I managed to finish Chapter 19 of NagaTen, as you’ve surely noticed, and also got through Chapter 20 as well, so we’ve got things lined up for three weeks from now. I’ve still got some good lead time on EM3, but I could always stand to get further along. Whether I’ll find the time or not remains to be seen. (Work has me hopping.) Stay tuned.

So there’s been no activity here in a good month. I’ll be honest with you, I thought there would be some spells when I’d have nothing else to do but just sit and focus on writing, but there really wasn’t that much time when it was just me and my writing. I did a little bit of work in some of the peripheral materials, but no story progress. However, once I got back to Japan, I was struck by a bit of inspiration. If I didn’t have orientation for my new job on Friday, I may well have had Chapter 14 of TWH ready for the 25th, but I had to postpone until the following week. Still, I got it done, after all this time spent stuck in a rut, I got it done. “What about the next chapter?” you ask. Yes, well… about that…

Actually, that brings me to what I’ve been working on since then. You see, I have a bit of a scaling problem with the map of Tellus and that affects how I calculate travelling distances and whatnot in the stories. Now, with a few of my stories, I’ve just altered the local scale to get it where I want and put off worrying about the global issue, but it is something I need to address. One of my problems is that way back in 2001 when I was making the lowfi MS Paint digital versions of the maps I drew back in high school, the files were all at a 4:3 aspect ratio (little surprise given that was the aspect ratio of most screens at the time). However, most maps of Earth range from 2:1 to 16:9. That’s a fairly big difference. Also, the land-to-sea ratio is vastly different between my original maps and what we see on our own little blue ball. I basically had to shrink all the continents by half and now I need to reposition everything with the climate zones and whatnot in mind, etc. I’m still working on it, but once I get it all sorted out, the world is going to be in a much better shape.

However, now I need to get Chapter 19 of NagaTen finished. My original plan for the middle part of the chapter needs to be scrapped, so I’ve got to get that issue sorted at long last and write what needs writing, mostly before Wednesday, when work starts up in earnest. Wish me luck, folks, and stay tuned.