Category Archives: Ahern says the Editing Gang is crazy

Ahern says no one gives a shit if you hurt, Ahern says shut the fuck up and be merry., Ahern says the Editing Gang is crazy, Another Inaccurate Forecast, Hot Updates, just write dumbass, Minsta Sneers at You, Organizational, Other People's Actually Decent Art

Very long overdue update

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Admist all the chaos of this year I let myself fall out of the habit of updates.

Given TWCD hasn’t updated since February, and since I just finished up the climax of the Angstrofuck of Doom tonight, I thought an update would be in order.

Progress of the main fic: The next chapter is (finally) done, although of a monstrous size — very close to 30k in word length. The chapter after that is mostly fleet battles, reactions and aftermath, and the one after that is mostly positioning for the assault on the Shadow Broker.

After that is another few chapters on findings, the Citadel Council, and Shepard employing Jack Harper levels of sneak and snark. Then shit goes completely off the canon rails once and for all.

Progress of the side fics: Work is continuing on the krogan and volus pieces by other authors. I am in the process of gathering up what I need for the drell. I have all the stuff I need for vorcha, and the yagh, well… we’ll have to see.

After a couple of more updates to the Special Ops guide, once these races are done the Cerberus Files will (finally) be complete, except for the human one which has two more chapters.

I plan to finish up the Encyclopedia Biotica, the Tech Guide, and Ahern’s Guide after that. Once those are wrapped up I can work on Lions.

As usual Naruto fics aren’t officially on the schedule for years yet, although I will do sporadic updates.

Other issues: work is taking up more of my time as we have more contracts now (Comcast, Charter, Nike, and two more I can’t say anything about).  Things are somewhat calming down, but they’re doing another set of reorganizations. While these reorgs won’t target my people or business unit, they are affecting the teams that provide support, DBAs and assistance to our team, so it will make things harder in the short term.

My health is… fair. My knee is beginning to cause me problems (I hurt it twenty years ago, when I was in the Navy, along with my back) and I’ve started using a cane when doing my walking exercise. My back is behaving itself — a few times it has hurt a little or felt stiff, but it went away.

My mother’s health is stable.

My finances are not so hot. I’ve had a rash of appliance issues and other problems this year already, not to mention issues with my car. This is the first time in my life I’ve carried more debt than I can simply pay off without ramifications and I find I dislike the experience intensely.  I’ll wait and see what happens as the year develops after reviews are done — a raise would help.

Status of the Editing Gang: The EG seems to be doing well, although several of them are having issues (health, financial, mental, or punctuation insanity related) of their own. We haven’t put together a new crackfic eruption yet but give it time. Our listed specializations now include :

  • particle and spatial physics
  • advanced math
  • chemistry (inorganic and some organic)
  • metallurgy and ballistics
  • psychology (aberrant and clinical)
  • medicine (from an actual doctor, not a hack like me)
  • biochemistry
  • cultural anthropology
  • geology
  • meteorology
  • polandballs

Patreon and Art Efforts:

So far the Patreon is much appreciated and we are on target for all three of the quoted prices for the main art pieces this year:

1) An image of Shepard facing down Tetrimus at Ilium

2) An image of Tazzik, in the same detail as Tetrimus

3) Line art facials for five or six original characters as well as some canon immigrants (Rasa, Brooks, Pel, Kai Leng, and Ezno).

The original fiction is on hold, but the money has already been invested in the software, research books, and equipment I need to produce and if needed self-publish it. I don’t have a good ETA when I’ll restart it, but if I can get things steady I can give a shot at it by next year.

As always, if you have questions or concerns you can reach me by :

  • Messages here or on the forums
  • PM on Fanfiction.net LogicalPremise
  • Email (viley at att dot net)
  • Our official discord

I am giving serious thought to a subreddit, although I certainly won’t be the one setting it up or administering it.

Thank you all for your messages of support and the next chapter will be out as soon as the Editing Gang removes all the pieces I fucked up and makes it all shiny and chrome.

Ahern says the Editing Gang is crazy, Another Inaccurate Forecast, Editing Gang Badassery, FanFic Maintenance, Organizational

OSABC Rewrites now up to chapter 38.

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In case you didn’t know, the Editing Gang has slowly and carefully been helping me fix my abuse of punctuation and eliminate derp assisting me in rewriting the original OSABC.

