Update, 30Apr2025

Weeelll, here we are, last day of April. Dave in Dallas ch 16 is sitting at 2.5k words. There's actually more work than that gone into it. I also created a character list for Mitchell Westfield (Shawna's assistant at the WFAA weather office) and his teammates. The fact that I was watching Battlebots on MAX has absolutely no bearing on why I made one of Mitch's partners a self-taught robot warrior babe.

Once the semester wraps up, I will have more time to write. I will at least get a chapter of DiD out this month, and hopefully wrap up the Bunker side stories that I have prioritized over the next chapter of Bunker. Note that I said prioritized, not sidelined. I've already made a rather detailed outline of events for Bunker 17.

I had hoped to have DiD 16 already out for review by now. I expected to have all of yesterday afternoon available to write, but a last minute movement of a deadline meant I spent that time re-writing the final exam for one of my classes. (Pretty sure most of ya'll figured out what I do already, so I don't think I revealed anything there.) Since some little shit had a copy of my midterm and cheated (he got a zero) that means I had to make a new final. And then I found out I had to have it ready by yesterday before I left my office. Do you have any idea how hard it is to make decent multiple choice questions? I use a mix of MC and open-ended questions, but students seem to hate the opened ended ones, so This test is half and half. 50 multiple choice questions in one day. I only got done because I used ChatGPT to generate alot of questions, and then had to whittle down which ones I actually used -- and fix some, because AI is stupid. Worked though. The questions are much easier than I would have gone with ... and I just realized a crucial concept I left of the fucking test. Fuck me. Seriously, as I was typing, my brain JUST NOW pointed out 'oh, by the way ...". Fuck. You know what? Fuck it. It's still a decent test. I can make it better for next year.
Anyway, all that to say, not sure how much more writing I'll get done over the next week and a half. While I'm watching students test, I may get to write, maybe. Grading will take up time as well, so I'll probably slip in an hour here, half hour there.

On the plus side, I will no longer get whiplash from driving and I can get in the car knowing I will arrive at my destination by means of that car, rather than getting towed the rest of the way. The transmission of my trade-in made it to the dealer one last time (barely) and I got a good deal on a three year old car in good condition. NOw I just have to pay for teh damn thing. LOts of rice and beans. Simple food is good for the soul. Also, I will probably re-purpose my Patreon payments to pay for the car. It will almost be enough.
Other than cost, the main downside of the new car is the shape of the door. I swear, one of these days, I'm gonna give myself a concussion by cracking the back of my head on this thing. It drives really good though. Efficient. Safety features out the wazzoo. I'm babbling.
To some up, good things and bad things happening personally. Dayjob work ramping up briefly. I will get DiD 16 finished and reviewed ASAP. That is my focus.