"So where is Chapter 7 of Retrograde?"

I'm making this as a journal entry to quickly explain what's going on with the current state of writing the thing, mostly because I feel it necessary to at least say something since we're coming up on 2 months without an update... again... Well, technically it's more of a "life update," but since that impacts Retrograde's writing process, I figured the title was apt.

Needless to say, this wasn't the plan. I fully intended to truck ahead with this once I took care of some other commitments, and had nothing really happened in the interim, I likely would have gotten to my chunk of the workload a few weeks ago at the latest. Unfortunately, life ain't exactly kind in that regard.

I mentioned earlier in the year, prior to Chapter 6's publication, that my grandfather had lymphoma. When Chapter 6 was posted, what effectively happened was the chemotherapy was declared a success, as there was no noticeable cancer left in his body. This took a major load off of my family, and by extension, took a load off me, as the whole thing affected me for different reasons than one might think at first glance. I'd like to say that things have been relatively stress free, and that my family's situation has gotten better, especially after my grandfather's treatment went well... except things didn't, and have once again fallen into the "not good" category.

The long and short of it is that my grandfather's lymphoma is back with a vengeance, and he is currently hospitalized for early treatment. At first, it was thought to just be a unseen tumor behind his eye... but then they found one growing against his lower spine, and in his arms. Now he has one in or around his brain (I'm not totally sure), and had he not been taken to the hospital when he did the other day, he'd likely be dead right now. I'm not really surprised things rebounded, since the old bugger has been quite the ass in life, so this could be seen as karma biting him in the butt. That said however, things have become somehow more tense in my family recently, so I ask that you be patient with me and RQK. He's got some of his own life stuff going on that is slowing things down a bit on his end too, but nothing nearly as dire as stuff on my end.

Work, at least on his end, has been underway on Chapter 7 for a little bit. I'm extremely sorry life keeps getting in the way for me. Hopefully things calm down a little quicker this time, but we'll have to wait and see.

Onyx