Humblest Appleogies

 Update...ain't happening soon. Sorry. Reality has been annoying and persistent and I've got a *lot* less writing done than I had wanted to. Work's been going crazy due to crazy people, and silly little things like food and a roof over my head keep cropping up. It's going to get done, just slower than I'd have liked.

Frabjulous Day!

 It's finally happened! A post! In the stories section!

I had meant to post this a couple of weeks ago, but life happened etc etc. Anyway, there's an update to Stone Circles in the Stories section. I think I patched the missing section, but am still checking what happened. Made a few backups and did some drive checks just in case, but nothing seems too suspect. PEBKAC seems a more likely culprit.

I didn't have time to muck around with an EPUB version, so there's only a pdf version. And my Adobe (EvilEmpire™) access is playing up, so I'll have to sort that. Le sigh. Not enough hours in the minute these days.

In our last exciting episode....!

 There should be another update coming to Bound by Stone Circles soon. I'd like to get it posted in the next couple of weeks, if everything goes to plan. Exciting times! Things happen! Words are written! It seems to be coming together, I just have to try and not paint myself into a corner. And there's a lot of paint out there.

I'm late, I'm late....

 And just before I head out for the end of the year, there is an update to Bound By Stone Circles in the stories section and here. Despite it being a full damn year, the ending is rushed and there;s only a PDF available atm. I will polish that off when I get a moment. I'm currently working on about three different sections with varying characters and timings in the story. Most are later than this section, so this was put in to plug holes that I wrote earlier. If that makes sense. They will be spliced together to make a semi-coherent narrative. Maybe. I hope. Fingers crossed.

Meantime, seasons greetings and take care of yourselves and your families.

Still not ded

 Into every life a little rain must fall...

And things have been a bit soggy around here. It's been a stressful few months recently, and as such, I haven't been bitten by the mosquito of muse. It's been two steps forward, then two steps back as far as production goes. I do have some material done, which I will have to post. And I've got a roadmap for the future laid out, I just need to get some real-life issues behind me and some time to put fingers to keyboard. There will be writing, oh yes.

And I also might have a donations option sorted for those who feel the need. Paypal nixed their donations system. And living outside the US or the EU puts a few restrictions on some of the more popular options. Ko-fi seems like the most straightforward, so I'll see how that goes. Wise also has a WiseTag system, but I'm not sure how effective that would be - it looks like fees would eat most reasonable transactions.

This update was written almost entirely without the aid of an LLM.

In the year 2525...

 Seasons greetings all,

No update yet. I've been out of town on training courses and then catching up with all the backlogged work that caused, so haven't got an update prepared. I'm aiming to post something in the new year. Meantime, enjoy the holidays.

 Bound by Stone Circles has been updated over in the Stories section. I've tried something a bit different this time. There's a PDF and an Epub version of the story, and they should provide different reading experiences.

The PDF format is intended to be for final document outputs and distribution, so is intended to maintain the designer's formatting and not be re-wrapped or re-flowed. While it works on PCs and tablets, this causes problems when viewed on phones. It IS possible to setup a PDF so it does re-flow, but from what I've seen it's finicky and some PDF viewers don't support it.

The Epub format is designed for reading on the move. It's not so good for professional layouts due to its flexibility shifting elements around depending on the viewer, which can break some things. However, for phones and other portable devices, this isn't a big issue. It also doesn't have as much browser support as PDF, so you might have to download a plugin or find a dedicated reader.

I was hoping to get some feedback on which version readers prefer. They're both straightforward enough to produce, so there's no real problem producing either. So, PDF or Epub? Fight!

 There should be a new update coming soon. It's basically done and there're just a few loose ends to tie up, but there've been issues with my job security. I'm still waiting to hear if I'm going to get laid off, so that's still a dark cloud hanging over everything :/ But, I'll try to get something posted soon™.

Better late than...no, it's not, really.

 

An update to Bound by Stone Circles exists. It's in the stories section. And the observant amongst you will have noticed two things:

A) It's late.

B) The name has changed.

TBH, I liked the initial name. It resonates better. However, it sort of promised something that won't be happening in this instalment. I've been playing around this options, and this works, but not quite as well. I'm still working on it, and might go so far as to change the name of the Mediator's home city to Endless Circles. It is located on Lake Endless, and the title does fit the premise of the story. It just might get confusing. Anyway, it's just the title, and it's malleable.

A reason this was late is that I have been playing around with some LLMs, and seeing what sort of a breast they are. They are powerful, but they don't offer the flexibility of doing it yourself. If you have a subtle pose or message in mind, then it can be tricky to get the software to portray it. But, you're never going to get a work of genius from these things - they are like an advanced autocomplete system: they will work with what they've been trained on, but they will never go beyond that. They're handy for quick and dirty visualization though. I'll put up a few samples in the elusive images page.

Anyway the update to Stand in Stone Circles Bound by Stone Circles is up in the stories section. I know where this story is going, there is a resolution, and there are reunions and recriminations to come in the future.

Oh, and Merry Holiday Xmas Seasons to all.

I'm not dead yet!

