So, last week was not a great one for me.

This past Saturday, I woke up around 1am.  A front or something was going through and apparently just utterly offended my sinuses.  I got the full range of old injuries acting up, congestion, and just my skin crawling.  Sleep deprivation in particular is a cooler for my writing motivation (as oppose to most other hardships which send me wanting to spend time in my fantasy world).  The storm that was the reason for my sinuses going to war also resulted in water intrusion and minor flooding of my building at work.  There was no damage to my specific office space but the building definitely has a mold problem now.  Mold spores being one of those things I’m particularly allergic to.  Which is all a way of saying I felt awful, slept little, and probably have a sinus infection after this week.

I’m starting to feel better but it was not an situation where I got much, or really any, writing done.  I used up my backlog in February when I went on vacation and hadn’t re-established it.  I’ll put something short, and probably silly, together over today and tomorrow but we’ll be taking an interlude from Against the Riders for this week.

Which brings us to Against the Riders and what I had planned for this check-in post to be talking about earlier in the week.  It was going to have some pithy title like “Mistakes were Made,” because I realized I screwed up.  Quartes and Keto were trying to get to the city of Verken to escape the Nomads of Finnupave and couldn’t because the riders had taken up patrol along the ways to the city in an open field.  So, Quartes fought them in an area where the fighting was more even and did his legend thing and came out victorious.  I ended part four with the Fey and Bard heading off in some other direction.  Except, that makes no sense.  Nine of the ten riders were killed, one ran off to tell others but Quartes and Keto are only like a bit over a day’s walk from the city.

They could literally run to the city now and stick to their original plan.

So, mistakes were made.  The solution here is to put more riders patrolling the city.  Maybe with Taikeets with various plumage designs, indicating different tribes/clans, and then only one group came after Quartes.  Only one group came because of the particular honor and hierarchy the nomads follow but it still leaves too many for Quartes to fight off in an open battle to reach the city.  So, he and Keto go the other way to make a new plan.

Suffice to say, when I get to part 5, it’ll have a note about this.  Maybe, I’ll go back and add some bits to parts 3 and 4 and just erase this mistake.  It’s been a good lesson for me.  I do have an outline for this story and I know where I want to get Quartes for the next few moments (and I want some of those moments because they are cool and appropriate for the character).  However, I didn’t think things through all the way.  Which, I suppose I could say is a side effect of dropping stories weekly and doing my own (quick) editing.  Best thing to do is admit the mistake, make note of it, maybe even fix it (though I’m tempted to leave it as it’s a sign of the nature of the work) and keep on getting words onto the page.

So, my apologies for the mistake and the delay.  Well done to those of you who had already made note of it.  I’m gonna go eat, grab one of the ideas I’ve jotted down and get a story written.  How I fix this particular problem will be a decision for the upcoming week.  Hope you all are having a good weekend, I’m happy to not be feeling like crap and to be putting words together again.

Go forth and do good things,

Sean