Out of Character – What is going on?

You may have noticed that the last dozen or so entries have vanished. And updates have been really slow. So… a couple of things.

First, I kinda messed up. I’m what they call a “Pantser.” I make up this as I go along. Oh, I have a vague idea as to where I want this to go, but I’m not following a strict outline.
For disclosure, I used the encounter tables from MegaTraveller, the society information from the World Builders Handbook, and a lot of the random tables from Stars Without Number

But, sometimes, making it up as you go along using random prompts can go off the rails.

I actually hired a beta reader and editor to look over the last dozen entries. They all agreed on a few things.
1) I was getting way too repetitive.
2) Where I wound up was, honestly, a bit unrealistic given the competence the character should have been showing.
3) What Derek was feeling and was trying to do had gotten really muddled. One reviewer said “I have no idea what he is really thinking at the moment. He spends half his time contradicting what he said earlier in the same conversation.”
So… I’ve taken the last 10 or so entries back off-line. I hate to do this… It really goes against plans that I had been working on. But… yeah. I had written myself into a corner. It would have taken a huge suspension of disbelief, or an actual Deus ex Machina to resolve this.

So… I’m calling a mulligan and doing a do-over.

Sorry to all of you. Nothing major is going to change. The main thing is that the Stetons will not be on board the Grayswandir and that the gunfight on the Crew Deck will not happen. It really made no sense to have them on the ship that was already sus. So… revision.

I hope I can retcon this in such a way that it doesn’t come off too bad. And I appreciate all of you who are reading this. It was just a random idea that I came up with, and I am so happy that someone else is enjoying what wanders through my brain.

Updates will be a bit slow for a while. I’ve mentioned my personal situation before. Since my last OOC, my mother has passed and my father has been told that, due to cancer, he has less than a year left. So I’m dealing with a lot of things right now.

But the Grayswandir is my surrogate home. I come here to get away from my everyday. And I am so glad that all of you are here with me. Don’t worry, things will get back to normal someday. This is my pet project, and I intend to see it through.

So again, sorry for the retcon. But I think it will be better for the long-term story.

Thank you for your support.