#i have a deadline in the morning and i thought i'd have to rewrite this whole thing but im reading it and im like wait actually this is perf

[ratcula]

everybody talks about reading your writing back and cringing and thinking it’s terrible but nobody talks about when you read your writing back and go “Oh! This isn’t bad, actually. oh this part actually works really well” BEST FEELING IN THE WORLD 

[shai-manahan]

Hi! It's been a while since I've talked about the upcoming updates, but I finally had a chance to actually sit down and make plans! (the life of a corporate slave, am I right? 🙃)

It has something to do with the changes I will be implementing on my patreon, though. I've thought for a while how to give content that's worthwhile of subscriptions while also making sure I can be comfortable with them, and in all honesty, I had a tricky time doing it. HM is too personal for me, as I used to talk about before, and some of the patreon benefits I promised before eventually felt too revealing - of my own thoughts and people whose lives were a huge inspiration for this story.

I will be talking about these changes and the update schedules as well below the cut.

UPDATES

I aim to finish at least half of HM's Book 1 this year. It seems to be a more realistic goal than forcing myself to finish everything right away (which tbh may have been a huge pressure I put on myself the past few years), though admittedly, things are unpredictable in the field I'm in; my job is full of overtime hours, and I spend most of my weekends trying to recover (or sick).

Still, I gotta finish it one way or another, and it's not going to write itself (though I wish it would!), so yeah, set realistic deadlines, pull out a few all-nighters, and maybe I'll actually get through it, who knows?

I do hope I'll have steadier finances by the time Book 2 starts so I can put more focus on writing and have sufficient energy for it, but that's a conversation for another day.

Changes in Prologue - Chapter 2

Okay. I know I promised not to make revisions until I write more chapters, but changing how some game mechanics work and reworking the stats made it a necessity, and I underestimated how much rewriting I'd have to do. A few scenes ended up not working well anymore, and I couldn't resist from revising a few clunky sections while I was at it.

Dialogue options were one of those that were significantly affected by the stat changes, but no worries, nothing is changed in the story -- meaning Wesley still fucks with the Ripper's life (oops), Richard still goes off doing whatever non-sus thing he's doing, you can still punch Bale (it's even a lot funnier this time), Bertrand remains a bitchy cop, and you'll still have your sad flashback with your former best friend/lover/crush or whatever they are to your MC.

The plan is to release the updated version of Prologue and Chapter 1 to patrons by the end of March (I will have a few days off work that week) and release it to the public once the new content is also ready, which I presume will be available next month (I will keep you all posted but I really hope I can get it done by then because it's been forever 🥲).

I might tweak Chapter 2 a little so the available portion can stand on its own rather than be divided into two parts, because it's just too long lmfao and is harming the pacing as I keep worrying about the length. I'm also incorporating a few suggestions a few folks gave me these past few months.

Succeeding chapters

I've probably said this before but things are bound to get more insane in HM once we're past the first three to four chapters. But also quicker to write in a way. They're the kind of scenes I thrive in, and while they have bigger variations, they're a lot more fast-paced, characters start being manipulative little shits, and the threats are more prevalent than ever. Your Ripper will not have a good time, but I certainly will (I say as I look at my outline and get sad doing it). There will be a few "breaks" in between, but this is not and will never be a light-hearted story. Anyway, I'm inclined to believe I'll be more consistent with updates when that time comes, so bear with me for now :')

PATREON CHANGES

This is getting long, so I'll just list the updated tier benefits and end the day with it. I'll be posting a schedule that I will be committing to (here and on patreon tomorrow morning), with the below details as well (so if you wanna stop here that's totally valid) but for now, here's the tentative list:

Tier 1

Early access - 4 days before a public update (this month will be an exception and you'll get the update as soon as the other tiers get it, too).

Sneak peeks and deleted scenes - I included the latter because apparently I delete a lot of great scenes

Hints for future revelations in the story - the categories will depend on results of polls; the hints may be about Bale's death, about Ripper's family, Pharos, Cyro, the ROs themselves, or the nightmares that the MC is getting, etc. Might be in form of vague conversations/dialogues between unknown characters, might be me dropping subtle info about those involved. Either way, it will be fun :). The polls and these hints will be given monthly.

Tier 2

Early access - 1 week before a public update

all the other benefits for Tier 1

monthly RO snippets - I'm still experimenting with this, but I might simply write MC x RO snippets (with different kinds of MCs for different scenarios because I deeply hate writing blank slate MCs, sorry)

a choice to see the POV of a character, decided through polls, for every chapter/update.

Tier 3

Early access - as early as it's available and goes through testing stages

all other benefits for previous tiers

Non-RO short stories

Previews on unintroduced characters :)

That's all for tonight! I am so tired lmfao but I hope you all are having a great weekend so far! See you tomorrow :)

[trickster-shi]

January has been kind of a struggle bus all month but I finally made it and three days before the deadline.

Project Zander

Chapter Two Word Count: 6,034

Cut Words: 3,534

I ended up writing a lot for this chapter and then cutting it out and rewriting it. It felt extremely slow in terms of progress as I would get going with a scene and then lose all motivation because something wasn't right.

I've been writing long enough now to realize that when that happens, it means I've written myself into a place the story doesn't need to go and the story is pushing back. Frustrating as it is, when this happens I usually have to end up cutting quite a bit and rewriting from the point before everything started to go wrong. Sometimes it takes stepping away for a while and letting it ruminate in order to figure out where I went wrong and how to fix it.

In this chapter, I'm setting up Darius' core belief and his arc, which has everything to do with grief, guilt, and mother henning everyone around him.

I've also been trying out a chapter structure of three scenes, where the first and third scenes take place in the present and the middle scene is one from the past. I don't know if I'll carry that structure past the first three chapters-- it's mainly just to establish each character and their arcs--but it's helping me stay in tune with where they're at, where they've been, and where I want them to go.

I finished up my edits and rewrites this morning and sent it off to my beta readers, now my thoughts are all turned towards chapter three and what I want to write there.

World Building and Brainstorming:

I've been doing this in general for all of my projects the past week or so when not writing. For Project Zander, I took some time to create a new Scrivener doc so I could begin back building story to figure out the events of the last book of Fred and Taz's saga, which happen before the events of Project Zander. A lot of similar themes began coming up between the two projects and I figured out ways to both book end them and braid them back and forth.

I've never written stories this way, but it's fun and it feels more natural to do that as it feels like it's keeping things consistent instead of writing as I go from one end or the other. Hopefully it continues to feel like that and I don't end up in a story of Gordion knot problems. We'll see.

Rabbit Come Home:

Word Count: 17,025

I think I ended up revising and rewriting large chunks of this while I was letting Project Zander ruminate. I cut out entire swaths of scenes that just did not work and had been tripping me up. I still have scenes I wrote while at work sitting in my email that I need to integrate in, so the word count is actually higher. Still not done, though. I think I have at least four more scenes to write for it, including the revelation scene, John and Logan bonding, Stiles and Derek bonding, and a pack night where everyone begins to come together.

Oh, and the cliffhanger. >:D I've decided to extend the series out to include one more installment in order to wrap up some threads, and also to showcase Stiles and Logan and their badassery.

I didn't work on any of the other fanfic 'verses this past week, though they also took their turns ruminating. Today, I have some cleaning to do, so after that I think I'll get a chapter outline written for Project Zander and then take a run at either Rabbit Come Home or one of the other fanfics while I eat dinner and unwind. All in all, I feel like I've been productive, if slower than I'd like to be. But the stories are all coming along and I'm having fun with all of them.