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issues but I am slowly moving past those by simple expedient of ignoring the ones who think I am a bag of money to be withdrawn from.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.