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The Witch and the Rose by Trae Dorn - on sale now!

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The Final UnCONventional Print Collection is Here!
Posted Mar 15, 2024 - 0:04:42


The final comic of UnCONventional may have gone up in 2019, but the final two chapters still weren't out in print form... until now! That's right, I've finally put out the collected chapters nine and ten in paperback form!

So yes, you can click on over to Amazon right now to pick it up. Has it been four years since this was supposed to come out? Yes. But it's here now, and that's what counts. Re-live the pre-Covid con scene! Finally see typo free versions of some of these comics! Read random commentary about what inspired certain storylines and strips!

It's fun! And remember, Peregrine Lake is coming soon too!


- Traegorn
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Where to buy 'The Witch and the Rose'
Posted Feb 2, 2024 - 0:28:00


So now that The Witch and the Rose is out and available for purchase, I thought I'd get around to making a nice little post here telling you where you can buy it!

For those who (somehow) missed it, my debut (non-graphic) novel The Witch and the Rose is now available for purchase. It's a contemporary fantasy novel. It's got a witch, it's got queer people, it's occasionally a little spicy, it has the occasional bleed through of my witchcraft opinions... it's fun! It's the first book in a series, and I think folks will enjoy it.

So let's talk about how folks can buy it!

For one, it's on Kindle (also, if you pay for Kindle Unlimited, you can read it right now for free), but there's also a dead tree version too. While eBooks are exclusively through Amazon right now, the dead tree version comes in two (identical) forms. First off, there's the version listed on Amazon. This is the fastest way to get it, and probably the version with the cheapest shipping (since it qualifies for Prime).

I know some folks don't like Amazon though, which is why there's a separate Paperback edition done through a different printer. You can either order that directly, or booksellers can order via ISBN 9798869132666.

Those are all the ways you can pick up the novel. So, to quote the eminent critic Jay Sherman, "Buy my book!"

- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 1 ) ]

Coming Soon - The Witch and the Rose and Peregrine Lake
Posted Jan 14, 2024 - 13:45:56


So I talked about it before, but I've been on a bit of a creative push lately. Because of that... stuff is actually coming out. And if I don't tell you about it, how will you know to look for it?

First off, my first (non-graphic) novel, The Witch and the Rose will be out soon. And when I say soon... I mean soon. As in before the end of the month of January. It will be available in both paperback and Kindle, and it's a bit different than the stuff I've written before. This falls squarely into the contemporary fantasy genre. We've got magic, we've got ghosts, we've got... some sex? Yeah, this one is a bit more 'mature' in content than anything else I've ever written.

So, uh, keep that in mind.

But it's fun, and I liked writing it. And (as people who follow me likely already know) I'm deep into writing sequels.

The other announcement is that Peregrine Lake is finally happening. I announced this comic in 2019... and then it just didn't materialize. The big change here is that I'm no longer drawing it. I'm still writing it, but I've handed art duties over to the incredibly talented Ethan Flanagan. Their art pairs with this story a thousand times better than what I would have been able to draw, and I'm super excited. Right now we're targeting a spring release (though that may shift).

But I genuinely love everything we've been working on for it, and I think you will too.

So yeah, that's what's happening.

Update: The Witch and the Rose is now available for sale in both paperback and Kindle editions.

- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 0 ) ]

I need to stop doing this to myself.
Posted Dec 20, 2023 - 13:14:20

(A Rant Where Trae Has Written Too Many Books This Month)

So since most of you started following me because of Witchcraft or podcast stuff, I realize a lot of you don't know how much fiction writing I do.

(I originally wrote this on my tumblr, but I'm realizing that if you're reading this here you do know this in all likelihood -- but I don't feel like rewriting the whole post so just pretend, okay?)

Primarily what I've published are comics. The big one is UnCONventional (which ran from December of 2009 to December of 2019), but I also did a steampunk comic called The Chronicles of Crosarth (which I put on hiatus in like 2018 intending to come back to... but I haven't, and I make no guarantee that I will even though over 650 of the 800 planned pages are done). Crosarth is... fine? The art isn't great in either of these, but UnCONventional carries itself with the humor.

But that's all old stuff. You may be like "Trae, what have you been producing for the last four years," and the answer is "not a lot." I got major creative block with the pandemic. Peregrine Lake, the "Northwoods Gothic" comic I was supposed to launch in 2020 (which has some characters from UnCONventional in it) didn't materialize when I said it would. What storytelling energy I had went into Stormwood & Associates and The Meatgrinder (my two actual play podcasts), but that was it.

And then 2023 happened, and the juices started flowing again.

Peregrine Lake is moving forward -- but with me just doing the writing. My urge to draw has not returned, but my urge to write has. A friend of mine, Ethan Flanagan, is drawing it, and I've written the first year of comics. It likely won't launch any time soon (the artist I'm working with is busy as hell so we want to get a shit-ton of the comic done before we launch it -- we have like the first month and a half of the comic ready?). But yeah -- it's happening. I hoping for Spring, but we'll see.

