Tag: smarmel

New version of “Tough as Blades” short story

~ Duth Olec ~ Leave a comment

Some time ago I took to the short story I posted here years ago and edited it rather significantly, using the knowledge I’d gained from having an editor go over Slubes. Although it’s not entirely something new for this month, there are new scenes, including one that show how Master Hydra met Crawmaster, and all the old scenes have been thoroughly edited to be much better. “Tough as Blades“, the story whose title was the result of me forgetting that the actual phrase is tough as nails and that nails and blades don’t really have all that much in common??

One more month of 2016. On January 1st, Wandering Fortunes begins. A new world. New characters. New species. New nonsense. New beach ball. Around mid-December (the 16th or a few days after) I’m going to post some information to start diving into the new setting and everything of Wandering Fortunes. We saw Mintop over two books. Now we’ll see two planets over one book.

Of course, if you want to see this story start half a month early, you can become a patron over at Patreon!

Darmenzi Chapter 13 now up

~ Duth Olec ~ Leave a comment

Oh, um, er, eh, April Fool’s! Yes, it was totally intentional that I didn’t post the new chapter yesterday. ha ha ha ha hahahahahaHAHAHAHAHA HA HA HA HA HA. HA. HA. HA. HA.

ha

So here’s chapter 13 of Darmenzi, Aquasphere. It features water and a brief discussion of anime and was rather significantly edited a few years ago after I played the demo of a little game called Undertale, maybe you’ve heard of it.

I’ve had about 5 hours of sleep now so I need a nap. Mention of Patreon, which I think I just discovered every post I’ve made announcing new chapters up have only been available to patrons?? I like don’t even know. I’m confused now. Gee, what else is new?

Another Slubes Excerpt

~ Duth Olec ~ Leave a comment

I would just like to take a brief moment here first to mention the great editor I had to help me rewrite Slubes, Dawn Johnson, with her website Word Edge here. She was super great in both critiquing the novel to help me improve and editing it to help the novel improve, and she was always ready to clarify and help me work out where to go. She helped me determine how to format the Duth Olec and Wally Plotch side conversations, get the story and characters more direction and flesh, and improve everything forever and completely totally.

Now here’s a totally new scene (or at least mostly new scene) that wouldn’t have been added without her advice, I think. There’s at least a couple scenes like that? Maybe a few? Or more? I don’t believe the ones I’m thinking of were added beforehand. Sheesh, it’s been 2 1/2 years, I don’t remember. In the version on this website, pretty much this whole thing is skipped–the story goes directly from their learning of the power plant problem to after Zeth examined it.

Read the excerpt

Darmenzi Chapter 11 is available

~ Duth Olec ~ Leave a comment

Darmenzi Chapter 11: Flower Tower Devour Power Hour Shower Cower Nowor(never) Dower(y) Wow(z)er How’re(you)

Okay seriously, here’s chapter 11 of Darmenzi. This chapter features a new character who just might be important. Also with this chapter we begin the second half of Darmenzi, so I guess it’s fitting that a new character who just might be important appears.

Sorry about the delay, but I’m finally on furlough/sabbatical, so I have time to exist agaaaain. I’m still getting used to the feeling of having time, but later this month I hope to start existing more and posting more things. If something catches my consideration, I’ll actually post about it. In the news for Slubes, I am going to soon begin formatting the file to put through the things to turn them into books both e and p(aper), so that’s exciting! Fortunately I’ve done it before, so I have a slight idea of what I’m doing. Then again I did that four years ago… Good gourd, four years ago? Figgin time.

As always, my Patreon exists. They recently snazzed up the creator main pages. Maybe I should do some editing myself on it. I need to update my internet photo, but I maaaay have been ignoring some hygiene after my brain imploded–basically I lost the ability to pretend at work and couldn’t keep going. January 31st was the last day I had in me, I couldn’t do anymore. That’s why I’m late, I needed to reboot my brain and sleep for a day straight (more or less). Oh, and by “hygiene” I just meant “my face feels like a shag carpet”.

Darmenzi Chapter 10: Crazy Eyes

~ Duth Olec ~ Leave a comment

Did I say tomorrow?

Yeah it just kinda sorta slipped my mind. I spent most of yesterday with my parents, okay? Anyway, here’s chapter 10 of Darmenzi, Crazy Eyes. This chapter introduces a new character who, UM. Yeah, the title explains it all.

With this chapter, we are halfway finished with Darmenzi. Our heroes have spent the first half of the book not sure what they’re doing, let’s see how they spend the second half! As we enter into a new year, I hope to complete not one but two books (although I expect to complete the second at the beginning of next year), while the end of the year should bring the start of a third story.

And, as always, we have my Patreon, which gets these chapters half a month early and, um, when I have updates on how things are going, gets those updates first. Hey, I appreciate anything helpful.

Darmenzi Chapter 9, Hospitality to Hostility, now up

~ Duth Olec ~ Leave a comment

Darmenzi Chapter 9

I’ve never quite figured out how I want to write the titles for these posts. I don’t just want to put the chapter name, but… Anyway, chapter 9. It’s a big one, it’s an important one, but only in the second half. The first half is a hotel, woo.

Also, I just noticed it looks like WordPress post adding writing thingy has changed since I last didn’t avoid using the older one. Because I still use the old one when I can. As long as I can avoid everything being shifted several inches and a lack of easily-accessed most used tags, and an overdone amount of only parts of the page scrolling, and… a preview feature that’s just an inset window on the same page? I feel like it may have been designed for mobile. I feel like everything now is designed for mobile. I feel like I want to plant myself in place like a tree just to make a point. I feel like I shouldn’t have written this paragraph because now I’m going to be late for dayjob. I feel like I stopped caring.

Maybe someday I can care even less if my Patreon starts jumping. Maybe you should take a look at what a future might hold. (For the record, I have complaints on Patreon’s post creator, too, but I feel like they’re at least working towards a good direction.)

Anyway, superbusydayjobwork season ends in a week, maybe then I can be uplifting! Or at least updrafting.

Species Profile: Smarmel

~ Duth Olec ~ Leave a comment

Hey, another species profile! These may dry up in November since I’ll be doing NaNoWriMo, but we’ll see. Maybe I’ll write a bunch ahead of time so I can just quickly post them next month. Trivia: I will probably already know if I’ve done this by the time I post this. In fact, as of my writing this, I haven’t posted the entry on Interp, so apparently I’m already writing ahead of schedule! Anyway…

Quoted from the species appendix in Slubes:

“Smarmel are a species light tan in color with melon-shaped heads. They have humps on their backs that are hard and stiff, almost like plates of rock. Their eyelids never open; instead they sense their surroundings through means other than sight, although they do have eyes. Many smarmel pride themselves on having a serene outlook on life. Smarmel mature mentally at an early age, and their average lifespan is about 100 years or more.”

Read more on the Smarmel! Read about their eyes!