It's been awhile, so I figured I'd post something to talk about what I've been up to lately. Mostly, I've been relaxing/recovering and taking some time off. I pushed pretty hard over the last few months of writing with no backlog, and needed a bit of a vacation.

  I'll start with the story related stuff. I've begun outlining a short story to fill the gap between major books. I've decided on focusing the short on Ella, who is the other human member of Nick's house and clan with the Dwarves. Without getting too spoilery, she's from a different continent and has had a rather difficult life even before Nick meets her and complicates things further. She'll be pretty important in the future, and I think this will be a good way for everyone to get to know a bit about her before Nick even gets to know her.

  I could still change my mind, but it's looking like her story is going to be set during the early days of the link ships arriving on earth, and will focus on how she escapes her past life and eventually finds refuge with the dwarven faction. I think for now I'll stick to third-person past-tense for the short stories too, in the same style that I used for Katie in the Epilog. Until I finish up Nick's main series, I want to reserve any first-person work for his perspective.

  I've been toying with the idea of using Max as the voice of The Narrator for these third-person chunks, but haven't decided on it yet. He could get a bit too annoying. Plus, I think he would make for an unreliable narrator and I don't really want to get into that sort of story just yet. So I'll likely stick with a more impersonal and classical concept for the Narrator.

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  Now, I'm going to break off the official story announcements and get into some more personal stuff regarding the “recovering” part of my opening paragraph and time lines for when things will start back up.

  I mentioned it in one of my previous end-of-chapter notes, but I'll say it again here with some more detail. A couple of days before posting the last chapter, I had a weird slip on the stairs. A few days after that, my sore back from the slip was complicated by a heavy cough that caused my spine to decide to rebel and pinch my sciatic nerve.

  Its kind of funny, really, the timing of it. I finally hit my first major writing goal and get to some planned time off, only to injure myself through banal action and have to spend my vacation laid out or hobbling around like an 80 year old with a cane.

  What makes this a problem worth mentioning?

  Sitting in a chair hurts. Meaning I haven't been able to sit at my desk and type like normal. I finished the last chapter and wrote the entire epilog on my phone. I wouldn't mind it so much if I had one of those older phones with an actual keypad (I miss the old LG slide phones), but those just aren't a thing anymore. I've had to make due with the tiny touch screen keyboard of my S22.

  According to everything I've read about sciatica, my problem will likely fade with a couple more weeks of rest and physical therapy. In the meantime, I'll keep working on the outlines for the short story and chunk 2, and begin the editing process on the main stories first chunk as best I can, but working with a new tool will likely slow things down until I can get back to my PC.

  So, sorry for everyone who's waiting on more of Nick and Max's story. You'll have to wait a little longer than planned, but I'm not giving up. I'm hoping I'll be ready to start posting chapters for the short story by the beginning of May, and estimate it'll take a couple of months before it finishes and we get back to Nick's story.

  Thanks for hanging with me.

  - FustigateM