Category: Blogging

Blogging, Writing

The Yearly Writing Round-up!- 2016/2017

Emily

It’s that time of year again! Time to take a look back, see what I’ve accomplished this year, and lay out my tentative plan for 2017. This is going to basically be an elongated Quarterly Round-up post, so let’s start with a recap of the goals I had going into 2016.

Overall goals for the year: Finish Changing History rewrites DONE! (Q1, February), Finish first draft of Changing History: Entwives DONE! (Q3, July), Write the Worth Living For short that I’ve been planning for ages, DONE! (Q3, July) Edit and begin posting Clarity DONE! (Q2, June), Finish the first draft of all three parts of Wonderland Reclaimed.
Reward Project: If I finish Wonderland Reclaimed, I can write my Avengers: Age of Ultron fic for NaNoWriMo in November.

As I mentioned in my Q3 round up, I’m pretty happy with having completed 4 out of 5 of my goals for the year. Wonderland Reclaimed… well, it’s going to have to take a back burner for a while. I feel like I maybe could work through its issues eventually, but I’m going to be a little busy with The Stars Are Fire in the next year, and I already have plans for another book in that loosely connected universe, so… we’ll see how it goes 🙂

Other notable highlights from the year include:

  • March- Began posting Double The Baggins, Twice The Took (15 chapters posted, 2016)

This was an unexpected addition to my workload this year, but not entirely unwelcome. I’ve enjoyed working on this fic and it has taken the place of Changing History in my life quite nicely. Though I do hope it won’t take me 15 years to finish! ;P

  • July- Finished posting Clarity

I honestly did not expect to finish this story this year. I expected to still be posting it well into January. But it was so… easy. Really, this whole process flowed so smoothly (even if sometimes it didn’t feel like it was) that once it got down to posting, it was simple. It was a real encouragement, especially as I had so much trouble finishing Changing History this year.

  • October- Finished the Changing History saga

This was a bittersweet moment for me. One of those moments I thought would never come, and certainly never expected to come this year. 15 years of imagination and now, it’s over. I legit cried.

  • October/November- The Stars Are Fire original novel

This one truly came out of left field and I once again have to thank my writing group for making this possible. I’m hoping for this to be the book that I (finally) publish in 2017, and honestly, even as a rough draft that I know needs work, I’m really proud of it.

And a few stats, just for fun!

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  • New words written– 112,610 (across five stories)
  • Fanfiction chapters posted– 75 (across five stories)
  • Stories Completed– 4

What’s Coming Up in 2017

Overall goals for the year: Edit and Publish “The Stars Are Fire”; Write, Edit, and Post “Good Intentions”; Finish Writing “Double The Baggins, Twice The Took”; Finish Writing “Wonderland Reclaimed”; Write first draft of Tempest in Space novel (tentatively titled “Such Stuff As Dreams”)

So another five goals for 2017! These are a bit more ambitious, but based on what I was able to do in 2016, I think they are doable. I also have a non-quantitative goal of trying out dictation for my brainstorming and possibly even my first drafts. I’ve been hearing a lot of good things regarding dictation and writing productivity, so I thought I would give it a try and see if I can’t incorporate some more walking into my life. Healthier and more productive? Sign me up!

I loved doing the Quarterly Round-Ups last year, so I plan to continue the tradition into 2017! Here are my goals for the first quarter!

  • January– First month of NaNoWriMo’s “Now What?” months, focusing on revising and editing. TSAF- make character sketches, flesh out settings, build up the system of planets, research the tech, and figure out my themes. Dictate my brainstorming for “Good Intentions”. Post four chapters of DBTT.
  • February– Second month of NaNoWriMo’s “Now What?”. Self-edit TSAF. Continue to dictate brainstorming for “Good Intentions”. Post four chapters of DBTT (possibly start dictating new words?).
  • March– Give TSAF to a select number of readers for feedback. Translate my dictation brainstorming to a workable outline for “Good Intentions”. Post four chapters of DBTT and write 25,000 new words (possibly through dictation).

