Updates

 

Collective Thinking Conclusion

 

Hello everyone!

Collective Thinking is at an end. A bit of a reversal compared to my previous works in many different ways. Before we get into anything more, this post will contain spoilers. If you have not read Collective Thinking and the idea of a psychic-espionage-adventure story sounds good to you, you would do well to read Collective Thinking first. Maybe my other stories as well, as I’ll likely be referencing them.

This post will still be here when you’ve finished.

For everyone else, let’s get started. And what a better place to start than the start?

Collective Thinking came about from a fairly simple inception: Instead of someone normal (or relatively normal) turning into a super-powerful being, what if we did the opposite? Take a god and bring them down to normal.

In that respect, I think Collective Thinking was a complete success. It wasn’t perfect. There were some fairly major stumbling blocks, especially in the first book, and it has been pointed out to me that the ending does feel a bit rushed. Still, I am quite pleased with how it turned out.

I try to learn a little something from everything I do. Collective Thinking might have had more to teach than either of my previous works. The initial reaction from Royal Road especially was quite shocking. Lots of people commenting on every chapter. That rather sharply fell off by the end of the first book, unfortunately. I mentioned this in my Patreon posts around the time; I think most of that was how I wrote Dyna and her power. I wanted her power to be obvious to the reader without being obvious to her. That ended up with a few heavy handed “Look, something clearly changed” moments. When Dyna was oblivious to those moments that were so obvious to readers, it created a major feeling of unsatisfactory dissonance.

That combined with an ongoing issue that I, personally, face involving characters being dragged along by plot more than driving it, resulted in a fairly depressing desertion of readers. Worst was that being dragged along was a bit more intentional this time than it was in previous works of mine. I wanted her to be a slave to her powers and those aware of her powers around her only for her to, in the end, free herself by freeing herself from her power. I do think I hit that note but it was a bit late for those who dropped the story early.

For those who made it to the end, I do hope that landed well.

Overall however, taking in the work as a whole, I think it was the best thing I’ve written so far. I wouldn’t mind writing something else along these lines in the future. I did leave a few dangling threads at the end but I don’t know that I will make a direct sequel. Still, science-fiction (or science-themed fantasy?) has been fun to dip my toes into.

Of course, I hope the next thing I write will end up being the best thing I’ve written.

And what is next?

Art by Zoern

Fortress Al-Mir

 

Art by Geraldo Prado

Fortress Al-Mir will be my main story going forward. I expect this one to be a bit of a longer one. Genres involve medieval fantasy, adventure, action, and empire builder, if that is a genre. If not, I’ll make it one. Also maybe can be considered a dungeon core-like? Not sure if it really hits the conventions typical to that genre compared to what one might find on Royal Road but does tap into a few notes.

Speaking of Royal Road, for those who prefer to read over there, good news: releases over there will be synced up with those on my website. Technically you can already read some chapters on my site, but I’m still considering this pre-release. When it goes live on RR, I’ll post the first dozen chapters over the course of a few days until they’re both in line with each other.

As for the official, not pre-release release date, I think I am aiming for the first of May. Royal Road is a bit finicky in that you have to get approval for a story which can take anywhere from an hour to a day or two and then it instantly posts your first chapter rather than giving you the option to pick a proper release date. So the exact timing might not align perfectly with what I say here. In any case, there will be another post here when it officially releases along with a post on Collective Thinking that will trigger anyone subscribed to the Collective Thinking new chapter emails.

Quick note: The Collective Thinking new chapter emails will be decommissioned after the aforementioned post. If you wish to receive email notices for Fortress Al-Mir, you must sign up using the forums under each chapter. You can also sign up underneath this chapter to get notices for these kinds of main posts, but they are incredibly infrequent.

In any case, feel free to get started on your pre-release reading!

Start Reading

 

 

 

 

 

January 2022 Update

 

Collective Thinking

Dyna Graves grew up thinking she was special. An exception to the average. Not necessarily above her peers, but simply outside their context. However, toward the end of her high school life, she started to realize that nobody was really special. At least not in any fantastical way.

Just as she started trying to figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, she got an invitation. A psychic institute scoped her out, realized her psychic potential, and asked if she would undergo psionic training at the Carroll Institute.

Almost immediately, Dyna realized that she wasn’t quite up to the same level as many of her peers. Surrounded by clairvoyants and mind readers displaying obvious abilities made her own lack of ability all the more apparent.

That was, up until the researchers and scientists of the facility realized that there was a bit more to Dyna Graves than met the eye. After an explosive incident during what should have been a routine experiment, Dyna quickly found herself wrapped up in a world of cutthroat espionage.

 

 

Start Reading

 

 

And this is it! New story, finally. It’s a roughly modern-day story, slight future bent, with no magic. Unless you consider psychics magic, in which case it has a lot of magic. But it is science-themed magic!

