The 4th draft of chapter 21 is complete. Here’s what happens, in vague poem form:

Fine treats are doled out to the littlest chum;

Even those that have failed soon receive some.

Though one treat is squeezed in a frustrated hand;

The best treat of all is the grasp of a plan.

Mm, sounds like a juicy chapter. With the help of Kim’s notes, I had four main goals to achieve here. Let’s go over them. Continue reading →

Jump, jump: the dreamer’s awake;

Fall, fall: quite a risk that you make.

Three remain in the game and the dame’s set to get maimed.

Stay, stay: it’s the stance that you take.

Okay! Done with chapter 20. Book two, draft four in case you need a reminder.

Kim had requested some changes in the first half, and those have gone well. I was able to come up with some surprising solutions to a couple of problems I was having.

I erased a great deal from the middle of this chapter. The erased portions added little to the story. I replaced it with all-new content that helps set up the finale.

The end of the chapter was what Kim liked the most. I cleaned it up and steeled myself for what happens next:

You see, there is a cliffhanger at the end of the chapter. And Kim felt that the resolution in chapter 21 flopped. 😑

I’m usually angry or annoyed whenever Kim says something like that. At first, anyway. But my tune changes when I think about what I need to do and, eventually, when I solve the problem and come up with something amazing.

And I remember that I wouldn’t have come up with that amazing thing if Kim had gone easy on me. If she had just said “It’s fine; whatever.”

But enough about that. Let’s have some more fun with the AI generation site.

First, I typed in the poem that I wrote up there at the top of the blog post:

Interesting interpretation. A one-legged woman jumping, falling, and staying all at the same time. It’s even Halloween in the background. Happy Halloween, by the way.

Next I am going to describe a character from THIS chapter. Yes, a new character that only a few other people in the world know about! Are you ready?

Wow, cool! Just about everything is wrong, as usual. The hair is almost right. And there’s no hovering drone. Sorry, I guess this isn’t exciting for you unless you have the description. Let’s do something else. What character haven’t I done from the first book? Dring?

A bony teen with hexagonal sunglasses. His hair is short with a rat tail in the back. He’s sitting in an office littered with empty water bottles.

Haha,ha what? Does the AI not know what a hexagon is? Let me change the art style. That was ‘comic book.’ Let’s try ‘cyberpunk.’

Okay, better. Now the water bottles are on the monitor he’s watching? I guess that could be his desktop picture. Whoa, there’s a manga style now? I gotta check that out.

Now we’re back to the blue shirt and grey hair. And everything else but the face is just turning into more of a mess, ha,ha,ha. Dring is lost in his own little world now. Water bottles piling up, the monitor floating around, and the hexagons exist everywhere BUT his sunglasses.

Ah well, I’ll see you next time!