BTLN Chapter 40 (Patreon)

Sometimes I get annoyed with my pace and irritated that I don't get these chapters up as fast as I want. Often, though, something happens to remind me that creativity takes time and those waits are good things. That was really clear this week. I started chapter 40 and had it set back in the dining room. We're wrapping things up, which involves a lot of talking...which can get really boring, really fast. So Saturday as I was running errands I thought, "how can I make the setting more entertaining?" And honestly, I'm really happy with how this chapter turned out.

I also was able to tie in a couple of the older text convos as well. The first was the one where James introduces the group to the concept of the "weregild." (If I don't occasionally use my degrees, they take them back. I read a lot of Beowulf and whatnot in college. I'm sure my professor is very proud that I'm using that knowledge for this.) As well as this one about the gnome barracks. That one also includes a shout out to my friend, Jiles, who we lost at a party at my house once and we found him later asleep in the woods with a bean bag chair duct taped to his stomach. He had been using it to sumo wrestle people. He wasn't deep in the forest or anything, but I can't remember if he was drunk or just being Jiles.

Also, while trying to find the write convos, I read through this one. Totally forgot about the chicken jousting. Some day, when I have money, I'm going to commission an artist to draw some of the gnome scenes. Maybe I can put together a special edition of BTLN with them or something. 

The other good thing about taking more time, is it gives Mel a chance to edit it so she can say such things as, "Lish, wtf is a weregild?" and "You have Alistair's name spelled two different ways." And then I remember that I was going to check Alistair's name (fun fact, both ways I spelled it were wrong) and I was going to look up at see if it was Frank or Ramon who had hit someone with a skateboard. (It was Ramon.) So I may chafe at the delay, but I think the end result is a better story with far, far less typos. (I still sneak some in. I'm really good at typos and poor grammar choices.)

--Lish