I’ll be honest, I’m a little nervous about this. A lot of it rides on my dictation experiment being a success. If not, I might have some trouble getting all of these things accomplished. But I’m going to try it, and if it doesn’t work, well, I’ll modify my goals for Q2! 😀

And our adorable animal to start out the new year!

Capybara

The capybara! The world’s largest rodent (and arguably the cutest as well):

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Babies!!!

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Look at him, he’s so chill! 😀

Happy New Year, everyone! See you guys in a month!

Blogging, life

A Hobbit’s Walking Tale- The Conclusion of 2016

Emily

A Hobbit’s Walking Tale (Twitter tags: #AHobbitsWalkingTale #byfogisbeautiful)

  • Miles Walked This Month (November 29th-December 28th):  58 miles
  • Total Miles Walked:  696.8 miles
  • Milestones Reached: Mirkwood (Forest Trail entrance)

“By the afternoon they had reached the eaves of Mirkwood, and were resting almost beneath the great overhanging boughs of its outer trees. Their trunks were huge and gnarled, their branches twisted, their leaves were dark and long. Ivy grew on them and trailed along the ground.”

~The Hobbit, Chapter 7: Queer Lodgings

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We have come to Mirkwood, and the end of 2016! It’s been a great journey so far, and I anticipate the rest of the journey will be even more exciting! Just for fun, here are a few stats I’ve pulled together from the year:

  • Most miles walked in one month- 83.7 (August)
  • Least miles walked in one month- 44.2 (September)
  • Average miles walked per month- 62.3
  • Miles remaining to The Lonely Mountain- 245.2
  • Miles remaining to return home- 1058.2
  • Estimated return date- June 2018

I’m really looking forward to 2017, because I have a plan to incorporate walking into my writing routine by using dictation! That should up my mileage by quite a bit, if I can commit to it. As a goal, I’m hoping to raise my average miles per month to 70 (which will shave about two months off my journey!).

Until next month (and next year)!

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Blogging, life

A Hobbit’s Walking Tale- November 2016

Emily

A Hobbit’s Walking Tale (Twitter tags: #AHobbitsWalkingTale #byfogisbeautiful)

  • Miles Walked This Month (October 25th-November 28th): 65.3 miles
  • Total Miles Walked:  638.8 miles
  • Milestones Reached: Carrock, Beorn’s House

“‘And why is it called the Carrock?’ asked Bilbo as he went along at the wizard’s side.

‘He called it the Carrock, because carrock is his word for it. He calls things like that carrocks, and this one is the Carrock because it is the only one near his home, and he knows it well.'” ~(Gandalf, being super helpful, as usual…)

“Standing near was a huge man with a thick black beard and hair, and great bare arms and legs with knotted muscles. He was clothed in a tunic of wool down to his knees, and was leaning on a large axe.

‘Ugh! Here they are!’ he said to the horses, “They don’t look dangerous. You can be off!” He laughed a great rolling laugh, put down his axe and came forward.

‘Who are you and what do you want?’”

~The Hobbit, Chapter 7: Queer Lodgings

Despite that gruff greeting, we’ve had a nice rest at Beorn’s house and we are now well on our way to Mirkwood! I don’t have high hopes of many miles walked this month, what with the holidays and everything, but I do hope to have a better system in place next year, incorporating my writing into my walking (or at least my brainstorming ;P). Look for more info on that in the coming weeks!

Until next time!

 

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Blogging, life, Writing

Once More Unto The (Writing) Breach- October 2016

Emily

Hey guys! I am so deep into NaNoWriMo that I completely forgot about the blog! Sorry! Here goes 🙂

What I’ve Accomplished This Month

octwordkeeper

You know, this is really weird. I’ve been so focused on preparing for NaNo, I forgot I was going to have one more update post with Changing History on it. Wow. All my feels are reemerging. If you haven’t already, you can read about my feels in my blog post here.

