I finally managed to write my way out of Arc 7.
I apologize to my readers for stopping so abruptly back in August and struggling to get it back on track until now. The fizzle really frustrated me. I was also unable to work in a handful of ideas I had received from readers. My apologies for that.
Arc 7 suffered a bit from the same problem with Arc 6. I wrote myself into places and wrote with too much detail and it took me a while to take it to its natural end. I ended up cutting a huge chunk out of Chapter 57 in order to speed it up and end in a cleaner fashion as I wasn't happy with how its original form was panning out.
I have posted a few chapters of Arc 8 that I wrote before finishing Arc 7. So far Arc 8 is feeling a lot more personal to me. I do worry that some of the content is a bit extreme in Chapter 58, but I felt I needed the intensity to provide a reasonable backstory for someone that can be kicked around as badly as fs. There are parts of that chapter that are based upon personal experiences while other parts remain as pure fiction.
Chapter 59 was intended to be a bonus chapter that I thought about inserting at the end of Arc 7, but it seemed to accompany Part 58 so well that I put it in sequence (similarly, I changed Christmas Past from a bonus chapter into Part 54.2). 59 was an absolute pleasure to write (also loosely based on actual experiences) and the few "sneak peeks" I sent out ended up with very positive responses so I do hope that people enjoy reading it.
Chapter 60 has been written but will not be posted until I write an accompaniment to 59. Chapter 61 will enter the more continuous part of the story. I expect in Arc 8 for there to be more training bits from Cassandra and to have more exploration of fs's past and the earlier days of Cass and fs's relationship.
As always, I'm open to feedback on any of my writing.
On a side note, my blog traffic has taken a major nose dive since January 3rd. I changed the site over to https settings around then but the decline has been pretty severe. I'm also finding I'm getting more traffic from Russian than the USA now.
I'm wondering where everybody is. Surely, I'm not the only reader willing to comment! You know how I feel about having a posting ignored, and it's simply rude and unthinking to reward creativity with nothing but silence, especially when you always respond to commenters. I'm hoping that your readers come to their senses and support your efforts.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Lady Grey. I always look forward to receiving comments from you.
DeleteI would love to get more comments but know that the inconsistency of my blog topics can affect that. Although... I am often willing to write about topics on request.
Maybe I should lose the pink?