The last time I updated the demo, aside from some minor additions / proofreading / bugfixing, etc, was when I released Chapter 4 back in October. Since then, my focus has been very spread out, and I’ve also not been able to write as much as I would like due to various circumstances. This means that there will probably end up being a 3 month gap between major updates, but after that, they should be coming a lot more frequently (hopefully a chapter per month). So far, here is how much I have for the remaining four chapters:
EDIT:
WHOOPS. Those numbers were way wrong.
Chapter 5: 24/40k
Chapter 6: 15/40k
Chapter 7: 14/40k
Chapter 8: 15/15k
Also, I just wrote 2k today, which felt good after two weeks of writing like 0.75k per day on average. It was for Chapter 6, where Zaleth forces you to have a brutal flashback of the worst time Killian attacked you.
So, I made a list of all the main characters in TMB, putting them in order of how much character development they’ll have once all 8 chapters are finished. I assigned them “interaction points” to give it a numeric value, and here’s how I decided how many they got.
For each of the 8 chapters, I would look at how much interaction with you they had, and then I added them all up. Obviously this system is subjective and not entirely accurate, but it does give you an idea of how much of the story they were in. It goes like this:
Small amount of interaction (like Mowbow in Chapter 2) - 1 point.
Medium amount of interaction - (like Violet in Chapter 2) - 2 points.
Major amount of interaction (like any of the ROs in Chapter 4) - 3 points.
All that said, here’s the breakdown. I hope you find it interesting!
So, I’ve got some bad news and some good news. The bad news is that I got fired from my menial day job. I won’t go into details, but I will say that I was a good employee for 15 months but ended up getting fired for not doing something completely revolting and outside of my job description.
The good news: I still have a couple checks coming in from that job, as well as from my pet sitting job and my royalty check from my trilogy in January. This means that I should be alright for at least a couple months.
Now, onto the good part: being mostly unemployed will give me enough time to finish The Magician’s Burden in time for the contest. I plan on writing a minimum of 2k per day until the deadline, as well as doing some proofreading and bug fixing each night. There’s 70k left to write, but if you all hold me to it, I think I can get it done.
EDIT:
Minor update:
I proofread chapter 3. This means there should be:
Less typos
Smoother dialogue and narrative
More balanced stats
I also wrote 2k words today. If I can keep that sort of progress up for the next 35 days in a row, I’ll be able to submit TMB for the contest.
Welll…looks like I spoke too soon. I went to a meeting with the general manager today and convinced her to just suspend me, just to be safe. So it looks like I’ll be going back to work in 9 days. So that’s 11 days of work missed, which obviously sucks, but at the same time, that’s 11 days where I’ll be getting much more progress done on TMB.
This means that I probably won’t finish it in time for the contest, but at least while I’m suspended, I’ll have written ~ 22k words and done a lot of proofreading instead of writing 11k words and doing a little bit of proofreading. I figure, at the very least, I can just stick around at this job until TMB is published.
(+1 Charisma, + Coins, +1 Cautious, -1 Willpower)
EDIT:
I wrote 2.5k today, which is more than I have in months. At this rate, I’ll be posting Chapter 5 in the next few days.
Sorry, guys. Would it help if I told you that you can make a red laser light come from your finger with your magic and play with her with it in Chapter 6?
Just had an idea… how about one day you are playing with Mowbow (you must have had a good rapport up until now) and someone is calling you, but kitty still wants to play. So you learn to create a persistent illusion (maybe a 1 hour duration or so) that will entertain Mowbow while you handle your business. Now you know how to use this spell in other situations.
That’s a really cool idea! However, such a strong spell would be far beyond your current magical skill, especially if you were elsewhere doing other tasks. I’ll definitely keep that spell in mind for later on in the series, though.
Wow, The Magician’s Burden just hit 100 likes. That’s the first of my WIPs to do so. Thank you all for your support and feedback and I hope you’ll like the content that’s to come!
I’m so glad to hear that your job situation is somewhat resolved. It’d be a real shame for that sort of thing to affect your time to write.
Side question: for those of us who aren’t avid cat lovers (ahem), will there be any chance of obtaining another animal companion, either as a pet or a familiar? It’s hardly important, so don’t worry if you haven’t added it–I’m just curious.
Would it help if I told you that you can make a red laser light come from your finger with your magic and play with her with it in Chapter 6?
Cheap tricks and… Oh, a red dot! 
Gotta go! 
It’d be a real shame for that sort of thing to affect your time to write.