The other thing though is that I've started writing, like, novels. I've always had like twenty ideas in my head, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I decided to start with the idea I cared the least about (in case I fucked it up): A queer urban fantasy story.

In the last month and a half I've written complete drafts of two different novels in this setting, and am halfway through another one... and have another one outlined.

I, uh, had some ideas.

If you're asking yourself "Hey Trae -- what the fuck? That's a lot" you need to know a few things that aren't obvious. At one point in college, in 72 hours, I produced over 40 pages of text between three research papers. All were for 300 level courses, and I may have disassociated while writing them because I frankly don't remember most of it. But, like, they were decent papers.

One of those papers is in Google Scholar.

Anyway, yeah. I haven't been sleeping great because I've been obsessively writing, but you might ask "Why didn't you just write one and get it ready to publish?" That's a great question. Because I wrote a book, and when I was 3/4 of the way through it I realized something very important: This book would make a great sequel to a book I haven't written. I've been writing book two in a series where I haven't written book one yet.

Well fuck.

So I finished that draft, and I went and wrote book one. Now that book? That book I'm getting ready to publish. I expect to have it out in January. Part of my editing process involves setting what I think is a completed, good, revised draft down for a couple of weeks and then returning to it with fresh eyes. We're in that waiting period right now.

But I still had a bunch of energy.

So the first thing I did was a revising draft on book two (the one I wrote first), but I finished that. And had more energy. And more stories in this setting kept popping up.

So I started a third book. And I'm halfway through the first draft of that book. But then I realized yesterday... shit, this isn't book three.

This is book four.

I need stuff to happen before we get to this story.

So now I've outlined the actual book three, and am working on literally both of these books at once (I'll take a break for Christmas and then go do a final edit on Book One).

And... I'm just like... why am I like this?

I need to stop myself for a few days and get more sleep.

- Traegorn
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Oh Hey Blog, I Made a New Forum
Posted Nov 16, 2023 - 22:50:58


So I continue to neglect this blog, though I probably shouldn't. One of the biggest issues I have with the modern internet is that everything is centralized into a handful of sites when it comes to community and talking with friends.

In the old 1.0 days of the internet, we used to build our own spaces. This was the space that I chose to build for myself, and it served me well for quite some time. The forum was small but active. I updated this blog multiple times a week, and followed friends through RSS feeds. It was a space that was ours.

But now it sits here more a memory than anything else. I maybe make one post a year, and spend all my time on Tumblr, Discord, and occasionally Facebook. And the thing is... I have a community on those services. Nerd & Tie has a Discord that runs at a steady hum. But our data lives on services we don't control. As Twitter has shown us, the spaces we thought we had can disappear at the whims of billionaires who only see us as engagement on a spreadsheet.

And it's exhausting.

So I decided to do something about it.

In the year 2023, we're launching an official set of Nerd & Tie Forums -- we're calling it NerdAndTie[dot]Social and it's a community that's all our own. Right now we're in a soft launch (I expect very few people will actually read this post so it's not really a public announcement), with the hopes of getting everything locked down and settled in the next week.

Then we'll tell more folks about it.

And maybe it'll fail. Maybe no one will use them. But we're going to give it a shot. Complaining about things only gets you so far -- sometimes you need to offer solutions.

So I'm doing that.

(Also, Forum software is way better in 2023 than it was in 2000... holy crap.)

- Traegorn
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Stepping Down...
Posted Sep 2, 2022 - 23:17:14

So I should probably mention this publicly somewhere, but I stepped down as Convention Director of No Brand Con a couple of weeks ago.

It wasn't for anything terrible or awful, and I'm not leaving the organization. I'm stepping back into my old Head of Advertising and Public Relations position for the time being, and may take a larger role depending on how things shake out. No Brand Con XX is moving forward in interesting ways.

In truth I never really wanted to be in charge of the organization. In early 2021 though, when Pat stepped down, we were deep into planning a very delayed con and no one else was really prepared or in a position to steer the ship. So I stepped up, because I'd done the job before.

And, not to sound like I have an ego, I'm pretty good at it.

But here's the thing, I'm in my forties. I don't have the energy to do the sorts of things like I did in my twenties. I work a more stressful job, I'm trying to run a podcast network at the same time, and my health is drastically different. I'm not dying or anything, but my body can't take the abuse like it used to.

And, thankfully, unlike a year and a half ago, we have a couple of people who now have the experience to fill those shoes. Well, two people. Because they're sane, and not dumb enough to try to do it on their own.

Y'know, like I was.

Jun and Chris are going to do a great job with the con, and they have my full faith and confidence.

And, like, also I'm still here. Just not in the drivers seat. So I can occasionally take a nap...

- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 1 ) ]

Watch Some Parts of Star Trek in Order Maybe.
Posted June 9, 2022 - 12:14:12

Look, I don't know if this is a hot take or not, but I'm of the firm opinion that if you plan on watching both TNG and DS9 that you don't watch one then the other -- instead watching them in order as they aired.

Like, the way they fell on the timeline.

