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Eldritch Thoughts Past News and Updates | ||
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News updates are the short news blurbs posted on the front page. If you're looking for writings sorted by story, I'd suggest the story archves or Scorpion's Hoard.
Welcome to chapter 4 of Iridescent Dreams. Yes, chapter 3 ended up being a bit shorter than I had planned on it being. And yes, there is a strong argument just to throw it into chapter 2. If you suddenly find yourself reading an update that seems to be numbered as part of a previous chapter, you'll know why.
My coauthor complained about the "soap opera" direction that Circle of Scorpion is taking, but I publicly maintain that if these characters have to live most of their lives pretending to be normal, then they're going to be affected by that. Besides, it sets up some plot/character twists that I haven't detailed for him yet. I should probably do that.
Apologies. Too much other stuff to do to have to worry about this.
I had a news update for yesterday, even if it didn't actually make it live when it was supposed to. Oh well. Anyway, it looks as though Circle of Scorpion is going to be a weekly deal now, coming every Sunday. Yesterday's CoS: Tiger's Blade is ready for you and marks the end of the basic introduction to that particular universe. Story character will change slightly from here on out. That said, enjoy today's Iridia update. Rock and Matt sure won't. As a side note, today's installment has the dubious distinction of using two words that were not in my computer's dictionary: insectile and chitinous. Whether this says more about my vocabulary or my computer's is anybody's guess.
Just a quick announcement. I don't have future updates written at the moment (falling behind...), but there may be a few days skipped in the near future. The observer has his own language, and I sort of have to design it before he can interact much with our heroes. It may not end up being an issue, but I figured I might as well let you know I have a rather sizable side project going on that may interfere with regular updates.
Welcome to Chapter 3. You can safely ignore my huge, relieved sigh that I have another character to deal with finally. The days of Rock and Matt's exclusive little bubble-existance have finally come to an end. And as far as my mental health is concerned, it's not a day too soon.
And here is the first of many Sunday updates. Please note that not all of them will be continuations of the Day of the Dragon storyline. This one is, and there will be more in the future, but not every week. I've moved them off the other writings page and into the story archive since they are now officially a continuing story, but they will continue to be largely infrequent. However, even though it is a continuing story, I will not put them on the current installment page, as I've decided to reserve that for the active story, which is Iridescent Dreams. Hmmm... Haven't linked every page yet... I'm also debating about what to do with the news archive, since it seems to be getting a bit bulky. Maybe a different page for every three or four months or so. And make sure to check the recent news every time you stop by. It's not always updated, but there's often good stuff there... here... somewhere in this site, I'm sure. As always, I enjoy feedback of all kinds, so check out that underutilized contact page to find out how to reach me. ... Okay, I'm done now.
And thus concludes the first week of daily updates. Still not all that much happening on a daily basis, but I do think things work better this way. Besides which, getting all of you accustomed to new material on a daily basis may make the weekend seem that much longer... Extra writing on Sunday and Iridescent Dreams will continue on Monday as scheduled.
For those of you who didn't believe me when I said I'd be updating daily, you may want to go and read yesterday's installment before you read today's. For those of you who did believe me, you're free to read yesterday's installment again too, I guess. Whatever makes you happy...
I told you it would be here. And for those of you who missed the late-breaking news from yesterday, I'd like to thank Sara Baughman for taking the time to inform me of a spelling error on the index page, which either all the rest of you missed or none of you thought it was worthwhile to tell me about. Of course, I missed it too, I guess. But we can all safely ignore that fact, right? I thought so.
Time for some changes around here. No, I don't mean the layout. I'm still too lazy to bother much with that. I mean with the way the story is progressing. Iridescent Dreams feels like its dragging on without actually getting anywhere. There are several options I have for correcting this. One would be to have longer updates. Another would be to cut down on the description and focus more on the action. The method I've decided on is to update daily, Monday through Friday. I'll take my Saturdays off, and then get a non-Iridia writing up for Sundays. Now that I've got the basic feel for this sort of writing, I think more frequent installments will be good for both the story and keeping people coming back. As always, I reserve the right to change things without warning at any point in the future. But for now, enjoy. Late UpdateThanks go out to Sara Baughman for taking the time to proofread this site. And I do encourage people to report blatant errors that they find in addition to any other (positive?) responses you may have. But, for reference, try to be specific? It's okay when it's a small page like the Recent News page, but a message like "Check the spelling in Day of the Dragon." is liable to get you either ignored or shot.
I'm not quite sure how I feel about posting something like Voice on April Fool's Day, but it's done, and I promised it would be there, so there it is. It took me several false starts before I settled on the prose poemy version available to you. It's likely to feel very timely, but I don't want to go into that very much. I think Voice can speak pretty well for itself. I have trouble seeing it as right or wrong; I can only see it as sad for everybody involved.