As with Vacant Throne and Void Domain, it will update twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays.

The overall length of the story, I think, should be shorter than Void Domain or Vacant Throne. Not sure on the exact length. A lot of the story is still up in the air. But we’ll explore it together.

As mentioned a long time ago with Vacant Throne’s author’s notes and comments, I’m trying to focus on a main character that actually does things rather than gets dragged around. She might not always make the best decisions, but at least she will be making decisions.

There is some commissioned art that will act as the cover for this story, featuring the main character. You might have noticed it above. It also appears on the About Collective Thinking page. It was created by the lovely Zoern, who you can find on Twitter @ZoernArt.

As with Vacant Throne, my Patreon supporters will get early access to chapters. They will be a bit different than VT’s releases, but all that information is on the associated Patreon post for those interested.

Will there still be monthly updates while this is ongoing? Maybe not every month, but if I have news to share, I’ll post a bit. One minor-big notification: The subscribe box below this post is only subscribing you to these news notifications. There is a separate subscribe box below every chapter of Collective Thinking for chapter updates. It’s separate so that people who don’t like one story but might still be interested in future works can choose what to subscribe to.

There is a Top Web Fiction link for people to vote on, though I hope you would read the story to see if you actually like it first. But you can find it at Top Web Fiction – Collective Thinking. It is one of the best ways for new people to discover the story, so when it is up, if you like the story thus far, I would appreciate a vote.

Aside from that, there will be a Royal Road version coming soonish. Probably toward the end of the month. If you prefer to read over there, you’ll have to wait a short bit.

Please Report Any Issues or Bugs with the Website

This is a new website and hasn’t had a full run of a story to break it in. If something doesn’t work, looks wrong, or you think could be better, please let me know. You can comment on many pages and chapters, but can also get into contact with me through the Contact Me page. Feel free to use that contact form for any other reason if you wish! Drop me a line!

 

 

 

December 2021 Update

 

Hello everyone!

The site is properly live now. Most places redirect here and there are notifications on the old WordPress sites directing new readers over here. A few readers have already been going through the stories on this site, even posting a few typo reports. Quite significant reports in the case of Vacant Throne. I’ll probably be uploading a new version of the epub to Patreon once that is all up to date. Of course, it remains free to read here for anyone else.

Very soon, I hope to put up not one but two stories. More details are down below, but I think they need just a little more time for me to work through some issues. I’ve rewritten a bunch of stuff for one of them that never made it to Patreon, so that was fun. There are more details on upcoming projects down below.

Overall, I’ve been writing most every day. December is always one of those months. Especially for me. My father’s birthday, my mother’s birthday, and Christmas all fall into this month. In addition to that, I got the booster early on, which had me in no good mood to write for about two days. Then I got a little sick (haven’t been COVID tested as of writing this) and am still sick at the moment.

Between all that, I did lose nearly two weeks of writing. In some ways, I’m a bit disappointed in how much I got done this month, but at the same time, I’m not sure how much better I could really have done.

Here’s to a nice and distraction-free January.

New Tower Curator Logo

I had a little work commissioned. Nothing big like cover art for a novel. Just a little icon that will pop up at various points. Like here!

I rather like it, though it does almost give off some corporate logo kind of feel. For anyone without images loading, it is a capitalized letter T and a C mixed together in a gold-white gradient. A style that fits quite well with my preferred aesthetic of Art Deco.

I don’t know that I will replace the cover art for Void Domain, Vacant Throne, or the Ideas page with commissioned art, but I do think I would like to do so for future projects. Perhaps full character art of the main character acting as a cover. Something I need to look into soon as I imagine it will take some time depending on who I go to for commissioned work.

 

 

Upcoming Content

I am working on three separate things concurrently, though one (Eternal Engines) is nearly finished. That one is probably not going to be seen for some time as I want to get some major feedback.

I hope to start posting one, maybe both, of the others as a proper series. Probably in early February. Both Cocoon and Thinking are the top contenders for becoming a proper story. I really wanted to start posting something with the new year, but December being December (see the first section) put a hamper on that idea.

Below, you can find a brief synopsis of all my current projects.

 

 

A Cocoon of Flesh and Steel

Vi, one of a select few human biosculptors, has been sentenced to prison. Installation Eleven. A maximum-security prison built into the hollowed out internals of an asteroid where every inmate serves a life sentence.

Because of its open nature, Vi is initially optimistic that she will be able to do as she has always done when in a new environment: Open a clinic and fix people up while attempting to seek person perfection.

Her hopes turn sour when she realizes just what the limited confines of the prison mean for most of its inhabitants. Despite its open nature, despair reigns supreme.

Collective Thinking

Dyna Graves always wanted to be special. Who doesn’t want to be special? However, toward the end of her high school life, she started to realize that nobody was really special. At least not in any fantastical way.

