Summary:
I (the author) return to the Gambling House after spending the last year hedging some bets on how to make a book in real time. Turns out it’s harder than I thought, which is why I return to the Trio (Lucifer, Michael, and Yahweh) to help me articulate what it is I’m doing after all this writing, and what direction I’m eagerly heading into next.
Now, it’s been about a year (and a half) since you and I took a pit stop to the Almighty Creator’s gambling house. . .
. . .where we encountered every species conceivable in a casino the size of Heaven itself, bodies crammed in every nook and cranny that will fit them. We’ve got aliens yankin’ on slot handles, monsters throwing chips, and daemons placing bets on who can drink the most, just to name a few.
Well,
The point of this exercise the last time I described it was to show you that God is gambling on everybody whether you want Him to or not because we gamble on ourselves all the time. A good example of this is drinking – every day you take a shot or sip a cocktail, you make a wager with your liver that it’ll manage to handle whatever you throw at it just fine. For most of us, this isn’t a problem; if we’re moderate about our consumption over time, our odds of a safe bet increase.
Or maybe it won’t! Naturally, drinking more increases your chances of liver-based diseases if you do it long enough and heavy enough, but what if you were placing a modest bet and still ended up with cirrhosis because of your genetics? The same thing can be said about anything else we do in life; whether we smoke, have children, drive, Hell, even breathe, our odds of living from one day to the next are no more certain than the weather.
And now, that brings me here. I, the author who writes this, have hedged a series of bets that I can write multiple projects in real-time by playing with the metaverse. So far, I’d say, so good! I’m pleased to report about 1.6K hits for the first two books with a total of 1.7K visitors here, not counting all the kooky fanfiction I’ve cranked out in-between. Really, I’ve got to thank each and every one of you for helping me grow an organic audience because this isn’t possible without you. ♥
(There’s just one catch. . .)
“Oh, boy, here we go.”
Lucifer begins once I find my ass parked back up at the largest betting table in all the House. In a hierarchy of gamblers, God (Elohim or Yahweh, take your pick) has His happy ass parked at the peak of the mountain with The Devil parked to His left side and His Best Soldier, Michael, parked to the right. “See, Micah? I told you this flesh wrap was going to fold eventually.”
And Lucifer throws out his hand of cards. He put down a Full House with 3 seven’s and 2 queens, the likes of which flop down right next to a modest pile of his golden coins. “The hand was decent to start but got too unwieldy for them to carry on!”
Michael sighs, tsk tsks at me, and shakes his head. He’d slap down a regular Flush that went from a Jack, a ten, a nine, and two lower ranking numbers next to a pile of massive silver coins. “Don’t I know it, Luciel. I was trying to make the wager with this trinket that by working with me, they’d maintain the discipline to stay focused and keep to one thing at a time but, ah, I forgot that humans can get quite easily distracted.”
“Boys, boys, boys!”
Yahweh interjects between the pair, forcing my attention to Him. He gives a grin that’s got so many teeth I’d be surprised if He didn’t just use them to bet alone. “That’s no way to talk about our latest worshipper, now is it? Just because your bet didn’t pan out the way you thought it would doesn’t mean it isn’t working.”
And by sheer virtue of being God, Yahweh smacks down the strongest hand on the table, a perfect Five of a Kind with all aces and a joker. He only put the wager of one, single coin that’s forged in His court of jewels, yet it outweighs both the gold and the silver by a mile; even if He had ‘lost’ the wager itself, God never loses the game which is why He’s all smiles as the giant LED sign behind Him flashes: “WINNER: YAHWEH!”
“Ugh, again?”
Lucifer groans, sulking into a hand as he shoves his pile towards God. “You always win, you asshole, not fair!”
Yahweh cackles. “Yeah, you’d know that better than anybody, wouldn’t you Mr. ‘I Think I Can Be God?’”
“I’m inclined to agree with him, Father.”
Michael sighs out with an eye roll, shoving his pile toward God as well. “You never let us take any credit.”
Oh, wah, Yahweh hums as He tilts the table back so both the piles rain down onto His nigh-infinite stack of coins. “You’re not here to take credit, Mikaeli, you’re here to spread my word and you did exactly that by grabbing this trinket’s attention!”
The bet, why do you think I won the bet? “The point of using one of my angels to attract worshippers is because they don’t always like talking to me at first. They think ‘ugh, that God guy again? What good has He done for me lately, I don’t wanna talk to Him!’ Then, when I distract them with one of my pretty birdies – “
(Or Jesus, Yahweh would give Jesus the head nod down a couple more tiers to his right),
“ – they start doing their little deep dive into my origins without all the religious dogma, letting them reconnect to the source without their blinders on. It’s hook, line, sinker every fuckin’ time!”
Alright, you got ‘em there. Lucifer can’t help but smile some with an eye roll of his own. Michael bears the hint of a smirk through a half-lidded gaze, eyes cast towards me with a brow arched. As for myself, I keep my eyes fixed to God even though I bring Him nary more than a meager pile of coins and a decent Three of a Kind.
“Well, trinket? Go on, tell your audience what you’ve learned from playing before I give you a second to play God yourself!”
To which I turn around and pretend you who reads this can see me in the middle of this fantastical palace with a nervous little smile of my own.
