I almost wonder if I should expand the scope of these posts to include reviews or simply resign myself to the fact that I’ve been terrible about meeting quota lately. I think that I’m simply going to have to recommit myself to dedicating the time needed to make story progress. I certainly ought to be making time to pursue my calling and not just spend my days playing video games, watching movies and listening to LPs. Well, as I try to restore my resolve, I can say that I made a little progress on Chapter 4 of JJ and spent quite a bit of time in the peripheral materials, to include some work on the world map and sorting out some of the currencies of the different nations.

As always, while I haven’t had an abundance of story progress since the last post, I have been continually churning out new reviews. I already have built up enough to keep me in business for a while. The reason last week’s batch of reviews didn’t come out is because I got tripped up on the Azumanga-Daioh manga reviews. Really, the format for the comics/manga reviews strikes me as a bit of a liability compared to the simpler approach I take to movies and TV series. I may consider a reformat to simplify things. Anyway, hopefully there’ll be more progress to come. Stay tuned.

I have yet to truly get back into the swing of things. Since the previous post, I had done some more work in the peripheral materials and went to naming the chapters of EM and JJ (not as trivial a thing as you might think). However, it wasn’t until yesterday that I actually made some story progress, the first in over a month. I did some writing on Chapter 4 of JJ and worked on putting together the crew roster of the Junker Jorg‘s nemesis, the Junker Woland. Maybe this is the start of me moving forward again. Maybe. Stay tuned.

Here I go and give you a glimmer of hope that things are going back on track only for me to go off the reservation again. While I haven’t made any story progress, it’s not like I’ve been doing nothing of relevance at all over the course of the past week and I might as well report on that. Besides more reviews, I’ve been working in the peripheral materials, particularly those of Junker Jorg and Nagareboshi Tennyo. In the latter case, my encyclopedia file was corrupted at some point in the two years since I last worked with it which had perpetuated to all my backups, so I had to start it all over again, reconstructing as many articles as I could from the timeline.

I’ve pretty well got JJ’s outline filled out and once I get all the chapters named, I can have a proper table of contents. On that note, I really need to do the same for Everyday Magic and TCotSL. Things to do to occupy my time. Hopefully I’ll get some actual story writing done this week. Stay tuned.

It’s been a while since I last had something to post here. Haven’t really found the wherewithal to work on my stories much lately. I’ve been writing reviews for whatever that’s worth, but it almost feels like I’ve been avoiding them. I seem to be pulling out of it, though. Some inspiration started to stir and I worked on the outline for Junker Jorg a bit. Have most of the overall plot sketched out. I’m thinking that once Tico4 wraps, I might alternate between JJ and Everyday Magic. I’ve got a lot of work ahead of me yet if that’s going to happen, though. Maybe I’m getting to the point where that can happen. Stay tuned.

I managed to make up for lost time by doing a fair bit of writing on EM. I still have gaps in the story I need to figure out how to fill, but maybe that’ll come to me as I work my way down the line. Stay tuned.

Though I didn’t meet quota, I did do some writing on Everyday Magic (which I’ll be referring to as EM for short from now on). Most of my work was done in the peripheral materials, to include making a temporary map of Altamira, the world where EM takes place. An interesting quirk of the planet is that almost all the water is underground, meaning no seas or oceans, and the only habitable land lies between the equator and the 54th Parallel of the northern hemisphere. One of the themes with these post-apocalyptic world is that as society reforms, it makes a rough analog to Earth, supposedly something to do with genetic memory and the collective unconscious, or at least that’s what Imperial propaganda asserts. (“These worlds, these people long for Mother Earth and so we shall return them to her,” etc.) I have a lot of lore to fill in, but I need to make a point to do more story writing. Stay tuned.

I wrapped up the one Space Arc short I hadn’t quite finished the day before, but that didn’t amount to much, so I then found myself working on Everyday Magic. Perhaps if I could get at least a ten-chapter headstart, I might alternate between EM and Junker Jorg. Then again, it may be better to focus on finishing one serial run rather than having two Cross Arc stories running at the same time. I’ll think about it. Stay tuned.

I haven’t made any story progress, but I did a lot of work on the peripheral materials for Junker Jorg. Why? Well, maybe you’ll find out in a few hours. I’ve been trying to set up a nice big anniversary post, but I don’t think I’ll quite get everything I want in there, but I’ll at least have some announcements for starters and then catch up with content later. Stay tuned.

Hisashiburi again. I think things are finally settling down a bit. I’ve been so fixated on the fact that I haven’t been making much progress on actual story content that I forgot that missing quota doesn’t preclude one of these posts if some other form of progress is made. This is a bit of a spoiler for the upcoming anniversary post, but I intend to restart Everyday Magic once Tico4 has run its course. This of course means I need to start making headway with the story and that’s what I tried to do last week with little success. However, just because I only succeeded in writing a couple hundred words in all that time doesn’t mean that appreciable progress wasn’t made. I have moved the outline along, which is a big part of getting the overall plot hammered out, and I’ve done a fair bit of work in the peripheral materials, which is key for worldbuilding. It still isn’t progress to the degree I’d like to see, but it’s not nothing.

I’ll probably continue some of this work on the side, but I’m going to mostly switch over to Tico4 and hopefully get at least one more chapter done this week. Stay tuned.

Inspiration took me in an unexpected direction and I did some writing on the Cross Arc story Child of Promise. Also did a little bit of dialog for The Boy King’s Madness. Where will the whimsy of my muse take me next? Stay tuned.