Proofreading Volume 2 has made me develop a newfound appreciation for how far I have come in terms of the quality of my writing. A big part of why editing it has been such a slog is how much harder it is to have to read through chapters that are not quite up to snuff with what I've been churning out in recent years. To quote Ben Yahtzee Croshaw...

"99% of all creators loathe everything they made more than 5 years ago and the remaining 1% are liars!"

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Proofreading for Volume 2 is nearly complete. However, I recall shortly after making Volume 1 available in printed form that some readers had difficulty discerning where chapters ended and the next began despite the titles of each chapter being front and center at the top of the page.

What can I do to fix this problem? Increase the size of the title text? Bolden the text? Underline it?

If anyone can clear this up for me, I will appreciate it.

I have found while proofreading Volume 2 that after editing the text and adding more where needed, I find that the word count is smaller than it was before by several hundred words. And it even seems to apply with chapters before I swap out the old text for the new.

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I did not want to have to resort to this, but due to time constraints and the general tediousness of the task, my efforts to proofread the remaining chapters of Volume 2 have slowed to a crawl even as I continue to work on new chapters for the sake of creative stimulation.

I know there have been offers in the past, but I would now like to extend an invitation to anyone who would be willing to proofread these remaining chapters in my stead. Is anyone up for this?

The Crystal Fair convention is coming up next weekend in St. Louis. If anyone is attending and would like to meet up, just let me know.

The previous chapter of The Lost Element was finished back in November. Half a year later and I am only half done or so with proofreading Volume 2. I never expected the process to be this tedious and time consuming.

I have no desire to wait a full year to update the story, so once I finish proofreading the current chapter, I will take a break to write the next chapter to hopefully give myself a refreshing change of pace.

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I have an invitation to hand out to anyone who may be interested. A number of readers have started up an audiobook project for The Lost Element in a Discord group. I am also involved and the project is making some progress, though more voice actors are still needed.

To all who may be interested in voicing their favorite characters of the story, feel free to come on in and sign up. Auditions are open.

I normally don't like getting drawn into these political things, but I think I will make an exception since it feels like the right thing to do.

Net Neutrality is in danger and there's only a little time left to save it. Read this article to understand what it means and what you can do to help save it.

With the most recent chapter having been finished, I am now preparing Volume 2 for printing. The Lost Element will be on hiatus until the second volume of the story has being fully proofread and been made available of Lulu.com. As always, I appreciate everyone's support and feedback on my work. It is no exaggeration when I say you all are what keeps me going.

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As a quick reminder, should anything happen to this account, I can be reached offsite on a small number of other sites. Just a reminder.

I have decided to push back the proofreading for Volume 2 by another two chapters. One due to the next chapter being a special case I am obligated to get out and secondly since I don't want to keep the readers waiting for the resolution involving the Starlight Glimmer subplot.

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First of all, Happy Birthday to me.

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The Lost Element and its extended universe finally has its own TvTropes page for all to view.

Anyone who is savvy enough on the workings of TVTropes can add new trope examples or edit any current examples to improve them. If anyone would like to do so, but does not know how to do so, I can provide instructions on how to edit the page.

A recent friend and fan of my writing has started quite an ambitious project on Youtube. A channel dedicated to developing a dub for The Lost Element.

This is actually quite flattering and not something I saw coming. Feel free to check it out and support their endeavors. I'm looking forward to whatever they come up with.

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I have a special favor to ask of anyone who may be reading this.

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The title says it all, people. After some time reading things somewhere that made me look inward to confront some unpleasant facts about myself, (Even reading about Bojack Horseman on Tvtropes alone is enough to illicit this) I just need to vent for a bit. Please bear with me.

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To everyone who offered their prayers under my last blog, it is appreciated. My father seems to be stable, so there seems to be progress.

However, I must make an important announcement in response to recent events.

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I am writing this from bed. I normally don't do things like this, but I feel the need to make an exception.

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It's done. Had quite a learning curve, but I finally got the hang of Lulu's interface to do my best to make for the best quality possible for these books. Illustrations are still out of the question due to having color publications jacking up the cost into the 70s and black & white illustrations just feel wasted while some you can barely make out what's going on in them. However, I am delighted to see that the font changes turned out well for when different characters write the chapters,

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I'm afraid I've hit a snag that has no way around. I have tried and succeeded in reducing the size of the second half to a 6X9 size, however... The price for a book of that size that allows for colored illustrations is frightening. No less than $75 a copy. I am afraid I have no choice but exclude all illustrations from each volume for the sake of keeping the price reasonable. All illustrations can be found in the online versions, but I apologize for not being able to provide this for all of my

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