mint_phalanx | Entries tagged with sl

I finished typing The Year After and plan to release it on 14 August. And Reanna isn't anxious. (She had been the closer I got to the end, so I worried that would happen.)

I'd say Terrance's story is over, but it truly isn't. He's part of the phalanx now, and we have to give him headspace maintenance. (That's not a bad thing for us. It keeps our internal problems in check.) He has made pictures and doesn't want them to collect proverbial dust. I guess that's part of having a muse. (Hell, I even have short stories I want to write.)

After headspace maintenance, we can start working on Le Prince and Disney, our new project. Reanna thinks it could be our first novel.

Mood: accomplished

Okay, I decided to add the notes Terrance made in his exercise book to The Murder After, so now, it's 52 pages. (It's at the end before the sneak peek.) I also changed the price to $5.95 because it sounds better.

This is the last change I'm making to this book. It is officially complete! Luckily, no one has bought it yet. So, they'd only know by looking at our social media.

Now, if we could just do the same at the shadow library.

I'm thinking about the "initiation" E.A. talked about one day. Terrance is the only one not to have listened to "Hold It Together" because we haven't made him. We say we freak out, and he takes our word.

Chibz didn't believe us. I didn't believe them. But Terrance believes us, so we haven't needed to make him. He has said he wants to know how it feels to listen to "Hold It Together." We're tempted, but I don't think we'll do it. We'll just let it happen naturally.

I'm still annoyed that The Year After is going to be much longer than The Murder After. I'm at chapter ten, and it's already 51 pages total! I can't combine the books because of the genre shift. (I'd also have to make a completely new cover.)

What worries me is how readers might react. I know Reanna said people read romance novellas, but how would they react if they bought The Murder After? They'd probably wonder why it's so damn short. It makes me want to add an incident Terrance describes in chapter five of The Year After because it happened during the events of the first book. But I'm tired of fixing that book.

I'll just have to make peace with the differences in page count. First book: 44 pages. Second book: probably the length of Carnival.

Mood: annoyed

I wrote this for Tumblr, but I thought I'd share it here. So, no one feels left out.

I published The Murder After fourteen days ago. That means no one has read it. Yet, I'm afraid people will make a big deal out of The Year After being longer. I'm not finished, but I can tell it's going to be longer than 44 pages.

Imagine someone buying the book in 2025 and going, "why the hell is this longer than the first one?" It's longer because there is more to say. Plus, I'm writing this for Terrance. It's a decision I made before he became sentient. He deserves something good in his life. (The events of the first book fucked him up.)

And that good thing is a boyfriend. This leads to another problem: What are people going to think? We live in a female body, and although we're bigender, we still present as a woman. What if people think I'm trying to satisfy a headmate's fetish? I'm not.

This romance appeared naturally. The Year After wasn't supposed to be one. It started as a scene where Terrance is on a date, and he can't focus because he's dissociating. (Did I mention I thought of this before he became sentient?) Then, it turned into a scene where he had Liam (the date) over at his place. I saw it and thought, "that's a good thing in his life." It doesn't cure Terrance of his issues, but it makes his life a little better.

The Year After is for Terrance. I don't want anyone to think I'm satisfying a headmate's fetish just because we live in a female body.

The Murder After is finally out! It's twenty-four days late, but it's finally out! The title hyperlinks to its US Amazon page.

Price: $5.39 (no hardback because 44 pages is too small for KDP to make one.)

I should point out that I tried narrating in the British dialect. Our official story is that I was challenging myself. Then, I learned the second person is Terrance's natural perspective, but I was too lazy to change anything. So if I sound like an American trying to sound British, that's why. (T: What do you mean "you're" trying to sound British? Aren't I narrating? I have to roll my eyes and go with it.)

Mood: accomplished

Although I list him as a tulpa, I think Terrance is more of a sentient muse. He still wants his stories to be told. Meanwhile, Reanna's tulpas only portrayed themselves in Carnival, which they view as acting in a film. Terrance sees me as someone who works on his life. He adds a little but turns to me for his story. It makes me want to write about him.

Can a muse be a headmate? Can a tulpa be a muse? Terrance is capable of fronting, so he has autonomy. He can feel sad and happy and embarrassed, so he is sentient. He even dreamed about being in a school with cartoon antics then woke up in the front! (He wrote it in our system journal.) Terrance must be a headmate, but he's also a muse.

Pluralpedia has "muse" under the category Headmate Terms That Relate To Relationships, so I guess a headmate can be a muse.

