’s something else. The runners say it’s old. They say it’s been sleeping, alone out there, before all the clapboards and eaves of our derelict homes went to rot. Before the trees so kindly fell before the axes of the men who built them. Before any of them sprouted, they say. When night falls, and the antediluvian dark smothers the barrens, they say you can hear it in the quiet of Pacifica. The hum. The stirring of a primordial mind beginning to wake.

Tagging: @saccharinemornings, @erin-writes-stuff, @midnightstreetwanderings, @byjillianmaria, @doux-ciel, @hilunawrites, @ghost-possum, @zmlorenz, @doubleviewfinder, @els-writes, @dantedevereaux, @tlbodine, @hypotheticalwriterquestions, @hazeywrites, @reeseweston, @dotr-rose-love, @katabasiss, and @quilloftheclouds. (Let me know if you’d like to be added or removed from tags future tags).

Well sometime in the last week or so— while I was busy exploring every paperback in my possession—I surpassed a thousand followers. Even though the last year has been fraught with setbacks and indecision, I sincerely want to express my joy to all of you. That I could reach anyone with my stories, even if you’ve seen only snippets, touches me deeply. Thank you.

I also know that I’ve gone somewhat radio-silent. This is not due to any bad occurrence, but simply owed to the fact that I’ve been...I hesitate to say busy...so...distracted.

Firstly, I moved from the west coast to the midwest in late February, on the cusp of COVID-19 running rampant, back in with my folks for a transition period to new horizons. Like many, my paying work trickled to a stop, so the timing could not have been better, but, for the most part, I’m stuck here now.

The internet here is atrocious. But this is not without its benefits.

Secondly, I’ve been thrust ever deeper into my creative works. Coldwater Sound is being drafted once again and I suspect will be completed in mid-May. Topiary Black is being outlined, drafting scheduled for late May and early June. And, another project has been circling my mind...one that has me excited and enthralled. I’m hesitant to say more about it now.

I’ve been dealing with social distancing the best way I know how: focusing on unrealities, and thanking every god of luck that I’m in a position to do that, instead of unemployed and homeless in southern Oregon.

So, thank you once again. During this period of working diligently on my projects, I’ll likely be a little less active than I’d like, and perhaps less than some of you would like, but, I haven’t gone anywhere.

If you have any questions about my WIPs or anything in general, feel free to reach out, include me in tag games, etc. I’ll be a little slow in rolling out my responses, but I’ll be here.

Shoutouts: @zmlorenz, @saccharinemornings, @erin-writes-stuff, @byjillianmaria, @midnightstreetwanderings, @dotr-rose-love, @sassypandacandy. Thanks for your support since I joined this community.

Is that all for now? I think. I think that will do.

Thanks, all of you.

[PM] You have a beautiful name. I do believe I recognize it- though, at this time, I can’t place it.