Well, I managed to complete Part 5 of End of War last week.  I will admit to writing the last third of it, and doing a quick edit, on Saturday itself.  Which admittedly now leaves me with Part 6 to write this week before Saturday.  Part of the cause for this crunch has been that Part 5 was the first part that I wrote while in the midst of posting the short story.  See, I had planned End of War and written Parts 1 through 4 during 2024.  While, I edited and expanded on them (and in the way of the author, have regrets on how they turned out), they got written in a very rapid string shortly after I had the idea.  That momentum faded when I hit Part 5.  There were a few reasons for that, including work and the passing of my father, but I will also admit that one reason is that I lost interest.

Not too many years ago, I enjoyed writing fight scenes.  Whether it was as a drop in and of itself or a part of writing a larger piece, I found planning and writing fight scenes enjoyable.  I often gamed them out like they were a battle in Dungeon and Dragons, later adding on some flare to break out the routine of rounds.  That enjoyment has faded with time and so the prospect of writing Part 5 of End of War, a part which I knew would involve a major battle, was something that stalled my drive to finish the story.

The thing is, it’s not that I think fight scenes are useless in telling a story.  Part 5 shows a pretty critical scene, as both the destruction of the Silver army and Airka’s embracing of her heritage are important moments in the story of Illithiust.  It’s an event still weighing on Illthiust, and Airka in particular, when she will later show up in the final quest to break the destructive dragon cycles of Illithiust.  Much can be conveyed about a character by how they conduct themselves in a battle, and important realizations can come across during such stressful moments and in the reactions that come afterwards.  I will admit that I do think too many authors use fight scenes as padding that does not meaningfully expand characters or the story.  However, that’s not why I have shied away from them.  Rather, I think as I have gotten older spilling blood as a normal course, even when it’s only described in ink, has gone from being exciting to being a tragedy best avoided.  Probably says a bit of what my over a decade of military service has done to me.

Quartes is probably the clearest representation of this.  As more of my backlog, especially my first two novels, make their way here you will get to see how the old Landian was always as the center of battles.  As a character who has killed certainly hundreds, and possibly thousands, of creatures and individuals over his long life I see the deaths as a weight that he carries.  This is especially so given that flawless Landian memory of his.  Maybe if nothing else I’m simply shying away from putting more heartache on a man I’ve already dealt a very painful series of card to.

But hey, he at least has a great Bard friend.

Alright, so ideally we’ll finish the battles of End of War with Part 6 this week.  There will be a Part 7 after that to show the aftermath of the battle and then our time with Airka will wrap up, at least for the time being.  As I noted above, she has an important role to play in the fate of Illithiust so we’ll certainly see her again.  Beyond that, I am toying with working on editing some of my older works and posting them on here separate from the weekly Saturday post of (mostly) newly written content.  I’d like to say I’ll lay the groundwork for that this week but if I’m being honest, I’ll be lucky if working on Part 6 affords me much time to even get some words added to my current novel.  Regardless, there’s plenty of writing ahead.

Go forth and do good things,

Sean