I managed to wrap up Simona’s epilogue, do some tweaking to Carpos’ prologue and Chapter 1 (which were already mostly finished) and start in on his Chapter 2. I imagine I’ll be shifting gears to either EM or JJ soon. The more lead I can get prior to their launch, the better. Stay tuned.

I pretty well finished Simona’s Chapter 5 and did some work on her epilogue as well. I just have a little further to go and then I can move on to Carpos. I’ve gotten an idea for an If Arc story based on an alternate history that I may develop enough to launch a teaser on the site in the coming days. Stay tuned.

I finished up Simona’s Chapter 4 and made some progress on her Chapter 5. Chapter 5 is shaping up to be quite a bit shorter, so another day should be enough to finish it and I don’t think her epilogue lacks that much either. Stay tuned.

I managed to get very near to the end of Simona’s Chapter 4. In the previous version of the story, there was a lot more overlap, with single events being told over and over again through the perspectives of different characters. I’ve significantly scaled that back, but this chapter is one such instance, overlapping with Ionathas’ Chapter 2. Most of it is new content, though, so I don’t feel like I’m just rehashing what I’ve already written. Just two more chapters to go and I’ll be done with Simona. Stay tuned.

I managed to make up for missing a day with decent strides in Simona’s Chapter 4. A couple more days with similar progress and I should be able to finish the chapter. Stay tuned.

I would have to say that Orguz is probably one of the characters who benefitted most from the Version 3 expansion of TTWC3. At very least, I had planned for him to be a sympathetic character ever since Version 2, but his story was given a lot more breadth and depth recently. Originally he was Urgill’s father, who was aggrieved by her defection to the Promethean Alliance and reluctant to see his people used as the Monarch Lich’s cannon fodder, but that was about it. For Version 3, I instead made him Urgill’s grandfather and drew up his family tree. I made him into a reluctant king compelled to wear the crown as a puppet ruler who had seen the folly of defying the Monarch Lich when his people were conquered. Everything he does as king is meant to limit the suffering as his people, a vain effort though it may be.

Goblins are often portrayed as always chaotic evil, but there are some people who try to avert that. Basically, my take is that they’re a largely primitive, violent race but many are more neutral and there are stand-outs like Orguz who are actually among the more moral and decent characters I’ve crafted. He’s definitely an oddity among his kind, something he himself rarely fails to make note of. You can also see his more broad-minded ways in his treatment of the scout Orgdith, valuing ability over appearance.

Despite his advanced age and a nature that was out of step with his people’s culture, Orguz was actually one of the longest reigning kings of Shade’s Forest, partially due to the Monarch Lich’s patronage. There wouldn’t have been another who could’ve led his people so long under the circumstances, but I don’t imagine most people respect a successful collaborateur.

I guess this’ll do it for him. I may do a supplemental post on Goblin society someday. We’ll be back here again in seven weeks once the next section is complete. Stay tuned.

I’ll admit it. I only wrote a couple paragraphs on Simona’s Chapter 4 of TTWC3. Normally that wouldn’t be enough to warrant a post, but I did spend an inordinate amount of time putting together the family tree of the Redgrave royal family for Tzipi’s Garden. That warrants mention, I believe. It was somewhat nightmarish to craft because there are basically six noble families that intermarry generation after generation. I know it’s fairly plausible given a historical view of the aristocracy, but that’s a lot of dang incest. -_- Because I strayed from the beaten path in the latter half of the week, I think I’ll stick with TTWC3 and try to round out Simona’s section. Stay tuned.

I managed to finish up Simona’s Chapter 3 of TTWC3 and make a little headway on her Chapter 4, then I made a surprise turn and did some writing on Chapter 23 of Tzipi’s Garden. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,” you say. “Did you somehow magically write the past 22 chapters when no one was looking?” No. In fact, beyond the first couple chapters I still don’t have much of anything set for the plot. So why Chapter 23? Well, Chapter 23 happens to feature the event that inspired the entire book, so that explains why it was sticking in my mind and I wanted to flesh it out on the page a little more. Anyway, TTWC3 is supposed to be my focus for this week, so I’ll try to stay on task. Stay tuned.

I’ll come right out and admit it. I blew my free time on Labor Day playing FEif instead of doing any writing. I may have written something like a sentence or two at best. However, I made up for it yesterday by moving on ahead with Simona’s Chapter 3 in TTWC3. Another day and I should have it finished. It may be too ambitious to try to finish her section by the end of this week, but I’ll make that a goal. With the resumption of EM and the launch of JJ coming up next month, I should probably focus on them when I’m not working on TTWC3, but I may wander around a bit. We’ll see. Stay tuned.

I made some good progress on Simona’s Chapter 3 of TTWC3, but in the process of doing so, I strayed off to fill in more of the backstory of the royal families of Notos and Zephyr (which actually does have some relevance to the chapter in question). Needless to say, it’s a lot easier working on the family tree of the Notian royal family, which only lasted eight generations, to that of Zephyr, which easily tops forty (and even with all the additional work I’ve just done, I’m only about halfway there). It’s kinda funny how these stories start to develop as I do this genealogical work. Let’s say it starts with a list of kings. Then I start filling in the rest of the immediate family and start branching out a bit. As I add the people, their stories begin to emerge. Love and loss, tragedy and triumph… It’s pretty cool stuff, truth be told.

I have yet to determine if I’ll stick with TTWC3 a while longer yet or if I’ll switch over to EM. Part of me wants to do the former or even spend some time with JJ, but I really need to be at least four chapters into EM before its serialization resumes next month. Stay tuned.