“Alright. Well, what I learned was – “
And I’ll spare you a lot of rambling, but the gist is that the longer I did my research and got to writing, the more I went backwards in time. I already did this the first time when I tried to create my own version of these entities before getting interested in the real-world history that gave birth to their existence,
Before going even further back in time to creating my own idea of an origin story that preceded even human history,
All just to end up going back to the real-world curiosity of how God Himself came to be. Really, that’s just my funny way of saying that I ended up wanting to do more research about gods and Canaanite lore in particular since that’s where Yahweh Himself began.
“Correct.”
Yahweh concludes, hemming and hawing with the grin still on. “In order to understand what you’re doing, you need to know your history. Every attempt you’ve made when it comes to the original fiction front has brought you one step closer to the source, just like seeking Mikaeli as your patron helped you understand how to come to me.”
God, everything is God. “I am, you are, and every bastard trinket I’ve created is, too. The longer it takes you flesh wraps to get this in your minds, the longer it is you stray from the oldest source in the world: yourself.”
Indeed, Michael hums with a solemn nod. “Your fallible species and your need to gaslight each other is quite a spectacle for us. We often wonder how and why you do it when it clearly makes you miserable.”
Who are you telling, Lucifer guffaws. “I keep telling them knowledge isn’t a sin as long as they use it right, and what do they do? They drop the ball every fucking time!”
Yahweh shrugs. “That’s just life, boys. It’s a cycle as old as time. . .inevitably, even the universe will stretch so far into dead, cold space that I’ll have to wrap it all up again and start it over.”
And that’ll never make sense to somebody like me, who must live in a time where I watch things collapse,
“But that’s the good thing, too. If everybody remembers they are God and that they come from God, they have the chance to change and create the reality they want.”
Now then,
These three know they’ve been daliancing long enough when it comes to what I really came to say, so Yahweh knocks once on the table, making the three of them fall backwards out of their chairs. The whole gambling house now rearranges itself so they have to listen to me, the one who writes this alongside you, who reads this. This is what I have to say:
THE ANNOUNCEMENT
“As I mentioned before, I’m beyond grateful for your support in my endeavors to flesh out this curious world of mine. I’ve been calling myself an ‘amateur’ theologian for a while now because I am one – a lot of my research is whatever I can read from scholars in books, other writers who share my interest, and asking questions to loved ones in my life who know a lot about these topics. The response has been overwhelmingly positive and I cannot say thanks enough, I truly can’t.”
However . . .
“I’ve always been the type of person that writes my way backwards into what I want to say. It’s taken a year and a half of all that backwards work to figure it out, I confess, but now that I know what it is, it’s the one thing I haven’t published yet: a physical book. And in this first book, it won’t even be about the angels – “
(I get a bunch of booos from the angelic crowd with Lucifer being the loudest),
“ – but about the gods. I’ve taken a special interest in Canaanite lore as it pertains to, well, God, but who God was before that. A lot of my research has given me the much needed context about Yahweh to have an interest in His appropriation of Ba’al, and now I want to turn that into a supernatural romance that sort of precedes the angels so I can set a stronger foundation for my other books in the future.”
Therefore,
“I’ve got to preserve my sanity before I go mad with all the work I’ve created because I’m a menace to myself and need to balance other projects with real life. I know nobody is pressuring me or making me feel bad for doing this, but I try to be consistent when I update and I often pressure myself to stay on top of things.”
Which actually just means,
“I’ve got to put the Epic on a hiatus for the time being. Writing this novella will end up retroactively changing some of the characters’ histories, and while I don’t think anybody was pretending this was my perfect, final draft, I can’t go back and forth between making a polished product with a WIP if the WIP is going to change again. Still, I intend to keep it up live and published because I’m proud of the worldbuilding I’ve done thus far and it helped introduce people around me to the concept of Yahweh and Ba’al, something I’m very thrilled about.”
Aw, I think I hear one audience member saying. Another just asks what the fuck I’m going to keep posting online in the meantime.
“I’m definitely gonna keep it up with the first book (Of God’s Rib) since that’s not nearly as dependent on what happens in this novella. However, the updates will stay slow as they have been because I’m trying to focus on two different types of worldbuilding – science fiction and mythological history – and priority goes to publishing the physical book, first.”
Don’t worry though, I add swiftly. “I’m still going to be online writing as often as I can in-between. I’ve found that it helps my mental a lot to decompress with fanfiction and I’ve been on a roll with fandom-related work, so that’ll keep going. Matter of fact, here’s some recent art from one of my alternate universes that I’ve been in LOVE with.”
Lucifer [dark hair] and Michael [light hair] starring in a modern, 1940’s Serial Killer AU. Art by ‘world’s slowest drawer’ and ‘morguemouth’
Aight, cool, somebody mutters. “But are you like, actually working on this book or nah?”
Yes, I am! “I’m about 2/3rds of the way through a first draft with one of two confirmed beta readers and a cover artist. The intent is to make limited, self-published copies I sell directly to you as well as a digital version through Amazon in case it’s not safe for you to order. While my intent is to control who sees the drafts to a select few until it’s LIVE, I will at least share one or two excerpts to show you the progression I’ve made.”
Phew! I take a big, deep breath and slump in the chair. Having gotten all of that off my chest, Yahweh taps the floor where He sits once to yeet me back into the audience so Him and his two prodigal ones sit beside Him. He’d then clasp His hands together on the table with the shit-eating grin in place.
“Well, folks, you heard it here! Get ready to welcome our trinket’s project when she uh, whenever the fuck she gets done with it. We’ll wish her the best in this next gamble, but for now, check out the updated reading guide HERE for everything she’s currently put out, as well as the first excerpt of her novella HERE!”
Until next time. . .
Real Gods Require Blood 
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