The Curse of Chapter 13

I should begin with the fact that I am not a triskadecaphobiac. That's fear of the number thirteen, for those of you not so blighted. For me, it's just a number between twelve and fourteen. However, there is something about chapter thirteen that just heralds chaos.

It began on Fanfiction dot Net when that was the only place to share fandom madness. It carried over to A03 when I moved there. Every time I posted chapter thirteen... my computer would implode, we had severe storms, blackouts, technical issues left right and centre.... At one point, there was a hospitalisation. I don't fear thirteen. It just... happens to me.

Well. It looks like it might have carried over to my professional writing. You may be aware that I am reconfiguring A Devil's Tale to have more character moments for my MC's Adventuring crew. Well, I wrote a new chapter for one of them that has become the new chapter thirteen.

My hardware remains intact. My software is a little screwy but manageable. My beta reader responsible for okaying the new chapters has had an obsession-related roadblock and can't read it for needing to work out his obsession.

This has been in limbo for weeks. So I'm thinking of renaming this one to fourteen in an attempt to get the curse to fuck off.

I don't think it'll work, but it's worth a shot.

I'm not naturally superstitious, but they seem to come land on me anyway. Maybe it's confirmation bias, maybe it's Maybelline. This sort of thing is exactly why I won't wear green without black. This may yet be why I won't have any thirteenth chapters in forthcoming books. Just to avoid the whatnot that slams into my face every fucking time.

Correlation is not causation, I know this. And yet, the correlation is fucking there.

But I am a scientific bean, and a theory is only as good as the experiment that tests it. So yes. I have changed chapter thirteen of A Devil's Tale: Destined Darkness to chapter fourteen. We shall see if things miraculously clear up.

Further bulletins as events warrant.