Not much to report this week, as I spent most of it editing my Lords of Arcadia supplemental story instead of working on my FNAFic or, you know, going out and having a life. However, my innate boringness has paid off and I am pleased to report that I will be keeping at least one of my promises: Tooth and Claw will indeed be available by the end of this year (although I’m still not sold on the title). Heck, it should be up by the end of this month. So yay! And I’m still on schedule to get the anthology together early next year, too (I don’t like that title either. I wish authors could name books like composers name symphonies. You know, it’s not The Land of the Beautiful Dead, it’s just R Lee Smith’s Ninth Novel).

And of course, I have a new chapter up on fanfiction.net and archiveofourown.org for my fanfiction, Everything Is All Right, Part III: Children of Mammon. It’s a short chapter, but last week’s was crazy long, so it averages out. Besides, it was an especially fun one to write, as you can see from this snippet:

[image error]

Freddy was not known for sympathy, but he had moments of almost telepathic empathy and this was one of them. His ears shifted as he listened to the silence and at last, he nodded. “I. KNOW. THIS. IS. HARD. FOR. YOU. AND. BELIEVE. IT. OR. NOT. I. DO. CARE. BUT. THIS. ISN’T. ABOUT. YOU. OR. ME. TONIGHT. IT’S. ABOUT. AN-N-A. AND. WHAT. SHE. NEEDS.”

“She needs me,” Bonnie said. “She doesn’t need Foxy, she needs me!”

“NO. SHE. NEEDS. SLEEP. BONNIE. SHE. NEEDS. SOME. ONE. WHO. CAN. TAKE. CARE. OF. HER. AND. KEEP. HER. QUIET. AND. MOST. OF. ALL. SHE. NEEDS. SOME. ONE. WHO. CAN. RUN. FASTER. THAN. SHE. CAN. IF. NECESSARY.” Freddy paused, looking around with his ears sweeping left to right. “WHAT IS THAT?”

“I’d let her sleep!” he insisted. “I can take care of her! I c-c-can keep her quiet!”

“YOU. CAN’T. EVEN. KEEP. YOURSELF. QUIET,” Freddy said, then scowled and looked around again. “DO. YOU. HEAR. THAT.”

“What?” Bonnie asked sullenly, but swept his ears around, scanning for sound. Just as he was about to ask what the hell he was listening for, he heard a buzz. Short, low-pitched. Mechanical, not an insect, and after a moment’s confusion, he knew what it was. “That’s Ana’s phone.”

“NO. IT. ISN’T.”

“Yeah, it is,” snapped Bonnie. “It’s just not ringing. It’s doing the other thing, where people type words at her.”

“ON. A. PHONE.”

“Yeah, on a phone! There’s letters on the buttons, aren’t there? You push them in a certain way and they come up on the screen as words instead of numbers. It’s called ‘tech-ing.’ It was just starting to catch on back in Circle Drive, don’t you remember?”

“WHY. WOULDN’T. THEY. JUST. CALL. AND. TALK.”

“Because they c-c-can tech!” Bonnie exclaimed, flinging out his arms. “Jesus C-C—CRISPY CRUST—Freddy, if this was a hundred-d-d years ago, you’d be asking why people c-c-called instead of sending-ing-ing pigeons everywhere!”