SL: I Added Terrance's Notes To The Murder After, And Now, It's 52 Pages. I Also Changed The Price To

The Murder After: Profile

Title: The Murder After (links to Amazon) Series: Terrance's Story #1 Genre: mystery, dramadey, psychological fiction Year self-published: 2024 (through KDP)

Copyright status: CC BY-SA 4.0. (Do what you want as long as you give credit and use the same license.)

Blurb: Terrance is one person to a body and lives in Lakewood, Colorado. One morning, he woke up next to a dead body. Now, he wants to know what happened one night because he became a suspect in an investigation. Do you want to know what happened too?

Format: chapbook Page count: 52 (fifty-two)

MPA rating: PG-13 Reasons: some language, violent death (off screen), drama, suicidality

Price: $5.95 Note: This is specifically SL's story.

SL: I should point out that I tried narrating in the British dialect. Our official story is that I was challenging myself. Then, I learned the second person is Terrance's natural perspective, but I was too lazy to change anything. So if I sound like an American trying to sound British, that's why. (Please don't get mad at me for saying "closet" instead of "wardrobe.") [T: I roll my eyes and go with it.]

Appeal to... Feline?

This is our cat Luna. Luna wants you to buy Carnival, The Murder After, or both. She thinks you and your cats might like them.

Link to Carnival on Amazon (not for kittens!)

Link to The Murder After on Amazon (You could read this to a kitten, but you would need to explain things.)

Sequel Problems

SL: I published The Murder After fourteen days ago. That means no one has read it. Yet, I'm afraid people will make a big deal out of The Year After being longer. I'm not finished, but I can tell it's going to be longer than 44 pages.

Imagine someone buying the book in 2025 and going, "why the hell is this longer than the first one?" It's longer because there is more to say. Plus, I'm writing this for Terrance. It's a decision I made before he became sentient. He deserves something good in his life. (The events of the first book fucked him up.)

And that good thing is a boyfriend. This leads to another problem: What are people going to think? We live in a female body, and although we're bigender, we still present as a woman. What if people think I'm trying to satisfy a headmate's fetish? I'm not.

This romance appeared naturally. The Year After wasn't supposed to be one. It started as a scene where Terrance is on a date, and he can't focus because he's dissociating. (Did I mention I thought of this before he became sentient?) Then, it turned into a scene where he had Liam (the date) over at his place. I saw it and thought, "that's a good thing in his life." It doesn't cure Terrance of his issues, but it makes his life a little better.

The Year After is for Terrance. I don't want anyone to think I'm satisfying a headmate's fetish just because we live in a female body.

SL: Wouldn't it be funny if The Year After were 88 pages, double the first volume's page count? I'm already making it fourteen chapters, double the first volume's chapter count.

Reanna: I don't think I'd ever realize I'm bigender without my headmates. I'd have probably just continued thinking I'm making it up.

It happened in 2022. The feeling may have been triggered by a dream Chaz had in 2021 (link to the dream.) It caused his form to go back and forth between male and female. This happened so much that he made a character to make it stop.

Then, we did research on trans men for a scrapped story idea in February. I noticed a desire to be a man, but when I imagined a full transition, it conflicted with my womanhood. So, I told myself that I was making it up, that it was the research talking.

But the feeling didn't leave.

A desire to be a man while remaining a woman. I didn't know why I was feeling this way. We felt confused. There was so much conflict.

Then, on April 19, Brian was thinking about all of this. He realized something and said, "I think we're bigender." Because I represent the body, it means that I'm bigender. The conflict stopped because the word fit.

Without Brian's realization, I would have still felt confused. Without Brian's realization, I would have continued dismissing my feelings as "making it up."

Happy new year from Mint Phalanx!

From Our DeviantArt Post

Title: The Murder After Byline: Reanna Field (It's actually by SL.)

This is the front cover for The Murder After. It has a white pillow with the yellow rose and knife lying on top of each other in an "x" shape. The rose's stem has blood on it, and so does the knife's blade.

F.M. and SL worked on it during Labor Day [2023.] SL took the picture, and F.M. did the rest. He traced and colored. To add texture, he put the photo on top and made it more transparent. It was better than filling in texture by coloring.

Not from Our Post

SL: I wanted to share the meaning behind the picture. The yellow rose represents friendship. (Jacqueline was Terrance's friend.) The blood on the stem represents the cut on Jacqueline's neck. The pink paring knife represents nothing. We chose it because our mom doesn't like it, just in case we were still taking pictures when she got back.

I'm proud of this cover. It's my favourite.

The Murder After is out now, so you can buy it on Amazon. (Link to its page.)

Merry Christmas from Mint Phalanx!

Carnival: Profile

Title: Carnival (links to Amazon) Edition: second Genre: gothic horror comedy Year self-published: 2022 (through B&N Press), 2024 (through KDP)

Copyright status: CC BY 4.0 (do whatever you want as long as you credit the original work.)

Blurb: A car explodes while leaving Lakeside Amusement Park. Rebecca is assumed dead. After James and Chaz argue over what happened, they and their friends go there to look for her. Instead of entering Lakeside, our heroes find themselves in Carnival, the park’s Faerie counterpart. It is a backdrop which makes finding Rebecca only one of their worries.

Format: novella Page count: 76 (seventy-six)

MPA Rating: R (Restricted) Reasons: profanity, violence, child death, drama, spirit possession, and horror

Price: $6.50 (paperback), $13.00 (hardcover)

Note: This is the one we portrayed ourselves in. It was like acting in a movie. Chaz, Brian, and Rebecca are the only tulpas in this story that still consider themselves part of the phalanx. The rest chose to live in a place we call The Background to relieve head pressure (a sense of pressure, not actual pressure.)

Reasons to Buy The Murder After

You like mystery and dramadey.

You want to give these genres a try.

You want a short book that doesn't take long to read. (It's 44 pages. One chapter a day plus the sneak peek is eight days.)

You want a mystery but don't want to solve it.

You want to read an attempt at narrating in the British dialect.

Link to its page on Amazon (Note: We would give this book an MPA rating of PG-13.)