I did just the barest amount of work on Chapter 25 of TWH and a more respectable bit of progress on ColoFlip, doing a bit of exposition on the crew’s behavioral programming. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m really enjoying this opportunity to explore the ground level on the fringes of the Empire. So far in the Cross Arc, our view of the Empire has been skewed by the fact that we don’t get to see much outside of Project Reclamation and the Expeditionary Fleets. As fun as Reclamation stories are, I want to explore more of the post-Union universe. I really need to kick off The Æther War Chronicles as I’ve dived into the aftermath of the Æther War without digging into the war itself. Things to consider as I move forward in the Cross Arc.

What’s that? I said I was going to be focusing on TWH this week? I really do need to do that, don’t I? I’ll see what I can do. Stay tuned.

I had another project to eat up most of my time on Monday and it was looking like I wasn’t going to get anything accomplished yesterday either, but I was wanting to rework one of the scenes I’d written in ColoFlip the other day, so I made a point to scratch out some time to sort that out. Basically, I redesigned that cybernetic augments on the featured character.

To that end, I was doing some research on cyborg designs, doing a fair bit of browsing on Pixiv, and I was surprised at how much of the art now is AI-generated. You see, there’s a particular style I’ve been seeing a lot of lately, especially in shovelware, that looks fairly appealing yet occasionally has odd aspects to it. I really should’ve connected the dots when I was seeing basically the same style so many places. Anyway, it’s just a mildly interesting observation.

Hopefully things will settle down so I can redirect my energies into TWH for a bit. I do at least have the chapter due this week already finished, but if I’m being good, I’ll maintain my lead time. Stay tuned.

I did a little more writing on ColoFlip. Not much, mind you, but enough for me to make this post. It’s off to TWH starting tomorrow, though. Stay tuned.

Friday I didn’t do much beyond formatting the guidebook for the WttW series, which I didn’t quite feel was worth making a post about. I shifted gears a bit to do some work on Colony Flipper. There were a couple scenes I wanted to put down on the page. Something I forgot about at the time was that the crewmembers have inhibitors that, among other things, prevent them from cursing. They either have to use minced oaths or else their voice gets overridden by the censorship protocols. The joke may not be as funny as I think it is when put into practice, but we’ll see as I develop the story further. I need to be switching over to TWH, but I may still fiddle around on this some more. Stay tuned.

I powered my way through Chapter 1 of CoP as promised, and while I was letting it sit before reviewing and posting it, I picked up Colony Flipper and worked on it a bit. I was also doing a fair bit of work in peripheral materials, setting up the educational backgrounds of the younger Protectors.

Because the Kingdom of Murabit is inspired by Morocco, it has a French-style education system with six years primary and six years secondary education (divided into upper and lower halves). While doing their training, Protector Candidates take enough equivalent general education coursework to get their certif (certificat d’études primaires) and satisfy the Kingdom’s compulsory education requirement, but also cover secondary education up to Year 12 so that they can get their baccalauréat, but it’s fairly rare for them to go on to university, which would have to happen after induction into the Protectors proper or if they transfer into the Auxiliary. Three of the younger Candidates–Rio, Kirik and Eiri–were held back so they could be placed in the same class as Ellis (the Child of Promise, who we’ll be properly introduced to in Chapter 2), while the young precog Soren skipped grades to be placed in the same class. While Rio is Ellis’ personal bodyguard, he has three other Protectors in the near vicinity at school and often two or three more maintaining surveillance at more of a distance. Originally I was going to let the character progress in school at a normal rate, but I decided it was more in line with the Protectors’ thinking to have additional coverage in the classroom rather than have the other Protectors distributed in other parts of the school where it would take them longer to respond in the event of an emergency.

Anyway, if I can find the time, I may do a little more work on either CoP or Colony Flipper before switching over to RttW o Monday. 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.

I don’t really deserve credit for it, but I did a little more work on Chapter 21 of TWH, spending more time under the hood sorting out some things for the setting of the chapter. And because I can’t seem to stay focused on a single task, I went back to Colony Flipper to write a bit there, springing off some additional work I’d done on my planetary database the other day. Well, I’m definitely not making my deadline and I suppose we can look forward to me switching over to two weeks of not making any progress on EM3. Yay. -_- Well, maybe I’ll end up surprising us all. You can’t ever tell. Stay tuned.

Yes, yes, I’m still playing around with Colony Flipper, and as part of my research, I’m compiling data on the planets, moons and such in the solar system to serve as a reference point for other worlds. This will also help with the Space Arc, but it’s still time that’s not being spent on the stories currently in serialization. If I find myself still coming up short, I’ll go ahead and give you the next chapter of RttW instead. Stay tuned.

For those looking for progress on the stories currently in serialization, this isn’t the news you want to hear, but I did some more work on Colony Flipper, writing dialog, working on character profiles and doing more general research. As much as I enjoy this stage of the creative process, I really do need to be returning my attention to the stories I have out now. I’ll see what I can make happen in the coming days. Stay tuned.

Between a fairly busy week at work and me having very little energy once I get back to the ranchero, I haven’t gotten any writing on EM3 or site work done. However, something unusual happened. My coworkers tend to spam messages on LINE and in the LINE app, there was this banner ad for a browser game called ZeroDora. I clicked on it out of curiosity and it seemed like a fairly generic sim with a scifi coat of paint. As a game, there’s not much going for it, but the setting managed to stir my imagination and a concept quickly took shape.

Tentatively, I’m calling this project Colony Flipper, the story of a real estate developer charged with rehabilitating an abandoned offworld colony to turn a profit for a shady corporation. It’s an opportunity to look at the Cross Arc from a very different perspective than any of the other stories I’ve written so far or any that I’ve planned before. I know I have other, bigger priorities at the moment, but it’d be a waste to not capitalize on this surge of creativity while it lasts.

Things should slow down a fair bit during finals week, so I’m hoping to turn things around then. The first half of next week will continue to be busy, but from Thursday on, I should have a little more time for the story and site restoration work I want to be doing. If only I have the energy to meet the demands of the tasks ahead… Anyway, at least you know something’s getting done. Now if I could just start meeting quotas and deadlines again… Stay tuned.