Keygan S. S. McClellan

@keyganssmcclellan.bsky.social

147 Followers 164 Following

writer, naturalist, artist, amateur nature photographer

an "unhinged" list of potential audiences for the proposed book (The Tower's Blood); potential audiences include people who vibe with "eat the rich," want more mental illness rep in fantasy, vibe with "be gay do crime," want there to be something like a horror version of Howl's Moving Castle where the castle is evil, are biology nerds, want the powerful dark mage who believes he is a danger to his loved ones to cope by telling bad jokes (instead of brooding), think having cosmic horror and body horror in the same magic system sounds fun, and enjoy media such as Final Fantasy VII, Gideon the Ninth, The Bone Shard Daughter, Trigun Stampede, The Jasmine Throne, The Surviving Sky, and Nevernight
list of tropes/themes (including found family, revolution, bio-magic, and eldritch horror among others) for a work-in-progress book along with comparison titles (including Gideon the Ninth, The Bone Shard Daughter, The Jasmine Throne, and The Surviving Sky)
A gray tabby cat napping next to a computer keyboard
a collage of three images on a dark maroon background: the silhouette of a man in a dark hallway, a tree trunk overtaken by fungus, and a feather lying in the dirt
a grid of pages in a word document where text is highlighted in different colors based on whether the passages contain description, character interiority, or backstory; the three colors are present in varying amounts
moodboard for work-in-progress novel: images include dripping blood, old pipes, creepy dark stairs, woods shrouded in magenta fog, and a pale-colored, grand hall
A cluster of pale wildflowers on the forest floor
a fluffy barred owl owlet stares out from a hollow in a large oak tree
a barred owl sits on a tree branch, framed by golden-yellow autumn leaves
comp titles for pitched book (comp titles include Gideon the Ninth, The Jasmine Throne, The Bone Shard Daughter, and The Surviving Sky) (comparisons include lgbtq+, bio-magic, revolution, and explorations of power)
Manuscript excerpt text on a background of a dark forest shrouded in reddish mist. Text: "He is supposed to discard his youth name, ‘Cirrus,’ and take on an adult name formed from a collection of historical phonemes, each one laden with meaning and the weight of oral memory. A name burdened by human associations, human expectations, human hubris. Diverse, melodic life crowds around him, but just a little further, the metropolis of Imizen and its threaded favelas and logging camps crowds around the grove. An image comes to him: an image of his name, an image of lonely, wispy clouds voyaging the upper atmosphere, distant but still here, still part of the world. And, suddenly, desperately precious to him. Cirrus takes a step backwards. Everyone assumes that first step is a loss of balance, an uncorrected mistake, until he takes the second."
a gray tabby cat with green eyes
Novel excerpt text: "Wait... something feels... strange, below what he thought was the deepest level. Is there another passage? He gropes around with his magic, trying to understand, and thinks he feels exotic biological material and, distributed through it like stars, dully-sizzling breaker magic. Cirrus frowns. He focuses, tries to find a path to all that strange material, his awareness taking in the anima in the pipes, piles of old furniture, the paper of the record rooms, the dense strands of unknown material inside the walls - yes, it extends even this deep - until he finds a bit of complexity: blood magic nodules. A control system for a magical lock. Excited, he pushes forward, then - Gasps and recoils. Someone was there. Another blood mage."
Mood-board for a novel, featuring images suggestive of decaying luxury, eldritch energies, and dripping blood
text graphic with novel excerpt: "Deeper in the woods, shapes skitter like static between the trees, sometimes brushing against him, and each one sends a shock of heat across his skin. Cirrus keeps his sigils slowly burning, magic alight, senses alert. For now, it's just ghosts, drifting like shreds of fabric or threads of silk, forms shifting, translucent, and indistinct. Mist, reflecting a magenta glow, breaks at his feet into swirling eddies."
screenshot of news article describing upcoming economic blackout planned for February 28th
A graph depicts global temperature anomaly each year from 1880 to 2024 in degrees Celsius compared to 20th century average. As years progress, there is a trend from relatively cooler to relatively warmer, with the last two decades being the hottest.
a small green frog rests on a large green leaf (it is a gray treefrog, Hyla species, on a blackberry leaf, Rubus allegheniensis)