《GnR • RoomMates》-1-
Advertisement
"Isbell Stradlin!"
I storm into my roommates bedroom, holding wet socks in my hand.
"Why the fuck did you put your wet towels on my clean laundry? It had just dried!".
-It is september in the 1980's. My name is Sylvienne, but I go by Syl. I just started my first year of studying architecture in LA. I had to move out of my parents house for school and am now living in a small apartment with two roommates: Isbell, who we actually call Izzy and Duff.
Izzy shrugs"oh shit".
"Oh shit?" I shake my fist in anger and the drops go flying everywhere, "look at this!".
Izzy chuckles "okay, okay, I'm sorry, Syl. It won't happen again".
"Promise?"
Izzy offers me his pinky. I hook onto it with a smile.
Izzy goes "promise".
"Guys?"
Duff's voice sounds from the kitchen.
"Where are my fuckin cigs?".
I call back "in the fridge, remember?".
We hear Duff open the refrigerator and a surprised "hey, the fuck?".
I walk out of Izzy's room and say to Duff "you did that last night when you were drunk. You went on and on about how it 'kept them fresh'".
Duff and I laugh and then he takes off to our shitty balcony to smoke.
The inspection people had labeled that balcony as 'unsafe', but it is used every single day in this house with two chain smokers. And then there's me who rarely smokes. I've tried marijuana once too, but I didn't feel much.
I grab a soda-can from the fridge and toss the socks onto my ruined laundry pile. I'll deal with that later.
Sipping the soda I walk into my own room.
The walls are covered with posters. Most of them are sketches and floorplans for school. And then there are my music Idols. Posters of Queen, Mötley Crue, Joan Jett and Metallica are scattered in between the architectural drawings.
Advertisement
I check my planner and finish the soda.
Then I get up and grab my towel and toiletries.
I walk through the hallway and wave when I pass Duff, who is smoking with the balcony doors open. He jerks his head up in response.
I turn on the shower. We have a surprisingly nice shower compared to the rest of our apartment. I've always been happy about that.
I do the whole routine. With shampoos, scrubs and scented lotions.
After I toweldry my hair I wrap it around my torso to walk back to my room.
When I open the door a little I hear laughing coming from the livingroom, and voices I don't recognize.
Shit.
Do Duff and Izz really have guests over right now? I have to walk through the livingroom to get to my room!
I wrap the towel a little tighter around me and step out. I decide to just go quickly. This is all part of having roommates.
I speedwalk through the hallway and reach the livingroom.
The voices suddenly stop when I appear.
I try not to look at them as I hastily get myself to my bedroom door "don't mind me".
I jump in and close the door behind me.
From what I gathered, Izzy and Duff are having three friends over... who all just saw me in nothing but a tiny toweldress... but it's fine, whatever.
I get dressed in one of my oversized t-shirts with pajama shorts and put on a Fleetwood Mac LP. I have a very old recordplayer that used to be my moms. I just needed to replace the needle and now it works like a charm.
I sit down at my desk and try to get some homework done, but the guys in the livingroom are talking kinda loud. So i switch to the Rolling Stones and turn the volume up a bit. That does the trick. I get back to my assignments for a little bit...
Until I hear a knock at my door.
Advertisement
- In Serial20 Chapters
Sword System Academia
2/17 NOTICE: I'm putting this on hiatus, possibly permanently. I didn't want to spam with an "update chapter", so hopefully here and in the story blurb will get enough eyeballs. There are a couple reasons for ending SSA for now. 1) I wrote the next chapter but wasn't happy with it. I've been less and less satisfied with SSA's quality the more I thought about it. Part of the reason is... 2) I am seriously thinking about trying to publish some novels to help pay the bills, since I don't have my other source of income anymore. I have never asked for anything from SSA readers, no money, not even a review or rating. SSA is written for fun to amuse myself, primarily, and I would kind of feel bad actually charging someone money for something as unserious as that. I don't think it is good enough to ask anything in return. To use an analogy from music, SSA is more like a jam session with a bunch of friends. You're just chiling and having fun playing some music. I mean, if you are Mozart or even Eminem, your jam session is good enough to sell, but for an amateur beginner like myself, haha, no. If I want to publish something, I feel like I need to go the proper route of practice and rehearsals, which might be more similar to a classical concert performance. With SSA, I work from worldbuilding notes and a loose outline, but what you are essentially getting is the first draft with lots of so-called pantsing. Pushing out a web novel like this also means it is very difficult to go back and improve things without breaking everything else downstream. I wanted to try this "jamming" approach, as it was a good way to teach me about another aspect of writing, but to move forward, I think I need to hone my "classical" techniques, which emphasize rewriting, or at least, revising outlines. 