What's on deck:

We have a lot of points stories to get through and I'm having trouble getting a chapter out on Thursdays. And unless you guys start giving me enough money for a regular housekeeper (and no, my perfume budget would not cover a housekeeper), it's going to stay that way.

So! For the foreseeable future, I'll be doing a new chapter on Tuesdays, a points story on Thursdays, and the bonus chapter on Saturday if you've all met a target, either marketing or $$. The points stories are a good "palate cleanser" for me; they're not as hard to write as a full-blown chapter, and often give me direction and depth on upcoming stuff. So this will be good for everyone.

This coming Saturday is your last stored-up bonus chapter. After that, y'all better start meeting some targets or I've got the weekend off. Since we're already more than halfway to the $$ target for Saturday the 11th, I'm expecting we'll get a chapter that day, but after that? You guys will have to make with the $$ and/or marketing efforts. And I would really love to see a dollar (remember--it only has to be a dollar) from people other than The Usual Suspects, And You Know Who You Are.

And now, Story Behind the Story, Chapter 35 (I feel all VH1-y!):

I was floundering a bit until I started thinking about newspapers, and I've been thinking about newspapers for a number of reasons unrelated to the story. I started researching Victorian ads, and when I found the Patent Groats ad it all came together. Yeah, that's a real ad, some names and numbers changed but otherwise pretty much verbatim from a London paper. Plus also it was high time Temmin started paying attention to the kingdom, harrumph.