I’m a day late on this one but I kind of just crashed yesterday right after work. I’m thinking of flipping my sleep schedule around to accommodate that post-work fatigue I’m always getting. It would also help me get more writing done. I don’t know why, but I’m much, much more effective, energetic, and creative in the AM hours.

Another thing I want to address (for posterity) is the lack of daily posts. I’m not working from home anymore, at least not for money, so my schedule’s been condensed. My adjustment period has been pretty rough, too, but I’m at the tail end of it. All that to say I’ll be working my way back into my daily posting routine, probably starting next week. That’s assuming I can get my sleep schedule just the way I want it so I’m up from at least 10PM to 4 or 5PM. The more morning hours I can claw back for myself, the better things will be.

Anyway, time for some updates.

The Site

I’ve been poking around with the mobile view for PR, since that’s never looked good and I’m getting sick and tired of it. Testing isn’t easy since I have to use my actual phone and updates don’t propagate quite in real time, at least not consistently. Relying on Divi’s previews isn’t consistent either, so changes that look good from my PC (in mobile viewing mode) look hilariously bad on my phone and vice versa. I’ll figure this crap out, but I’m not even going to pretend this isn’t a frustrating process.

This is one of the big reasons I don’t actively draw traffic to the blog. An audience deserves your best and as far as presentation goes, I’m just not there yet. I’m not going to heap all the blame on Divi; I could probably fix most of this in a few sessions if I focused solely on that, but I haven’t.

That’s something I’m aiming to fix this month.

Space Engineers

For the time being I’m putting pretty much all of the Kaiser projects on hold, including the entire Admiral Hipper class, the Magdeburg, and anything else related to them. The goal is to wait for three specific releases for Space Engineers and then incorporate them. The first is Grid AI, from Keen, Space Engineer’s dev team, the second is Cheerkin’s general use Autopillock script (the newer one), and the third is Ribera’s SBY thruster mod. I need to see how each of these can be incorporated before I’ll be ready to release them.

I am considering some WIP releases just to get some traction on the workshop, but all three of these are releasing relatively soon, so it probably won’t be more than a couple of months before I’m fully back to work on the Kaiser faction ships. I doubt I’ll have another small grid ready for the workshop unless it’s the Cosmo Messer F2 or maybe the EQ Drone Messer, and the latter would really benefit from the Autopillock script and Grid AI anyway.

Writing

I’m breaking this into multiple sections and addressing the current writing projects in each one.

Lydia’s Golden Treasury

The purpose of this new Chapter 2 was to expound on Enya’s backstory before her regrets started cropping up in Chapter 3, but as the B plot, it wasn’t designed to completely carry the chapter on its own. I wanted a conflict to run alongside Enya’s past coming up and to prompt the use of the titular item, the Lyre of Binding. For that I initially had a medical emergency in mind, but I’ve been rethinking things.

Originally Lydia’s Golden Treasury was going to have a male lead. I changed it to a female lead to completely eliminate a small issue coming up that would get in the way of the story right around Chapter 4 or so. Making the lead female also let me have a little fun with the rest of the cast. That’s something I’ll explain someday, but for now I just want to say that I’d like to include that original male character even if it’s just for this one chapter, essentially as the driver of the A plot.

So the medical emergency plot I had in mind is getting shelved. Maybe I can use it somewhere else in the future, but the Lyre of Binding is now going to focus solely on these two characters.

Artorius

There are a couple of battles in the middle of the story I have to figure out technologically, given how the Aeon setting is with space battles. In a nutshell, it’s very similar to real life. In some circumstances, it’s actually stupidly easy to take out a large warship in one go. In others, it’s next to impossible.

Since Artorius is going to be one of if not the first Aeon stories to feature space battles, I desperately need to get these depictions right. That said, with the rest of the outline done, I just need to start cranking out the story scene by scene. It’s on the horizon.

Remnants of the Elders

There’s less development here on the story I’m trying to write, but like the rest of the things I’ve got ‘queued up’ I am going to be doing at least some work on RotE in December. I want to round out the year by putting down at least a few pages for all of my current writing projects, not just one or two. Everything I want to have released by the end of next year is getting some due attention here and now, and RotE is included in that.

Frame Ops and Riaz Royals

Frame Ops and Riaz Royals have a slight overlap in cast and chronology, but FO is more self contained, while RR affects the Aeon setting as a whole, so while I’m lumping them in together, RR is quickly becoming the higher priority. The first chapter, A Fond Farewell, is about 80% finished. Frame Ops is coming along a lot slower, but I think the further I get into RR, the easier writing FO will be.

We’ll see. At the end of the day, Riaz Royals is about some very important clones making their way in the Jovian Sphere, and Frame Ops is about a team of professional e-sports players rising to prominence.

Fleeing Victory

I’m not adding any new chapters yet. I’m actually going through everything that’s been written so far and doing so major editing to try to clean up the story, trim down some of the more verbose areas, and update the narrative style so it’s more consistent throughout. There might be a few changes thrown in to make the story ‘better’ but in general I’m just cleaning things up and tying things together more closely.

Closing

That’s everything for now. I doubt anything substantial is getting finished this month, but I’ll keep chipping away. ‘Write and rewrite … until it is done.’ If I can reclaim my mornings, things will go a lot more quickly, so that’s priority #2, after survival.