I’ll admit, I’m quite excited to be writing this. October has been quite an exciting and memorable month, bringing quite a lot of good news. First off, my dissertation on werewolves was published on Adjective Species! I was really excited about that, as it was nice for the project to have some life outside of university as let’s be honest, a final academic exercise. So, if you’re interested in reading an analysis of three Victorian werewolf stories that interprets the werewolf’s hybridity as a source of freedom, please, do give it a look! The link is at the bottom of this entry.

After a lot of waiting, one of my short stories ‘In the Footsteps of Time’ was accepted by the editors of ‘Fragments, an anthology of short stories on the topic of love. Yes, you read that right, I wrote a love story. Shocking. Still, this is really great news, as I can finally say I’ve crossed that important milestone of being a writer, as I’m actually in a paid anthology, which is a wonderful confidence boost. I’m really excited for you all to read the anthology when it comes out, it promises to be a great! It certainly is quite different to what you may expect.

The good news doesn’t stop there either. Three of my poems were accepted by the other editors working on ‘Civilised Beasts’, a collection of poems in aid of charity. I must say, it wasn’t expecting that. Still, you’ll be able to read those too! From the work I did on editing the collection, it’s really looking to be a strong collection of poems, and I really would encourage you to have a look – there are a lot of fantastic poets in it, with a wide range of views being brought to the table.

The final bit of good news came in the last couple of days. I’m going to be an editor for another publication. That’s all I’m saying on that, but it’s very exciting days!

With those bits of news out of the way, let’s get to the writing!

October's Writing
Prose written: 38,792

Now, October has been a busy month. I’ve got lots of writing done, and lots of new content too! I’ve written a mix of mostly non-fiction articles and short stories. The former are a mix, a couple focusing on the fandom itself, while one is a standalone review for a game I’ve been enjoying in my downtime for the last couple of days. On the fiction side of things, I’ve been working on quite a few things! In all, I’ve written six short stories, with two still needed to be finished, which I’ll probably get around to in November. They’re a general mix of stories, with different settings and points.

My favourite one at the moment is a story involving a culture of anthropomorphic Red Deer, which has turned out to be lots of fun. Another story happens to be on werewolves, however, don’t worry! The idea from this story came from some research I did, and let’s just say that you won’t expect how it works, unless you’ve been following my Twitter. One story is exploring the theme of superheroes in a hopefully interesting way, while another story is purely experimental. Finally, one short story is being written for a friend, which is proving to be interesting!

As a result of the frankly monstrous word count for this month, November is going to be a month devoted mostly to editing. I will be working on one or two stories that I haven’t finished, however, lots of editing is needed, so that will be my focus. I also am looking forward to this (bizarrely) because I was starting to feel a little burnt out from all the writing, so I see it as a good opportunity to keep being productive, bring stories up to scratch, as well as have some time to get some more ideas and generally recover.

Before I finish this section, one of the pieces I’ve been working on is a treatise style piece. I’m hugely into world-building, and I don’t just like planning things, but writing out cultural documents that people would pen from that universe. So, this segment below is from one such piece. There are a few things going on behind it, not just the initial argument the author is setting out – something I found amusing when reading these sorts of pieces when I was at university.

"A Treatise on The Culture of the Llhei-carn: of their Ways, of their Customs, of their Communities, of their History, of their Religion, of their Philosophy, of their Politic, of their Anatomy, of their Habitation, and of their Ways in War.

.I.

A Note on the Enquiry Presented

When investigating any culture, one must avoid the error of attempting to classify, distinguish, and explain various points about that culture. Though such an approach may aid the learning experience, it gives a false account of that culture, as no one single thing exists in mere isolation. The mistake would be found in assuming that one could remove a vital organ from the body from individual study, as due to such removal, both the body and the isolated organ itself withers and dies. As such, any scholar attempting to disseminate an aspect of a culture does the same to their subject. The realms of living beings are precisely organic, where many elements interact with each other in highly complex ways. This indeed, makes any cultural enquiry hard to narrate; however within this tome we shall trace various strands of enquiry through this web of culture, narrating on relationships as we encounter them, rather than trying to unspin the web, and roll it all out into a single strand.

To the eyes of men, the culture of the Llhei-carn, to use their proper name, is that that bears little logic or reason to it. Indeed, previous great minds have postulated that they indeed have nothing we in the civilised world would call culture, and are just as primitive as the beasts that they resemble. However, such an enquiry is to the detriment of the human quest to gain knowledge, and thus, those who have come before have erred greatly in their duty to such a task.

Unlike the various peoples of Mankind, Llhei-carn have never recorded their history in a way that scholars would find pleasing. Their beginnings are unclear, shrouded in myth and allusion to their gods, their histories are not complete, and any proper historical documentation only begins some four hundred years ago, with the establishment of the northern city-state Aelimar. Thus, our enquiry is faced with hostility even from its conception. As such, one must assume that most scholars assume that their history is too fragmented to note, however, one must never be so dismissive. Unlike our own civilisation, where periods of history are noted by the reigns and achievements of great men, the Llhei-carn see their history as one great canvas stretching back in time to the very creation of the world. It is their attestation that what we would term as myth and legend are in fact true, and as real an event as the histories we record today. It has been the mistake of my forebears to discard such tales in the search for concrete truth, however, in doing so, we forget how we consider our own ancient songs to be worthy of remembrance. Thus, we arrive at the issue. Previous minds have dwelt too much on establishing the Llhei-carn history, and in that vein, they have attempted to pursue truth through a culture. A culture is not an entity that is entirely made of truth, or is entirely truthful. The things that bind a people together are not just the things that have happened, but what they believe has happened. In a culture, truth and untruth are of no concern, both find their place in it. And so, we shall here focus on a cultural enquiry, relating all the things, true and untrue, that make it up. I leave the history to those who have done it before, and with future historians well in their task of scrutinising a mere four hundred years.

Poetry Written: Around 200 words

Well, October has been a month pretty much for prose, so not much at all has been written. I do have the odd piece or two, however they were written either for publication, or for someone else, so you won’t be seeing them for a while yet. However, there is once piece from this month – it’s “In the Café Boheme” which you can find in my gallery.

To summarise, October has been a wonderfully successful and productive month. I’m not however seeking to rest on my laurels, but to build upon these events further, as I finally have the feeling that there is a reality to that little dream I had six years ago that I wanted to be a writer. I can’t tell you how happy I am that I’m on the way. It wouldn't have been possible with many people's help along the way!

Dissertation: http://www.adjectivespecies.com/shape-shifting-and-spatial-shifting-werewolf-tales/

• Currently, this link is for the entire piece in one post. Originally it was posted in three chapters.