I made a little more progress on Chapter 24 of EM3. Under quota again, but I’m thankful just to be making any progress after the recent dry spell. I’ll be switching over to RttW next. We’ll see what progress I can make amid everything else. Stay tuned.

I didn’t get a lot written, but I did start on Chapter 24 of EM3. You may remember me mentioning the burst of inspiration I had the other day. You see, I’ve had the general thrust of book’s finale in my mind from the beginning, but until recently, I didn’t have a clear vision for how I wanted to go about it, which meant that the standard chapter structure was just a placeholder until I got things more clearly plotted. However, once I was able to solidify my vision, that placeholder structure proved to be just the right size. In other words, including Chapter 24, we have three more main chapters to go and then the epilogue. This means that if I can stay on schedule, EM3 will wrap the first week of July. I need to start making preparations for whatever’s going to follow it. Things to keep me busy, I guess. I hope to get a little more written before switching over to RttW. Stay tuned.

I didn’t write a lot, but I did what needed to be done to get Chapter 23 of EM3 finished and ready for the update. I’ll try to get a bit more written over the weekend just so I can get a leg up on the next cycle. Stay tuned.

I made some progress on Chapter 23 of EM3, not quite making quota but almost finishing the chapter. Just a little bit to go, so I should be able to have it done before the deadline. That’s something. I also was struck by a bit of inspiration, so I believe I have a clear path to the end of the story. Just got to make it to that finish line… so I can start the process up all over again for another book. The fun’s never done. Stay tuned.

I made a little progress on Chapter 23 of EM3. It was well short of quota, but I haven’t been meeting quota ever since the journey of reconstruction began. I’ve got to get the chapter done, so I’ll have to pick up the pace. We’ll see what I can do. Stay tuned.

I had a busy day. Not only was I implementing all those edits I’d been collecting over the week for TG, JJ1 and JJ2, but I also decided to actually make use of my word processor’s custom dictionary (a practice I fell out of because I got tired of starting the process all over again every time I had to migrate to a new machine). In this process, I caught some typos that would’ve slipped past me otherwise, not just in the three stories above but also in CeleKing1-3, EM1-3 and NagaTen. Just dealing with the Cross Arc was enough to keep me occupied for the time being, but I’ll deal with the other Arcs in the near future.

While I was doing that, I made a significant change. Well, it’s significant behind the scenes but only required one or two changes in the stories themselves. You see, back when I was writing CeleKing3, I decided that it would be simplest to use the year of adoption for the designation of Imperial weapons, i.e. the P777 was adopted in NE 777. However, CeleKing3 originally took place in NE 723. Yes, I could’ve just changed the designations of all the Imperial weapons, but instead I decided to shift the whole series one hundred years into the future. This might seem like a drastic step, but it actually made sense with the wider lore of the Cross Arc. You notice how there’s no mention of the Hybrids in the CeleKing series? Well, if I set the series after NagaTen (NE 745) and EM3 (NE 767), you can imagine a very good reason for that. Since there’s no mention of Hybrids in even later storied like JJ2 (NE 968) and TG (NE 1032), it starts to paint a bit of a picture. That being said, instead of changing a few weapon names in a couple chapters of CeleKing3, I had to go into the peripheral materials and change all the citations in the encyclopedia, timeline, genealogies, etc. Most of it was just applying a 100-year adjustment to the dates. I didn’t add any new members to the Imperial Family, though. Now the Yuanguang Emperor reigns for a whopping 167 years, but with juvenation therapy, it’s not all that wild. He dies at the age of 266, but Wuzong (who Yasuko killed in CeleKing2) was still rather peppy at 231 (though Erdi’s juvenation therapy had improved by then, so that makes a difference). Another significant change is that Princess Anmei (wife of the Yuanguang Emperor’s brother) wasn’t killed during the purge of the Sun Faction but instead in an assassination attempt on the future Emperor Wude. (She still gets posthumously honored as Empress Bian when Wude takes the throne, and it prompted me to add a whole thing where Wude’s successor Wuzheng was the son of a concubine and all the mess that led to. Fun times.)

I think I may start doing sweeps in the Space and Tellus Arcs and see what that brings up. I’ll then try to gear myself to focusing on TWH next week. Hopefully there won’t be any more head trauma cramping my style. Stay tuned.

As noted in the previous post, I’ve been kept rather busy of late, and while I may not have been able to sit down and focus on story progress, I have managed to continue my scans through EM3 and then NagaTen. I then had to implement all the changes across EM2, EM3 and NagaTen. (Remember that I have to apply the changes to the original manuscript, the offline HTML backup, and the online version.) Loads of fun.

And of course amidst all this, I have work at work and my resident office productivity specialist at home interfering with me getting to dedicate time to actual writing. Still, it is what it is and at least I’m not left entirely empty-handed, as editing is an important part of the writing process, even if it’s edits done to stories that have been posted for months or even years. Anyway, we’ll see what I can accomplish over the weekend. Stay tuned.

Monday I was mostly busy with the review update, much as I’d be on a normal Sunday. Tuesday I still had that one as of yet untitled story on the mind. I’d brainstormed a few scenes, but I didn’t get much written due to a fuzzy someone’s interference. I managed to switch gears to RttW on Wednesday and write a bit on what should go in Chapter 9 or 10. I was also doing some peripheral work to flesh out some more of the game system.

Besides this, I was continuing my work going through EM2 and digging into EM3 as well. I won’t say there’s a massive amount of errors to be had but definitely more than enough for me to be glad I caught them. Periods where I was having to do things like transcribe handwritten work or use my tablet to write warrant a decent share of the blame for a lot of the typos, but since I’m my only editor, sometimes it takes time for me to come back to a manuscript with a fresh set of eyes to catch things I overlooked in the initial passes. Anyway, that’s enough for now. Work is keeping me hopping at the moment, but I have time opening up in other places that should mean good things for me making progress. Stay tuned.

I only did a little writing on Chapter 23 of EM3, but I did spend a fair bit of time sorting out the corrections I’ve been making to EM1 and EM2 and also writing on a little short that came to me in a moment of inspiration and may be developed into something at a later date. We’ll see how things go. Stay tuned.

I made some progress on Chapter 23 of EM3, but work is starting to pick up again, so that means less writing time. We’ll see what more I can get done. Stay tuned.