nicholsroy

[nicholsroy]

[Image credit | About "Cavendish Burning"]

Until the last call of the sixties,  ‘Round 90 miles down the main road East,  In the center of a forest green,  Stood a little town called Cavendish -  Home of a thousand people, a quaint sight indeed.

Yet as her leafage blushed in autumn,  The threat of summer did hang crimson from her trees.

(Do you smell that?)

And hard as it may be to believe, In the frame of a mere twelve hours  On a summer’s day in ‘69,   The forest town of Cavendish was torn to ash and brine.

(Do you see that?)

Let me set the scene. It was nature's sick clockwork, you see. The great fires had grown more vicious year by year, And with each spring the bitter-tasting days increased, And at the dawn of each April the flames did form,  A perennial rite of passage  Of cruel summers we'd come to scorn.

(Do you see that orange glow?)

And each year Cavendish,  Daughter of the forest,  Crept closer and closer to the eye of the storm. 

(My lungs are burning.)

And while the orders to evacuate came earlier each time, Year by year most people stayed behind. Out of mindless loyalty, perhaps,  Or else a defeatist state of mind.

(My heart is racing.)

But a different breeze blew into town in ‘69.  A vague sense of foreboding,  Or of running out of time.

(Can you see the flames grow?)

Rumor has it the children saw it first that day As they played in the schoolyard at noon. When the calls came in the dispatcher shook her head, And the firemen furrowed their brows,  For year by year they’d scorned all warnings to leave town.

And each year the townsmen all did band together To face their burning Goliath down.

(Do you feel the heat in the breeze?)

But each year brought another near miss, And we watched the news with bated breath, For all knew it was only a matter of time Until bitter means led to the bitterest ends. Until the innocent felt nature's wrath rain down, With the guilty nowhere to be found.

(Do you see those blood red skies?)

On that scalding day the final judgment did come. And when the fire squad at last rolled into town, The inferno had formed an impassable line With the houses and their people all trapped inside.

(Do you see those wretched flames rise?)

And though all efforts were made to reverse the tide, Too much was to be saved in far too little time.

(Please hurry.)

Rumor has it there were but fourteen survivors; Just a fraction of a thousand souls. But Cavendish's phoenixes have long since flown, Never again to be witnessed whole, Fading into the footnotes of a tragedy With charred bodies cast in starring roles.

(Please come quickly.)

Yet I still think of them sometimes,  At the dawn of a white-hot summertime,  In a weary glance cast to the blood-orange sky. Do they still smell that smoke when they breathe in too deep?

(We’re running out of time.)

I thought of them just the other day,  Driving along the quiet way green trees once lined. I wondered, have their old burns healed?

And as I drove past the old turnoff to Cavendish, All that remained was a vast and golden field.

[nicholsroy]

📸 18-04-25 |📍Rimouski, QC

[nicholsroy]

Update: "new" works upcoming!

Hello!

Over the next two months, I will share two pieces of poetry that were on submission over the past year and were not picked up (although one of them got two personalized rejections with feedback, which is pretty cool).

"Cavendish Burning" (107 lines) will release on June 30th. I wrote this as a submission to a poetry contest in early 2024. I consider it worldbuilding (kind of) for my near-future dystopian project SUPERNOVA, although I can't imagine the poem itself making it into the actual story (... I fear its narrator isn't exactly the "writes poetry in his spare time" type).

"Craze Lines" (100 words) is a drabble (prose) poem. I wrote this in late 2023 or early 2024. It's probably the most directly personal piece I've written in recent years. It will release on July 31st.

