So remember when I said that thing about publishing when I had four chapters ready to go? How I broke that to publish on the anniversary but was going to keep with it for the upcoming three?
Yeeeeeeah, about that.
See - that was more or less predicated on that I would actually be able to keep writing at a steady pace. Explanations to come - first let's give you what you're presumably actually here for, which is a chapter! And a new feature.
Chapter 041: Home, sweet home was noted as being ready to publish, and now it's published, after forever and a half. Please, enjoy.
I've also added something new to the site - under Extras, you can now find a more involved chapter progress page, that I - weekly at a minimum - will update to show what progress is being made on the next four chapters of the current volume. If there's less than four chapters left in the volume, progress being made on the remaining chapters of the volume. Since volume breaks are always slightly special anyway. It's not much of an apology, and it being there probably won't speed up my writing any more than I already want to speed it up, but I wanted to to something.
So, anyway. Why did things take this long? What happened?
A number of things. Let's start with my studies. My final project for my master's degree in journalism had been hanging over me for some time, it took a lot longer to get done than it was supposed to, and someone also actively lied to me about things regarding when I could get it graded, which led to me first having to wait 2-3 months from sending it in to actually getting it back, and after correcting what I had to correct for a passing grade and sending it in a week after getting feedback, the examinator had already gone on vacation, so I had to wait until late September (after he had said I'd get it early September). I still had one change to make, which amounted to literally one page in a document, and somehow that took 11 days to get read after being sent in. At least I finally got it all done and got a passing grade, so now I actually have a master's degree in journalism. Make no mistake, that's one of the proudest achievements of my life, but towards the end it got annoying.
But once one is done with school, then comes the next bit. Finding a goddamn job. And journalism? Even with a master's degree, that is not an easy market to find anything solid in. I've been applying to several journalism jobs, as well as a bunch of other jobs that suit my skillset. Worked one day as a transport driver, where they thought I did a bad job because they assumed I had skills I had never once claimed I possessed. Actually have landed what should be my dream job - although it's extremely part-time and I haven't gotten paid yet - which is writing about video games, so I get some free games out of that, at least. I also have a thing that isn't journalism but makes use of what I've learned in my journalism studies lined up that I'll go try out next week. Obviously having jobs is good - but it also means less time to write. So, there you go.
That means I haven't had a job for quite some time. So, I'm not proud of this, but this means I've been living off of my parents for a while. And one condition I got for that was that I had to do something productive with my time, study something, so I'm currently taking two courses, one in filmmaking - since I got really hooked on TV production during my journalism studies, film felt like a natural next step - and one in science fiction and fantasy writing - which I picked after the course I was going to take in creative writing got cancelled, so I jumped on that one in the hopes it'd give some pointers and stuff I could use for Pure Corruption. I'm learning things, and some are actually useful, but again, it takes up time.
So add all of that to the ongoing frustration about finally getting done with my education and still not being able to find anything in my field, and you can probably see why my motivation hasn't always been the greatest these last six months. Edit: Oh, and let's not forget Evernote (which I use to do my writing) making things terrible in updates making me refuse to update and then cocking some other stuff up, leading to a snag in my workflow when it comes to working on writing when I'm not at home.
And, okay, getting a Switch with Breath of the Wild back in May, followed by Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition, and getting Diablo III Eternal Collection for it last Friday, probably hasn't helped tons. But, y'know.
To end this on a slightly more uplifting note, while I might not have been steadily writing on these coming few chapters, it's not like I haven't been working on Pure Corruption at all. Fact is, there's a bunch of things that have happened, some plans have been changed, and things have been written. It's just that those aren't things that you guys are going to be seeing for quite some time, but it'll at least mean things will be faster once we get there. I've had certain things planned from the very start - because if I know what plot developments I'm working towards, they won't look like they happen for no reason when they actually happen. Gotta know what the goal is to be able to reach it naturally.
That got long. So I like words. Sue me.
/Kenny
Edit: Also, long overdue, but the cast page has now been updated with Charon's profile and a page for the other members of the Bluefin Expedition. Yay!