stefangagne.com

Big changes are coming. In the “Winter is coming” sense of impending gravitas.

I’m migrating ALL my content to StefanGagne.com. Due to a DNS issue that just points back to pixelscapes at the moment, but in the future it’ll point to a singular website which houses my blog and my writing projects and any future endeavours. That’ll also free up pixelscapes so my sister can use it (since it was her site to begin with and I kinda took it over bit by bit).

Why this transition? Well…

• Everything under one tentpole. No hopping back and forth between pixelscapes and wordpress.com or any other side-site I have.
• All my old content will migrate over. All my story websites, and even blog posts going back ten years and more. Nothing’s lost in the process.
• It’ll be far more professional; everything’s under one URL which is, well, my name.
• Nicer design and no intrusive advertising on the blog!
• I can organize up the content using the power of WordPress, which lets me keep my legacy sites as-is but add new abilities to future sites.
• City of Angles will now have DIRECT commenting right at the bottom of every chapter!
• The City of Angles VIP Club (and all future VIP clubs and maybe ebook sales) will be handled by software, without any messy manual process.

It’s gonna be better all-around, really. A move I should’ve made long ago.

What does this mean for you? It means updating bookmarks, although I plan to automatically forward the old URLs to the new ones. It means re-subscribing through a new system if you’re using email updates to follow my blog. New RSS feed URL, too, if you’re using that. But once that initial relocation speed bump is passed, we’ll be sittin’ pretty at a new permanent home.

Because of this transition and the work involved, I’ll be skipping the next City of Angles update. (I’m also finishing up the book and Kickstarter items, which takes time.) Also, the VIP Club is currently unavailable and might not be available at launch, but we’ll have that running as soon as possible.

Thanks for your patience. I think you’re really gonna dig this. I don’t have an ETA for when the switchover will happen, since I’m at the mercy of various tech companies, but once it happens you should get automagically forwarded to our new home. Can’t wait to see you there!

adorable artwork and news

No story update today, but I’ve got something just as awesome for you.

It’s Bedlam and Echo! Awww, they’re so adorable and extremely dangerous and completely insane. It was your Kickstarter fundin’ that made this artwork possible!

Speaking of which, the book I say is coming any day now, week after week? Srsly, coming any day now. It’s done. Finished. I have a few things to line up and then it launches in early September. I’d give an exact date but I gotta submit the Kindle version and it takes ’em a few days to approve it. Point is — soon, very soon.

The one disadvantage to Kickstartin’ a book with such a small audience is, well, I doubt anybody’s gonna buy it since they already “bought” it during the funding process. Folks who did so will be getting their copies mailed out shortly after the retail launch, so don’t feel you have to buy a second copy. Unless you want to. It would be kinda awesome if you did. Just sayin’.

Next week I’ll be starting //013. I have some ideas for where that story is going. Hope you like Gregory and Cass.

coa//012 sees the future in the past

And here we have the big finale to coa//012.

Well, not a BIG finale, it’s actually a short update, but it does expose the origin of the entire series so that’s kind of a big deal.

Progress is going great on the book. It’s basically finished; I just need to finalize the backer credits, the Kindle version, and those surveys I sent out yesterday. I’m also figuring out how I want to proceed with vol//002 and vol//003, in terms of funding and release. Definitely gonna change some things. News to come on that.

Next week I might take a break, since coa//013 is barely outlined and I’ve got book stuph to work on. Meanwhile, enjoy this story update, and let me know what you think!

backer surveys away!

I’ve sent the surveys out to the City of Angles Kickstarter backers, to collect information for delivery of books, ebooks, VIP accounts, etc. If you didn’t get yours and you did in fact back the project please let me know. Thanks.

Hoping to have the book out within a month. I’m actually almost done putting stuff together; all that’s left is some tinkering with the credits page, making the bookmark fun pack, and getting the Kindle version together.

Tomorrow I’ll be posting the finale of coa//012. May take the week after off to plan out coa//013 and finish the book, don’t know, we shall see.

coa//012 is ending one minute at a time

Large sized update this week… because I end on a pretty awful cliffhanger, and next week’s short update will answer a lot of questions about the nature of the City.

Feels good to have two weeks written out ahead of time, compared to my usual “oh god oh god now what I have to have something up this weekend I have nothing aaah” approach!

So, finale for //012 goes up August 17th. I may be taking August 24th off to work on the book and/or plan out the next chapter, bewarned.

Any predictions as to what’s about to happen? Post below. I’d also love your feedback and reactions in general!

coa//012 walks down memory lane

Let’s short ‘n sweet this one.

coa//012 Continues

On to Act II of this story! Including a slight revamp to the last scene I posted the week before.

That scene felt a bit rushed and didn’t include a lot of details I wanted to put in. I may be doing the same thing for the last scene of this one… typically I start running out of steam and decide “Okay, this is a natural stop point” but it means the last scene of an update suffers. Fortunately — draft! I can change things! Hooray!

