Update for the week ending on 09-26-25

This one is a bit different, because something different happened, and it’s going to have an impact.

This week, for, I think, the first time ever, I was hit by what I’m thinking of a case of the NOPE.

I’ve times before when I haven’t felt like writing. Usually a sense of “bleh” and “what am I even doing this” that creeps up on me. Those will be caused by life stuff sapping my energy. They happened more often before I figured out that having a proper schedule was what I needed, and are the reason I’m allowed to take 2 ‘sick days’ a month.

This was not that. This was a visceral ‘I’d rather throw myself off a cliff than work on that’ feeling. As I said, I don’t think I’ve ever felt something like that before. It hit hard enough I’d think even I would remember that. I decided to work on a different project, Harker, to see if it was about the story I was supposed to work on, which I suspected, or about writing in general.

The Harker writing went fine, so it’s about the story.

The story is The Technician’s Fight. The issue is that part of it need a serious rework. Something I tried isn’t working out. I’d realized it last week, or so, and I was planning on addressing it next week. The NOPE make it clear it can’t wait.

The part of the story that needs the rework is Jeremy’s first hunt. The reason is two fold. One, it’s too big. This came about because I was splitting the ‘climax’ event of the outline in two, and because Omar was involved I decided to keep the mind machine involved, which was the crux of the big event, and figured I’d come up with something else for the big event.

Second, how the hunt goes is completely wrong. The whole idea, when I decided on the split, was that this would be a trap to capture Jeremy, set up by Omar, with the help of his backers, who, as far as we know, is NOT the Earther government.

But, in what my be a case of the Kelsirian gods Meddling where they have no business doing, the whole thing became Jeremy and the packs with him immediately turning the table on the would be Trap Setters, and then it’s them having the upper hand the entire way.

So, I need to rewrite that, starting today. On Patreon and Ream, the posting will continue until Chapter 61, since that is already written. Then, the Redux Chapter 29 and on, until the end of the first hunt will post, be placed in their proper place in the schedule, and the previous version removed. How the hunt happens will be change significantly, but I am hoping to mitigate the impact on the events afterward.

Now, onto the regular update

Chapters written

This week saw three chapters of Mind Your Step, Two Chapter of Technician’s Fight(see above) one Chapter for The Daughter, and something like five chapters for Harker, only one of which is going on the schedule because the others will make their own story outside of the academy proper. They are forcing me to create an ‘off campus’ folder. You have got to love a non-linear mind.

Chapters edited

Everything of the week before has been edited and scheduled, along with a chapter for Tiranis.

Other stuff

It was bound to happen. I forgot to write the update for last week. The reason was that, well, nothing happened. But that’s just the excuse. Even if the weekly update page is my Scrivener starting page. I didn’t even notice it that Friday. I am hoping that isn’t the start of a pattern

My Charybdis Keyboard is officially completely setup. The last aspect, going into the keymap to properly set the layout and remove one function, was done over the weekend once someone helped me get the QMK compiler working again. I expect there will be ongoing minor adjustment, to keep up with my workflow, but I no longer foresee having to make do with how things are setup.

Because my muse just loves to make my writing interesting, it threw me a story for Harker, that has nothing to do, directly, with Harker. When I say ‘throw,’ I mean he stood behind me Saturday evening, an hour before bedtime, with the two by four, and hit me over the head with it until I have 3k works written, and it was well past my bedtime. Not content to leave it there, he whispered more of the story to me as I tried to fall asleep.

I’ve had those two characters in mind for a while now, but they were never part of Harker proper. They are the fathers of a PoV character who will arrive in year 2 of the series. They had a backstory, but there was never a plan to write it because it has nothing to do with Harker. Not only that, but it takes place before Harker. Now that I think about it, it takes place before Jacksonville, I think. Or at least it starts before it.

So. Who are those two characters? I doubt it will surprise anyone to learn it’s Alex and Tristan. I’m realizing those two are a constant within the Engineer’s Multiverse(ask about that in you are curious)

Alex was always easy to slop in a world with super powers. As a hacker, electronics and some form of control over them is a given. Tristan, on the other hand, was problematic. What is he? And how could I translate that into a super powered world in a way that would be interesting? On the surface, he’s nothing more than a strong man. Strong and tough, and there are thousands of those. Every variation has been done. And it’s too simple for Tristan.

Tristan is anything BUT simple. Digging deeper didn’t make things easier. He’s also smart, so super brains? Still overdone. Still too simple. He manipulates, so mind control? Boring. He’s great in combat so…come on, there had to be more to him than just that. Even when I hit on the right thing, I initially got it wrong.

Tristan is adaptable. The original Tristan, from the science fiction story can be whatever he needs to be to survive the situation. Which I initially thought of as agility, or shape shifting. And now, writing this, I’m realizing it could have been the power to survive anything, like Darwin, from the X-Men, the comics, not the movie, they did him dirty there. I’m glad I didn’t think of that earlier, because I could see myself going for that, having no other idea.

Instead, I went for something way better. It’s not an original idea. I’ve read it done in one book, so it has probably shown up elsewhere, but It fits, and I’m definitely not going in the direction that book went.

What is it? Well…. You’re going to have to wait until the story is posted. And I’m not doing that until it’s fully written so I know where it’s going.(or at least until part 1 is done, I suspect that this can be ‘never ending’ the way the comics are, since I’m already seeing a bunch of comic ‘tropes’ in the story)

So, sorry for the tease, but I will make that story free. Oh, and the title? Crimson and Monster. I am highly confident that’s the actual title because it is definitely a ‘comic book’ title.

That’s basically it.

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If you have questions, please do not hesitate to ask them. If you want to drop by my stream, that’s Monday to Friday, 8am to 3:30pm EST on Twitch and Youtube. https://www.twitch.tv/thetigerwrites and www.youtube.com/@TheTigerWrites

Have a good weekend, and see you next week. (hopefully)