Graeme Brandham
Writer | Artist | World-Builder
🌀Charting the intersection of story, philosophy & wonder in my Substack Atlas.
🌀Currently navigating rabbits, dinosaurs & the nature of reality. 🐰🦕☯️
- The Strings Of Us | Chapter 003 is now live. 🐇 open.substack.com/pub/graemesa...
- Finding the Face of Grief (Elias) open.substack.com/pub/graemesa...
- Deciduous and Evergreen: Part 4 is live. My Halloween Speculative fiction, where we explore a strange historical prophecy that is suddenly coming back to life for three young adults. open.substack.com/pub/graemesa...
- Do you ever feel brave enough to do writing that spins a yarn on social commentary? To be a bit Dickensian?
- Deciduous and Evergreen: This is a new short story I’m writing for spooky season, Inspired by that feeling you get from movies like Casper, Hocus Pocus, and Stranger Things, all wrapped in the folkloric texture of a book like Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell. graemesatlas.substack.com/p/deciduous-...
- What is my serialised book about? Genre: Sci-fi 🛸 Description: Humans and Rabbits must work together on a journey that will take them into deep space, to discover why it is that Rabbits are gravitationally aligned with the centre of the galaxy. graemesatlas.substack.com/p/the-string...
- Is anyone else doing #Pentober on substack? graemesatlas.substack.com/p/pentober-2...
- #Pentober Day 001 - Fog substack.com/@graemesatla...
- Im back after a long holiday, within which, I decided to re-addict myself to Downton Abbey. Foolish? Yes. Worth it? Also yes. I have spent time here composing some thoughts about what this show does well, and how it uses story to keep you addicted. graemesatlas.substack.com/p/the-downto...
- Sometimes my IRL work permeates into my storied life. This is part 001 of a short story about what happens when an ancient bottle of Madeira wine decides to share its memories. graemesatlas.substack.com/p/wine-wind-... #fiction #shortstory #wonder
- 22) WIP Aesthetic Board #FantasyIndiesAugust
- This detail from the 1st chapter comes early, and it lingers. I really enjoy the sense of space and time it creates within the text. It has a length to it. Like a fine wine. substack.com/@graemesatla...
- 21) Is my MC a morning person? I would say yes and no. Once they get into their journey, strict regimented industrial earth time, i.e. doing a 9-5, is less relevant. He sleeps with the curtains open. So that helps to be a morning person by virtue of the light seeping through. #FantasyIndiesAugust
- Ahh running out of time! 20) Superstitions in WIP There is a thing called the strings. Its relatively unknown by humans, and those that have heard of it think its nonsense. Rabbits on the other hand live with it every day. To them it is a way of life. Who has the truth of it? #FantasyIndiesAugust
- My Raw & Unedited series continue. Where you can see both what comes directly out of my notebook, and any thoughts I have about how I might improve it once i get to the second draft. Let me know what you think! graemesatlas.substack.com/p/raw-and-un...
- AI is a hot topic. There are many facets to the discussion that range from ethics, philosophy, politics, creativity. In this entry, I have focussed only on what we can do, as creatives, to not lose ourselves to the machine entirely, if we do decide to partake. open.substack.com/pub/graemesa...
- When you’re first introduced to a new character design, what’s the first thing your eyes are drawn to that gives you a clue about their personality? For me, a character's stance and overall posture can say so much before they even speak a word.
- I tried to give Cash’ya a posture that mixes confidence with a hint of impatience and uncertainty. But I'm curious what details you all notice first. What's the most revealing element of a character's design for you? (Poll Options: 1. Their expression, 2. Their Posture/Stance, 3. Their Clothes
- Time to break up my feed with some personal art. A quick scroll through my albums uncovered this. Painted on my iPad (procreate) about 2 years ago. It's an interpretation of Gavilar Kholin, from 'The way of kings' by Brandon Sanderson. #ArtSky #Art #Illustration #ConceptArt #DigitalArt #Drawing
- 19) "It's called ma. Emptiness. It's there intentionally. The time in between my clapping is ma. If you just have non-stop action with no breathing space at all, it's just busyness, but if you take a moment, then the tension building in the film can grow into a wider dimension". #FantasyIndiesAugust
- Still catching up 18) a WIP playlist. I tend to let the music fit the mood of what I'm writing. This recent fit of words has been quite a serene one, and so this playlist of mine has been in rotation. It's called 'working in the garden' #FantasyIndiesAugust open.spotify.com/playlist/6j5...
