Cosmic horror but make it funny

Late October is that time when the mind, conditioned by years of half-assed NaNoWriMo attempts, turns to the thought of the fantasy of writing fantasy and science fiction, maybe whole novels of it. I used to think, I must write a novel or I'll be a failure. After years of not writing a novel, I wrote 50,000 words one November, but nothing came of it because it wasn't the kind of story I wanted to read, so I couldn't sit down and revise it. It was not fantasy or science fiction. It was a gritty and sexual roman à clef.

Then, I took up pretty serious mediation for a while and had the fantastic insight that I only wanted to write a novel for the sake of writing a novel, but I didn't have anything to say that was novel-shaped. I realized this while washing the dishes or maybe putting them away, and laughed and felt an immense lightness. It was that kind of realization, not crushing but funny. And the compulsion to write a novel or anything in particular just to prove I can dropped clean away. You'll notice I did not stop writing, however. It was one of those liberating insights that took away the weird pain of the should and must, while the creative urge and honestly even the idea of having some structure to nurture the creativity remained.

Time has passed, and I am starting to find that I might have something to say that is novel shaped. That is, I am starting to find that there is a limited amount of novels that have the particular elements that I most enjoy, and now I've read many of them multiple times and I think that if I want more of whatever that kind of thing is, I might have to write it. I'm most interested in a kind of mood or mode, something like planetary romance^[1] or technological sword and sorcery, or cosmic horror but make it funny, and well, I have kind of a list.

I like stories that make me feel a certain way. I like a lively plot even when there's more underneath. I like real stakes for the characters, even if the meaning of them shifts. I like quotable lines. I like grim humor and snark. I like references to the occult. I like weird plants and birds and animals.

I like magic to be real, but somehow horrible or difficult in an unexpected way. I like secret societies. I like being inside of any kind of secret.

I like meeting a character already in the shit. I like planetary romance. I like a mood that carries you along. I like allusions to myth and it doesn't have to be subtle at all.

I like discovering the world. I like it when it sneaks up on you. I like layers. I like different social systems^[2]. I like a character who is Just Doing A Job^[3]. But then they take their professional ethics perhaps a bit too seriously. I like doomed people who don't give up and sometimes win.

I like being in a fallen world, like Geralt of Rivia or Conan the Barbarian or Gideon the Ninth^[4]. I like it when the sacred turns out to be not just wrong but the manifestation of biological doom.

I like characters who don't quite get each other. I like people who are secretly on a mission. I like One Last Job. I like the wise advisor. I like a party scene. I like characters who fuck. I like characters who are prepared. I like characters who carry a secret joy, or a secret plan, or a secret grudge. I like it when characters have a secret.

I like it when they are hard on the outside but soft on the inside like a truffle with a gooey center. I like it when they have that one thing that makes them crazy but anything else rolls right off. I like it when they've been faking it for years and are terrified someone will find out. I like it when they suddenly develop a magical power, but not through birth or inheritance.

I like it when characters are working class, not born to rule or royal bastards^[5]. I like a reversal of fates. I don't mind a king who becomes a baker or a forest hermit.

In terms of setting, I require woods, seashores, and forbidding crags. I like ancient ruins of a technologically advanced race now millions of years gone. I like Fairy Rules^[6]. I like a bit of horror. I like the feeling that the good years are all gone, and I like for it to be false. I like irredeemable wrongs.

I like the Golden Age to turn out to have been a nightmare. No gods, no masters. I like animal companions. I like when poetry matters. I like court intrigue, but I don't think I could pull it off as a writer. I like fish out of water. I like relativity time dilation. I like a merciless cosmos but merciful people.

I like it when the clever survive. I like it when the powerful and haughty get their comeuppance. I like the revenge of the real.

I like that feeling when the Real tears the fabric of the symbolic order, that moment before a new symbolic order is established. I like romance, but more when it's doomed. I like above all the sense that all this is but a moment. I like hyperintellectual references. I don't mind if it's a little pretentious if it pulls it off.