Now I miss Boromir 😦

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I did way more work on this story than I anticipated this month. I looked over what I had coming up and realized… I really hated the way the chapters were structured. Really hated it. So I took the last chapter I’d written and completely redid it, changing the way everything was split and making me much happier 🙂 But it was a lot of work. Way more work than I wanted it to be. And now we’re at Beorn’s house and nearly everything I have has to be restructured and rewritten because it doesn’t make any sense. It’s going to be a disaster. But a disaster that can wait until after NaNo 🙂 Speaking of which!

I finished an actual outline! Like, with structure and thought put into it! Actually, what I did was take an outline of Hamlet from the internet, put it side-by-side with a blank document, and work my outline directly off of that, making changes as I went. It was… more difficult than I thought it was going to be, honestly. And the story is… harder to write than I anticipated. But I’m working on it! Hamlet in Space! And my male!Ophelia character is a precious neurotic cinnamon roll, I love him 🙂

What’s Coming Up in November

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Obviously 😉 My goal this year is to, not just write the 50k words, but to actually finish this novel. I already have it broken up into scenes (thanks, outline!) and it looks like I need to finish two scenes every three days in order to finish by the end of November. We’re only a couple days into NaNo, but so far it looks like I’m on track for that to happen. We’ll see how good I’m feeling in a few weeks…

Is it bad that I already have ideas for writing The Tempest in space? That’s bad, right? 😛

And since apparently this is becoming a tradition, the cute animal of the month!

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This is a pangolin!

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He is a real-life pokemon, and he is also very cute 😀

Until next time! 😀

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Blogging, life

A Hobbit’s Walking Tale- October 2016

Emily

A Hobbit’s Walking Tale (Twitter tags: #AHobbitsWalkingTale #byfogisbeautiful)

  • Miles Walked This Month (September 27th-October 25th): 55.5 miles
  • Total Miles Walked:  573.5 miles
  • Milestones Reached: Warg Attack, the Eyrie

“All of a sudden they heard a howl away down hill, a long shuddering howl. It was answered by another away to the right and a good deal nearer to them; then by another not far away to the left. It was wolves howling at the moon, wolves gathering together!”

“Over them swooped the eagles; the dark rush of their beating wings smote them to the floor or drove them far away; their talons tore at goblin faces. Other birds flew to the tree-tops and seized the dwarves, who were scrambling up now as far as ever they dared to go.”

“Very soon Bilbo was laid down, trembling with fear, on a wide shelf of rock on the mountain-side. There was no path down on to it save by flying; and no path down off it except by jumping over a precipice.”

~The Hobbit, Chapter 6: Out of the Frying-Pan, Into the Fire

We are nearly halfway to the Carrock!

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As someone with a fear of heights, I’ll be quite happy when my feet are planted back on solid ground 🙂 Until next time!

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Blogging, Writing

The Quarterly Writing Round Up!- Q3, 2016

Emily

Reminder:  At the beginning of the year, I made some yearly goals and some quarterly goals, which I promised to reevaluate and re-prioritize every three months. It’s been six months now, and it’s time to look back at Quarter Three 2016! Here’s a recap of my goals for the year, in case you don’t want to go back and read the original post:

Overall goals for the year: Finish Changing History rewrites DONE! (Q1), Finish first draft of Changing History: Entwives DONE! (Q3), Write the Worth Living For short that I’ve been planning for ages, DONE! (Q3) Edit and begin posting Clarity DONE! (Q2), Finish the first draft of all three parts of Wonderland Reclaimed.

Reward Project: If I finish Wonderland Reclaimed, I can write my Avengers: Age of Ultron fic for NaNoWriMo in November.

I finished up two more of my goals for the year, bringing my total up to four out of five! The last goal regarding Wonderland Reclaimed I’m no longer worried about completing, and I’ve already moved my Age of Ultron fic, Good Intentions, to my tentative 2017 plan. So things are going very well this year!