Okay, so updates were interrupted for the week. My apologies, but that's the way things went. And yes, I did enjoy my spring break. I had this great story I was working on, about a future when we finally use up all that the planet has to offer. After all the resources run out, what can humanity do if they're still trapped here? And then I read this article in Discover magazine, detailing a process that turns basically any type of waste product into oil, gas, fertilizer, and water. I know I could still write the story, but all the motivation to do so went completely out of me. I have another idea (not as ambitious, mind) that I'll work on today and get posted for tomorrow. I could probably stay up and get it done yet tonight, but I did that with Day of the Dragon, and I'm not doing it again any time soon.
No update today. I'm actually not sure if I'll be updating Iridia at all this week, since I, like the fool I am, left my copy of the thing on my computer. Which I didn't bring home with me for spring break. I do have Day of the Dragon revised and proofread (which it desperately needed) but I'm having trouble getting it to update properly. I'll keep playing with Word (again, I use Works at school) to try and get it to work. Just too much to do and not enough time to do it all. Since I won't be working on Iridia this week, I do have an idea for another work that could stand in its stead temporarily. Work is progressing on a stand-alone, three episode work that can keep you all happy for the duration of my break. And it's only mildly post-apocalyptic. Okay, it's very post-apocalyptic, but for non-war reasons. Though that is, admittedly, on my mind. Late-Breaking NewsI managed to find a copy of Microsoft Works on this computer, and have posted the proof-read version of CoS: The Day of the Dragon. It's not like a rewriting of the story or anything, just a bit of a cleaning up. The thing was just as messy as I expected it to be.
Happy Spring Equinox. I find it darkly ironic that this celebration of new life is marked by the coming of war this year. I don't know whether to wear black or white. In other news, I'm on spring break all next week. Updates will, hopefully, continue without interruption. Oh, and Iridescent Dreams is into chapter 2 now. Just thought I'd mention that since I forgot to Wednesday, and just to make sure you didn't miss it or something.
In addition to The Day of the Dragon, I decided to throw in a short study on description that I wrote a while back while while lounging by an indoor pool of a motel. I found it while I was digging through a bunch of old writings looking for my original drafts of Day, and I still kind of like it, so it's here in unrevised form. Also, I spent so much time getting Day finished in time for this update that I didn't really have time to go over it again to proofread it, much less revise it. I'll be going over it the rest of the week, and will probably end up with a revised copy for next Monday. Chapter one reaches its conclusion as Rock begins to accept more of his lost abilities. I'll try to make sure more action makes it into the story soon. And with the click of the publish button, I can rest. Day grew like a monster beyond my wildest expectations. Did I mention I spent way more time on it than I had planned on? It's been my life the past two days, and I'm ready for a break. Music test today. Lucky me.
Congratulations, me. Two uninterrupted weeks of updates. It shouldn't be all that much of an accomplishment, but it really is. Next goal is an uniterrupted month. And that writing I said I might get done for today sort of fizzled in the time between that announcment and now. However, since that means it will be done on Monday, two weeks from the last other writings, leads me to think that doing an extra writing every other week might not be such a bad idea. So I'll try that, see how it goes. Not exactly time-intensive by any means. Plus it gives me something to do outside of Iridia. In other news, I've been Everquest free for a month now. Go me.
Tripod was acting up slightly as I typed all this up. Granted, after completely refusing to do anything that I told it for a time, it actually hopped to do my bidding much faster than it has in the past. So who knows. Hopefully this goes through at midnight according to schedule. I've an extra writing in the works. Not sure if it will be ready for Friday, but I promise I'll have it suitable for presentation by Monday.
Well, that's one week of updates down with no loss of steam to date. I should make my Friday goal pretty easily. Only two more to go. Well, a lot more after that, of course, but I'll feel better once I get through this week.
Look! It's on time! I'm making actual progress it feels like. Sort of. If I manage to get through to Friday next week without missing another update, I'll feel I've actually managed to get the hang of this. Not until then. Small steps...
Two weeks? Okay, fine. Once every two weeks it is. That aside, I'm really still trying to keep to a MWF update schedule. So I'll see if I can manage that this week. Since it has been so long since the last update, I put up a few extra short stories. A concession, if you will.
A little late on the update. I had been hoping to get things posted by midnight the yesterday, but forgot about this completely. Fortunately I already had today's installment written, so it was just a matter of putting it up. So it's there, and we're moving right along. Just need to get used to doing this and it will get easier for me.
Eldritch Thoughts is just getting off the ground. I have many stories that all want to be told, and I'm not yet sure which I'm going to finally settle on. I have chosen one to start with, as I have to start somewhere, but I will not guarantee that it will see itself through to any final, comprehensive conclusion. I enjoy feedback, but please don't complain too much about site design or layout. I'm using one of Tripod's canned site designs since I don't want to mess much with the technical side of things. Unless this site becomes some sort of massive hit-magnet [heh], I don't forsee things changing too dramatically. |