We’re up to chapter 38 now (32: Shepard and Liara). There is a thread on the forums that will usually cover any major structural changes.

TWCD still being worked on by the Editing Gang as well, with a planned ETA of late Sunday evening for publication. The chapter after that will probably be out before the heat death of the universe.

Ahern says no one gives a shit if you hurt, Ahern says the Editing Gang is crazy, Another Inaccurate Forecast, Editing Gang Badassery, Emo shitfaced crying, Hot Updates, just write dumbass, Organizational

Update #402892 : Cybernetic Boogaloo Edition

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I’ve managed to feel good enough to work a little bit (a very, very little bit) on some things.

  • I’m roughly 1200 words into an Ahern doc on the quarians.
  • I’m at about 3000 words on the next TWCD chapter.
  • I’m fiddling with a chapter to No Single Raindrop

Right now, there are a large number of chapters up for editing for the rewrite of OSABC. I’d like people to focus on that while I’m down, since it’s easier for me to work with that stuff. If we could knock down 10 chapters a week we could easily have the whole thing done and start on ATTWN (which also needs attention in a few places).

Back surgery is going to have to wait. I’m talking to my doctor and my chiropractor (board certified, former sports medical professional, thinks reiki is shit and that homopaths should be jailed — you know, my kind of chiropractor) and they want to do some ATLAS adjustments and try to line my spine back up and see if that doesn’t reduce pressure on the disc.

The *good* news is nothing is fused yet and that most of the fractures, while sizeable, are not expanding. I’ve been put on several supplements (calcium and strontium, FDA approved stuff only, I’m not wasting time with fucking herbs).

The bad news is that I’m not sure how long it will take before I feel better.

Not helping events : I loaned my sister a car, the Chrysler 300 that belonged to my wife. First she got it towed because she let her idiot boyfriend drive it. Now it’s been in an accident and the insurance company is telling me it is totalled.

Just what I needed. In any event, work is … proceeding. Hopefully (as stated) I can get the next chapter out by late August, as my focus is on not straining myself.

If you are on the ‘regular’ editing gang and would like to join the “OSABC editing gang” just request approval, as I have the list of emails. Anyone who is not currently on the Gang that I don’t know needs to please email me directly at viley@att.net.

 

 

Ahern says the Editing Gang is crazy, Ahern Would Say I'm Whining, Another Inaccurate Forecast, Asking for Help, Defuckery, Editing Gang Badassery, Emo shitfaced crying, FanFic Maintenance, Organizational

Current Status (2017 State of the Premiseverse)

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Hey folks.

So, here we are in 2017. When I started there was only Abyssal Shadows and AD Lewis and Sherry E cheering me on, and my writing was… not so hot.

I’m now at the 2.5 million words mark. So, given I did not achieve my 2016 goals, where do we go from here:

  1. Medical Crap: My mother is over both cancers (both in remission for more than six months). I still have back and knee issues, although I haven’t had a flare up in a while.
  2. Financial Crap: My job still seems secure, although we just underwent an internal reorg in IT and things are still shaking out. Unfortunately, my unit is entirely focused on the Verizon account — if something bad was to happen to that I am not sure how I would end up. The Patreon donations have given me the funds to start work on the original fiction story and to pay off the artists for work being commissioned now.
  3. Personal Crap: I am continuing to deal with some family issues but I am slowly moving past those by simple expedient of ignoring the ones who think I am a bag of money to be withdrawn from. I have had some minor altercations with friends of mine who think supporting Trump or hating Trump is somehow more important than friends you’ve known for fifteen+ years, but that is fine — I rarely if ever react to such things.
  4. Mental Crap: It’s been six years since Alysha died, on the 11th of April. I’ve continued to distract myself around that time as best as I can with writing. I’m glad the Andromeda game comes out in March, as I expect my mental stability will be shit from late March to early May as it is every year.

The plan for 2017:

That Which Cannot Die: currently being worked on. I doubt the new chapter will be ready this weekend, the earliest I would expect it, given writing difficulties I am having and the Chief Editor having hospital duty, would be January 28 — and that would be for the Editing Gang to begin their work, which will probably take at least a week.

ETA to completion? Very hard to say. You will notice that my writing speed has dropped — this is due to both my work being more demanding and the fact that now I have to carefully interweave things with what I’ve already written in a dozen documents. I would guess TWCD will be done by this year — probably towards the end, as none of us is going to be writing shit for a while when Andromeda comes out.