Here’s the month by month breakdown!

Quarter Three, 2016- Review

July: Camp NaNoWriMo #2! Finishing WriMo including Calenhiril’s Search, Paradise Found (Worth Living For short), and Wonderland Reclaimed: Down The Rabbit Hole, 50k words cumulative. Possibly finish posting Clarity, but NaNo is the priority.

  • This was a HUGE month for me, and I’m proud to say I accomplished all of my goals, plus some! I picked up Double the Baggins, Twice the Took this month, along with my writing and I managed to post a couple of extra Calenhiril’s Search chapters. I really need to learn how to pace myself, because…

August: Finish posting Clarity (if not finished in July), Focus on the editing and posting of Calenhiril’s Search (at least one chapter posted a week, more as I finish them).

  • …this month was a disaster. I didn’t have to worry about Clarity at least, because I had finished that in July, but I lost all the momentum I had built up for NaNo and only posted one (two if you count Sept. 1st) chapters of Calenhiril’s Search. I did almost nothing else. I also managed to burn myself out for Wonderland Reclaimed. I don’t know when I’ll be able to look at that story again. I’m hoping early 2017, but not holding my breath.

September: Continue posting at least one chapter of Calenhiril’s Search a week, complete first edit of Paradise Found, add at least another 25k to Wonderland Reclaimed.

  • I feel better about this month, even though one of my goals was a complete non-starter. I had given up on Wonderland Reclaimed by this point, so I didn’t even try, but letting that go seemed to have the effect of freeing up my brain to post for Calenhiril’s Search, doubling my projected chapter count. I completed the edit of Paradise Found and posted the story too, which was a nice boost to the ego 🙂

Quarter Four, 2016- Goals

Quarter Four is a short quarter, since I usually try not to set any specific goals for December to allow my brain to rest and try to cope with the depressing reality of the holiday season. For all that, here are my goals for Q4!

October: Finish Calenhiril’s Search, post one chapter of DBTT and write 5,000 new words, finish outlining my new NaNoWriMo project, The Stars Are Fire.

November: National Novel Writing Month! This year, my goal is not just to write 50,000 words, but to COMPLETELY finish the first draft of my novel.

December: My only goal this month is to post my requisite chapter of DBTT and to finalize my plans for 2017. I will likely try to pull out Wonderland Reclaimed again and see if anything has jostled loose, but I’m not setting any goals in that regard.

And that’s it! I feel pretty confident in what I have here, we’ll see how I feel once December rolls around. Until next time!

 

Blogging, life, Writing

Once More Unto The (Writing) Breach- September 2016

Emily

Okay, this month wasn’t nearly as bad as last month. Plus, I’m starting a new project, so…

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What I’ve Accomplished This Month

 

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See? Much better 🙂 I even managed to write some new words! Not on the project I was meant to be writing for, but hey, new words!

i_tried

This went surprisingly well this month. So well in fact that I’ve moved up my completion date to… the end of this week. Oh god, I literally have only THREE CHAPTERS LEFT… There will be a dedicated blog post when I’m done, I have too many feels.

Three years after I finished posting Worth Living For, I finally have the Bora Bora sequel up! Hopefully it won’t take three years for me to write the full-length Age of Ultron sequel. I’m shooting for sometime in late 2017 😉

Once Changing History is finished (oh god…), this will be the next sprawling epic that receives my attention. Weekly posting probably won’t start until after the first of the year, and until then, I’ll be dedicating most of my new words to this fic. Not in November though. November is for my brand new project 🙂

This is the story, all about how… wait, that’s not gonna work, let’s start again ;P

So, about two weeks ago, I was actually getting kind of depressed about NaNo. Wonderland Reclaimed held absolutely no appeal for me (you know that old saying about beating a dead horse? Yeah…) and I had resigned myself to the fact that I would be writing words on my DBTT fanfic for the month. It wasn’t ideal, but it made the most sense, productivity-wise.

