#zazzle

Ooooo I like this, maybe I should do more rainbow or monochrome plushie polls in the future! 💜

In keeping with the theme of 2026…

…I have some stuff to talk about.

Specifically in regards to the Creativity Machine and what it’s churning out.

Going in order of least to most relevant, at least as I clock it:

SHOP

So far my Zazzle doesn’t seem to dazzle. At least going by the nil interest since I put it up. It’s got loads of vampiric goodies ala Dracula and Carmilla, plus a number of other ocular oddities, with the designs available on all sorts of home and office bric-a-brac.

I put up a poll two months ago, asking what kind of merch people would be interested in from me afterward, with Frankenstein as the clear winner. And while I have sketched out thumbnails and ideas for graphics, they’ve sat in my sketchbook since then. Because the classic horrors I’m most known for are the vampire crowd, plus some haunted Harkers, and nothing’s moved from the shop beyond a couple bookmarks.

Which leads me to think that the folks who voted in the poll were voting in earnest about interest, but—like me and everyone else on the Starving Artist website—nobody really has that much in the way of extra cash to burn on browsing. That said, I will most likely still get some fresh stuff in the shop eventually, Frankenart included. But as should come to nobody’s surprise, it’s going to be slow-going and likely venturing into other genres beyond the gothic horror lines.

(Note: To see my full collections on Zazzle, you need to scroll down to the bottom of the page and toggle the Content Filter from Safe to Off. It covers up all the bloody and saucy stuff.)

KO-FI

The Ko-Fi still exists.

Commissions are still open. Tip jar’s still rattling.

PATREON

I can’t say there’s good or bad news here, just news. Really, it’d make more sense to just label this bit WRITING instead, but the title’s already there. So.

The See Arcane Patreon is still kicking and shall continue to kick for the foreseeable future. But the content itself might be heading for a shakeup.

Harker will continue to update in its usual bimonthly pace, paid Patreon getting sneak peeks in-between. What’s threatening to trip me up on the horizon is the monthly short horror stories and—as of this post—a snarl in the Harker bits-in-progress I’m working on right now. The latter is the bit where Jonathan joins up with everyone in Purfleet, just before the October 3rd nightmare kicks off. God, there’s a lot of logistical stuff crammed in there, and that’s not even taking Van Helsing’s monologues into account. I’ve hit a point where I think I have to scrap one or more chapters because they’re reading so damn dry. Or maybe I’ve been staring at this chunk so long it all looks dull. To be clear, it is not me about to chuck the whole thing—I’m not pulling a Barking Harker—but I do need to take an axe to some proverbial deadwood and start from scratch in some places.

Likewise troublesome is the fact that, while I do have assorted horrors locked and loaded, I don’t actually have a bottomless well of stories to pick from every month. I haven’t had time to replenish that well either due to various Real Life ™ tangles. For the paying Patreon crowd, there’s a new poll discussing ways to mix the roster up in coming months.

On the subject of writing in general and what might be cropping up in the future…

Goddamn.

The compass that dictates my story ideas has its needle spinning in all directions 24/7 right now. I’ve been riding the gothic-classic horror train for years now and it’s recently run off a cliff into less Victorian territory. Nightmares and fantasies that have nothing to do with the public domain shelves, just scraped out of the gunk in my own head. Feels like it’s been ages since I got revved up about ideas that weren’t seeded straight from someone else’s tale written 100+ years ago. It’s dizzying and exciting to realize I’ve started cooking OCs and their own stories after years of staying in a comfort zone of fleshing out and growing new things from other authors’ bedrock.   

Which is all to say that while I am not tabling Harker—I really do want to wring the full first draft out this year—I do also want to start work on other projects in earnest.

If you’re one of the folks out there who have been sticking around for my scribbles, my doodles, and/or someone patient enough to make it to the bottom of this ramble without nodding off, thank you. I appreciate every eyeball and every comment that comes my way, and I’m still agog that anyone at all has paid attention to my work, let alone paid for it. So, thank you.

That’s all for now.

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Hating Trump out loud and proud Democrat-Till-I-Die 😁