Greetings my lovely readers,

The end of Chapter 28, the completion of the first day of training, represents a milestone for me on the progress of Callie’s Heroes. I had no idea last December if I’d ever even get to this part, as so many of my previous writing projects have eventually fell by the wayside. I thank each and every one of you for reading and keeping me on task.

As of September 12, 2023, I’ve finished writing Chapter 44 (which is a big fight chapter), and Chapter 45 (which is a post-fight comedown chapter), plus a solid draft of Chapter 46 (needs polishing, including cleaning up a minor action scene) bringing the total written text to just shy of 400,000 words. At this point, I’ve also plotted out in broad strokes the entire story, and have even written a draft of the very ending epilogue, which is quietly waiting to be dusted off some day when the time comes. It is my hope that this backlog will allow me to stay far enough ahead of the posting rate should I need to take a break due to short-term burnout, holiday, or crazy things like real-world stuff (*cough* Starfield *cough*).

This backlog will also give me an opportunity to do something I’ve been wanting to do for several months, and that is to do a rewrite on Chapters 1-4, in particular, and possibly a few additional beyond that. They suffered from being early in the story before a lot of the deep details had gelled together, and honestly the pacing and writing leaves something to be desired. Callie also comes off as completely “ditzy” far too long, until the explanation is delivered at the end of Chapter 8 - it needs to be toned down a bit and/or better explained earlier in the story. The infodumps are too much, too hard and need to be spread out and more organic. A few minor retcons are probably also needed (simple things like character power sets, for example, and threads I initially dangled that I’ve realized I don’t wish to pursue). My plan is to make these rewrites my NaNoWriMo project this year.

There are some fun and exciting things coming up. As always, shenanigans will ensue at every turn. Callie will continue to be her crazy, snarky blend of Kaylee (Firefly) + Harley Quinn (with a handful of other personality inspirations in the mix), while her friends will grow with her as she continues to be the nexus of chaos for everyone she meets. She’ll soon reach Bronze tier, which opens up even more powers in her repertoire and you’ll begin to see her unique potential really start to shine as a Ranger, a Gnome and as a person in this new land.

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I know there have been some justifiable concerns (complaints?) about the slow-pace in terms of in-world time passage, as Chapter 28 only puts us at Day 3. I hadn't really intended the pace to be this slow, but it somehow just evolved out that way as I wrote, with outlined plot-points getting pushed back in favor of making the characters feel more real. I hope to speed things up with larger and larger time skips, occasionally stopping for an event or fight that might occupy a chapter or three, before another block of time is allowed to pass. I hope the character-based storyline is keeping you all engaged, despite the pace and the anticipatory shadow of the war on the horizon. Personally, I've been finding that I look at the story in the context of Callie, as if her finding her way is as much the adventure, as is what ultimately awaits beyond the walls.

Speaking of characters, it is my goal to start coloring in some of the side characters we've met. Slowly, you'll learn more about the personal motivations and background of the officers, trainers and the other side-cast. Several have small mini-arcs coming up, sometimes only a chapter or two, while others will start to interweave more deeply into Callie's story.

As a final thought, I have noticed is that the commentary on each chapter has become a little sparse, and I’m not sure why this is. It does pick up a bit on Tazrok chapters, and I'm gathering he's a fan favorite, as well as a bit more activity as the recent Chapter 28 came to a close. There are over 800 people reading this story on a regular basis (based on pageviews and follower analytics), but with little feedback, it’s really tough to get a read on whether you are all actually, you know, enjoying it, and what your thoughts are.

So that said, I wanted to take a moment to encourage you all to add chapter comments on what you like (or don’t like) about what you've read, speculations, and what moments may have brought you joy. As you can imagine, positive feedback, excitement and interaction goes a long way towards keeping a writer motivated on any RR or other serial work. If you like what you’ve read, please click the follow icon. If you’ve already followed the story, and have enjoyed Callie’s Heroes to this point, I encourage you to add it as a favorite. Both actions help the RR algorithm get the story noticed. If commenting publicly isn't to your taste, please feel free to DM me your thoughts as well.

As a final thought, I just wanted to thank all of you one last time for reading and supporting the story. I hope you are all getting as much enjoyment out of reading it as I am getting out of writing it.

RAH

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