The Cerberus Files : Humanity is nearly completed. There are only two more pieces to go over — Corporations and independent colonies.  Also an OOC chapter, but that’s easily written. The biggest delay was in figuring out how to handle the AIS and with that out of the way the rest is much easier.

It should be finalized and marked complete by no later than mid year.

The Cerberus Files : Badass Nutjobs (i.e., Special Ops) is currently being worked on. One of the Editing Gang is doing the Volus section, while I am doing the finishing touches on quarians based on the idea of another team member. That only leaves the Salarians, Hanar and (the most complicated) the section on N7’s. I already have notes on the Salarians so that shouldn’t take long and I may end up using an idea that I discarded from my original fiction for the hanar.

Not sure when it will get done though — it’s one of my projects I work on when I get writer’s block or bored.

Ahern’s Guide to Shit You Shouldn’t Be Fighting will get updated very irregularly.

The Cerberus Files : Outcasts (Batarian/Quarian/Krogan) is up for being worked on. I have the research done on most of it, it’s just sitting down and writing it. I’d like to get it done and out of the way so I can play around with other concepts.

The other Cerberus File, Separtists (Hanar/Drell/Vorcha), will be done later in the year. I don’t have most of the drell research done yet.

The Fluff Stuff (Memories, No Single Raindrop, ANN Media Report) will get updated as I get around to having ideas. Sometimes, like with Dragunov, it just hits me.

The Tech Suite (Guide to Tech, Biotic Encyclopedia) is probably NOT getting updated this year. It takes too much research to get anything done in the Tech Guide, and I’m not sure what I want to add to the Encyclopedia yet.

The Analysis Pieces (The STG Report and STG Files) are always irregular. I’ve put off finishing the Benezia Report until I’m done with the OSABC overhaul and the STG Files will come out as needed.

The crackfic Of Serendipity and Balance WILL be getting a REGULAR (i.e., not Editing Gang) update later on this year, if possible.

If at all possible, I’d probably be writing up the entire text of the Message, Sarah William’s transmitted plea to the galaxy that got the asari (well, Uressa) to stop the turian decimation of Earth. I’ve always wanted to write a story about it, but it’s both very depressing and very emotional, the kind of shit you write while listening to sad remixes of the Imperial March and having spent the past four hours reading every TV Tropes entry under Heroic Sacrifice.

As for the Naruto stuff, it might get touched this year, but probably not.

Artwork  currently lined up includes:

  • The marriage scene
  • more OC portraits (Dragunov, Ahern, Rasa, Pel, probably some of Garrus’s team)
  • Mech and Battlesuit designs
  • The three battles (Benezia vs Aethtya, Shepard vs. Okeer and Shepard/Garrus against Tetrimus
  • Maybe more.

 

What can you do to make sure the Premiseverse continues?

  1. WRITE: The main thing that drives me to do more is knowing that people get into writing (anything, not just fan fic or ME stuff) due to reading what I wrote. I will happily showcase and mention your stuff on here or on FF.net if you let me know.
  2. LEARN: I will be expanding the Links of the Now Section a lot in the coming days, as well as a bunch of links on cultural anthropology, physics, biology, and more. The main thrust of what I write is hopefully to make people think — and if possible, think critically.
  3. JOIN IN: While I certainly did not expect the chat room to be of that much interest to anyone, I’m pleased with the results and amused at the strange cross-section of people who like my work. If you have questions, use the forum or the chat room to ask and I’ll do my best to answer — you can also email or PM on FF.net.
  4. DONATE: no, not to the patreon. If you are good at art, or music, or have a specialty skill (medicine, math, and physics), or if you are a pilot or something else unusual, your opinions, experience or contributions are invaluable. I am a best a dilettante in many fields,  and true expertise is always useful. Likewise, if you are good at art and want to give your take on something, please do — the wonderful portrait of Matriarch Trellani was done by someone volunteering, as was the piece on Victor Manswell.

 

For now, assume things will continue to move forward. There are no new projects planned at this time and the only outstanding works remaining would be the Cerberus Files covering the Geth, Yahg and Collectors (which I probably won’t even do, TBH) and the possibility of the Fall of the Inusannon Empire piece which is still in vague outlines.