- A fun worldbuilding problem I had to solve: Do my rabbits wear clothes? My answer: Mostly no, but they wear robes around humans as a polite gesture to make them more comfortable. What's a small worldbuilding detail you absolutely love in a book/film/game? #worldbuilding
- There is so much cosy upon this piece of art. Cosy has settled into it like squirrels in a tree. Cosy has settled into it like hedgehogs under a log. Cosy has settled into it like Badgers in a set. Cosy has permeated every inch of this picture, like bubble tea in a gentle rain shower.
- Flash fiction: It all started when the Koi walked. I remember it well. Almost 2000 years ago a pair of gentlemen walked by my river and began a discussion that begged of each other to answer a ponderous question, ‘what is the happiness of fish'. (1/7) 👇 #FantasyIndiesAugust
- It was an odd sort of conversation. It sounded a bit like what would later be understood as club jazz. A back and forth played between the two combatants, two philosophers, two friends, perhaps two frenemies. Creating a little ditty that unpacked my happiness like a riddle. 👇
- A piteous ditteous happening that was more about playing a chord of the sword against the other players logical suppositions. What a to-do! A racket that drove all the other fish away. And yet, there was underneath this oddly playful call and response melody, a baseline. Fish. Fish. Fish. Fish. 👇
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View full threadPerhaps it's more accurate to simply say we grooved together. It was the best band I never played in. (7/7) 🎏
- (Catching up still) Snippet Saturday: 'If she could sense it in them, why did they not sense it in us? Her song faltered as this new understanding dawned on her, and as she stumbled, she felt the child's string stumble too'. #FantasyIndiesAugust
- Question: What meaning do you take from the Jabberwocky? My answer: That sound and intention have a lot more to do with how something feels than the definition of an actual word. Words are just vehicles for meaning. But meaning doesn't need vehicles, it flows on the wind. #WritingCommunity
- Catch up time! 15) Comfort movie/tv show. Movie: Lilo and Stitch, Master and Commander, Way out west, Lost in Translation, My neighbor Totoro, Lord of the Rings. TV show: The good place, Mash, Stargate Sg1, Downton Abbey, Only fools and Horses, Looney Toons. I'm sure I've forgotten plenty!
- I seem to have woken up this morning with the solution to a short story conundrum. I need to write a triptych of short stories instead. 3 times the work, 3 times the fun!
- The flowing shape of this tiger immediately draws your eye in, but what captures you is the personality. Have we all seen a cat behave in this way. Eyes wide, full of that energy that only comes from playing hunt. Beautifully captured.
- New post exploring my drawings for one of my characters: Cash'ya. Let me know what you think. 😀 open.substack.com/pub/graemesa...
- Sometimes a set of names takes you by the heart and lifts it. I want to meet these culinary characters! Dear Shallot!
- #WIPSnips 15th Razor. Not a word in my draft yet, but 'edge', that's there. Lys set aside his reticence for a moment as memories pervaded the *edges* of his mind, of a failed operation, of many left dead… And instead considered the best way to get this rabbit and his team onside.
- The central relationship in the scene I'm working on is between two types of minds. One is my old mentor, who navigates the world through a kind of mystical intuition (the "strings"). The other is his brilliant protégé, who uses logic, science, and history to understand things. #WritingCommunity
- An exercise in what masterful simplicity looks like. To be able to take clean lines and simple shapes and imbue them with such energy, personality, appeal and character. That is not a skill that comes overnight! I want to dance with this piece.
- 14) Romance? Not yet. But that does not mean there won't be. I just haven't got to it. I have a few suspicions as to how this might evolve. But also a theme I want to explore is to emotionally validate platonic companions as having just as much emotional and communal meaning. #FantasyIndiesAugust