3) While I intend to try to make $$$, my actual current goal is to "get gud". I've spent a lot of time recently trying to understand the self-publishing industry, and I'm pretty sure I can make some money by using short-term strategies with my current amateur skill level. But I've seen too many authors come and go/burnout, and really, the only way that I think I can enjoy writing and still make money on a long-term basis is to become a better writer. And the next step for me, which I haven't done much before, is to spend more time on rewriting and outlines. That is pretty much antithetical to the way SSA is developing. I've always been kind of 20/80 plotting/pantsing, but I want to spend a lot more time outlining before I even start writing. SSA jam sessions don't really fit my goal anymore. If you're curious about what's next, read on... Among other regrets, I regret not finishing SSA. It's the first story I've dropped, but then again, it's the first web novel I've attempted, so I suppose that's not a surprise. I don't think traditional web novel formats suit me that well. The whole SSA story I had loosely planned (beyond a first book or major arc) is way too large as well. Big story = good for neverending webnovel with Patreons, bad for penniless and fickle writer like me. I am currently outlining a complete trilogy to another story in great detail. I want the story to end concisely, and I also want the chance to really spend a lot of time on the full outline to spot pacing problems, character issues, lost themes, and so on. I'll still share this story on RR. What I intend to do is finish book 1, flash-publish the whole thing here for a few weeks, then publish on the big Zon. Repeat for books 2 and 3. The upcoming story will be about crafting heroes. The backdrop is an isekai-like setting, where elves will summon humans to their world as heroes, but the whole hero crafting business is still in its infancy. The elven mage researchers are figuring out how to imbue heroes with power, while the heroes are trying to figure out how to use the powers that they gain. Humans are the best hero templates because they are blank and have no intrinsic magic. Or at least that what the elves thought. The human MC has his own secrets... There will be some similarities with litrpgs, but I would call it more a progression fantasy or gamelit story. For example, the stats are very low, at least initially. Say we have a stat called Str. Going from Str = 1 to Str = 2 is a huge deal. Also, going from Dex = 0 to Dex = 1 is an even bigger deal. I guess you could call it a "low-stat litrpg", haha. Also, the heroes won't be gaining stats simply by killing things or leveling up. You can't increase stats arbitrarily, either. There will be rules to how stats can increase, and how they work with each other. The elven mages will be figuring out these rules in order to craft stronger and stronger heroes. Some inspiration will be from cultivation magic systems, but there won't be overt cultivation, at least for now. A theme I really want to explore is the idea of interactions. That includes things like hero crafter vs hero, tactics vs strategy, skill synergies, racial interactions (dwarves, elves, etc), and son. Yeah, so hero crafting. I'm super excited about this project and venturing into publishing. If you want to check out the upcoming story, you can follow my RR author profile to see when it drops here. Finally... THANK YOU TO EVERYONE! I'm very sorry that SSA is stopping, but I hope at least some of you will find the next story at least as enjoyable, if not more. Thanks to all the readers who gave SSA a shot. Big hug or solid fistbump to all of you, whichever you prefer! I hope this message is not a downer but an upper, because I am psyched!! -purlcray -------------- BLURB: Talen, youngest Master of the Koroi, makes his way to the Empire's capital to salvage his clan's fate. But the bustling city has few opportunities for the traditionalist. For the old sword clans are fading. With the rise of alchemy, gold can purchase strength that ordinarily took years of training to cultivate. Sword artists, once rare and accomplished, are quickly growing in number, especially among the wealthy noble class. Even with such alchemy, though, no one has advanced to the rank of Grandmaster in countless years. Talen's true dream is to walk the path of a sword artist to the very end while fulfilling his clan duties. And then the Swordgeists return, fabled founders of all sword arts, gods who had touched the world long ago and vanished. These myths turned into reality warn of a coming threat. Alongside this warning, they issue an invitation to the Sword System Academy, a path to power beyond the mortal realm. But first, they will hold an entrance exam... Story notes:Sword System Academia blends elements of western and asian fantasy such as xianxia and litrpg. I took parts from different genres I enjoyed and twisted them into my own creation. There will be an explicit system, both of the litrpg kind and the hard(ish) magic kind, but it is embedded within an academic structure that will develop over the course of the story. This is my attempt to design a unique type of system, the System Academia.
8 153 - In Serial8 Chapters
To be a Demon
An eye calls for an eye. Blood calls for blood. To lose love and retrieve suffering. To gain hate and forsake humanity. That is what it means... To be a demon. ... This is a political and plot focused novel. There are no superpowers and not as much fighting. But there is a lot of plotting.
8 188 - In Serial10 Chapters
Wings and Cages
Among the people of Andalia, Princess Odetta Valdnrosa is rumored to be as beautiful as seafoam. As the only princess left alive in the royal family, it is assumed that she is one of the few siblings within King Casrian's good graces ever since he slaughtered most of their family. However, to her, the palace is nothing more than a prison... a cage created by her three wicked brothers.But the more Odetta learns about her family, both dead and alive, the more she gets drawn to them. Her yearning for a family has lied within her all her life, and that only festers along with her fear of the Valdnrosas.Perhaps in the end, Odetta is more of a true Valdnrosa than she thinks she is.
8 70 - In Serial51 Chapters
HUNGRY EYES || J.JK × Reader ✔
"Eye contact is way more intimate than words will ever be."©𝐉𝐈𝐊𝐎𝐎𝐊𝐈𝐄𝟏𝟕No translations allowed.|*Contains mature and triggering content*| 18+
8 225 - In Serial12 Chapters
Write to Survive Contest
Write to Survive Contest is a writing contest that is inspired from a survival game interaction as a theme. You are invited to Adventure Theme Park, you are provided many stops that lead to a collaboration prompt to choose from, so choose wisely, travellers! Grab your pick and write to survive folks! Press to play . . .
8 188 - In Serial31 Chapters
Future untold
Nora has always bent the truth to get her way or to complete a mission, but this lie could ultimately erase Carry from existence.-Artwork custom made by me.-#1's dcuniversecaitlinsnowDcuoFlashfrost#2'sBarryAllenSnowbarry#3'sArrowverse
8 401

