I finished up Chapter 5 of TSoA1 and did some more work on Chapter 6, but most of my time was spent getting caught in the whirling vortex of Cunedda Wledig’s genealogy. I was working on filling out the family tree of the Coelings (which happens to be rather relevant to Chapter 6 as Cunedda was married to Coel Hen’s elder daughter Gwawl), and he has friggin’ 18 kids according to the source I’m using and then his son Ceredig had 16 kids and so on and so forth. And I’m drilling down at least to the 8th century (even though the trilogy ends mid-6th). Crazy times. I wish I had a more efficient means of charting genealogies than a Notepad file. Maybe I should look into using a database program (most of my “database” files are actually spreadsheets, you see). Well, fun for later. Stay tuned.

I got through Chapter 5 of TSoA1, save for some finishing touches, and started in on Chapter 6. Depending on how well I do this week, it may be as little as one more cycle before I’ve made enough progress to start serialization. That’d be something. Stay tuned.

I made some headway in Chapter 5 of TSoA1. Maybe I can make it through a cycle on this book where I actually make quota. We’ll see. Stay tuned.

I made more progress on Chapter 19 of CeleKing1. It almost feels like the story is ending too soon, but I can’t think of anything I would add that wouldn’t feel like padding. Make the container to hold the story; don’t make the story to fill the container. Anyway, I suppose it’s time to get back to TSoA1. Stay tuned.

I finished Chapter 18 of CeleKing1 and started on Chapter 19. The end will be here before you know it. Chapter 19 actually kicks off the final arc of the story. It won’t be long before Yasuko gets to take the stage. Stay tuned.

I made more progress on Chapter 18 of CeleKing1. Another day and I should get through it. Stay tuned.

I made some progress on Chapter 18 of CeleKing1, but it was under quota this time. Kinda had a lot going on and it hampered my ability to focus. I’ll make up for it, though. Stay tuned.

I finished up Chapter 17 of CeleKing1 and started in on Chapter 18. So far, so good. Let’s see if I can keep going at this pace. Stay tuned.

I managed to get most of Chapter 17 of CeleKing1 written. I just need to add the finishing touches and I can move on. As a point to satisfy any idle curiosity, the current wordcount for the story is around 40K. However, with a goal of 75K and assuming even distribution, I’m 9K behind. While I can’t say that I ignore wordcount entirely, I don’t let it bother me too much. I imagine the finished product will be around 60K, which is a bit light for adult fiction published through conventional channels. Of course, I’m not exactly going through conventional channel, now am I? Well, it’s back to work. Stay tuned.

I made some progress on Chapter 17 of CeleKing1, but honestly, I spent more time on the peripheral materials outlining the details of citizenship and how it differs from the New Earth Empire proper. (Remember that the Hua Dynasty of Erdi springs from a line of pretenders and styles itself as the legitimate ruler of the Empire even though their domain doesn’t extend beyond a single planet.) While life isn’t easy for Infernals, it’s in some ways preferable to life in the Empire at large because the Celestials don’t have anywhere near as tight of control on the populace. For instance, as a Class 5 citizen, which most Infernals are, you aren’t officially recognized as having employment and have no property rights or enfranchisement, but the Celestials aren’t actually going to bother enforcing this and local officials tend to be either sympathetic to the average person or too powerless to enforce policy. Now, you might be asking what this has to do with the story itself and, honestly, the answer is not much. Just the sort of worldbuilding I do, even if you never see any of it in the stories themselves. Well, I think that’s it for now. More to come. Stay tuned.