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.

Having to work a fair chunk of Saturday, it felt like I didn’t have any time at all, but after doing the update, I had the burning desire to have at least have accomplished something, so I did some writing on Chapter 20 of TWH. From here, I need to switch gears over to EM3 so I can have next weekend’s update ready (but before that, I still have a review post to make). With work-work, the new season’s viewing, the previous seasons’ backlog, reconstruction efforts on the site, story progress and more, time management is going to be critical in the foreseeable future. No promise on how well I’ll strike the balance. We’ll see what I can do. Stay tuned.

I finally got around to doing some story writing and got Chapter 19 of TWH pretty well done and ready to go for the weekend update. I’m sure I’ve mentioned it in an earlier post, but I’ve got the remaining chapters plotted out and it’s just a matter of getting them written. I’ll see what I can do on that front. Stay tuned.

I continued to implement the edits to Tico1 up through Chapter 11. Once I’m done reconstructing the site (or whenever I need a break), I’ll continue the proofing work from Chapter 12. I also did a quick pass with the spellchecker through Tico2, 3 and 4 to add to the custom dictionary and see if I couldn’t catch anything that slipped past me all those years ago. One small thing which typifies how obsessive I can be over little details is the spellings of “civvy” vs. “civvie”. I favor the latter, but then I decided to change it to the former, only to finally decide that “civvy” is the singular noun form and “civvie” is the adjectival form, thus warranting another pass through all the manuscripts where citations of the word can be found. I’m sure no one else does this (the distinction between “civvy” and “civvie”, that is), but at least this way I’ll have internal consistency.

I mentioned before that I was adjusting the rendering of dialectic speech and that was the main thrust of the day’s efforts, but I was also making some adjustments to stage direction and such as I went. Small changes, but they add up. Once I’m done, I’ll have to compare how the wordcount has changed. Anyway, it’s back to the grunt work, so look for further updates in the Road to Reconstruction series. Stay tuned.

Since I saw fit that my earlier proofing work warranted one of these posts, I’ll do so here as well. As you may recall, before all this nonsense with the site began, my proofing work had extended to the Space Arc shorts and Tico1. Well, as I was reconstructing their pages, I was implementing the edits I had made two weeks ago. For the shorts, there wasn’t much to change, but with my reworking of the dialectic speech in Tico1 (which will of course extend to the other three books when I get to them), there’s a bit more elbow grease being applied. As you might imagine, I’m kinda thankful for character like Matt whose speech is stiffer and more formalized. Less work for me. Anyway, life needs rigor and so I’ll continue on my way. There’ll probably be one more post like this as I get caught up on the proofing work I’ve done so far on Tico1, but probably not another one for a while unless I take a wild hair to do some story writing as a change of pace. Stay tuned.

You didn’t expect to see one of these, did you? I wouldn’t have either, but as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I’ve had a burst of inspiration recently while proctoring finals and I’ve figured out my plan for the next four chapters of TWH. As all my proctoring and grading are done and I was left with two more days in the workweek, I considered bringing my laptop to the office so I could continue my work on the site. However, due to the time required for the file transfers for updating Drupal, I opted to leave my laptop behind to finish that while I was off at work. (You’ll hear more about that in my next Road to Reconstruction post.) So, instead of reconstructing pages on the site, I used my time to write on Chapter 19 of TWH. A different sort of productive use of my time, but a welcome one. It may be a little too optimistic, but if there are no other major disturbances in the near future, I might even be ready for a story update by next weekend. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it? Well, let’s 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.