[nicholsroy]

📸 24-05-25 |📍Biodôme, Montréal, QC

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📸 16-05-25 |📍Montréal, QC

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📸 24-05-25 |📍Biodôme, Montréal, QC

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📸 20-04-25 |📍Rimouski, QC

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📸 26-04-25 |📍Pub Arya, Montréal, QC

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📸 15-01-25 |📍Montréal, QC

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📸 26-12-24 |📍Moncton, NB

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📸 25-01-25 |📍Crew Collective & Café, Montréal, QC

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📸 01-02-25 | 📍Café Koujina, Montréal, QC

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📸 02-02-25 | 📍Rideau Canal Skateway, Ottawa, ON

[nicholsroy]

📸 08-02-25 | 📍Montréal, QC

[nicholsroy]

Lepidoptera exotica : or descriptions and illustrations of exotic Lepidoptera - Arthur Gardiner Butler - 1874 - via e-rara

[nicholsroy]

So, what's going on with LIFE IN BLACK AND WHITE? 🌙❄️

Blog | Updates

My darlings in poofy winter clothes. Drawing by me.

If you follow my main blog, you will have seen me allude to this already, but version 5 of my main WIP, LIFE IN BLACK AND WHITE is complete (minus trimming) as of February 12th. If you've been following my progress for a while now, you're probably wondering if this means I am FINALLY querying (after delaying multiple times to make more extensive changes to the manuscript and because I am terrible at estimating how long things are going to take me). The answer is still "not yet" - but hopefully not for much longer.

See, the main change (of many) I implemented in version 5 is a dual timeline structure, alternating between past and present timelines in the protagonist's life. In hindsight, this was 100% the correct choice for this book. It made the story a lot stronger, more effective, and overall much closer to my original vision. Trouble is that I had to add a lot of material, both existing and "new" (ie. mostly based on notes and "extra" documents), to make this structure work in a cohesive way. As a result, the book is now far too long to pursue traditional publishing with. This means that substantial trimming is called for.

The good news is that I know, more or less, what needs to be done to trim the book. I have already made a full scene plan and identified potential scene cuts and areas to trim. There are two specific arcs in Act II I can streamline. I cannot estimate how long this will take, but I am working on Act I trimming as of today.

For the querying process itself, nearly everything is ready to go. All I need now is to get this manuscript back down to a reasonable (enough) word count. It will be challenging, sure - but what's one more challenge after sixteen years?

[nicholsroy]

Fall 2024 updates! 🍁

Blog | Updates

My mother and I visited a beautiful winter trail in my hometown over the holidays. More pics to come.

Hi everyone! I hope everyone had (or is having) a lovely holiday season. Here are some quick progress updates from me to you to close out 2024.

Writing updates:

LIFE IN BLACK AND WHITE edits remain my main focus for now, though I have taken breaks here and there to work on other projects. Act I is complete and awaiting trimming/final line edits. Restructuring edits to Act II are in progress, with 29/39 chapters complete (74.4%). I still plan to send out initial test queries once Act II is 90% complete.

I am actively working on drafting B-plot and past timeline scenes for THE DOTTED LINE as of November 2024.

In October, for a discord challenge, I began writing a short(er) psychological horror piece exploring themes of grief and coping, urban decay, and domestic isolation; while I didn't finish the piece in October, I really like the idea and intend to develop the story as a side project in 2025. I anticipate the draft will land somewhere between 7,500 and 10,000 words.

Short fiction/submissions: I will most likely go on submission with a few short (prose) pieces in the coming weeks. These are all flash pieces, with 2/3 being within the horror genre. One has been submitted before, but has since been polished and refined.

Reading updates:

I have been in a reading slump since about July, and have not read much other than slow progress for a couple of ongoing beta reads. I have been trying to get out of it over the past month, though - here's what I've managed to finish over the fall:

DARK AUGUST by Katie Tallo (September)

THE MURDER OF ROGER ACKROYD by Agatha Christie (November)

ANNA O by Matthew Blake (November)

Currently reading:

THE SONG OF ACHILLES by Madeline Miller

Also reading-related: in an effort to increase my posting frequency over on Bluesky (one of my resolutions for 2025), I plan to post 31 books I want to read in 2025 - one post every day for the month of January, starting on the 1st! Definitely give me a follow over there if you want to keep an eye on my TBR list for the coming year, which will include at least 50% books by indie authors.