I just posted the last page of Masquerade Ch 1 and I’m still having trouble believing that I actually did this. It’s been such a bloody long time since I had this idea and started writing it down, and things have gotten so weird, and half of the text makes my brain want to rip it into little pieces and rearrange them. I’m looking at it as something akin to Death of the Author, which is creepy but also a thing people with real careers have to reckon with. So I’ve been restricting myself to correcting for historical fact-changing, modifying details for better illustration, and clarifying anything that makes ME go “Huh?”

And there is some of that. Not as many as Darica’s-age me managed to shake out of her pencil during free time in Drivers’ Ed, but some. For instance, in the first draft, Darica actually scratched herself on broken glass and cactus spines, and told the group that she’d got the injuries while looting. I didn’t know what season it was in-world, or what the sky looked like when saturated with smoke. I started with five names, like I did with every other supposed-to-be-short story in the sequence, and the next several I made up were wasted on casualties. Of which there were more than advisable (if you want to have plans anyway), because I had the idea that the Riots were indeed riots, instigated by a few and perpetuated by the rage of the masses. Against what, I didn’t know at the time. I sure do now, and I’m not looking forward to some of the illustrations I’m setting myself up for.

Illustration. Not since the age of seven have I undertaken a project of both writing and drawing. I’d like to think I’ve got better at both in the meantime, but as I haven’t looked through Second Grade is Stupid (Not Really) since being overjoyed that it hadn’t been thrown out, I really don’t know. What I do know is that all this work is MINE, not some computer’s fever dream, and that matters to me as much as getting this out into the world in general. So if I stop posting for any length of time without explaining it somewhere, you should assume the world got me. I’ll make it out if I can, and keep up the work.

Chapter listing with links and select trivia, below: Continue reading →