Creative Log: 11/29/22

It's been over a week now, so I think it's time for another creative log!

In the sort of bad news, I suppose, is...unfortunately, I did let myself become a bit distracted, and there's almost no way I'll have the String of Stardust update fully reedited by the end of November. :( Some life stuff has happened, granted—but admittedly, not enough to really justify the delay. I've let myself become distracted with other things a bit. >~<

On the plus side, I should definitely still finish it in early December! I'm very far into it: I'm currently in the middle of chapter 31 out of 37, and I tend to edit in chunks of at least three chapters. I'm finally also to the point of the book where the editing load is lightening up a little bit, as I reach more recent writing (the beginning of SoS was written in 2017, while these most recent chapters I wrote in 2020, not long before the "official" release, for reference).

While I have taken a short break from editing, one thing I have been working on are the illustrations...ah, somewhat. I want to have profile illustrations, and unfortunately it took a lot of trial and error to see what those should look like—luckily, I'm just about done with one already. There are kind of a lot of them, but I think I should be able to stay within my workload, as they're fairly small and, of course, just in black and white. The one issue is, I'm probably going to start working soon, which will...hopefully not crash into my plans too hard. But we shall see.

One thing I'm not sure I'll be able to add or not yet, but definitely want to, are a few short stories! They've actually been around for much longer than I thought—January 2021—and are almost done. Back then, I saw one of those writing Twitter prompts about "what moment defined your main character?" Rather than simply answer in a tweet, I was inspired to spin that off into short stories. The stories follow Hikaru, Suzette, and Maiden Moon. If I am indeed able to add them, you will notice they're all tied together by a specific theme. :') Especially considering how the first volume of SoS ends, I think the stories are very thematically appropriate.

And, lastly, I think I should give some notice on the state of the Beloved Chronicles website, as I've shuttered off the links from the homepage for now. The main reason for this is I've decided to change how my work is licensed going forward. I've not had any issues with it thus far, but it's come to my attention that after I added the license I previously attached to my work, changes were informally made to it to allow it to be used in ways I find extremely disagreeable—so much so, it has made me decide to not be so free with my work in the future. As I am reediting SoS and most of the materials on the website, luckily I can change how I license it going forward with little issue. It's a tad unfortunate that it has come to this, but I do fully intend to still make my work easily and freely accessible, because that's important to me—but from now on, I will retain the full right to do so, and I will consider any violations of this infringing on copyright and act accordingly. It's really unfortunate, the dystopian future we're increasingly finding ourselves in, but...I guess I just have to try to adapt the best I can, finding a way to balance my principles and all the shitty developments happening lately. C'est la vie.

Oh, and I forgot...one thing I have finished is the new banner! The website is mostly closed off for the moment, but at least you can go see it, I suppose!

Well, that's all for now! And as a reminder, if you'd like to pre-order String of Stardust: Volume One, please feel free to message me on any of my socials! The base price is $20 plus shipping. And if you've bought the original hardcover volume of SoS, you can send me a proof of purchase, I'll happily sell you the new edition for production cost plus shipping. Anyways, so long for now!