Feathered Hearts - 10 side story chapters finished! · 3:10pm May 24th, 2021
The latest chapter I was writing reached close to 9000 words by the time I was through with it, meaning it was big enough to be broken in two. It's now with prereaders, and this means that the US Marine M14 Designated Marksman Rifle (DMR) belonging to the side story is now loaded with the full ten-round magazine I sought before launch.
It's still amazing for me to think about. In the space of just over one month, I've written over 50k words on this thing plus whatever the word count is on the additional main story chapter I authored to support the side story's launch. I've truly been inspired, and my muse has just gone to town on this. I sincerely hope it'll be as fun for everyone to read as it has been for me to write!
What reaching the ten-chapter mark means in more practical terms is, with one week remaining before launch, I'm not going to write any further new content. Instead, I'm going to concentrate on editing and improving the existing chapters, giving multiple voice-narrated editing passes to each before launch to catch and correct any issues. Typically, I also end up fleshing out the chapters a bit more in the process, sometime adding as much as another 1000 new words to them. The side story is now entering what we in the software development business call the 'hardening' phase—which is a term that is very much apt here! 
In all seriousness, it means you 'harden' whatever new product you're making by focusing on testing in order to find and fix bugs/improve usability, which translates here to finding and fixing any editing issues and otherwise improving content/tone/flow/readability. I might even retcon parts of the main story to better match the side story—case in point, I already made a minor change in chapter 6 to show that Lieutenant Nantz was being taught Aeric by the Innkeeper's daughter; a sixteen year-old eagless named Merlina Marcus as opposed to the innkeeper himself. You'll learn who she is, and see her for the first time in the side story, but basically, she's a griffon version of Fluttershy! 
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Expect plenty of twists and turns and surprising pairings, and I'll at least say that Marco's movies will play a big role in what happens. Turns out the griffies get turned on by battle scenes as much or more than sex scenes!
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