As for the rest, we’re onto the core of this story, an exploration of Scarlett (and the City in general). This won’t be an epic length chapter, I suspect. I might even be done next week. We’ll see.

Book! Soon!

Much of this month will be dedicated to finalizing the book. I’ll be sending the Kickstarter surveys soon — I wanted to wait until we were nearing release, to avoid mailing to someone who’d moved out in the meanwhile. Eee! So cool. …not much specific to say right now, just that it’s in the works and on track. And the tracks for the next book should be shorter.

coa//012 is fashionably late

It’s been a few weeks, but I’m vacationed, my health issues are GENERALLY back under control, and I’m ready to get back into the swing of things. Let’s get started.

coa//012 Begins

It’s a new story! Starring Grandma Scarlett! This is a direct response to the poll I ran at the close of vol//001, where many of you indicated a desire to see an entire story devoted to everybody’s favorite granny.

This’ll also afford me an opportunity to peel back the curtain on a few of the City’s grander mysteries. In fact, looking at my schedule, this is the ONLY chance I’ll get to make those reveals — things are going to be… a BIT hectic in vol//003, no real time for such revelations. For those of you wondering about the origin of the City, your time has come. Will come. In a week or three worth of writing, I mean.

vol//001 Cover Art

Behold, we have a book cover! The book itself will be launching in September. Kickstarter backers will get a copy according to their tier reward, other folks will be able to buy a copy from the website. It’s taken some time to get everything lined up and I appreciate your patience. (I’ll be revamping my process a bit for vol//002’s book.)

hiatus continues

I hate to do this two weeks in a row, but I’ve been ridiculously busy this week — which is crazypants considering I’m actually on vacation. Packing in all the things I want to do with my week off AND drafting up and writing the next chapter of City of Angles is a bit implausible.

I’ll have something for you next week, on the 27th. Thanks for understanding. Life has been… odd lately.

create-a-thing challenge finale

First, I’ve got a post up about the coa//011 finale, so check that out first. Then…

…I’m proud to show you the entries we got for the Create-a-Thing Challenge!

Final tally… a fanfic, a poem, a fanart, a collage, and a cosplay pic. High quality stuff, all of it. I’m debating making the fanfic canon, the poem’s oddly touching, the collage is a real-world physical object that was photographed (whoa, is this 2013?) and the cosplay’s nicely mixed with real parts and photoshop.

Excellent work, folks. I’ll have your stories and Steam games soon. Probably more than one of your Steam pics, given the small amount of entries.

That’s really the only downside here — I don’t think I have a large enough fanbase to support this kind of contest. Clearly I have passionate fans and the end result is simply smashing, so quality over quantity, but I think making this a yearly thing is out. Still, if at any point in the future you wanna submit a thing, feel free! I always welcome it.

I’ll be on hiatus from writing until the 20th. Meanwhile I may be regaling you with video game streaming or walkthroughs of my Minecraft world. Stay tuned.

coa//011 makes the straylight run

Hey, folks. Stuff! Things! Let’s get started.

coa//011 New Scenes

Time for the final climactic confrontation and the aftermath that follows. I seem to be averaging one story every five weeks, and this is no different… although this was hard as heck to write, given Kelsey’s life is far more surreal and metaphysical than even Penelope’s. Crazypantstown. I’m curious what the reactions will be, given this is the closest to Sailor Nothing that I’ve written in years.

I’ll be skipping next week so I can rest a bit — and plan out the next two stories, which will be kinda bonkers. Yes, even bonkers compared to this. Vol//002 is kind of bonkers overall. Speaking of which…

vol//001 Is Movin’ Along

We’re still on track for a September release of the printed version of vol//001, as foretold in Kickstarter history. I wasn’t expecting to be halfway through vol//002 by the time vol//001 came out on paper, though… that’s a little awkward. I’ll be scheduling things a bit differently for future books, believe you me.

Create-a-Thing Challenge Is Pretty Much Over But Not Really

I’m still accepting entries through tonight, so if you wanna rush and throw something together, go ahead! There’s still time! And in fact, you can submit stuff any day of any week of any year… it’s not like I’ll turn down your creative work. It just won’t qualify for Prizes(tm). Not a huge problem.

I’ve got some AMAZING entries so far, and I’m thrilled to show them to you. The overall turnout is a bit low, though. I guess that’s to be expected given my small audience, so I doubt I’ll be launching another contest like this. But, as noted… I love fan work and would always welcome it.

The challenge entries will be posted tomorrow. Get ready!

Glory to Kraftghanistan

On a side note… I’ve got my own Minecraft server! It’s Vanilla/Survival (with a bank where you can trade junk for better stuff, so quasi-creative in that regard) and has a theme, namely an oppressive Orwellian state. Not really RP, just fun flavor. If you’d like to participate drop me an email with your Minecraft username to be whitelisted.

That’s all for this week. Next week I’ll be on break, and after that we’ll either be… hmm. Well, we’ll be on a strange journey with Grandma Scarlett, or we’ll be helping Milly and Lucas out of a jam. Which do you want to read more? Let me know!