Winter Break coming to a Close

It seems that I haven't made anywhere near the progress that I intended to over the course of winter break. I've done some reading of a friends book, but in my own work I have done practically next to nothing. I doubt that this coming semester will fair much better. I'm going to be busy with all of the coursework I'm going to have. Math books are mad crazy expensive, for those of you who don't know. I added up the cost of my books and it comes out to roughly $650. It's one of those expenses in college that you just don't think about until the next semester is actually upon you. I've set this site as my homepage, so perhaps that will encourage me to post here more often and keep updating things. One of the other projects that I want to be doing for Fateless is to redo the map by hand. I think it would look a lot better that way. Paint is a limited program and I haven't the artistic talent nor the patience to make the map look decent on there. Once I have that done I'll replace the map that I have on here, and perhaps make more detailed maps for each of the countries, perhaps outlining provinces or geographic regions as necessary.

Semester completed

I've finished the semester off for Fall 2014. It's probably the worst semester I've had grade wise, but hopefully I will have some time to write this winter break. I will need to be getting a temp job so that will take up some time, but hopefully not enough to stop me from making some progress in my writing. Little bits and pieces of progress have been made over the course of the semester, but other than that it hasn't really moved forward all that much.

Writing progress

It looks like this summer has been at least moderately productive. I have reread almost the whole thing and have been taking notes on how to improve it further along the way. I have been toying with the idea of throwing a new chapter (or perhaps a couple new chapters) focused on Valedectus and what goes on in the North after Gaelen has left. Then there also needs to be a few minor changes here and there, and I think I have a good idea for accentuating Gaelen's servitude to his oath by throwing in a prologue and a few key phrases throughout the text, where-ever they can fit appropriately of course. There is still a lot of work to do, and I'm feeling fairly worn down. I don't know what I'm going to be able to do to keep writing this during the semester. It's already getting close and I don't think that I will be able to manage this too well. I'm going to have some fairly rough mathematics courses coming up that will no doubt cut into my writing time all the more.

Summer Writing

I have been writing quite a bit more this summer than I had during the semester. I've been focusing on reworking the ending of The Elorean and I have put a dent in it. I need to introduce a few characters that are going to be important in later books, and set up for the future intrigue that is going to be happening in the series. A few things will probably have to be introduced earlier on in the story in different place. I may have to write in a few conversations in different places. All in all things are moving forward, just not at a pace that I would prefer. I'll see if I can get more writing done tonight after work.

The semester is over!

The school year is finally over and I should actually be getting around to writing more in The Elorean. As of the moment I haven't made much progress this summer. It's been so long I've had to reintroduce myself to it. Well that's a lie really, and it's not like anyone reads this so I don't have to lie. My girlfriend broke up with me, but we agreed to "keep it on the down-low" for the time being. Despite this we are still moving into an apartment together. I would have to say that this has actually triggered a major depression in me. I am lethargic, irritable, unmotivated and generally in poor spirits, to put it mildly. I have gotten a shit job at a local store so that I can pay rent for the both of us, since she does not as of yet have a job. I feel I owe her that since she has done the same for me in the past. Nonetheless it does not exactly settle easily on my mind. Nothing does. I want to write in my book, and the semester has been over for more than a week. I have done nothing with it, and this depression is really only a few days old. I should have started sooner. Then I might have actually been invested in writing this summer rather than wallowing in my own piteousness. It's not like I expect that this post is going to help. It's just something to distract me from actually being productive. No one reads this shit, so I'm just here wasting my time as a means of avoiding what I should be doing. What the fuck ever. It's not like I'll publish the book and anyone will come here anyway. Yeah bullshit, I've wasted enough time here. I guess I'll just go to sleep, or stare at the ceiling.

The Oath of Elorea

I have managed to slip the Oath into the book in a point where it seems to fit quite well. I think it adds to some characterization, and because of who recites it, adds new layers to the meaning of the words. I think it is actually a rather powerful scene now, with multiple angles on the Oath coming into play at once. I think I should probably add bits and pieces of the Oath at different points in the story. They will play a central role in Gaelen's motivations, and this must be made clear. He doesn't demonstrate this enough as of yet. They words of the Oath will be very significant to his psyche, and should be how he copes with the horrors of war, as well as how he must justify his actions, whether foolish or morally ambiguous. I'd also like him to have a certain fixation on a particular line: The wicked, I am to meet with justice. This line in particular should resonate with him, in his fixation on the warrior like aspect of Elorean society. This summer I should have more free-time than previously, so I should have plenty of opportunity to edit further on my writing. I will also try practicing some java and perhaps a few other languages over the summer. I will try to have some means of making more frequent updates here as well.

A semester's end

This past semester has been a bit rough on me. In general my classes are going fine, but it has left me with very little time to actually do my own writing. Not to mention that my flash-drive has essentially reached the end of its lifespan. Twice now I have had issues with data corruption. In one instance I had all of the information on the drive convert to a RAW file type, thus making everything unreachable. I found a program that converted it back to a FAT file type, and thus recovered the majority of my information. Then just this last weekend everything in my Java folder seemed to randomly convert to an amalgamation of ASCII characters with no apparent order, and all of the files could not be opened. I tried using the Scan and Fix Drive option that windows provides, but that wasn't the best idea, since now the folder doesn't open at all. I found another program that scans the drive for any indication of order, and then I can get my old data back. I'll have to get as much of my school work out of the drive as I can, what I don't already have backed up. All in all I haven't had much time to write. I guess I could have spent the time I took writing this to work on something more worthwhile, but I  feel that I owe the random blog wanderer and explanation for my general lack of posting here.