Still moving along in Chapter 20 of TBP. Almost there. I’ll probably skip over Chapter 22 for the time being because I already have most of it written and move on to 23 once I’m done with 20. Maybe if I don’t stay up so late playing BotW, I can spend more of my off-hours at work writing instead of catching up on sleep. Stay tuned.

More progress on Chapter 20 of TBP. Not much else to say. Hoping to finish the chapter in another day or two. Stay tuned.

I made some progress on Chapter 20 of TBP. I may not be accomplishing as much the next couple days because of a more packed schedule than usual, but we’ll see. Stay tuned.

It scarcely counts, but I did all the chapter summaries for TBP that go in the meta-tags. I’ll definitely be giving TBP next week as I haven’t had a whole lot of wherewithal coming off my Tokyo trip. The only reason I’m posting this is just to confirm I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth quite yet. I may muster the will to get some writing done yet, but who knows? Stay tuned.

To my knowledge, Akasame’s origins date back to Version 2, which should surprise few people familiar with the origins of the story as there’s not a whole lot that survived from Version 1 (thank you, adolescent fit of pique). Physically, I was imagining something along the lines of Toshiro Mifune (as in Throne of Blood), but while my mind goes to Sengoku Jidai samurai, the equivalent time period for the story would actually set the characters back in the Yamato Jidai, which I’m far less familiar with (and you don’t see nearly as often in pop culture depictions as the Sengoku and Edo Jidai). Originally, I imagined Akasame as a daimyo, but that wouldn’t have fit, so I used the less specific “warlord” title. I was inspired in part by Makoto Shishio of Rurouni Kenshin for the whole “the flesh of the weak is the food of the strong (弱肉強食)” philosophy taken to its literal extremes. He is without a doubt the most unambiguously evil of all the lead characters in TTWC3. He has almost no redeeming qualities whatsoever except for an appreciation for subordinates who are both competent and loyal. As a result, there’s not that much depth to his character and his section of the story mostly serves to demonstrate how his hubris continually makes his situation worse.

Much as with Carpos, only as I was writing his end did he manage to pull a surprise turn. I hadn’t originally planned for him to turn into a youkai in his dying moments, but it seemed entirely appropriate. And, in case you were wondering, his head doesn’t die and it’s left sealed away in Castle Notos until it can be revived. (Whether I tell that story or not remains to be seen, but that strikes me as a good twist to pull if I ever tell the tale of what happens when Scipio’s seal on the Darklands fails.) I don’t know why I give some of my worst characters better ends than they deserve, but there you go. I suppose if they were too pitiful going out, you might feel some sympathy for them or, worse, think I’m sympathetic toward them.

And this does it for the 24 lead characters of The Trident War Chronicles. There are plenty of other characters throughout my canon who warrant spotlight features like this, but many of them still have a lot of their story left to tell. I suppose I could always talk about characters up to the point they’ve been featured and make additional posts later. We’ll see. I’d say doing a spotlight a month isn’t a bad idea. Let’s make it happen. Stay tuned.

I know I haven’t been missing many days lately, but I actually was doing story-related work Saturday. I was mostly updating the map and crunching numbers based on some new developments to the story. I realize I may have characters moving at slightly unrealistic paces in some spots, but I guess so long as no one else sees my calculations, it won’t be a problem.

Once all that was done, I was able to jump ahead and finish Chapter 21 of TBP. I know I haven’t finished Chapter 20 yet, but I had a flash of inspiration and wanted to strike while the iron was hot. Next time, I’ll probably have trouble with Chapter 22 because I already have a lot of it written and so it won’t be easy to match things up when I’m writing in my notepad at work. That’s fine, though. I can just finish Chapter 20, do the opening of Chapter 22 and then move on to 23. But that’s three weeks off. This week we’re going to finish CeleKing1 and hopefully start CeleKing2, if my desire to take advantage of the Switch’s mobile capabilities to play Breath of the Wild doesn’t suck up all my free time. ^_^; Stay tuned.

I finished Chapter 19 of TBP and started in on Chapter 20. I’ve managed to do nearly 9K words of progress so far this week. Honestly, it seems like having to resort to pen and paper has been one of the best things for my progress. I’d like to at least finish Chapter 20 if I can before the weekend’s out, but if I don’t manage it, I’ve already done more than enough. Next week we push on to the end of CeleKing1 and likely will be starting CeleKing2, so I’m looking forward to that. Stay tuned.

I pretty well finished up Chapter 18 of TBP, which means I’m above the power curve, which bodes well for a smooth serialization once the story debuts on the site in two weeks. Ten years after starting the site and nearly 20 years of sitting in development, it’s finally going to get its time to shine. Stay tuned.

I managed to pretty well finish both Chapter 16 and 17 of TBP. That succeeds in meeting my goal for the week, so everything after this is a bonus. I may well manage to get two more chapters knocked out before the weekend’s out. Stay tuned.

I made more progress on Chapter 16 of TBP. Even with a few more of my slots filled up, I’m doing rather well for myself and the task of handwriting hasn’t proven to be as burdensome as I would’ve thought. Maybe because I’m so eager to write, it’s a mind over matter thing. Who knows? So the goal is to finish two chapters in the week and it seems doable, even with Chapter 16 turning out so long. Stay tuned.