Ahern says the Editing Gang is crazy, Editing Gang Badassery, Organizational

Editing Gang Inquiries

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I have had two people ask if the Editing Gang is willing to review works that are either directly set in the Premiseverse or draw on it’s lore / background.

Since the EG is slave labor valorous and unpaid volunteers, I though I would charge for your services ask you guys if you thought that was something you’d be interested in or not.

 

Ahern says the Editing Gang is crazy, Ahern Would Say I'm Whining, Another Inaccurate Forecast, Editing Gang Badassery

Progress (or rather lack thereof)

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I’ve done about five thousand words on the next chapter without an outline, as the outlines keep not meeting what I need to write with.

Things are going slowly since I’ve got relatives staying with me and work is sort of getting hectic. On the plus side, I have (finally) gotten the research stuff  I need for drell, the engineering guide and maybe another add on to No Single Raindrop.

It is very likely (but not 100%) that something will come out in August, probably at least two STG files (one of them on Tetrimus) and maybe — no promises — another chapter of Lions.

The OSABC rewrites are going very well thanks to the Second Editing Gang. although re-reading it has opened my eyes to just how shit it really was. 🙁

 

 

Ahern says the Editing Gang is crazy, Editing Gang Badassery, just write dumbass, Organizational

Fixit Gang Preparations

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Thank you for those who have volunteered to help rewrite/fix/unfuck OSABC.

I’m interested in people’s thoughts about how this should happen:

  1. I can put out a chapter at the beginning of a week (Monday) and pick it up Saturday or Sunday, which allows people to choose their own time to edit or
  2. I can put it out on a Saturday morning and have an official ‘edit block’ of time for publication on Monday, which allows for more interaction with editors.

Which would be more convenient?

In TWCD news, no, haven’t started the next chapter yet. Links for the outline will go up on the Patreon page when done. There is another Patreon Status report up there  as well.

Ahern says the Editing Gang is crazy, Brain droppings, Editing Gang Badassery, FanFic Maintenance, Hot Updates, ME Ramblings, Organizational

Major thanks and appreciation to the Editing Gang.

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The Editing Gang is a group of unrewarded, unpaid volunteer editors who take each chapter of crap I write and massage it using magic and a proper command of punctuation, spelling and grammar into a product people can read without being distracted by broken sentences and errors.

The last chapter started life as an 8,000 word piece of shit not fit to display alongside SI Wrex/Tali lemonfics. Through days of their hard work it has been transformed into a nineteen thousand word masterpiece.

Half of the credit for the improvements you see in ATTWN and most of the credit for improvements in TWCD over the first book should go to them, not me.

The chapter will come out soon — I want all hands to have a chance to go over it and provide feedback. I’ll need a couple of days before I get cracking on the outline of the next one, and then we’ll see how quick I can crank out transition chapters until we get to Ilium.

Again, Editing Gang — thank you sincerely.

 

Ahern says the Editing Gang is crazy, Asking for Help, Brain droppings, Emo shitfaced crying, FanFic Maintenance, Hot Updates, just write dumbass, ME Ramblings, Organizational

New Chapter is with the Editing Gang, and news about revamping OSABC

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Right now the next chapter of That Which Cannot Die is still under heavy construction. The current layout is more of a framework, another five or six thousand words are left to deal with and the bulk of the editing team is still hard at work. (So am I, adding stuff based on suggestions). I do not think it will come out today (June 30) , more likely this weekend.

In other news:

I am planning to finally get around to slowly rewriting OSABC with the help of slave labor another Editing Gang.  It will be in Google Doc format, and posted one chapter at a time. The goal of the remastering of OSABC is threefold:

  1. Fix up stupid typos, issues where I accidentally left out a word, and various minor fixes (Helen instead of Karin for Chakwas first name,  explaining why Jiong isn’t spelled like Jeong, so on and so forth.)
  2. Fix up retcon issues and continuity issues.
  3. Clear up and polish the work — make some things less angsty, or at least provide additional exposition.

As OSABC is already massive, this will probably expand it by another twenty to thirty thousand words.  We’ll probably do one or two chapters a week — maybe more if people are interested.

If you would like to help these are the requirements:

  • Functional brain
  • Fingers
  • Ability to access Google Docs
  • Patience
  • Pictures of kittens

If you have all of these, either comment here or email me at viley@att.net if you would like to participate.