Weekly Update - 7/31/24

Tonight! News Flash! No poker for Dev! AAA has a complete failure! Tesla Roadside Assistance is actually amazing! Here's the details!

So, I got Breakpoint 16 out there finally, and I have QT2:29 and QT:UM (6 to the commissioner, 5 to the Alphas and 4 to all Patreons) to do in the next couple of days as I'm still working on getting caught up, but BP was more difficult than normal because I had a new idea spring up that's pressing hard on the back of my head, and will demand I write it here once either Morgana's Gift or CARP finishes up. It's a cyberpunk story. Some of my earliest, earliest, earliest writing (like, when I was 10-12, so, y'know, eons ago) was cyberpunk, and I have a deep, furious love for the genre, but I haven't written anything in it in years. But I keep playing CP2077 even though there's almost nothing left for me to do in the game anymore. I've cleaned up the streets, I've done all the gigs, I've even basically bought all the cars. But my mind is living there rent free and I'm pretty sure I've got a cool story to tell there, erotic and everything. So be aware that's on the horizon. I may even offer the option for me to start that up to the upper polls once I throw the first one for the month up.

Because I'm behind, I don't know what I'm going to try and get done for the Friday slot, but it won't be here until Sunday, whatever it is.

Once I shipped the BP chapter, I was going to go to my usual Wednesday night poker game, but only got about 10 miles from my house (the game's most of the way up the SF peninsula) when apparent I ran over a nail or a spike or something on 280 and popped a tire. Now, I've made no bones about it - I drive a Tesla Model 3. That means I don't have a spare tire. I pull over, and tried to contact AAA. They tell me it's going to be about 100 minutes before they can have someone to me, and they're going to tow me to a closed garage until morning. So I cancel my request for them and figure I'll try Tesla Roadside Assistance. Guy picks up right away and gets the info on my car's state from the app, and tells me they can have someone out within 45 minutes to give me a loaner tire, which I can drive on while they either fix or replace my damaged tire. It's not a donut, I can do whatever with it, as long as I return it once I get my tired back or replaced. The guy is there in 20 minutes and has my tire changed for me in 10 more. He's taking my damaged tire to the Tesla repair shop and I'll know tomorrow if it needs to be repaired or replaced. (I'm betting on replaced... the hole in the tire was... quite impressive.) As much as I hate the guy who owns my car's manufacturer, I do love this car, especially since I'm going up to see Patton Oswalt do comedy in SF tomorrow. I've tried to see him on every tour he's done since I first saw him back in... '08. Good lord, that's a long time. He, Christopher Titus and Greg Proops are my favorite comedians working today.

We'll see how fast I burn through QT2:29 because I know where we're heading for a bit in terms of the QT2 storyline, and as the saying goes, I know where my bread is buttered. Heh. But I also want to run it by the writer's room, because we're starting to get into sections where I've got quite some big ramifications coming down the pipeline, and I need to make sure I'm being consistent with what I've already written. It's exciting stuff, and I fully expect people to start accusing me of leaving things on cliffhangers again, because, well, there's going to be a lot of that in QT2 for a while. Sorry/not sorry.

Also, sometime next week or so (I hope) I will post the first chapter of Quaranteam: Selected Servicing for alphas, with the first chapter coming to all Patrons a month after that, and the public six months after that. It's a 10-part commission focusing on the staff of House Rook. The first part was delivered to commissioners last week, and when I send them part 2, we'll start rolling it out for people to enjoy. Figuring out the structure and how to manage it took a while, but I like what I came up with, and I have a minor outline for all 9 other chapters, which helps. There's only so much screen time in the mainline QT story, so side tales like this help you see characters who maybe haven't gotten as much screen time as you want. I just reread it a few minutes ago, and when I smile at my own writing, I think I did pretty well.

I saw Deadpool & Wolverine at the first available show on Thursday, and man, did I have a blast. I'm going to definitely see it again in theaters at least one more time. My best friend back east saw it Friday night and called me after he finished it and we spent a good 5-10 minutes filling the other in on cameos we might have missed and bits that we cannot believe they had the balls to do. It was fucking great, and anyone who has an attached to either character and/or either MCU or the FoxMarvelVerse should definitely make a point to see it in the theaters and avoid getting spoiled.

Also finished this season of The Boys and loved every second of it. And am most of the way through the third season of The Bear, and while I do love it, I'm sort of amazed it made it to screen - how do you pitch it? It's not really a comedy, but it's too bleakly funny to be a pure drama. I may have to try pitching a TV pilot to FX at some point, because they certainly are adventurous. The Boys will have a raucous 5th season in 2026, and that will wrap up their main storyline, but they're already doing a bunch of spinoffs, so Amazon's clearly going to be in the Boys business for a while, which is good, because the comic's original creators are two of the nicest folk ever. I have a couple of original pieces of artwork from Darick Robertson, the main artist of The Boys, in my hallway so I always see them. The comic and the show are very different and yet also remarkably similar.

Anyway, the longer I'm chatting here, the less time I am writing, so I should get back to the grindstone. I do have to run out and charge my car before the drive to the city tomorrow, so maybe I'll do that as I'm writing the outline for QT2:29 down and figuring out where I want to leave QT2:30 although I know what the next intermission is going to be.

Oh, last thing - there's some utterly great content coming down the pipeline for the QTverse from some of the other writers in the very near future. While it can sometimes eat into my writing time, I do get to see basically almost all the QT-related content before anyone posts it (ostensibly under the umbrella of maintaining continuity and also because I can't help but wanting to help edit other people's jams), and damn, some of the stuff that's coming soon is truly top-tier. I spent part of yesterday helping one of the writers out in whipping their chapter into shape, and there were parts of the chapter that brought a tear to my eye. Chef's kiss I'm truly very lucky to have such a great team of other writers playing around in my sandbox. Much love to my fellow writers.

Here's what I'm sending to public sites in the near future:  7/27 - QT2:19, QTAA8; 8/3 - QTPT18, Threadbinders 8; 8/10 - Threadbinders 9; 8/17 - Neon Stonehenge 5; 8/24 - QT2:20; 8/31 - QTAA9, Quaranteam: Unbroken Mold 1. For those of you who just read what I post to the public sites, Unbroken Mold is a commissioned work that's been ongoing here for a bit now, and I worked with the commissioner to get what they wanted out of a story into something I felt comfortable introducing to the QT universe. The commissioner is plotting while I'm writing (although I do occasionally make a few tweaks and changes here and there).

Oh, last thing - I'm seeing fucking Soul Coughing in September! Reunited! The original band! They were #2 on my top five list of amazing bands that were never, ever, ever getting back together. (#1, Talking Heads, still holding strong...) Apparently they got over their issues and they're playing The Fillmore! And in October, I'll be out of the country for two weeks - in New Zealand of all places, where I've never been. Hopefully they don't hold QT2 against me. ;)

See you soon, chooms.