Aphelli

Chapter 28 of my Reborn story "The Odd One Out" is now online.

I will neither confirm nor deny that the entire chapter is mostly a paranoid Gabriel freaking out about the voice-activated lights in the ruins. 

I will neither confirm nor deny that the chapter title is a voluntary pun on the iconic sentence of some famous Orson Scott Card novel.  

There is a rambling madman in the ruins... But a very dangerous one. Very, very dangerous. 

Chapter 29 of "The Odd One Out" is online! Still not quite satisfied, but since I can't find what annoys me...  

There are many things in this chapter, but mostly I think it's a transition... And there's a significant divergence from the game plot approaching. 

Chapter 30 of "The Odd One Out" (my Reborn story) is now online. Enjoy! 

I've also been trying to write out that Rejuv idea I kept in mind -- but I'm not that convinced by the beginning.

It's supposed to be more interesting later, but, the issue with the later parts is that it's really hard to assess a likely result if I deviate from the original plot, because so much is unknown...

Do you sometimes worry that your own stories will make you lose sleep? 

I just wrote my protagonist into a pretty bad situation. It was planned a while ago, but funnily enough it’s more emotionally demanding than I thought. How am I going to sleep tonight? 
 

But there’s actually a more fearsome question. He’s going to end up pretty quickly (after an emotional roller-coaster, doubtlessly) in even worse trouble – how will I manage to sleep then?

Editing being the most important part of the writing, is a well-known piece of advice. Stories have to be cut as short as possible, keeping only what is necessary.

It may be right, but it's heartbreaking! 

For those who (like me) enjoy being behind the times, The Odd One Out has a new chapter (still completely E18-based)!

Chapter 67: Wrong Game

This is one especially nasty game of chess...

Have you ever wondered what Shade was doing in its free time? When it's not terrorizing people? Foreseeing future disasters? Being randomly cryptic at mysteriously glowing Trainers from nowhere? 

The new chapter of The Odd One Out might provide you with an answer! 

Hello! Small update regarding The Odd One Out:  I haven’t stopped working on it – I have drafts for the six next chapters, although I will probably have to rewrite the last one from scratch. I hope I’ll manage to make a final edit of Chapter 63 and make the pictures by the end of next week. 
 

The thing is… I find myself short of quality time for writing. And worse, when I do find the time, I end up hating “on principle” (not even for a specific reason, just because I “know” that “it’s wrong”) what I come up with. It is… not the greatest aid to motivation. But I don’t plan on letting that stop me. 

Hey! I hope you're doing well.

Here are some news about The Odd One Out -- I know I haven't posted a chapter in a while, and I'm amazed at the continuous growth in views, thank you to everyone who reads: 

I finally managed to complete my first draft of chapters 56-61, thus finishing the Tanzan story arc. I still need to do a lot of editing before releasing the next chapter, but I think I've done a huge part of the work already and I wanted to write this little tidbit because I felt that was a minor milestone worth a minor celebration (much of it is because writing still feels hard these days. I don't know why). 

What does this arc consist in, you might ask?

Well, here are a few (willingly vague) highlights:

I have just finished the first draft of the last part of Part 2's finale of The Odd One Out.

I'll probably need to retune it a bit, write the latest chapters' character rates...

And then there will be all the pictures for the chapters 41-45. 

I said it earlier, the idea is one of the earliest ones I had and one of those I was most eager to write. So I really hope it works and you enjoy it...

I just realized that currently, the parts of my fanfiction that come easiest to write aren't the action parts, or the times when someone is having fun. It's more when everyone self-reflects (negatively) and when Breaking Speeches are delivered to my own protagonist (sometimes by himself). I know that happiness in stories is supposed to be boring, but I'm still pretty sure something isn't quite right.

I mean, Gabriel was supposed to hate himself this much at some point, just some thirty chapters later

I swear to Indriad, this is the last time I open to a delivery employee at 1 in the morning.

If that weirdo wants their toy this badly, they'll just have to be on time like everyone else. 

More seriously though (especially since I am still probably not starting playing Rejuv this version because I still am a coward) I'll give some news about The Odd One Out: I think I'm done with the draft for chapter 55.

I don't know if I'll have the courage to rework it. It was a very hard chapter to write, and I can only say I finished because I transferred some of the difficulties to chapter 56. Because I really need a better idea of what happens next, I may delay uploading chapter 55 until I finish drafts for chapters 56 (very likely), 57 (likely) and perhaps 58 (not sure). 

It certainly frustrates me to no end to feel so stuck on the story these days. I really hope it's just a phase...

I'm not sure what's more annoying (at least it's not tragic, just annoying) of my discoveries of tonight.