Then I went to writing group. And was promptly (and rightly) shamed out of it.

I’ve been working on almost nothing but fanfiction all year. And that’s not to say that fanfiction is unworthy of my time. When I write a fanfiction, it is because I have a story to tell that I cannot imagine telling any other way. And I believe that those stories are important. They touch the lives of those that read them, and that is always a worthwhile pursuit.

All that to say, it’s still not going to pay the bills. Ever. I’ve been working so hard on my fanfiction this year because I want to finally be able to take a step back and breathe, to evaluate my time so that my fanfiction projects and my original work can exist in harmony together, side-by-side, neither one gaining complete control over my time. But getting to that point is turning out to be exhausting. My brain needs a break.

So, with the help of my group (I love you guys), I’ve decided to write a brand new novel for November. It’s a genderswapped, Hamlet in Space retelling, and I could not be more excited about it!

starsfirenano4

Special thanks go to Adan Ramie (who was instrumental in my shaming, mostly because she is probably SO SICK of hearing me talk about fanfiction ;P) and Cat Mealer (who was so excited about this idea I thought she might have an aneurysm, thanks for not dying at writing group, Cat! ;P).

What’s Coming Up in October

I’ve already mentioned that Calenhiril’s Search, the fourth and FINAL installment of Changing History will be completed sometime this week. I’m also planning to post my requisite one chapter of DBTT around the 15th. The rest of the month will be spent finishing my outline for The Stars Are Fire and writing new words on DBTT (I’m going to set an arbitrary goal of 5,000, because I like round numbers, but I don’t want to die ;P).

There will be a couple of extra blog posts this month too. It’s time for a Quarterly Round-Up (I almost forgot about this!) and as I said, Changing History will receive it’s own blog post in the next week or so.

I’m feeling really good about this month! Also, take a look at this bird!

05-potoo_bird

It’s called a potoo, and they may look like Muppet characters, but I assure you, they are very real!

Until next time! 😀

 

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Blogging, life

A Hobbit’s Walking Tale- September 2016

Emily

A Hobbit’s Walking Tale (Twitter tags: #AHobbitsWalkingTale #byfogisbeautiful)

  • Miles Walked This Month (August 31st-September 26th): 44.2 miles
  • Total Miles Walked:  518 miles
  • Milestones Reached: Goblin Attack, Gollum’s Lake, Dwarf Reunion

“‘Who are these miserable persons?’ said the Great Goblin.

“‘Dwarves, and this!’ said one of the drivers, pulling at Bilbo’s chain so that he fell forward onto his knees, ‘We found them sheltering in our Front Porch.'”

~The Hobbit, Chapter 4: Over Hill and Under Hill

“Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature. I don’t know where he came from, nor who or what he was. He was Gollum – as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face. He had a little boat, and he rowed about quite quietly on the lake; for lake it was, wide and deep and deadly cold.”

~The Hobbit, Chapter 5: Riddles in the Dark

“‘And here’s the burglar!’ said Bilbo stepping down into the middle of them, and slipping off the ring.

“Bless me, how they jumped! Then they shouted with surprise and delight.”

~The Hobbit, Chapter 6: Out of the Frying-Pan, Into the Fire

Oh my gosh, this was the worst month I’ve had so far… which is actually strangely appropriate, considering that’s probably exactly how Bilbo felt during this particular part of his journey ;P

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You know, between goblins, and Gollum, and things are probably going to get worse before they get better ;P Hopefully we can get away from the wargs quickly and the Eagles can get us to the Eyrie at least before the next month is up!

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Whoop, time to run!

 

 

 

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Blogging, life, Writing

Once More Unto The (Writing) Breach- August 2016

Emily

Just a warning: I was useless last month. I mean, really. I don’t know what happened to all my grand plans, but they are nowhere to be found right now. I’m finally feeling back to normal and ready to tackle my life again, but being off-kilter for a whole month really set me back.

