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The Halferne Incubus

My 2020 NaNoWrimo win was a rewrite of a short story written back around 2004. Originally it was just a 18K-word throw-away piece for practice and to flesh out the backstory of Serah Wyles, a character in The Halferne Gambit that just wasn't giving me enough to work with, personality-wise. I came across it again 15 years later and decided that, while it wasn't awful as a little detective story about the murder of a scientist, there was an underlying message about the nature of identity and the perception of reality that could make it a much more substantial piece. Since I was busy in 2020 editing The Pessimal Design and had no time or energy to plot a new story for NaNoWriMo that year, I decided this was the perfect opportunity to dumpster dive the hard drive and build the newer, darker, deeper, Halferne Incubus.

Currently the story is in its second draft (it's called "Draft 1," but that's because I count NaNo as "Draft 0"). It has annotations for fixes that need to be made and notes for potentially converting it to a standalone novel (technically it's a prequel to a book that hasn't been finished yet). There are currently no plants to do a "Draft 2" until at least the summer of 2023.

So here's the deal: I am posting the first three chapters of the "latest (not final) draft" free of charge. If you enjoy it, drop me a line, and I'll add you to a list to receive a copy of the final book and possibly some other goodies along the way. If you're a publisher, potential alpha reader, or a fellow reading nerd who doesn't care if it's an unpolish draft and just wants to see the rest, I can probably make that happen too.

As an added bonus, I invite you to enjoy the playlist that set the mood, helped me keep focus, and constantly ran in the background during the course of writing this novel.