There are a couple of reasons for this. The least important one is that it makes sure the minor crossovers line up. This is just a minor thing, but it helps to know who the hell Bashir is when he shows up on TNG.

The other reasons are far more important. First off, it means you're alternating episodes during the early seasons of DS9. DS9 was still finding its footing early on, while TNG was a well oiled machine telling some of their best stories. It gets you through any of the weaker episodes by knowing you might watch a great episode after.

But also... it preserves the experience Trekkers and Trekkies had in the 1990s. Like we were getting two Star Trek episodes a week. Even today, when we literally have five fucking Star Trek shows on TV it's not the same. Picard, Discovery, Strange New Worlds, Lower Decks and Prodigy are all set at different time periods (although Lower Decks and Prodigy are weirdly just a couple years apart). These are shows that will reference each others canon, but never have a major cast member walk on from one show onto the other in the same timeline as their original show.

I love the hell out of all the new Trek, but it isn't the same.

Like, when we watched DS9 and TNG together there was this idea that these were happening at the same time. They aired the same week, the events from one could influence the other... Like even if it rarely happened it really felt like they could. Worf literally joins the crew after TNG's run ends.

And when you just watch all of TNG and then watch all of DS9 separately... you lose that and I personally think it's a very important part of the experience.

So, y'know, something to think about...

(I love VOY but it can be watched on its own, just because the Delta quadrant setting meant it was never affected by DS9 when the two ran concurrently beyond the first VOY episode. Also, if you want an airing list, for 1990s Trek, this list from a long time ago is the easiest to read I've found.)

- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 2 ) ]

Every Time I Say My Desk is 'Peak' Cyberpunk, I End Up Topping It
Posted Nov 30, 2020 - 8:11:37


My current desk

So every few years I've felt the need to make an update about my ever evolving workspace, and how I (more and more) seem to be cultivating an aesthetic that screams "secondary side character in a cyberpunk story who probably gets killed off in the third act." It's an aesthetic I've been working on on purpose (well, not the getting killed off bit), but every time I declare it's reached "peak cyberpunk" I end up outdoing it soon after anyway.

Like that 2017 update? I exceeded it in mere months.

Anyway, since I made some significant changes recently, I thought I'd post an update about my weird hole of many screens where I run The Nerd & Tie Podcast Network from. I'm not going to run through everything, but I will map out the biggest differences from 2017. The first is (obviously) the 32" display up top, which I now use to stream media on instead of the Kindle Fire (though the Kindle Fire is still used for audio bumpers on podcasts). An Apple TV runs that, though I also have a spare Switch dock hooked up sometimes. The Linux laptop is gone (I mean I still have it though), replaced by the late-2011 13" MacBook Pro which used to be my main personal machine. That MacBook Pro is tucked away, but displays on the relocated black monitor in the lower left.

Of course, my new main personal machine is a brand spankin' new M1 Mac mini, which is controlled by the keyboard and trackpad that sit where my laptop used to be. I've expanded the physical desk (and retired the mini fridge) to support the monitor for the Mac mini. And don't worry, Linux isn't gone from my desk (and I mean I still use the laptop) -- as you will notice one last monitor on the lower right which is hooked up to a Raspberry Pi 400. This is notably used from a different chair, as that's my "goof around" computer, and would literally be a distraction if I was trying to use it while getting work done.

It's funny, I bought two computers in 2020, both of which are ARM based. With a good chunk of my desk now on RISC architecture, I'm happy I can just dig out this image without context as I sign off for today...

RISC is good

- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 1 ) ]

Forty.
Posted Sep 9, 2020 - 9:04:36


Forty. Forty years old. It's official, there's no more pretending that I'm not a full ass adult.

It's here, I'm forty.

It's a weird thing. Like if you'd asked me growing up where I thought I'd be at this age, the life I would have pictured for myself would have been so different. I had a lot of expectations I put on myself back then, and I'm happy I defied so many of them.

I mean, seriously, twenty year old me had no idea what they were doing and had no place trying to tell forty year old me what life should be like.

My thirties were a decade of change -- at thirty I had just gotten married, Crysta and I had just moved to Indiana, and I was sort of lost. I was lost for most of my twenties too. Not having a rudder was kind of my THING it feels like sometimes. I've spent most of my adulthood not really having direction. Even when we moved back to Wisconsin three years ago, it wasn't with any purpose beyond "we like it more than Indiana."

If the last year has taught me anything though, having "direction" is friggin' overrated though. I know so many people whose plans were tossed overboard in the storm that is 2020, and I've learned to appreciate what I have so much more.

I mean yeah, it's been stressful as shit and I've had a massively hard time working on creative projects (I was going to start Peregrine Lake and revive Crosarth this year -- which very much did not happen), but that's just, y'know, because we're living in a nightmare.

But my turning 40 is not a part of that nightmare. Turning 40 is, frankly, kind of nice.

- Traegorn
[ Comments ( 1 ) ]



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The Chronicles of Crosarth - a webcomic of Steampunk Adventure, updated Mon & Wed
UnCONventional - A Webcomic about Conventions, Updated Tuesdays and Thursdays
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