C.E. Murphy's Blog

We’re back for our Call of Cthulhu game, and the shitteth hath hitteth the fan. Eth.

If you will recall, in our last adventure, we finally found Jack Brady, source of (we hope) many answers – and then our loyal young local bodyguard, Li, SHOT HIM. Somerset, attempting to heal him, rolled a critical success – only Somerset is in truth the evil bastard Edward Gavigan, who unbeknownst to us, has shapeshifted into Somerset – and VERY NEARLY SUCCEEDS IN KILLING BRADY! Only Caliope‘s magical interfere...

GUYS! EVERYBODY! I ALMOST FORGOT TO SAY!

Tonight, Thursday 26 March, at 8pm Irish time (4pm Eastern/noon Pacific), I’m doing a THING! A live reading from BONE & BLOOD along with an interview and a Q&A! It’ll be livestreamed here at YouTube!

This is part of my GoH activities for Octocon, the Irish national SF convention, which is the first weekend of October in Cork, Ireland this year.

The reading and interview are open to all, with the following Q&A being for Octocon members – but online members...

There is a story of a widow woman and her two daughters, Snow White and Rose Red, who were the most perfect and darling little girls who had ever lived.

This is not—quite—that story.

BONE & BLOOD, my newest retold fairy tale, is out on Amazon Kindle today! (The print edition is on its way! I’ll make another big fuss about that! :D)

This is my first proper CE Murphy book out in ages, and I’m really excited and hopeful about this one. I think it’s good! I mean not that I don’t think they’re all g...

We went to Rome last week, and while it was all incredible, the highlight was the day trip we took to Pompeii. That was bucket list stuff for me, and guys…I was not prepared.

Pompeii is huge, and much less haunted than I imagined it would be. Even the visit to the plaster cast of one of the bodies wasn’t so much haunted as heartbreaking, and the city itself is so…it’s so well preserved that I think the state of preservation itself eradicates the hauntedness.

What I could not get over was its siz...

…so you can guess what I’ve been doing lately… :)

In actual fact I did most of this several weeks ago and it’s absolutely horrifying and every time I look at it I do in fact get stressed out. So I added up the wordcount, which… well, it’s 420K before the Heartstrike books, and having just come off a 450k year, I know I can pull off 420K. The goal is to do so in a less stressful manner than last year, and the structure for doing that is to start my days with words and not admin, and aim for a st...

Oooh…

For the next part of this project, I’m supposed to do at least 20 of these little upper body trapezoid figures & the instructor would love it if we did 100-200, & honestly having done, um, 5 so far, it’s gonna take 20+ to stop having to refer back to the lesson to remember it right, I think.

They are NOT, however, very interesting to share, so I’m doing a post now to show you what I’m working on, and then…I am not going to subject you to the next three hours of trapezoid figures. :)

Also...

I haven’t forgotten my art project!

I stayed up way too late finishing this Elfquest fan art last week, kind of to see if this entire project has helped any, and honestly? I think it has, at least some. I actually did a pretty good job on Moonshade’s face. Strongbow’s is too long and not wide enough, which is what I almost always do with Elfquest. I do not know how Wendy does it. She’s untouchable. But I’m really pleased with it. If only I could do it without copying, but…we’ll see how that goes...

I did more creatively in 2025 than I expected, if for no other reason than I started drawing again, which just kind of happened rather than being A Plan. And also 450,000 words written, and as one of my Patreons pointed out (and I’d have forgotten!), making foam armor for my son’s Halloween costume, and…the smallest bit of knitting, too. It was a very creative year, all things told!

Novellas written: PEACOCK ON PARADE, OUTFOXING FATE, GORILLA IN THE GROOVE, OWL BE HOME FOR CHRISTMAS, CHRISTMAS C...

WHAT NEXT? :D

So I’ve got four more Udemy courses, I think I mentioned that:

“how to actually use clip studio paint in a functional way” manga character design/drawing manga more generalized character design superhero anatomy

and…

oh, no…

…I went to Udemy to make sure I remembered what courses I’d gotten, and the two anatomy courses I’d been eyeing were on sale, along with a bunch of other things, and I accidentally bought

a two-part anatomy class a gesture drawing course and a ‘...

I cannot believe I’m at eighty hours. Nearly done. That’s amazing.

I’ve spent most of the past ten art hours on Loomis heads. They’re something I’ve been aware of but don’t remember ever being taught how to draw, and…it has been A Learning Curve. I wanted to internalize it so I can do it consistently and, y’know, hopefully well, at some point, so it’s gone kind of…

I did the first assignment and it wasn’t TERRIBLE, but the second lesson was…well, it was the first time I felt that the woman who p...