Still kicking. I've been lax at updating this site, but there's more content to come. Finally got COVID (beginning of the year was another family member), which pretty much killed productivity for a month. But, seem to be tracking again. There'll be an update soon(ish)

In other news, my bank has decided that checks are benighted holdovers from a primitive and savage era and no longer accept them. That was how Amazon paid, so... will have to work around that. Wise might work there. And PayPal decided they didn't like donations, so... will have to work around that as well :/

That time of year again.

 Going to be a quiet holiday this year. Found out at the last second we've got that gift that keeps on giving in the family. Yep, covid in da house. So, it'll have to be a postponed family get-together this year. Le sigh.

In other news: there's a new story in the story section. Stand in Stone Circles has a few pages started. It's a v1, so there will be revisions and errors will abound. And I do have minor updates for Borderlines, but that will be posted later.  I do want to use the holiday season to do some cover artwork for LIRL and also do more work on Borderlines.

Anyway, these words are boring. More interesting ones in story section. Merry etc etc.

Sept 29

 Just letting people know I'm still here. And still writing.

Things have been a bit busy, with work and life and cancer in the family and all the horrible shit that goes along with that. I've been writing where I can, and have made some progress. The next chapter in the Life of Riley series is underway and is currently titled Stand in Stone Circles. There's also been progress on Borderlines, although that's slow going. I know where I want to go with the story and how it's going to end, it's just that writing two completely different styles of books requires different mindsets for each, and switching from one to another sometimes doesn't come easily.

And I keep thinking 'I'll just polish this chapter up then post it', and that chapter becomes another and then another and next thing I know another month has gone by. And I've still got to work on the epub and cover art for Lies in Red Leaves. And, yes, I have looked at some of the AI options popping up out there, and can safely say they won't be replacing artists yet. They can make pretty pictures, but getting a specific image rendered out the way the artist imagines it, that they can't do. Yet. Could be handy for layout and viz work though.

But I will get something posted. Soon. Just have to get this chapter finished... 

 That took longer than I wanted.

I''ve been poking and prodding at Lies in Red Leaves for a couple of months, trying to polish the ending to a suitable standard. Still not quite there, I think, but I wanted to get this out before Christmas. So... Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and enjoy the final part of the penultimate installment of the Life of Riley, now available in the local stories section. There's one book left to come, tentatively titled Stand in Endless Circle, but that might be... some time away. In the meantime, I want to catch up on some unfinished business in some different universes.

Update time.

The long-awaited update to Lies in Red Leaves is available in the Stories section. Just be aware that Google has recently made some changes to Google Drive shares. This shouldn't affect the links for these documents, but if something isn't working just let me know. I've tested it and it seems to be okay, but these are the days of miracles and wonders.

And following this post there should be one more chapter in LiRL, and it'll be done. I do want to do some proofreading (and work on the cover) before posting to Amazon, so it will be while before it turns up there. And the next work in the pipeline will be... I'm not exactly sure. There's one more book in the Life of Riley to go, but there's also the end of Borderlines screaming for attention.

May the best man win.

Okay. Not Dead. Yay.

Just putting that out there. I was thinking I might be able to get Lies in Red Leaves finished off with one more post. That didn't quite work out: there's more to close off than I initially figured. So there will be a penultimate update coming Very Soon™, and then a final one after that. Not an entire year after it - the timeframe should be more reasonable.

November 2020

 An end-of-the-month update is here. There's another installment of Lies in red Leaves over in the stories section. Now, I won't tell you how much more there is to go, but this installment is in the denouement. The next book is in the planning stages, I know where I want to go with it, and that will probably be the end of this story arc. After that? No idea yet. Perhaps Catch the Knife. But I do want to get Borderlines finished up before then. And I do have to get some of those other old stories into formats that can be stored on this site. Yes, Godsend, I'm looking at you, you crusty old thing, you.

I'll see if I can get another update done before Christmas. Until then, stay safe and wear your damn mask.

July Update

The update to Lies in Red Leaves is up over in the story section. A little bit late as I wasn't happy with some aspects of it but couldn't figure out how to fix it. I think I got the worst of it, but I'll always be going back and polishing rough bits that stand out.

And thanks for the well-wishing. At the moment this country is relatively COVID-free, despite the best efforts of economists and marketroids who seem to know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. It's still  not over, and until a tried and tested vaccine is found, it won't be. That's still a long way off, and it's presupposing the virus won't mutate, or that another interesting bug won't come along to join the party. What was considered normal six months ago probably won't be back any time soon. If ever. But we have been taught some painful lessons and it'd be unspeakably wasteful not to take them to heart and learn from them. We can come through this better. So hang on in there and stay safe peoples.

Welcome to 2020, where we're all living in cities on the moon...Well, maybe not, but at least there's a new update to Lies in Red Leaves over in the story section.

Update to Lies in Red Leaves over on the story page. I think there will likely be changes to this section. As it stands, I'm okay with it, but think it needs some streamlining.

And I believe this site supports mailing lists, so if there's enough interest I could implement that so people are notified when there's a new update. And in other news, breaking in a new keyboard feels weird.

I haven't forgotten. I've got something to post, I've just got to get it to a level I'm happy with. Soooon.