Stories I Found
April 28th, 2026
How They Found A Home
Dear Readers,
These last two weeks feel like I have been sprinting non-stop! Two weeks ago I had a bunch of networking events and conversations about consulting for various businesses. Additionally, we also celebrated Aubri’s birthday last week! We had a lovely brunch with friends and played D&D Sunday evening.
We also had our first church league softball practice this Sunday! As you may have guessed from some of my prior news letters, I love sports and I love amateur sports in particular. I wish more people could embrace the joy of low stakes competition that builds community. Church softball is one of my favorite expressions of this amateurism.
Writing took a bit of a back seat over the past week because of the volume of networking events I had. But I did finish Chapter 23! That leaves me with somewhere between one and two chapters left in my outline, which is very exciting! Hopefully, I will complete draft one by the end of May!
This Week’s Chapter
This week we have a two for one special! Chapter 17 is very short. It is realistically a brief interlude, so I felt it was necessary to pair it with Chapter 18 to have a fully robust post for this week.
Chapter 17 is a brief poem written by Ikata. We get a look at her internal thought after some great tragedy. It is clear that Tilsitar has done something after she left the New Heavens that has deeply hurt Ikata. So she writes it down in a poem. I had originally planned to include a second poem in this book as well but as the plot structure came together, it ended up getting cut. Hopefully, when all the drafts are done this poem is kept.
Chapter 18 begins to explore the events that lead to Ikata’s grief. We follow Coraadrin and Colthan back to Irrkendgrond. Quite a bit of time passes in the first paragraph of Chapter 18. Exactly how much is revealed later in the chapter. We step inside Colthan and Coraadrin’s perspective seeing what has changed in the city. Ultimately, the chapter culminates in one of my favorite things in fiction. An in universe intersection between history and mythology.
Please feel free to share these newsletters with other people you think may be interested, and leave comments on the chapters!
“After Tilsitar left the heavens, after Coraadrin and Colthan began their wonderings to take healing to the world, after this and many more things came to pass, things of grief and loss, Ikata sat with Ewathat, god of song, in the new heavens on the foundations built by the billows women and dictated these words to him, so that they might be set to music. It is called The Path of Fire…”
Something Extra!
This weeks Something Extra, in honor of my wife’s birthday, is Kiki’s Delivery Service. This is one of Aubri’s favorite Studio Ghibli films, and we were lucky enough to get to see it this past week on a big screen at a local theatre. The plot follows a young witch, Kiki, as she sets out on her own to complete her witches training. She finds her way to a costal city where she settles in and starts her own delivery service to take advantage of her flying broom stick. We follow her through deliveries, hardships, and all that it takes to make a new place a home. I highly recommend watching it if you get a chance.
