I very nearly made quota working on Chapter 24 of EM3. I still have a good ways to go before the chapter is finished, so I’m going to have to buckle down in the time I have available to me, which admittedly isn’t all that much. At least I have the scene pretty well realized in my mind, so all I’ve got to do is commit it to the page. I’ll try not to get lost down too many rabbit holes in the meantime. Stay tuned.

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 did a little proofing on Tico1. Not much because there was something about a graduation ceremony that folks were making a big deal about. I would later go on to implement the edits to JJ2 and TWH. I’ll work on the Space Arc stuff I’ve done tomorrow. Not exactly thrilling content, I know, but maybe I’ll do a little actual writing as well. Stay tuned.

I finished my sweep of JJ2 and started in on TWH. I’m hoping that the reread will help open up the path I need to go forward. Perhaps I should’ve focused on that in the evening, but instead I found myself making adjustments to the tags in a lot of the entries here. There were some changes I’d made since the time of those posts and for archival purposes, I wanted to make sure they were properly accessible. For instance, both EM and JJ were originally written without plans for sequels, but now that sequels have been written, it would stand to reason to think of them as EM1 and JJ1, so I made a point to add tags for both. Also, it was interesting going back over the record of my progress 8, 9 years ago. Hard to believe it’s been so long. Also, as far as progress goes, some things never change. Anyway, I’m going to try brainstorming while doing further adventures with the spellchecker. 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.

I made some more headway in my proofing of JJ2, and though I meant to start implementing the edits I’d been making over the course o the week once I got home, instead I got wound up in getting the wiki project I mentioned before underway. I’ve got a fair bit of work to do before it can be unveiled, but things are already starting to come together. We’ll see what mischief I can get into over the weekend. Stay tuned.