I made some decent progress on the prologue of CoP. If I can keep up this momentum, I should have no trouble getting it ready for the weekend. If I can push on ahead and get a bit of a lead, that would be even better. Let’s see if we can get it done. Stay tuned.

I made a little progress on the prologue of CoP. Although it doesn’t look like I’ve been doing much, I have actually been doing a fair bit of research and some work in the peripheral materials to build things up first. I might’ve gotten more done, but there’s been the update of the site and plenty on my plate at the day job, so that’s been taking the greater part of my time. Hopefully things will settle down by the next cycle so I can move things along. Stay tuned.

I did a little tweaking to Chapter 7 of RttW but not much writing yet, though I only have to finish one scene to get it ready to go. I also fiddled around a bit with Child of Promise, which I’ve decided is going to be what takes EM3’s slot. More to come. Stay tuned.

There isn’t much progress to speak of, but something’s better than nothing after the recent drought. Last week, I started off pretty well, only to fall off once work picked up and my energy levels went down. I won’t make excuses, as it’s as much circumstances beyond my control as it is bad habits that have been gumming up the work. Anyway, I did a little writing on Colony Flipper (and I mean very little), spending more time researching prisons (which is relevant to the story). You might think it’s a case of creator provincialism that I use a more American-style prison system, but following a cursory look at several countries’ prison systems, when it comes to giving a bit of a dystopian feel, the American model ended up being the most appropriate. Norwegian day camp resorts didn’t quite strike me as the Empire’s style. Well, I definitely have to do some writing on RttW next week if I want to meet my deadline and since it’s midterms week, that should be easy enough to accomplish. If I can finish the chapter that needs to go out and the next one to give myself some breathing room, maybe I can hop onto TWH to ensure Chapter 21 is actually ready to go when its turn comes up again the week after next. We’ve got our goal. Now we just need to make it happen. Stay tuned.

Although literally all I did was write a single sentence, it officially marks the completion of EM3, so I felt that was enough to warrant a post. The current wordcount stands at 52,352, which is well short of the general 75-100K goal, but so long as I continue to be a web novelist, I don’t really need to worry about it that much. Also, if I intend to go for traditional publication, I’ll be attempting it here in Japan, where the rules are different. In fact, were my books to get published as light novels, the longer ones would probably get broken up into two or even three parts. Of course, I actually have to work on getting things translated and polished up to standard first. That’s a concern for another time, though. A more pressing concern is getting something to take EM3’s slot in six weeks. One of many things rolling around in my noggin at the moment. I’ll try not to leave you all waiting so long for my next post. Stay tuned.

Although I haven’t accomplished much, it’s been so long that I really felt that I ought to check in. Technically, I did a little bit of work on Chapter 21 of TWH last Friday, but I didn’t think it was enough to warrant a mention, but I did a little more poking on it and some revisions to the epilogue of EM3. Regarding the latter, I still feel I need a couple more lines to properly close things out. I’ve been rather busy with the start of the new term and haven’t had the time to focus on writing. There’s still quite a bit of work piled up and it’ll take me at least another week until things start to settle down a bit. I’ll try to get some content here with a little more frequency, but I won’t make any promises just yet. Stay tuned.

I’m really close to having the epilogue of EM3 finished. I probably just have another sentence or two to tie a bow on it and be done, though I imagine I’ll want to give it a couple passes before I post it. I also did a little writing in RttW while I was preparing the story update.

What took the bigger chunk of my time was some work in the peripheral materials I was doing with regards to juvenation and life extension, something that isn’t that well reflected in some of my materials. It was a big part of my calculations when working on the CeleKing series, but in the overarching narrative of the Cross Arc as a whole, I hadn’t really factored it in when I was doing my early genealogical work. I considered not making life extension much of a thing until the Fifth Empire period, but that didn’t jibe with my work on CeleKing as Emperor Wuzu of the Hua Dynasty made it to 266 years and life extension treatments would have had to have started no later than the mid-5th Century for him to have made it so long. We do have about a 50-year period for the Æther War for life extension to develop and we can argue that the Skyfall Calamity caused disruptions in its application, but that didn’t change the fact that I wanted it to be reflected in the main Imperial line and major pretender factions.

One example of a major change was changing Emperor Michael I Neologos’ birth from NE 541 to NE 461. This meant that rather than being the great-grandson of Emperor Victor Alexis I Neander, he’s now that Emperor’s brother-in-law with the two of them having married sisters. I had to move around the family tree to reflect this change, which is a bit of a pain when you’re just using a text file for this sort of thing. (I really should consider upgrading how I do my genealogy work.) With Emperor Michael’s lineage now majorly altered, I had to fill in a couple generations up so that he doesn’t just spring up out of nowhere. I ended up with quite the little soap opera story brewing in House Goldbaum. (I always love how stories come together as I make family trees.) Anyway, that kept me busy a good long while. Got to see the sunrise, so I guess you could call that a perk.

Anyway, Monday I’ll be switching over to TWH, but in the meantime, I’ll probably fiddle around with this stuff a bit more. I’m sure you all find it thrilling. Stay tuned.

I continue to inch along with the epilogue of EM3. I was also doing some work in the peripheral materials to better establish the situation post-time skip. I really want to get this finished, so maybe enough of a fire will be lit under my tail to get it done. Stay tuned.

I won’t bore you with excuses, but I haven’t been able to get to working on EM3 like I was hoping until now. I didn’t get it too far, though, but at this point I might as well stick with it until I either finish it or I need to switch over to TWH.

I also spent some time on the peripheral materials for the WttW trying to standardize the system of weights and measures. That doesn’t get us any further in the story proper, but these details are all part of the worldbuilding iceberg. Maybe I can get some actual writing done sometime before the weekend’s out. Stay tuned.

I made more progress on the epilogue of EM3 but didn’t quite get it finished. I didn’t get anything written Saturday or else I might’ve met my goal to get it done by now. I’ll give it one more day and then move on to RttW. I’ll be running out of my lead time two if I don’t buckle down there. Of course, TWH is the real sticking point right now, but we’ll save that one for next week. Here’s to whatever progress I can get made. Stay tuned.