Tag: housekeeping

The Embers Flicker

Those of you who have been following me for some time have likely noticed an uptick in my post frequency these last few months. I have been blessed with a stretch of blessed (if nervewracking) unemployment, and I’m working to make hay while I have the time.

If you’re interested, I’m currently working on Crossroads with every intent of finishing it (place your bets, I guess), so I would totally recommend you give it a read-through from the beginning if dark, aspirationally-literary fantasy is at all your thing.

Beyond that, I’m aware that the store is not currently working–I intend to get that fixed up in the next week or so. There are a few more things in the pipeline as well: a short story collection and a tabletop role-playing system I am hoping to publish this year. I’ll update here when and if they happen, so stay tuned.

Otherwise, for those who have followed me recently, welcome and thank you. I’m grateful for the audience, and I hope some portion of my work is to your liking.

Extremely Brief Update

I made life a little inconvenient for myself. I had begun writing the Crossroads pieces as a piecemeal way to describe an era in the Rale world that, so far, has very little description, but then I went and started a tabletop game in the same setting (War Torn/Rale was, after all, originally developed as a game). So that my updates didn’t become spoilers for my players, I stopped making them. They will return, as they become the players’ past instead of their future.

Autopsies and Roadmaps

The roads are made out of flesh or something.

Summer has been busy, which, in its way, has been a good thing.  Still, it’s been havoc on my writing schedule, and the relative absence of volume on this blog the past few months is some testament to that.  Rae and Leland have been similarly occupied, so our art pipeline has been more or less paused until later this month. For my own working cadence, I’m not sure when I’ll be fully back online, but I’m thinking that the beginning of September isn’t a bad guess.  For now, this post will be a little bit about everything, but we can start by going backwards.

Notes on the LaSein Account is now done, and, taken together, it makes a decent epistolic story.  For future readers’ convenience, I’ll probably post it in its entirety, along with a number of other organizational updates to the blog/Patreon, but for the writing process, it was definitely important at the time that it be in a serial format.  As I’ve mentioned numerous times, Part 5 of the Sevenfold Gyre has been extremely difficult to write, and not all of that has been due to my schedule. When I started that series, I was working to make it at least somewhat literary, but subsequent entries have diverged.  That they’ve each been written in different styles is kind of intentional (and definitely acceptable),but they have been trending toward less artistry, and I was hoping with the upcoming chapter to change that.  Between that and the introduction of characters that I’ve been avoiding talking about here up until now, the result was a lot of stress and not a lot of movement, and while I can say Part 5 is almost done now, I’ve needed to walk away and come back a number of times throughout the process.  LaSein was, in essence, an excuse to walk away.

I feel like the experiment was pretty successful.  The quality of writing wasn’t great; keeping myself sharp almost certainly means writing more than an intermittent page, but on first pass, I think it’s good enough to be editable.  It fleshes out a portion of the War Torn/Rale story that I’ve been wanting to get in writing for some time, and, topically, it sets up a good transition into Part 5. I’ll probably use it in the book.

At some point in the farther future, though, I’ll need to start thinking about transitions.  I had originally intended this blog to be a venue for all of my writing, and I had not intended for its fiction portion to be exclusively about the War Torn/Rale project.  Once I do have the necessary pieces for the manuscript of said book, I’ll likely be posting less on here throughout the editing phase. We’ll see what happens then, but I would expect just about everything else you’ve seen on here to continue in some fashion.  I’ll continue with the game reviews, though generally only when I find something in games worth commenting on, and there is at least one more Dark Souls essay on the map. Feel free to comment if you have opinions on what you’d like to see more of, otherwise, thank you to those continuing to follow me on this journey.  I hope you continue to enjoy.

Yardwork

Just some general updates:

  • The Archives and Ongoing Series pages have been cleaned up substantially.
  • The next chapter of the Sevenfold Gyre is in progress. I will be working on it as I travel this week, and I intend to post the interlude in advance of the finished piece.
  • I’ve added two patron-only posts (possible prologue and epilogue for Rale) to the Patreon. Check it out if you are so inclined.

Content Preview: 5/17/19

Unfortunately, I was hoping to have a little more content for you this week, specifically two game reviews. While this is not a failure in the amount of writing I’ve been doing (I’ve been gearing up for the next chapter of the Sevenfold Gyre), it is a failure to finish those games in a timely manner, and there’s something a little unsavory about writing a full review for a game I haven’t finished.

I’ll be traveling over the weekend, so no updates then, but when I return, those reviews will be the first thing on the docket, followed by more Sevenfold Gyre (we’re finally nearing the end!). In the meantime, check out Rae’s settled concept for the roaches–it’s come a long way from its original iteration, and Leland and I are thrilled. Speaking of which, if you are interested in seeing more about our creative process, I posted a more in-depth look at the evolution of this design on the Patreon. Give it a look if you’re interested (and thanks in advance to those who do).

Shareholder Meeting

Another housekeeping post, as long term plans are becoming increasingly material.

I brought up in the very beginning that this blog is meant for investment of a sort. I’ve been writing and working on creative projects for some time, and having an outlet has been a motivator for me to do so faster and more regularly than I otherwise might. That said, working on these projects is not an end in itself. The War Torn/Rale project in particular is heading for publication at some point. In the long run, the ruleset for the game (not posted here) will be refined, prettied up, and marketed to the sorts of people who enjoy those sorts of products. This might be you, or it might not.

In the shorter run, the fiction and art is going toward a book, and as such, I will be providing less of it for free. This isn’t a big issue for the fiction. I post unedited work here–by the time it’s published, it may be similar, but it won’t be the same. The art is a different story. Some of you may have noticed that I’ve been watermarking the (full) pieces that I’ve already posted. This is why.

What does this mean for you? Well, if you don’t really care about any of that, then very little. The art will be slightly uglier, but I intend to keep updating at roughly the same frequency, with roughly the same quality of material.

On the other hand if you do care about that, because you want to read the future book, the watermark is insufferable, or you just really like this blog, then take a look at our Patreon. Backers get the un-watermarked art and “free” copies of any material we publish. I’ll also probably be posting some extra writing on the feed there to keep it interesting for the people kind enough to contribute.