Readers, I have been remiss in not saying anything here for the past three and a half months. Unfortunately, I can’t offer you any actual writing at the moment: We Sail Off To War is still in progress. It’s only a few solid evenings away of writing from the ending. I’d like to have the next entry posted on Thursday, but I know better than to say that and you know better than to trust me. Writing-wise, I’ve been embarked on two other projects: first, editing We Sail Off To War for possible e-book publication (which is looking pretty good), and second, working on a collaborative universe with a friend (I don’t want to ruin the surprise, but I will hint that I obtained two atlases from 1930 as research material).

In other news, I played Mass Effect 3, complained about the ending, moved on (but not without a measure of melancholy), started learning to play the hammered dulcimer, bought a Nook (the e-ink variety, not one of the tablets), discovered that Games Workshop does not release the Ciaphas Cain books in e-book form, decided to build a good-sized trebuchet this year (there may be pictures when it happens), bought rudder pedals and some other CH Products products to greatly enhance my flight simulation experience, developed a surprising fondness for children’s television show Phineas and Ferb, and probably did a lot of other stuff that didn’t make it over my threshold of easy recall.

Anyway, I hope to dive back into writing soon. It may well not be more of the fantasy series I started with, but in the end it’s my decision, so ha.

Hello, dear reader! There are great things afoot.

The first and most obvious is that the theme has changed to something still more minimalist than before. This is a consequence of the second: Many Words is now self-hosted via virtual private server, which is a fantastically cool technology. The second-and-a-half thing is that I’m now much more familiar with the workings of the Internet, and I figure that’s probably a good thing.

The third and best part of all of this is that I have a great deal more latitude in terms of organizational ability. There are some obvious changes already: the front page now has writing and writing only, and the category pages linked from the Archives page now go from oldest to newest and have first-sentence excerpts. I have some other ideas about navigation (such as splitting the part of the site where I babble into its own WordPress instance, maybe), post templates (where I give writing posts navigational links that skip blather), and some other things, but I’ve spent enough time on this for the moment— I’ll be writing in my Many Words time for the next few weeks, instead of hacking on WordPress.

There is one not-so-great thing afoot, too: your RSS feed links no longer work, which you may not discover for some time due to my irregular update pace.

I’m sure it looks as though I’ve gone completely silent—it’s been nearly a month since my last update, and I haven’t said a word since. Fear not, however; better times are ahead. Now that I have a regular job, I should be able to maintain something nearer to a regular schedule. Being a creature of habit, I find it easier to sit down and write if it’s on my list of tasks for the day.

You can reasonably hope for the next update in We Sail Off To War by the end of the weekend.

This is not a post about Nexus, but rather one about Lägraltvärld: as I draw nearer to the resumption of that story, I find myself finally getting to a point where I can start to map out bits of the city where action will be taking place for some time to come. I have a reasonably good image of the High Quarter in mind, so it’s not so crucial that I get that on paper; the important part is the roughly four-square-mile section of the city where Rakel is, where Hans has set up, and where lots of stuff is going to happen.

Before I get started, a note: I think I’ve said this before, but just to belabor the point: there are dozens of streets in the city that have the same name. They tend to be non-adjacent, but this means long streets might have several names along their lengths, plus a number the city government uses to keep track of them. Almost nobody knows the numbers of the streets near them. Almost everybody knows the local names, and the latter are given here.

First off, the large-scale features. There’s the Magnusstrasse, one of the highways named for the Five Chieftains which are about the only reason the city can support the population it can, which runs from the southwest corner of the map (and the edge of the city) to the northwest corner. A little more than three quarters of a mile along it, measured from the edge of the city, Heimdalsyngstadottir (Heimdal’s Youngest Daughter, the last tributary of that river) crosses beneath it, running southwest to northeast.

Second, the less major map items: centered east-west, about three quarters of a mile from the top of the map, and on the banks of Heimdalsyngstadottir is the Marktplats, the largest market square for a few miles in any direction. Running northeast away from it is Marknadväg, Market Way, which meets Rakastrasse (Straight Street) a few hundred yards to the north. Southeast of the Marktplats by a little over half a mile is Bankningtorg (Bank Square), which holds the bank Rakel robbed. Two major roads run away from it: Solskenbankningväg (Western Bank Way) and Vrimderbankningtorgstrasse (North of the Bank Square Street). The former crosses Heimdalsyngstadottir and eventually meets the Magnusstrasse. The latter meets Rakastrasse some three quarters of a mile to the north. Rakastrasse, an east-west street, eventually stops at Magnusstrasse to the west. Running along the bank of Heimdalsyngstadottir is Yngstadottirsalle (Youngest Daughter’s Avenue).

Finally, territory and notable locations. Rakel’s safehouse is north along the Magnusstrasse a mile or two past where the map shows. The territory of the Shadow Thieves runs along Heimdalsyngstadottir from the edge of the city to the Marktplats, and then turns due east until a few blocks east of Bankningtorg, where it turns south again and runs all the way to the edge of the city.

This will all come up in the story, of course, but I figured I’d write it down.

I’m writing for Many Words right now. I promise. In a week or so I should have enough to start posting again.

Update (02/14/11): My plan to begin updating again tomorrow was kinda derailed by the flu I caught. Next Tuesday by the latest. Possibly even Friday.

I doubt that the details of my life are particularly important to you except in that they determine my update schedule, but for the time being all my Many Words writing is on hold while I attempt to get the first draft of RPJ Sci-Fi[1] out the door for the campaign that’s starting next weekend. I do intend to come back with the science fiction interlude[2] before I get back to our original fantasy story; I’ll try to avoid letting video games suck away too much of my time.

[1] A campaign setting in my homebrew tabletop RPG system!
[2] Which will run about four weeks and have an actual ending.

What with coming back from Russia and getting all of my affairs in order in the US again, I’ve fallen behind on the administrata of running this place (which is to say, turning generated writing on paper into postable writing in electronic form).

I’ll be wrapping up all our current chapters come Saturday, after which I’ll be taking another week or so off to write the science fiction interlude. Sorry for the slipping schedule.

Instead you get this, my first real schedule slip. I’ll play for the save by saying that this way I get to end all the chapters on Thursdays.

See you next week.

Today’s entry will be up late, since I got distracted and forgot to prepare it last night.

I will, however, backdate it to the correct time, to erase all evidence of my mistake. Or maybe laziness. It might be laziness.

It’s a little bit late, but that’s kind of the pattern for this week, so I’ll roll with it.

This week’s game recommendation is AI War: Fleet Command, which is less a strategy game in the traditional sense than a puzzle. That is to say, it’s a game about strategy rather than clicking fast. I am currently engaged in a campaign to secure a very important part of the galactic south, from which I shall proceed to launch attacks against the east and eliminate one of my foes.

Of the current chapters, Eirik’s is now completely finished (you’re going to want to slap me when you read the last entry), Rakel’s is nearly there (the writing’s been easy because I think about robbing banks all the time), and Anja’s is where I left it at the end of the summer (hers won’t have quite as much excitement in the last two entries as I’d like, so I’ve kinda put them off). Your science fiction interlude is all planned out, but will require some actual writing before Christmas. Fortunately I still have time.

For now, ciao.