August 22 Update

Hello! 

How's it going?

The hot summer is coming to a close and another quick month has sped by. So let's have a quick look at where we're going along the creative path at this very moment.

There's a regrettable shortage of visual content in this update. My arms are acutely exhausted, which makes holding a pen a tad difficult. They're slowly getting better, so I hope I can make up for the lack of line and color in the future updates. Or, maybe you'd consider the lack of shaky doodles a blessing for your eyes? Haha, I don't know.

Anyway! My priority at the moment remains getting the print "remaster" of the second part of A Hero Past the 25th out and available. 

I've combed through about 50% of the script now.

Earlier, I claimed there wouldn't be need for that many changes in this book, but I've already done quite a lot of changes. Expressing some scenes in a more engaging manner, restructuring how information is presented through dialogue, and that sort of stuff. In some scenes, I reassigned lines to different characters, or changed the timing when some things occur, and so on. Many small editorial tweaks, trimming the fat, the way I did for part one. 

This probably doesn't say much to you now, but once the book is out and you'll be able to compare the revision with the web novel, you'll be surprised. Hopefully pleasantly surprised! That is the goal.

I also felt compelled to take a couple of weeks off from this project to participate in a little writing contest, held annually by a certain indie magazine.

I wouldn't really recommend participating in creative contests, as they tend to benefit the organizer vastly more than the participants, even in the best case scenario where you get something back. In the worst case, you'll just have your work legally stolen for no reward. Many such cases.

But this one is decently reputable and wasn't that time- or effort-consuming, so I went and gave it a try. It's becoming harder and harder to fund our operation here, so the prize money would definitely help take off some pressure for a while. About as clever a budget plan as winning the lottery, but hey, it's better to try and fail than to never try, right?

They were looking for a "sci-fi short story". 

My two big weaknesses, to be honest.

I've read my fair share of sci-fi—love PKD—but wouldn't say I have any particular fondness for the genre overall. Moreover, I've always had tremendous difficulty in keeping things short and simple, as you may have noticed. 

So it was a true challenge, in many ways.

Additional challenges I imposed on myself were, don't make it "anime"! and no yuri! Almost impossible with my track record. But, somehow, I was able to come up with a story that was not only suitably short, but also fairly street-credible, futuristic, and didn't involve any instance of manzai comedy, or blatant sexual tension between female characters. Yeah, I surpassed myself there. It may have been the most "normal" story I've written since childhood school assignments. As mainstream as it gets.

Let's hope the jury likes it.

Even if the magazine doesn't want the piece, I'll at least have something to post here as a reward for you guys, so it wasn't all just a waste of effort. Maybe I'll find a way to share it, even if it gets printed. Let's see!

Another thing I'd like to get underway is a new, original web novel project that I've dropped tiny hints at here and there before. I've been working on it alongside other stuff for several years now, and it's probably high time I got to sharing it too. But it's a pretty huge project and would run for several months, so scheduling the release reliably is a bit of a headache at the moment.

I was planning to share it here on Patreon first, before a likely RR-serialization, but it still takes some thinking to execute effectively.

The story is divided into three main episodes, so it would be possible to release only part 1 as a oneshot and see if it takes off, before continuing with the rest. But if it fails to find its audience with that, then it could also become the iceberg that sinks the Titanic, so to say. Not an easy thing to decide.

But, we'll get back to all that later!

For now, I wish you a pleasant day.

As always, if you have any special wishes or requests or questions on your mind, then feel free to share. The only way your desire can be answered is to make it known first. If there's nothing, then I'll simply take it as a sign to do as I please!

Thank you for your continued patronage! There may not be that many of you right now, but that just makes appreciating each of you easier.

See you again soon!