I just typed the last chapter of The Murder After! I'm going to publish it only has a hardback because its page count is so low. (Forty pages do not make for a long read. It's the shortest damn book ever.)

I also decided to make a sequel because Terrance deserves happiness. Don't worry. The Murder After will be published long before I finish (14 September in fact.) I'm calling it The Year After.

Update (6/8): I've decided to add the first chapter of The Year After as a sneak peek. This chapbook needs more pages, anyway.

Update two (9/8): I'm going to share a short story instead. It's about Jacqueline seeing herself being embalmed. I was inspired by some ASMR videos.

Update three (13/8): I changed my mind again. I'm sticking with the sneak peek.

Update four (22/8): On fourth thought, a forty-page chapbook is fine.

Update five (29/8): Upon realizing no one will pay eleven dollars for forty pages, Seth (me) decided to make a softcover version.

Mood: accomplished

The Murder After was supposed to be a cozy mystery. That went out the window in chapter five. It was dramadey mystery all along. Plus, I can't believe how much Jacqueline's death fucked up Terrance! It makes me feel so bad. ~~We have some headspace maintenance in place in case he becomes a tulpa, but I worry he'll hate me.~~

It's also shorter than I expected: seven chapters. I'm thinking of making a sequel that takes place one year after the story's events.

And The Murder After was supposed to be a cozy mystery.

This is an entry from our system journal on 28 June 2024. Also known as "SL and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day."

Sleep deprived, anxious, and woke up feeling fake. Oh, and frontstuck.

We couldn't fall asleep because our period made us feel awake. I've been frontstuck since yesterday. I got front-sick, and it felt terrible.

Today, I felt fake for the first time. It started when Reanna imagined me waking up in the front in Mike and Mary's bed. After three hours of sleep, guess what happened? It felt worse than the anxiety I'm feeling right now. Luckily, it only lasted an hour.

I'm so tired and shaky and... "Woozy." While I was putting away dishes, I kept wobbling. Reanna said I shouldn't vacuum. She thinks I might fall. We're watching a show called The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I have no idea what's going on. (I feel out of place.)

And I'm the only one fronting. Everyone else is a big garbled mess talking through me and moving through me. I want dresses (but that's Reanna.) I'm too tired to figure out the other blurring. So bloody tired. I can't wait to sleep.

-SL

(And maybe everyone else. I want to draw too.)
Maybe that's Mike. Maybe drawing is addictive. [I drew a picture of my character Terrance the day before. It was the first time I drew something.]

[Under all those words, I drew a picture of me with my head on a table. Behind me, I drew the phalanx in a fog saying "blah, blah, blah." Pointing to me, I wrote "this is me." Pointing to the fog, I wrote "this is the blurry mess."]

Mike will fix it later.

I'm not even me today.

Music: Seth Lakeman

I can't believe I've been existing for two years! It never feels that long because I don't know anything. Why? Because I don't pay attention.

This entry is from our system journal on 18 March 2024. SL proposes a new mystery subgenre.

I think I'll call my story a chilly mystery. It has the elements of a cozy (for the most part), but it doesn't feel warm or lighthearted. It feels cold and serious. But it's not too cold or serious. That's what makes it chilly. I also don't want to call The Murder After a cozy due to a lack of exposure in that area. Maybe that's why it feels like a deconstruction. I might be making a new subgenre.

I'm writing a story called The Murder After. It's about a man trying to figure out what happened one night after waking up next to a dead body.

When it was a plot bunny, I kept imagining the protagonist as me, so I wrote it in the second person for readers to insert themselves. (Lesson: never use a verse of "Captain's Court" out of context. That's where I got the name of the victim: Jacqueline.) But then I found a name for him: Terrance. My second person idea deteriorated from there. From now on, I'll continue with that route then translate it to third person on the final draft. (I want it to be limited, so that might help.)

Another idea that might be scrapped soon is not describing anyone. The plan is the readers imagine the characters however they want. Except I keep imagining myself dictating how they look in adaptations. At the same time, I don't want to write a cast list like Reanna did. It would seem formulaic or that she's pretending to be me. But it looks easier than trying to describe the characters in-story.

Update: I'm going back to the second person thing.

We're going to the Denver Zoo today! As the most recent tulpa, I've never been there before. Jackalope is a lot more excited than me, and she already went. (I'm brushing my hair, and she's hopping around and saying, "zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo, zoo!")

Mood: awake

My source released a new song. It's called "Days Ago." That's all. I was excited.

Mood: happy
Music: Release Radar

Midcontinuum Spearmint

Entries tagged with sl

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