I managed to pretty well finish Medusa’s epilogue and make a little progress on her Chapter 5 as well. Really close now. One more push and I should be done. Let’s see if I can make it happen. Stay tuned.

I managed to get Medusa’s Chapter 4 of TTWC2 pretty well finished. Just two more chapters to go. Let’s see if I can’t finish it before the weekend’s out. Stay tuned.

I did a little writing on Medusa’s Chapter 4 and some work in the peripheral materials. I also wrote a little on “The Dragon Lady’s Dark Secret”. I know I should finish “The Case of the Striped Leopard” first, but I’ve been watching a fair bit of old mystery movies lately and you need to jot things down with the inspiration strikes. Stay tuned for more.

I pretty well finished Xorgoth’s Chapter 5 of TTWC2, which means all I have left is three chapters of Medusa’s section and I’ll be done. I’m certainly ready to move on. Maybe I can even wrap things up before the week is out. Stay tuned.

I did a little more work on Tzipi’s Garden. I think I’m going to shift gears. I just haven’t decided where I’m going to shift gears to just yet. Stay tuned.

More work on Tzipi’s Garden. Speaking of the eponymous Tzipi, I don’t believe I’ve said much about her. Admiral Baroness Tzipporah Globus is the commander of the 292nd Expeditionary Fleet. The expeditionary fleets are charged with Reclamation, the program of restoring the Emperor’s claim on worlds that were lost in the collapse following Tara Ma’s Reunion. As part of the Empire’s millenniary celebration, Admiral Globus was granted the world of Merkab as her personal noninheritable fiefdom and created a baroness (5th Class, ergo the title is also noninheritable). A bit of an eccentric, Admiral Globus uses Merkab as a sort of social laboratory, playing with its development for allegedly scientific reasons but the more accurate reason is that it’s all for her own amusement. She rules over the planet as a sort of god, but her reign is coming to an end when the story begins. Now, the story mostly follows people on the surface, but you can’t really talk about the flowers without having some awareness of the gardener.

Anyway, I may stick with this a little longer and then either go back to TTWC2 or fiddle around with JJ or EM like I was planning to do before. Stay tuned.

Did some more writing on Tzipi’s Garden and a fair bit of work in the peripheral materials to flesh it out. When I was working on the timeline, I had to go back and fix it because I messed up the formula calculating the years. You see, a year on Merkab is the equivalent of 248 Earth days, so I’ve got to calculate the comparison with Earth time to account for its relation to the larger timeline. I also have to scale the ages of characters accordingly. For instance, if you’re 30 on Merkab, you’re roughly 20 on Earth, so most nations have 30 be the age of majority as the realities of physical and mental development don’t change because of whatever number you stick on a person (not that they have Earth as a frame of reference on Merkab, at least not most people). Anyway, this is the sort of thing I’ve been grappling with. Not terribly interesting to the average reader, I’m sure. Well, the work must continue. Stay tuned.

I did a little more writing on Tzipi’s Garden. I was about to start sketching out the timeline when I conked out. Work to do, work to do. Stay tuned.

I did more writing on Tzipi’s Garden, the project I previously dubbed “Merkab”. I’ve given the story this name because the planet is basically the toy of Imperial Admiral Tzipporah Globus, who uses it for social experimentation. One of the common elements of most post-Reunion Cross Arc stores is the Imperial Reclamation program, where the restored New Earth Empire seeks to regain its hold on the hundreds of worlds it lost in the Reunion-induced collapse.

I used a couple of my dream ideas to help set up the premise and now I’m in the process of fleshing things out. The scene I’m working on at the moment comes from the first of those dreams, though the actual even comes fairly late in the story. I know I should focus on making headway on the stories that are going to enter circulation once Tico4 wraps, but sometimes it’s good to follow where inspiration leads you. Stay tuned.

I broke the string of consistent progress when I spent a day working on a record of the major engagements of the Darklands campaign in the Trident War. I’d already finished a similar record for the Notos theater and decided to continue the work. That didn’t leave me with any time for actual story progress, unfortunately. Yesterday I very nearly had no progress at all, but I managed to jot down a little on the mystery project I’ve mentioned in passing a few times earlier, a Cross Arc story of the Fifth Empire Cycle I’m tentatively calling Merkab as I haven’t thought up a proper title yet.

You know, before Square started making lateral sequels, I used to think it was a waste for them to build up a world for only a single game. However, I’m doing much the same in a lot of my Cross Arc stories and I have to say, my love of worldbuilding makes me not mind all that much. Of course, I always reserve the option to tell more stories in any given setting. I don’t know if I mentioned it here, but originally, the novels that would become the Tellus Arc were nearly all set on different worlds. (Direct sequels and prequels being excepted, obviously.) It wasn’t until I was digitizing my original notes in ’01 that I stitched the world map together. That’s why the current maps of the Southern Continent in the KoG series are aligned in such a way that the top of the map actually pointing eastward. I’ve repeatedly vowed to redraw the maps but have yet to make it happen.

Anyway, this new project should prove interesting. I’m including more fantasy elements than a lot of the Cross Arc stories, so that should be fun. We’ll see what I get into next. Stay tuned.