The Writers Room

June ‘25 Edition

The Writer’s Room

By Phil Rot

June 2025 Edition

I thought I’d take a break from the usual literary output to give all you “Phil Heads” something of an update. I enjoy reading authors’ insights into their creative process, so maybe you’ll enjoy mine.

Sophomore Slump

I’ve been hard at work on my second extended work, one set to be released by the kings over at Unreal Press. I’ve been featured in a few of their Tales of the Unreal series (Volume 3 and Volume 6). This one is set to be more focused than my previous micro novel, The Raft. I don’t want to give too much away, except that it touches on two longstanding fascinations: furries and transhumanism.

Furries have been the subject of ridicule for some time now. They are the punching bag of the internet. Who isn’t freaked out by the idea of a sweaty guy masturbating in a mascot uniform? Reminds me of that scene in the Shining. I had a friend who, in his early thirties, became a hardline brony/furry. It kind of came out of nowhere after his pregnant girlfriend committed suicide. Life is strange.

Is there something primordial about our love/revulsion we have for anthropomorphism?

If we’re being cheeky, you’ll find furry art dating all the way back to the ancient Egyptians. “We wuz furries.” I just thought of this, but I can’t be the first person to have made this observation.

This project began as an I Have No Mouth type of atrocity exhibition. I had these visions of various technocrats getting harshly mutilated and tortured for eternity. The whole book was going to be just different scenes of the various public figures going through extreme surgical “makeovers.” I still love this idea, but it felt tedious after just one chapter, so I started envisioning what would become its current iteration, a sort of cyber-noir furry thing. This worked better. Why? Because it amused me much more than an exhausting, extreme horror torture fest.

There’s still some of that in here, but in a different way. I’ve been cycling through Jim Thompson, Richard Stark, James Ellroy, and Shane Stevens to get myself in the mood. I want to write the ultimate “Bad Cop” novel. But with furries. You’d be amazed at how few “Bad Cop” books are out there. If you know of any good ones, definitely let me know.

After “Finishing” my new Novel

So I thought I’d finished it aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand didn’t like it. I had a doom spiral about it a week ago. Then, inspiration hit while driving to the thrift store, as it tends to. I figured out how to fix everything. It would be a more linear tale, less William Burroughs and more Jim Thompson. This kind of sucks because it means there’s more work to do. I hate work. I kind of hate writing too, if I am being honest. However, the joy of having completed something outweighs the drudgery of having to complete it.

I’ve also been reading Elmore Leonard. I love how he keeps his sentences tight and effective. Basically, the opposite of my natural writing impulses. I do enjoy verbose, flowery writers like Ligotti and Lovecraft, don’t get me wrong, but it’s easy to screw that style up, especially when you’re kind of an intellectual caveman. I don’t want to screw this up, I want to achieve a flawless victory in the face of my haters.

One More Thing

I would like to shine a spotlight on this wonderful little book I found in the prison leisure library, The Adventures of Philip the Faun by PB Fox. It’s about a Faun named Philip (of course) who was born outside the standard Faun birthing season (Spring). This naturally leads to some debate amongst the villagers as to whether his coming of age celebration should be observed this year or the next year. Philip doesn’t seem to give a fuck. He just wants to heal plants and stuff. He also wants to meet elves. Would you want to meet elves some day? I personally would not. Let me know your answer in the comment section below, I can’t wait to hear your thoughts on this!

You can find this book here on Amazon, as well as the other books in the series. The full color illustrations are amazing. Just look at that cover! Do you think someone trapped a real child’s soul inside of that image? I’m beginning to suspect so.

- P.R.