Check out some of the developmental artwork I've shared in my newsletter

Some of my biggest inspirations while working on Snowlight are:

• The Baru Cormorant series by Seth Dickinson
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
• The End of Your World: Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment by Adyashanti
• This list of white supremacy characteristics by Dr. Tema Okun
• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
• Demon Slayer/鬼滅の刃 by Koyoharu Gotouge
• Heaven Official's Blessing/TGCF/天官赐福 and Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation/MDZS/魔道祖师 by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
• The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King
• An overflowing spank bank mostly full of BL doujins and weird kinky ideas

Some of the themes I'm exploring are:

• how isolation, homogeneity, and fear lead to hateful ideologies like white supremacy.
• the intimate cultural experience of language-learning, and the way the structure of a language can inform its home culture, and vice-versa.
• how learning about all kinds of science makes me tingly all over.
• how much I fucking love winter and snow and mountains and pine trees and the Pacific Northwest.
• how can we build a better world when the "evil" we face is (in my humble opinion) the horrifically compounded effects of generations of trauma causing people to act from the worst version of themselves.
• cute queer dudes smoochin' on each other, rivals-to-lovers style.

FAQ

Q. Is it a graphic novel or a prose novel or what?

A. It's mostly going to be a prose novel, but the main character Ryn turns into a monster thing, and when he turns into the monster I'm going to have the whole thing switch to being a graphic novel. Then, it'll go back to prose when he turns back to human. Cool, huh? Now, to see if I can actually pull that off in an engaging way...

Q. What about ebooks and audiobooks?

A. Ebooks, definitely. Audiobook... well, it's expensive to get them made, and this is much longer than Overwhelm where I didn't mind eating the cost upfront to pay my amazing voice actors. I'd like to make an audiobook, but I think that'll depend on the interest level. It's also going to be a bit harder to adapt given that it's partly graphic novel, but I think a little creativity could solve that.

Q. When is it coming out?

A. I'm aiming for Q1 of 2024, but realistically it might not be until Q2. You can keep up with my weekly word count updates and all kinds of progress by joining my newsletter below!

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