1) I found out I hadn't actually proof-read my assignment a couple of hours before the deadline.

2) I found on my computer updated versions that somehow weren't the ones I had submitted online.

3) I realized I had about two hours of lectures to watch for tomorrow but I'd really rather sleep.

4) I have an exam (for something different) in less than 48h and I still have barely studied for it.

5) And there's also this math stuff (actually several different, rather unrelated "math stuffs)" to study and that it's (more accurately, each one is) impressively slow.

...

(deep sigh)

Well, back to studying it is. After all, there might be (real or imaginary) situations that are undeniably much worse.

I'm not too fond of doctoring screenshots for story purposes. 

I like it even less when it's noticeably clumsy and I know I can't do any better. 

I've been trying out Zumi's Rejuv character sorter. I had 68 characters, after removing Rifts and PCs. But when looking at the results, the only thing I can think of is how it took over 320 ~ log_2(68!) comparisons to sort the list. Truly, you can feel the difference between O(nlog(n)) (minimal average number of comparisons for a list-sorting algorithm) and n when you have to specify each comparison by hand (Volta or Florin? Jolene or Alexandra?...)

It turns out it's not a good idea to go try and play Reborn late at night, when you're not very good at the game, with a frail early game team and against an updated AI. 

Who would have guessed?

Anyway, there are now pictures (and, alas, an updated death count) for the latest (i.e. month old) chapter of my Reborn story, "The Odd One Out". It's likely (yet not certain) that the next chapter (and beginning of Part 2) will be released this week-end.  

Little Odd One Out update: the hiatus is extended. I probably won't publish any new chapter before mid-March.

Study stuff is a bit tense now -- who would have guessed that procrastinating was only a temporary solution?

Still, given the view counter of the thread, it seems that you (or some of you) are still reading the story, and that's great! 

Anyway, I guess I also wanted to share that I've finished the first draft of the first chapter of Part Three. I'm not quite satisfied of it for now, but I'll let it rest for a while -- Gabriel's subconscious really, really disturbs me. 

My computer is getting old, I’m afraid. It has crashed a few times recently.
But today, it apparently corrupted the entire text of a quite long chapter. 

Fortunately, I remember what was there, but I won’t post chapter 51 (seemingly intact) until I’ve rewritten chapter 52 (which should be in a few days), and maybe 53 too, since I’m not sure exactly how the next plot events should happen. I can only ask for your patience. 
 

Here’s hoping this isn’t going to happen again – but I’m afraid that’s wishful thinking. I will make backups, though. 
 

I hope you’re doing well. 

My Reborn story has a new chapter! We're temporarily letting go of all the action, and come back to good old self-reflection... and a mystery character shows an unexpected side. 

My Reborn story has been updated! 

For better or for worse, the Yureyu sequence is over...

how safe is everyone? Read it to find out!

My Reborn story, The Odd One Out, is back from a three-month hiatus! 

Perhaps I should have waited a bit more, to get a better idea of what I'd be putting in Part 3. But I didn't want to. 

Here's the link to the new chapter, the first one of Part Three (Mind Games): 

My story, The Odd One Out, has a new chapter! 

Cain and Gabriel team up to retrieve the children abducted by Team Meteor, but... there's a little twist. Can you guess it? 

This little story arc took me ages to manage, so I hope you'll like it! 

Not sure how useful it is to point it out here a day after the update, but my Reborn story has a new chapter! 

It's about garbage, metaphors, an imminent Gym battle, garbage, another round of metaphors and just a little more garbage!

Chapter 48: Wastelands

"Victory wasn't mine to decide. It never had been."

O Muse, please sing a writer’s frightful woes:

His mind and limb become his dreaded foes.

His hand is limp before the empty sheet

That stalls his thoughts and makes his drive retreat. 
 

… okay, that wasn’t very good poetry. Perhaps it might not be too terrible an idea to actually read some before I attempt something like that again. 

In everyday speak: chapter 55 isn’t out yet and I’m frustrated that it takes such a long time. And I worry about not getting the tone right. It’s not even like there’s going to be anything very important in it! 
 

(there used to be, but then it would have been too long). 
 

And of course, I have but the faintest notion of what happens next… 

Over 4,300 views for The Odd One Out, that’s amazing! Thank you to all (human) viewers! 
 

The next chapter is coming as soon as I can get a good Wifi spot – a dozen days at latest. 

On a not-too-unrelated note: I used to be stuck on some soon-to-come part (chapters 35-ish). I couldn’t write it satisfactorily – it felt poor, eventless, almost a waste of words, among others. A couple of days ago, I had a, er, great idea and I finished to write it entirely. Now it’s much more epic (and, I’m confident, more original), but... kind of weird at the same time.

I guess we’ll wait and see...