Revamped Midnight Rising chapter launches tonight · 3:28pm March 1st
Sorry for the delay. Was waiting for final prereads to come in, and I’ve been sick this past week with what might have been the norovirus due to symptoms I’d rather not mention.
As you might guess, that sapped a lot of my physical and mental energy. I didn’t get it back until around dinnertime yesterday, when I suddenly found myself so hungry that I gorged myself on homemade spaghetti and sauce with pork meatballs (the meatballs were especially yummy!), drowned it with a 24-oz Icehouse, and finished it off with a gooey chocolate brownie after days of having no appetite.
I guess that means I’m well again. In any event, you’re going to get the new chapter tonight—all 21,000 words of it. Among other great and illustrious names, it was preread by SPIKE2022 this time, as he was the one who pointed out the major issues with the previous version. The new version met with his approval, though I’m thinking I’m going to have to do one or two ‘bad end’ alternate event chapters to this story eventually to meet his and certain other reader desires.
When I publish the new version of the chapter, the old one will be unpublished. I guess I should at least leave a link to the old version, though I’d honestly just rather it be forgotten for how big a dud it was. But mistakes should be remembered, so I’ll leave it available for anybody especially curious.
I’ve already started into the next chapter—at long last, a Lemon Zest chapter—to the tune of 4200 words. I’ll aim for a mid-March completion on it. Among other highlights, expect our two illustrious principals to join the peanut gallery and various hijinks to ensure from that, mostly courtesy of a certain of Element of Laughter who’s as refreshingly open and honest as Applejack at times in stating her opinions. Especially about those she’s interested in.
But I also don’t want all that to overshadow Middie’s long-awaited punishment of Lemon Zest, which will take a different but (I think) far more fitting form this go around. I do have to at least recap what happened in the griffon arc first for readers who may have skipped it, and take care of one or two hanging threads from it. But then we’ll be off and running.
It’s finally your turn, Zesty! 
Though given your personality, you’ll probably take an entire different lesson from it than the one Middie intended.
I had a lot of fun conversing with people in the gdoc comments. And you got a few good line ideas from them so win/win!
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Honestly, the back-and-forth on the google docs is what I look forward to the most when I do these chapters, given the dearth of comments I typically receive on clop. And as you say, I tend to pick up some good lines to put into the story along the way!