Alright, let’s take a look at the damage and see what we can salvage.

What I’ve Accomplished This Month

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Ugh. I didn’t even want to post this. It looks so bare…

I know the chart only shows one chapter, but I posted the second one on September 1st, so I’m counting it 🙂 I’m not too far behind on this yet (though I’m further behind than I thought I would be) and if I post at least one chapter every week (excluding November) I should still be in a position to finish by the end of the year. I’m optimistic about my chances here, and I’ve been able to work through a lull in productivity in the past week, so hopefully this will continue on schedule.

I’ve lowered my expectations for this story to one chapter a month, just until I can get Calenhiril’s Search finished. But I got them out of Rivendell! \o/ I’ve also decided to make this story my NaNo project this year, so that I can dive right into posting in earnest in the new year 🙂

  • Wonderland Reclaimed- 3,894 words written

Here’s where my failure really shines. I had a goal of writing 10,000 words this month and I just could not push myself to it. I’m having a really hard time with this story so, as much as I wanted to be done with the first draft by the end of the year, I just don’t see it happening. I’m letting that goal go. I’m not letting go of the story, but I’m not going to punish myself for not finishing it by the end of 2016. Instead, I’m going to do my best to write at least 8,000 words a month on it until it is finished (obviously November and December will be exceptions). It’s going to throw off my plans for 2017 a little bit, but that’s flexible, I have plenty of time to figure it out.

 

What’s Coming Up in September

I’m still going to try to post at least one chapter of Calenhiril’s Search a week, and one chapter of DBTT around the 15th of the month. I have a goal of 8,000 new words for Wonderland Reclaimed, which should be doable if I really work at it. And I’m going to be editing the short story sequel fanfic to Worth Living For that I wrote in July! That’s something I’m really excited about and I can’t wait to get started!

I’m also preparing for additional duties concerning NaNoWriMo in November. This year, a friend and I have been announced as the Municipal Liaisons of a brand new region! We’re both very excited to get started, but it’s a lot of work and will take an awful lot of dedication and time to get set up. I think I’m going to be extra grateful for my month off come December 😉

Wow, this post was especially sparse this month, here have a gif of a slow loris eating a banana:

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I need about twenty of these creatures in my life… Okay, until next time!

 

 

 

 

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Blogging, life

A Hobbit’s Walking Tale- August 2016

Emily

A Hobbit’s Walking Tale (Twitter tags: #AHobbitsWalkingTale #byfogisbeautiful)

  • Miles Walked This Month (July 26th-August 30th):  83.7 miles
  • Total Miles Walked:  473.8 miles
  • Milestones Reached: Rivendell, Thunder Battle

“And so at last they all came to the Last Homely House, and found it’s doors flung wide […] His [Elrond’s] house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. Evil things did not come into that valley.”

~The Hobbit, Chapter 3: A Short Rest

“All was well, until one day they met a thunderstorm – more than a thunderstorm, a thunder-battle […] Bilbo had never seen or imagined anything of the kind […] When he peeped out in the lightning-flashes, he saw that across the valley the stone-giants were out and were hurling rocks at one another for a game, and catching them, and tossing them down into the darkness where they smashed among the trees far below, or splintered into little bits with a bang. “

~The Hobbit, Chapter 4: Over Hill and Under Hill

Well, I reached Rivendell, but I didn’t get much rest. I had my best month so far in August! And like Bilbo, I spent a great deal of it climbing around in the mountains:

Mesa Verde, Colorado
Mesa Verde, Colorado
Mesa Verde, Colorado

But I also spent some time in the air as well:

Pagosa Springs, CO
Pagosa Springs, CO
Pagosa Springs, CO

My Colorado vacation got me all the way through the Thunder-Battle, and well on my way to the goblin’s Front Porch! We should be through Gollum’s Lake (plus One ;P) and reunited with our beloved dwarves before September is done! We are a fourth of the way through our adventure, guys! It’s exciting!

See you next time!

 

 

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