video | un: warden (this post is about romance novels)

[megatheorem]

[Good day, Trench, and welcome to... whatever this is going to be. Here is one Palamedes, sitting at his desk in what may be broadly recognizable as his office in the Sanctuary, whether or not one has been in it before (it has, these days, a distressing worm-on-a-string curtain in place of a door). Palamedes shuffles through some papers, tsks, and gets up to simply walk off screen, although this is not an accidental post, for he does call back:]

Damn my filing system! Hold on, don't look away.

[So now: the sounds of shuffling, and also, footsteps on a ladder? Then the eventual soft thump as he hops back down, and finally his several layered cardigans masquerading as a torso coming back into view, before he sits back down in the chair with a hearty squeak of rusty metal.

He has even more papers now. A small pile of notebooks, actually, which he folds his hands atop before properly regarding the camera.]

So! I wrote a book. Are any of you in the publishing business? Here, locally, or otherwise? My wheelhouse is firmly the academic, and literature— while a passion project— is a field I know far less about. As such: publishing. Any tips welcome.

I am also in the market for some cover art, I think. My artistic talents leave a lot to be desired, but I've produced some helpful mock-ups, somewhere around here...

[Just kidding they're right here ready and waiting, and so he holds them up side by side:



...So, yes. His handwriting is, of course, perfectly legible.]

Like I said: I'm an academic, not an artist. I'll pay you in whatever you like, blood or stone or- [and he leans briefly off camera again, to mutter, then he's back] -or scones! Good ones, for people into that kind of thing.

[Yahoo... Draw him a horny squidmance cover page... This is ordinary.]

Obviously, children need not apply.

Oh, and the working title is Ceasefire of the Senses: A Treatise on the Juxtaposition of Passion and Reason, unless you happen to be my cruelest critic and dearest spouse, love of my life, in which case "that title is ridiculous" and it's actually called "that story in your fifty notebooks." Regardless.

[He pats the pile of notebooks, like, his title is good actually? This might be a thinly veiled opinion poll about the title.]

And as it's the season, again, if anyone needs a professional hand with their lockjoint, come down to the Lumenarium- or Sanctuary- and ask for Palamedes. I'll take care of it with a silk touch; you get to keep the stones. Drawings of squids entirely voluntary for that one.

Comments

[stayscared]

I'm sure there's at least one other person out there that'll find it appealing. You just have to get it out there. Honestly, that's one of the best reasons to write anything, if not the healthiest, just because you want to say 'hey, I did that.'

Yeah, that's a bit of a weird way to organize books. I do hear that one's a bit of a trickster, and from the sounds of it, not a very funny one. I'm glad I missed that month.

So that's a vote of no confidence to the Archives, then. That just moves the needle in favor of local book shops.

[megatheorem]

Are you a writer? You sound more experienced than I am at this. I've only published academic papers, and even then, only to a very small circle of mostly family.

[This is technically true, but given the large pool of academic colleagues he has who are also distantly related to him, it is also just what working at a college or something is like. Welp.]

I'll check out the local shops. I have browsed, but only as a customer; this will be a new adventure, I suppose. Do you have a favorite?

[stayscared]

I've found a couple of places. One seems to keep changing locations, and when I bump into it, great, always interesting stuff, but good luck with that one. It doesn't even have a proper name that I know of, just a hanging sign with a yellow book on it. That's how I've found it every time.

The other one's called Satellite of Love, in Willful Machine. It's a Sleeper-run business, and the staff is very helpful, they have all kinds of books, and the store mascots are very cute.

And yes, I used to be (still am?) a writer, I'm just on a bit of a long break. A career shift, maybe.

[megatheorem]

Hold on, I'm going to write these down.

[He is, here on video. Scribbling in his awful handwriting, down here on this pad of paper, among all his pads of paper.]

Satellite... of... Love... Alright. What did you used to write?

[stayscared]

[mike gets it. he still carries around his old mini recorder even if it doesn't work. and he writes things down - though, he's getting used to doing it in the omni and not pen and paper. he's not going to judge anyone for doing it old school. how could he? what he writes (or has written) is a loaded question, really.]

Short stories, a bit of poetry here and there, but mostly I wrote about ghosts. The metaphorical kind, at first.

[megatheorem]

[While this whole post makes it obvious that Palamedes is perfectly willing to talk to the omni for hours on end, nothing beats Real Paper. It's been a whole year and he still isn't over having Real Paper (tm) on hand, just all the time. Wowies!!]

Only at first? So you've met ghosts? I'm a necromancer, parenthesis-not-the-zombie-kind-end-parenthesis, so I've spoken to more than a few.

[stayscared]

I met a few at the end of my career, but before that it was all miss and no hit. I was a bit of a skeptic. [understatement. also the hits were outta the park. aside from previous room tenants, there was katie. and there was ...himself. that's ...something.] I wrote a lot about wanting to believe in them, not finding them, and I'd be lying if I didn't say I was kind of an ass about it.

I've definitely seen a few here. Ghosts, that is. Only two necromancers. But you make number three, and if the first two are any indication, you're good company.

[he knows duty. but he's also referring to woe as 'good company' as well.]