Just as she started trying to figure out what she wanted to do with the rest of her life, she got an invitation. A psychic institute scoped her out, realized her psychic potential, and asked if she would undergo psionic training at the Carroll Institute.

Almost immediately, Dyna realizes that she isn’t quite up to the same level as many of her peers. Surrounded by clairvoyants and mind readers displaying obvious abilities makes her own lack of ability all the more apparent.

Up until the researchers and scientists of the facility realize that there is a bit more to her than meets the eye. Dyna quickly finds herself wrapped up in a world of cutthroat espionage.

Eternal Engines:
The Ruins of Opes Isle

Telestia Sinn knows without a shadow of a doubt that she is the best engineer the Mechanized City has ever seen. But no matter where she turns, she can’t catch a break. The Bistonic Empire stymies every opportunity she gets to show off and her father’s company isn’t interested in most of her more extravagant (and expensive) designs.

When a rare crystal is discovered on an island her father has been put in charge of, Tela is sent there as the chief engineer to best determine how to mine and extract the material. But once there, she discovers far more than a crystal. Something that will shake the very foundations of the Bistonic Empire.

Anyway, that’s it for this month. I do wish I had just a little more to post, but things happen. Hopefully I’ll be over this illness soon and February will be the month I’ll launch some of these projects.

So I’ll sign off here, leaving that logo from above behind except this time with a darker background. Just for the contrast.

 

Hello and welcome to Towercurator.com

Welcome to a new site just for me! Tower Curator!

Hopefully, this single domain will be far more convenient both for me as well as everyone who comes to read things. It can be a single point of contact where I can post updates regarding stories or whatever else my need updating. There isn’t currently a button you can press to get email notifications, but I am looking into such things.

The ideal would be individual subscription buttons for every story and one for this page as well. Only active stories would have mailing lists. Old stories would probably get a single notification about a new story before obliterating itself. That way, if you decide you don’t like a story, you can unsubscribe from it while still remaining subscribed to this update notification for future stories that might interest you.

Such a feature should be available now. Right at the bottom of this post. If you don’t see it there, you’re probably not viewing the post in full. That can be corrected by clicking Hello and Welcome.

There should also be a subscription forum in Ideas. Just underneath every page. Vacant Throne and Void Domain shouldn’t ever get updates since the stories are complete, so there is no subscription area in either area.

Otherwise, if you need a live update about when such a thing will be ready, I will certainly make a note on my Twitter.

we have fancy info bubbles

Honestly, regular old plain text is my style. These kinds of things will be sparingly used at best. Or never seen outside the main areas.

Old Stories

Both Vacant Throne and Void Domain are here on this site and can be found on the main page. All stories should hopefully be in their own subdirectory. /vacant-throne/ and /void-domain/ for example.

Future Updates

I’m going to try for monthly updates here on this update page, but generally only when there isn’t an ongoing story. Hopefully, those updates will involve new stories, status reports, and upcoming content.

However, I plan to post updates even if there isn’t much to talk about. Maybe I’ll talk about the whether. Maybe I’ll throw something up on Ideas (a renamed ‘preview site’ if you were a follower of that content) that I wrote a long time ago if I have absolutely nothing else to post.

What i am working on now

I’m still getting all my ducks in a row on this site, but I’ve archived all my old WordPress sites and any new comments over there will not make their way here, so I’m actually revealing this place a little earlier than I originally planned on.

But I did recently post two story tests over on my Patreon. One, with the tentative title of Biopunk Prison, is a far-future science fiction story that takes place in a prison run by the inmates. The main character, although proclaiming innocence, is a bit of a complete and total psychopath who has a major fixation with fixing things she perceives as broken. The other story, aptly working-titled as Psychic Institute, takes place in an institute for psychics in the modern day. The main character is an absolute failure as a traditional psychic, unable to even guess one out of fifty correct cards in a Zener Test.

If you are not subscribed, don’t worry, it is a free post and both projects will be making their way to Ideas soonish (As soon as I finish the second part of each. Would have had them finished by the end of November, but then I went and did this website thing and it has taken a lot of time). The post also contains a bit of information on where I’ve been for the entire rest of this year. The long and short of it is that I was repeatedly writing garbage and then scrapping it. Very frustrating, but at the same time, maybe I learned something from it. Hope I did, anyway. I certainly learned how to best improve my actual writing process. I remember writing Void Domain and having to struggle to put down a thousand words in eight hours. Now I’m writing entire chapters in four hours. I just hope they’re… you know, decent chapters.

Anyway, that’s all for today. Enjoy yourselves out there.

-TC

P.S. Please ignore any images on the site that don’t look good. They’re hopefully placeholder images. Mostly the TC Logo image on the main page. I MS Painted that in about five seconds. It isn’t permanent. I’m not even sure if I want to commission anything based on that design just yet.