I absolutely hate writing in fitful starts and stops. At worst it means that my reader has to keep going back to re-read previous chapters to remember what was going on. Unfortunately, as we all know, many if not most of us do not have the leisure of being able to write all day every day - or even every week.

I apologise for the delay. In Real Life, stuff happens.

TL;DR - Sometimes the machinery has to come first.

I managed to get a full flow going and banged out three chapters more or less one after the other. I knew that it wasn't going to last, but I mistakenly believed that I would probably drop to a chapter every ten days to two weeks or so.

Then the weather changed. It got stupid hot, such that I could only do anything in the mornings and then had to retreat to a downstairs room and start up the portable air-con. In our house, I use a very small room upstairs as a sort of office cum workshop. I have far too much IT equipment stacked in what was once a single wardrobe and a desk with two workstations on it, which also gets used for builds and repairs.

Now the thing is, this house is always hotter upstairs than down, often by about five degrees Celsius. Which means that often it is over 30C, at which point I have to stop writing. Much hotter than that and I am forced to start turning boxes off to protect the equipment. (Of course, during the winter, I come out ahead.)

At the end of the hot phase 2nd son's computer died. He is the only person in the house who uses Windows and his PC was 10 years old. When I opened it up it was completely choked with dust and the disk was dead. I had no suitable spare equipment and certainly no way to restore his Windows software. To tide him over I gave him my own workstation box which is a thin client connected to our main server (don't laugh).

When the replacement box arrived it was not what was expected, due to a foul-up with the retailer's website, which had mixed together two models. Back it went, and then I did some costing which meant that I could build him a cheaper new PC in his existing box with the 'loaned' motherboard, a new disk and a fresh copy of Windows 10. This would be cheaper than ordering a whole new box.

That worked, but now I had to replace the 'loaned' motherboard. Cue Peter paying Paul and I had to build five new boxes, mixing and matching cases, motherboards and disks to restore the status quo (How I hate UEFI!). I also set up a new server purely for backups, which should prevent the Windows problem ever happening again. Phew!

...Then I discovered that the mix of servers and switches in the cupboard (don't laugh) was causing trouble so I had to spend a whole week-end, with the system completely down, adding new shelves and rewiring the cupboard.

Fun times. I hurt my back (again) and gouged a shin.

Now back into (much improved) action, I have just finished the latest Voyage of the Visund and started on the next. All the time I didn't write I was still thinking of plot progression. Things are about to get interesting!

I hope that I can contribute more regularly from now on but you all know how this works. I am also, in spare moments, working on other projects which may appear here at some future time. Although I have stopped posting What Milsy Did to concentrate on Eriana's tale, I still intend to make progress with that once I get my ship's crew at least as far as Faralmark. And there may be other tales to tell...

I'm still here. I just wish I could write faster.

Penny