Good evening, everyone!
Hope you all had a great week! To start this update off right, want to thank everyone who read the latest chapter in TFT, Voyage to Syndramire. I hope I managed to create a cast of colorful characters people enjoy and that you’re all excited for what’s next. As I’ve mentioned before, it means the world to me that people are reading and enjoying my work.
Unfortunately, I do have some bad news to start off tonight. If you recall my update from 2 weeks ago, I mentioned some changes in employment that I feared might cause issues in my writing schedule. Those fears were answered this week. I’m currently undergoing some technical training for my position that takes more out of me mentally than I would like. Progress has been slow and I’ve only managed to write a little over 5 pages so far.
This could be fine if I was certain next week would be better, but I know it won’t. Work is likely to be busy and a friend of mine will be getting married next Friday, so I’ll likely have less time next week.
So current plans for TFT is to push through as much writing as I can over this weekend, but I don’t expect it will be enough to change the fact I will need more time to perfect the next step in the journey for Selene and company. I hope it will only be a week, but I do apologize if it takes longer than that. This next Session is the introduction to Syndramire and I want to make certain it captures the right feeling and tone for the remainder of the first story arc, or “season” as I’ve begun to call it. As things change, I’ll be sure to update and keep everyone informed.
Now, onto brighter topics.
Since this will be my first postponement in TFT, now is as good a time as any to talk about plans outside it. While I love this story and characters, I want to make it clear I have other ideas in mind that I want to share and will be a part of the site going forward. I’ve already posted a few of them on the site under the aptly titled “Ideas” page, and I will continue to add them as either new ideas occur to me or during weeks without a new chapter to read. I will be posting a few next week in lieu of a chapter for further example.
I also have some works I’ve written in the past folks might like that are either one shots or sections of longer stories I want to write. I was thinking of maybe having a series in tandem with TFT called something like Drake’s Drabbles, or something of the sort, where I share those with some context for the idea and where they would “go” in a story. At the very least, I figure folks might like the change of pace.
One other thing I would be interested in working out is some kind of monthly podcast or video series detailing stories from books, video games, tv, movies, etc. There are countless great stories out there that I would love to either share or examine with a bit more depth. I also think it might be interesting to use that kind of series to dive into the different mediums of storytelling to see what works and what doesn’t. For example, I would love to dig deep into Lord of the Rings and show parts of the lore most folks don’t know, like fun snippets from The Silmarillion or how Tolkien drew from great epics like Beowolf for his story. Alternately, it would also be fun to show how the film adaptation succeeded or failed in telling the story based on the merits of filmmaking versus those of literature.
Either way, this would be a series that I would treat more as a fun side project to post maybe every month or so. There are plenty of stories out there, and I would love to spend some time learning more about ones I already love and discover ones entirely new to me, then sharing those same stories with anyone who cares to listen. For now, this is more a thought than a planned project as well since I don’t actually have the equipment or editing software at this time, but would love to know if anyone else likes the idea.
Lastly, I really like making these updates. I think I will start doing them every week to bring folks into my thought process and gauge whether folks like or dislike my ideas. I’ll also try and come up with better titles for these updates in the future. Maybe a pun or something? If you have an idea, feel free to share in a comment.
But that’s it for now. Hope you all have a great weekend!