Remember when I used to upload stories? Those were the good old days. It's been even longer since we've spent any time in the Eanli Cosmos. I was part way through the series of stories that explained how humans, an alien species to Eanli, ended up getting involved.

Sometimes I feel bad that there was never a resolution on that.

The first Admission Cycle story was Seven Days. It was about the first human visitor to Eanli, Chastity Ali Thompson.

The second in the timeline was Vessel of Dreams. An enslaved group of humans, including Diligence Jefferson Faire (AKA Mide), are brought to Eanli as part of a linguistic research project. They're able to survive due to a treatment of CET-2P, which gives them an Eanli-compatible immune system, so they don't get...
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I just uploaded some of my backlog. There's more on the way, probably for next week, they just need some final revising, a thumbnail, and maybe better descriptions. Due to a change of machine and some software migrations, there was some confusion about what I've uploaded and what I've haven't. I think I've got it all sorted now.

That doesn't mean I'm going to return to my prior rate of uploading, though. I'm just sending up what's already decently complete, or at least what I think is worth sharing.

To be entirely honest, I've lapsed from creative writing as of late. There's a lot of reasons why; nothing worth worrying about. It's a natural cycle. I could see returning to it again in the future, even if just a little, but that isn't any kind of promise. You know...
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I know some folks were wondering what those other folders in my gallery were for. As of now, I've added an entry into the Hall of Keys, a work that I feel provides an excellent starting point for other stories in the setting.

Hall of Keys began as a more serious project intended for more mainstream readerships. You're not going to see much of that in Best Wishes, nor will it be detectable in any works that follow it. I believe that the stories in the setting that don't contain significant vore-related elements might eventually find a (free!) host elsewhere, if I decide to work more on them. Most of what you're going to see of the setting are self-contained side-stories written with you folks in mind, though! They will be a mix of short side-stories, medium-length...
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That was seven months? They go by so fast these days.

Can you believe it's been three years since I got a gallery here? That means it's the third year anniversary of Hunting Paradise. How else to celebrate other than a prequel novelette? And the more pre- in your prequel, the better! So, this one takes place in Eanlian prehistory. That's about as pre- as it gets.

Anyway, some of you are probably curious what else I've got in store in the coming months. (Others are reading this from the blog section of the main page -- hello!)

I've prepared an assortment of stories of various lengths and styles. Some are fairly conventional as far as these kinds of stories go, but I've also got some WEIRD stuff. There's some that are connected to prior stories, making...
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With Carnivores finally posted, I'm calling that an end of the first batch of shorts. I feel I've done as much with the season theme that I want to.

Oh, right! Yes, there was a theme uniting these stories. The prompt was inversion.

Anyway, I'm going to take a break. I've got other things going on in my life that require attention, but I'd also like to plan out all my writing projects, including developing the shorts project some more.

No, I'm not changing the name. They're still ObsidianShorts. However, I learned a lot from this first batch. I'm seeing what the folks on this site do and don't respond to, and how. I also want to develop the concepts for the entire next batch of stories so they fit better together than the first set. There's a...
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I'm not good at self-promotion.

It's yet another trait that distinguishes me from professional-track writers. It's the reason they blog, tweet, vlog, do interviews, podcasts, collaborations, and so on. It doesn't matter how quality the work is, if people don't know about it, then it'll remain in the shade, and the professionals don't get paid.

To be fair, I'm not trying to be a professional. This is a hobby, I'm enjoying it as such, and I'm happy to share this journey to nowhere with all of you.

That said, I probably shouldn't drop near-novel length works without any prefacing or explanation. It's an error I've made a few times.

So, I'm making an introduction. This week...

Procurement

Procurement is the...
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Okay, so, I've got good news, and I got good news. It's two different news.

First, I've got some additional Eanli stories on the way. I'm still making those. They're fun projects to work on, and I know there's a lot of people that like the setting. I like the setting, too!

I will be update no more than one Eanli story per week, typically on Thursdays. Yes, I just uploaded the concluding portion of Vessel of Dreams, on Wednesday, but if you check UTC time... it was still Wednesday, but late in the evening. Whoops! Oh, well.

Secondly, I'm finally going to be uploading some non-Eanli stuff. It's a new thing I'm calling ObsidianShorts!

No, I will not reconsider that name.

Anyway, ObsidianShorts will be anywhere from...
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If I were to have run a community poll about what I should write next, Sojourner's Crisis probably would have been ranked last. I don't know why I was inspired to write more pieces adjacent to my most controversial gallery item. Inspired I was, regardless, and now here we are.

"Inspiration is a crutch you can't always depend on. That's something younger creatives learn, once they're in the profession. When there's contracts and paychecks involved, you get up in the morning on time and show up, if that's the set, the studio office, a phone, or a typewriter -- a computer, I guess. You can't put everything on the muse, not when other people are relying on you. You do the process. That's art, genuine. That's film."

I fell off the wagon a year back....
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I've been posting a lot of longer works lately so I'm holding back on something for few more days to space it all out. It's unreasonable to upload more than 3k words a day over a two week period. That's just too much material in a short time span; it sets unrealistic expectations for me later and it starts competing with itself. Anyway, to bide the time, I'm going to yammer some trivia about the things I've uploaded over the last month!

At the Crossroads of Our Blood

I think there's some unappreciated challenges to writing anthropomorphic animal characters. The Eanli Cosmos runs hard on a conceit answering where the "regular" animals are: the anthropomorphic ones are the animals. I think by now that you all know the answer to the question,...
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...I'm going to do it one at a time. Not a deluge. It's not that I'm withholding anything, I just dislike the revision process. Oh, yes, and I must revise. Going through all six chapters of At The Crossroads of Our Blood was a lengthier process than I thought it would be. To think that I must do it even more for these others, too! As I'm doing that, I'll upload the rest of Crossroads over the rest of the week. I'm sure the time will just fly right by.

Funny anecdote: while I was preparing the novel for upload here, I accidentally dipped into the Hunting Paradise directory by mistake. I experienced a moment of complete disembodiment. To think it's been a year since I got a real gallery here on Eka's. How serendipitous it is that I should be uploading this now.