Update on Lord Caterpillar Orphans

This book is taking me longer than expected. Yes, my dark little Series of Unfortunate Events homage (with elephants, crocodiles, ghosts, and great white sharks) is taking me much longer than expected. I am about halfway through and onto the "Sandman" portion of the novel, which should be fun to write. As I said before, this is very much a "Save the Children" book so while my wordcount right now is considerable, if I ended the book at this point, it would be so dour it would leave the reader wondering, "just what the point was that" as they downed pills and walked straight into the path of a bullet train. I have to include this section where some lives, just a few, are saved. I have to include it.

As you can probably tell, my biggest influences on this book are going to be Lemony Snicket and E.T.A. Hoffman. Fuck Neil Gaiman. I'm actually more angry at him for turning Hoffman's amazing Sandman monster into a fucking Marvel superhero than I am for -- joke, J-O-K-E. The Sandman in my novel, tbf, is probably more of a Freddy Krueger type than Hoffman's monster but, by all accounts, I am so indebted to Hoffman and what he has done. Maestro, you are my hero.