Category Archives: Updates

I will freely admit that, going by what I say on the progress page, I should have published last week. I won't make any excuses but I can absolutely say that not doing that did not in any way extend the time it's going to take until I publish the next chapter.

But now we're here with Chapter 053: Avasine, city under siege. Returning to the city where the journey started for real, but things are different now! Please enjoy and I'll see you again here hopefully soon.

/Kenny

A little while ago, I started doing something I should have started doing much longer ago. That something has resulted in a whole lot of progress. Enough progress for the publishing of a new chapter.

Chapter 052: Protocol, which might not be the most exciting of chapters after this long a break, but the next one is just about ready to go up itself, and the one after that is already at worst halfway done. Probably more, as I currently believe it's going to be a comparatively short chapter (but then again, that's what I thought about 52 too, and that one nearly hit my 4k word limit).

But there's also one more thing that's happened since... thanks to my proofreader/editor/at this point kinda co-author David Cablk, there now finally exists an actual picture of Rink! You can see it on the cast page and her profile page, but those are just in black and white to go with the other cast pictured, while the original of this Rink picture was in colour. So, I made a "cover" with the picture to show it off, in the same style as the one I did with Muse's picture once upon a time. I've got some more picture-related plans coming, but for now, please enjoy Rink Kazai. Click it for a not-mildly-downsized version. I don't know why it does that.

I love it.

(also, no, I did not forget to add it to her wanted poster. I'm not using this image for her current poster, for reasons that might become apparent when you read this and the next chapter. But a picture for the poster is under construction.)

/Kenny

I said January and it's still January!

So yes—Volume 06: The New Harmony Pirates is here, and with it, Chapter 051: A ship of love. Which turned out to really not be as short as I thought it would be, coming in just shy of 3500 words. Despite the fact that this very much is a transitional chapter between the Gondol arc and the arc that's about to kick off.

It also contains a thing that, uh, you might notice isn't 100% complete and I have no idea when it'll be. So, yeah.

No real promises I can make now, but the next two chapters are getting written sort of simultaneously and they're coming in pretty well so far.

Also, the character page will update at some point between now and the next chapter being published.

/Kenny

We're here.

We're actually here.

Chapter 050: Captain has been published, thus finishing up Volume 05: Aniara. Chapter 049: That sinking feeling has also been kinda re-published, as I noticed that all the italics that were supposed to be there had disappeared in one publishing step for kinda stupid reasons, so there was a lot of missing emphasis.

As you might figure from the title of it, this is quite a pivotal chapter, and basically the conclusion of the first "season" of Pure Corruption. So, so much in this one have been planned since years ago.

So, it's December. Christmas and New Year's are coming. Not that I'll be traveling, due to the pandemic. And I'm not really taking a break, either, though there's a bit of a planned break. In the sense of that I'll keep writing, and it is in every single way my intention to start publishing the next volume in January 2021. In the meantime, I'll also be doing some behind-the-scenes site maintenance. Just to standardize some things. Some cast page updates are in the pipeline.

So that's all for now. The next few chapters are likely to be a bit shorter than the latest set of doozies, at least.

/Kenny

Aaaaalright that took a lot longer than I had hoped for but we're finally here with Chapter 049: That sinking feeling. Which means there's just a single chapter left in this volume and it got sent off to proofreading after I finally managed to fit all the pieces of it together, which is a pretty literal description of the writing of that chapter. So there's a chance that chapter will be published next week.

Woop.

/Kenny

Wooooo.

Chapter 048: One kiss.

Only one chapter left to finish writing before this volume can be all wrapped up. And it's (ever so slightly) over halfway done.

We're doing this, man.

We're making it happen.

/Kenny

New chapters! Two weeks in a row! It's madness! I'm on fire!

Well, actually, it's Chapter 047: Gondol on fire.

With that, there's only three chapters left in this volume (unless everything falls apart spectacularly and forces me to add another chapter but I kinda refuse to do that), of which one is ready to publish, one has been proofread and is in editing, and the last one is in the process of being written. Perceptive readers will know what this means.

Told you we'd get the rest of Volume 05 out before November!

/Kenny

We're making some extremely good progress.

By which I mean that Chapter 046: Storm is now here for you.

Less than a week after my last news post my proofreader actually did get back to me, so at this point in time, three chapters are in the editing pipeline—two that have been proofread and will get edited in the coming days, and one that I finished and sent off to proofreading just last night.

...forget that job I was talking about, though. I was laid off this Friday. It was sales, and I wasn't selling enough. I really disliked it anyway, so. Meh. I'll be trying to go up in hours on my other job.

Anyway, at this rate we'll have all of volume 05 out before November—the one I uploaded to my proofreader yesterday was the penultimate chapter of the volume. So only one left to finish writing for this volume, and it's pretty much completely planned out, with only a few things that will require some additional research. You'll see what I mean.

/Kenny

It's my 34th birthday, and thus, also the 4th anniversary of Pure Corruption. A bit of a cause for celebration, at least.

Of course, there's a chapter. Chapter 045: Aniara's choice is here for you. Yay!

Less yay is that holy shit it takes too long between chapters. I hate it. It makes me feel bad. Like I'm betraying the audience I'm hoping I have. I know that not keeping a good updating rhythm is a good way to lose an audience.

In part, it really is because I currently don't get any work. It just feels so unfair, here I got a job as exam hall monitor, was starting to get more hours, midterms was coming up was lots of chances for working and thus money... and then Corona hits. Exam hall closes down. I get shunted back into how it was before, where I just sit at home, dicking around on the internet, losing motivation to work on things. More free time doesn't necessarily mean anything meaningful will be done with it. Quite the opposite, really.

Don't take it the wrong way when I say that it makes me feel bad. It does not at all mean I want to give up on Pure Corruption. It means the exact opposite. But you know how it is.

Next chapter is in proofreading, and I'm working on untangling some small messes I've gotten myself into with writing the coming chapters of the volume. But there is a goal in sight. I'm really, really hoping that this is the year where I start getting this show back on track. At the very moment I can't make any promises, but I have felt more fired up about it. Especially this week. And that should mean good things.

So I'm hoping you're willing to stick with me a little longer.

Thank you.

/Kenny

It's not even Friday.

But I've published a chapter anyway, because it was about damn time. So here's Chapter 044: Anni and Rin-rin, for your reading pleasure. And as you can see on the progress page, there's quite a bit in the pipeline too. I fully intend to get another chapter published by the end of the year - not before Christmas though. But I'll certainly be doing a bunch of writing over my Christmas... "break", I guess you can call it.

For here's the good news: I have a job now. It's not in the field I have my master's degree in, but it is a job at the university, which should be good for connections in the future. Said job doesn't actually start for real until January, but I've been to the introduction for it, and I have one "trial" workday on Tuesday, and then one January 8th, and after that I can actually start working for real and get paid. Which means my free time is now free time, and not free-but-not-really-because-I-should-be-applying-for-jobs-time. It's been something that hasn't made me feel good, and was giving me a resounding feeling of "meh" about a lot of stuff. Having too much of not doing anything made me feel like I got burned out, in a weird way.

But that's all over now! Now that I have a job, I can use my free time on all my hobbies. Which will absolutely involve writing. So 2020 should be a much better year both for me personally and for Pure Corruption.

And just so I don't forget - Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Winter Solstice/whatever you celebrate!

/Kenny