I had to go to the office for a few hours and didn’t really have anything to do, so I was able to make some progress on Chapter 7 of RttW. I need to be switching over to TWH, though. Stay tuned.

Monday was another day of me making minimal progress on Chapter 22 of EM3 before conking out and yesterday would have been even worse, as evidenced by the fact that I didn’t even get to making a simple post like this, but I actually did better than you might think, making some nice headway in Chapter 22 of EM3 while working on the outlines for the WttW series during my free time at work (enjoying it while it lasts, which isn’t long).

I believe I’ve mentioned before that my most recent projects have taught me that writing by the seat of my pants is terrible and a major contributor to all the delays we’ve seen in those projects. I want to avoid that in the future, so I want to go back to putting the proper planning back into the process. That can be a little tricky when I’m pushing myself to consistently release new content, but in the case of RttW, I already have a good headstart that affords me some time to get things sorted out. How well all this works remains to be seen, but if you want to achieve a goal, you’ve got to set it first. Stay tuned.

I made more progress on Chapter 21 of EM3 and also wrote some on Chapter 9 of RttW. I need to be switching gears to TWWH, but I imagine I’ll be drawn back to RttW while I’m at it. Stay tuned.

I put the finishing touches on the epilogue of NagaTen before posting and now it’s done. At 41,441 words, it’s the shortest story I’ve written thus far and will probably warrant an expansion in the future. So, unless my count is off, that makes 23 books completed so far. Not too shabby if I say so myself.

I was also doing some work in the peripheral materials for WttW, which will feed into my work on RttW and such. As far as going forward with RttW as NagaTen’s follow-up is concerned, I already have more than enough written to give me a good head-start, but I need to stick to my pledge to get things properly plotted out beforehand. Work to be done. Anyway, I guess that’s it for now. Stay tuned.

I once again just inched my way through a paragraph of the epilogue of NagaTen before consciousness decided to take its leave of me. It really is dragging things out, isn’t it?

That would be the end of it, but earlier in the day, I found myself having a rather light workday and I was gripped by a sudden surge of inspiration. You see, I’m considering Return to the World as the follow-up to NagaTen and I dang near did the whole week’s quota adding to Chapters 8 and 9. I’d almost forgotten what it feels like for the words to flow so freely. I could get used to it, but the artistic temperament isn’t nearly obliging. Anyway, you can probably expect more to come on that front. Stay tuned.

The main thing I accomplished was writing some of Chapter 8 of RttW, but there was also some work in the WttW peripheral materials, though not as much as previously as I’ve been goofing off a lot more. Work is starting up again, which will probably do more for actual story progress (as the story progress mentioned here was done during the days I was called in to sub). I suppose TWH needs some attention, so I’ll try to work on that. Stay tuned.

As you can see, I got Chapter 5 of TWH done in time for the update, and, as you’d expect, I spent the rest of my time continuing my work in WttW. And I haven’t just been working in the peripheral materials either. I’ve gotten up to Chapter 7 in RttW. That one decision I’ve had misgivings about is pretty well locked in at this point, so I’m just going to have to deal with the consequences. World-building yet character-destroying, though hopefully as I develop the story further, the context will at least make it feel organic. Just going to have to roll the dice, I guess.

Expect more of the same this week, though I will try to at least finish another chapter of NagaTen while I’m at it. Stay tuned.

I at least accomplished one of my goals, rounding out Chapter 7 of NagaTen, but I didn’t touch on TWH any. You guessed it, I spent most of my time on WttW. However, rather than the peripheral materials, I spent a fair bit of time writing on RttW. I completed Chapter 1 and then got through Chapters 2 and 3 and started on Chapter 4. I may end up scrapping a fair bit of it, though. The main character does some things I’m not happy with. It sets the tone and establishes some concepts I want to convey, but I don’t like that he’s the one to do it. I need to try writing an alternate version and see how that fits. There’s a lot of juicy conflict that can be born of the original version, but I feel I’d lose the vast majority of the audience by doing it. I don’t know.

Anyway, I need to at least get the chapter of TWH that’s due out this weekend done. I’m sure WttW will continue to occupy plenty of my time as well. Stay tuned.

As you might imagine, WttW dominated my time, though I did managed to complete two of the three parts of Chapter 7 of NagaTen, so I almost achieved my stated goal. Other than working on the peripheral materials for WttW, I wrote a fair bit on Chapter 3 of RttW as the confrontation there is something I was itching to put down on (digital) paper.

Going forward, I’d like to finish that chapter of NagaTen and then probably go back to TWH, as I don’t have any buffer built up there, unlike the soon to be released EM3. We’ll see what I get accomplished. Stay tuned.

On a whim I decided to start writing on Return to the World. Maybe not so much of a whim given how much I’ve been thinking on the game system and working out the details. I wrote the prologue and part of Chapter 1 before throwing myself into the peripheral materials. I really do have a case of complexity addiction as I keep on adding new mechanics. Some might argue that I’m reinventing the wheel as a lot of PnP RPGs like D&D have already done a lot of this legwork, but I enjoy putting together my own ruleset from scratch. Heaven help anyone who tried to adapt it, though. Even with me using pseudo-programming notation, I shudder to think of the mammoth task of actually programming this monster. LibreOffice has crashed so many times as I’ve been working on the spreadsheet, it’s not even funny. Anyway, I’m probably going to continue working on this for a while, but I’ll try to find time for some actual story writing as well. Stay tuned.