Newsflash: Jan 14

In the first fortnight of 2022, I finished drafting Chapter 7 of Royal Affairs, and planned Royal Affairs Chapter 8.

Royal Affairs wordcount: 179,156 words

Royal Affairs average playthrough: 47,352 words

Royal Affairs playthrough is nearly at novel length! I'm really, really pleased with progress - the pre-holiday overwhelm hit me rather hard and so I'm a little behind where I'd prefer to be, but I'm very happy to have polished off Chapter 7, and to have somewhat belatedly done December's bonus supplement. Chapter 7 turned out to be the second-largest chapter in the game, second to Chapter 3!

Even more pleasingly, I've outlined Chapter 8 in detail, and have done a broad strokes plan for Chapter 9... and figured out some big plot stuff that needed poking. Basically a plot element I'd planned out originally didn't quite work for all types of protagonists, and I strongly dislike when an MC is shoehorned into caring about something they don't! So I've added  a plan for another big branch that accounts for MCs at the other end of things. It's not quite... a fully evil route? But it definitely CAN be if you want it to be. (To be fair, the original one has some pretty juicy evil stuff that you can get up to.)

So I'm forging onwards and coding up Chapter 8, which is your Verdancy break.

Non-writing

I watched Greta Gerwig's Little Women! I enjoyed it soundly, especially the Jo and Amy dynamic and 

Cutting room floor

I haven't been trimming as much as I sometimes do, but this is a little outlined bit which was about Beaumont being worried. When I got to actually writing it I was like "actually Beaumont isn't worried about this situation!" So in the bin it goes.

Sneak peek

This isn't a screenshot because I haven't written it yet, but when I was planning out late game Royal Affairs I was delighted to have an idea! SPOILERS BELOW:

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There are going to be some bad things afoot as the plot hots up, and I realised that, under various circumstances the perfect person to ask for help would be the Creme de la Creme MC if they're a teacher at Archambault or Gallatin. SO there is going to be the possibility of seeking help from them when things get rough. I'm pleased I thought of it, as in general the Creme MC takes a fairly background role!