K, so the possibility has been mooted from some corners - discussions I've had with some teammates, etc - about having an AOA "group" page. I admit to some uncertainty about the idea but I thought I'd throw it open to you lot.

The general gist of such a group would be to have an index of all AOA stories present and future, and were people so inclined, to debate ideas and suggest concepts for AU's or anthology pieces.

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So AOA's had a new Interlude added to it between Sixteen and Seventeen, and I also wrote The Mark of Cain, an Anthology piece.

God, you have no idea how good it feels to be back on AOA.

This time last year, The Avatar of Albion had just gone up. Back then, of course, it was a vaguely derivative story with no clear direction, and it didn't look like it was going to go anywhere. Now, of course, it's not only finished (and 330,000 words long, if the bloody thing would ever accept my edits to the word count!), but it's spawned eight other stories. I mean seriously. Dayum.

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Ok, so you guys know there's currently a Crossover in progress between AOA and The Other Side of the Spectrum, which seems fair since there's at least three authors who've worked on both universes now (including, quite obviously, me). Now: I know there's a fair bit of crossover between folks who read spectrum and folks who read AOA - we are the same genre after all - so because of that, if anyone reading this is a fan of both, what would you want to see in such an crossover? I

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Figured AOA needed an index of stories, since it's getting to have a fair few, and will have a fair few more, so I've put an index on my user page. If you're a fan of the original AOA but haven't checked out the other stories yet, I heartily urge you to do so - in some cases, they throw a new spin on what already is. in other cases, they clarify some characters' backstories considerably.

Cheers,

Jed

So: while AOA's spinoff and sequels are getting worked on (which is fun - slow work in some cases, but still fun :-) ) I'm working on a list of fixups and additions to make to AOA itself. The main focuses I have are on tweaking details and adding in sequences that should have been present, by which I mean things like Converted and Barrier not being capitalised in early chapters or the misuse of ranks or similar issues. A lot of AOA was thought up during writing, as a sort of "tale that grew in

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So: there's stuff in the works, as I've mentioned. When We Needed Him Most has been posted and I strongly urge everyone who loved AOA to go check it out. The Morningstar Dawns and the untitled Spectrumverse crossover are both in progress, and they'll start being posted as and when myself and their respective authors feel they are good and ready.

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Hello gentle readers.

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So - an update on the state of AOA. I had extended the total number of chapters to about 54 plus already-existing Interludes and two epilogue chapters, however I decided that this was already pushing it a little - I'm already a little worried that this "final battle" gig is running on a bit, and while I think it deserves that, I still have readers to think about.

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Two milestones with Chapter Fifty. Firstly - we've just hit the fiftieth proper "Chapter" - while technically there are several more than that posted by now, Interludes and the prologue included, this is the fiftieth "full" chapter to be posted, and I'm feeling pretty chuffed with that milestone.

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My regular readers, of which I can safely say I have at least a few (hi!) will hopefully forgive a little self-indulgent rambling on my part. But recently, I've come up with a question I needed to ask myself.

What is AOA?

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So it should be pretty clear by now that AOA is part of the Alt-TCB - or Alternative (the) Conversion Bureau - genre, by which it is generally assumed to be a story that uses tropes set down by a certain author and similar authors and takes a different spin on the premise, usually one without such a misanthropic set of overtones as the original tends to have.

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AOA just hit 1,000 views. I'm very proud of that. Thank you to all my readers. :-)

It's not often I have the inclination to say nice things about my own work. You'd not think it from the amount of times I say "this is awesome, that is awesome" when talking about my own work, but I don't tend to believe my own work is up to all that much. In fact, I tend to compare my work harshly to others and find it very, very lacking. Other people tell me I shouldn't - that my work is good even comparing it to other stuff. Still, I don't tend to believe it.

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Cliche number one. Complain about lack of time to do things.

It's a cliche because all fanfic writers do it. And they do it because, unless I miss my mark, fanfic takes time that real life does not allow us to have. In my case, between a Masters degree and a baby and a bunch of other shit, I'm just plain low on time. The next chapter of AOA is in progress - about 4,500 words of it - but it's slow going right now. :-(

Still, I'm slowly getting there, and it'll be up this week, I promise.

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So - a little while ago, a person I respect a great deal paid me the great complement of putting an edit into the AoA tropes page saying that it was a contender for "darkest Alt-TCB War Fic". Now, while I was more than flattered by this - I've talked before about how I don't think my work's very good as I write it, so having someone I respect that much complement me is something of an ego boost - I couldn't really agree with it. I've worked on Other Side of the Spectrum for God's sake -

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As of about four or five days ago, I started writing the final epic battle scene of The Avatar of Albion. It's a ways off, yet (there's other chapters in-between), but AOA's climactic finale needs so much pre-thought that I felt it would be criminal to not begin writing it now.

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Posted AOA Chapter Thirty Five, "Heart of the World" today. Was 10,500 words, give or take.

God in heaven, was that weird to write.

Anyway.

The next chapter of AOA is closer to publishing than I thought. In fact, it's already about 8,000 words long.

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The next chapter of AOA, Heart of the World, is proceeding at a faster pace than I had anticipated. It is already at 4,000+ words and is still going - there's a lot going on in this chapter! I thought I'd take the time to briefly explain some of it ahead of the chapter's completion, which should probably happen in the next two or three days tops. Mild spoiler warning for those disinclined to know about these plot threads.

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