Progress and New Art

Made a fair bit of progress over the weekend. The story is now at 27573 words, and the last big scene is complete. It still needs revision (I haven't gone back and re-read yesterday's work at all yet, so it's pretty rough) but it is there.

Just a few smaller ones to do now. And, of course, the cliff-hanger. ^_^

Regarding my posting the prelude and first three chapters to fanfiction.net…I have so far received a grand total of 1 review. So my faith in humanity is restored. <grin>

In other news…I received some new fan art today: a rather nice group scene by Ian Roll, which I like a lot. Now posted on the art page. Thanks, Ian.

Updates posting now

Okay. I've just uploaded a revised version of the Prelude to SM4200. I've also posted it (in slightly modified format) to fanfiction.net. Updates to at least chapters 1-4 will follow, though not immediately.

(Let me tell you, developing a general script to convert from plaintext to HTML, especially creating the normal version plus a "dumb HTML" version for ff.net, is no picnic. Coping with fancy headers, adding the stylesheets, and so forth…yeesh.)

The changes to the prelude are extremely minor—minor tweaks to wording, and the like. Later chapters will get more of an update. Chapters 1 and 2, for example, are getting new titles (the old ones being a little too silly for my tastes these days), whereas one scene in chapter 3—the bank robbery—has been extensively rewritten to pay a little more attention to common sense, not to mention the laws of physics. The actual impact of the scene in question, though, has not changed.

I've been sitting on this stuff for a while now, but there's no point in holding onto it forever.

 

Addendum: I've now reposted the first five chapters.

Decision Time

Election day in New Zealand. I'm slightly distracted. ☺ Still managing to crank out a little, though. The hacker "Trio" has reappeared.

I've been thinking about posting SM4200 on fanfiction.net. I'm concerned about their policy of editing stories without consulting the authors—removing characters if they feel they're "not needed" to tell a story!—but still…  I've updated the script I use to convert raw text into HTML, so that it also creates a simpler version for ff.net, without the style sheets, tables and other stuff that they don't like. Not sure if I'll use it yet. We'll see.

Now at 25441 words. Hoping to get a good bit more cranked out tomorrow.

Cautious optimism

Chapter 12 is really turning out to be an Itsuko chapter. The other characters are appearing, certainly; but Itsuko is the main focus. Which, considering how the previous chapter ended, is I suppose not that surprising.

A lot of what's slowed me down is that, when I outlined the overall plot, many of the implications of what happens in this chapter didn't really occur to me. I knew that some of the events would have significant run-on effects, but until I started writing I hadn't realised just how significant. Working out how to handle it, and which direction to take things, has caused me some soul-searching.

I'm actually making decent progress at present. After a long period where I wasn't doing much more than tinkering, the chapter now stands at 25122 words (142K). One scene to finish, another fairly significant one to write, and a few tidy-up bits to do. And one plot point left that I still need to work out—something that needs to be in place for chapter 13 to be able to work.

It's getting close…