What's happening behind the scenes to bring new GHAWG content? The GHAWG Diaries is my recap of what I've been doing.
Cover image designed by @magnacarta using emojis and Excel 2007 for text. Minor edits made using MS Paint.
Introduction
There's more to #GHAWG than just daily zapfic entries and the spreadsheet I use to track them. There's research. There's review. There's also thought and inspiration. Then there are the tools involved in doing any of those tasks.
Just to keep things from getting scrambled in my head, and also to document for myself what I've been considering, I began keeping a diary of my activities as they concern #GHAWG. For that reason, I decided to share these diary entries with everyone on Hive blockchain (including the LeoFinance community at InLeo).
On Mondays which don't feature a GHAWG, Uninterrupted post (GHAWG-U)-- eventually replaced by GHAWG, Remastered (GHAWG-R)-- I'll post diary entries from the previous 7 days or between GHAWG-U/R posts if the time between them is short. For TGD57, there are 7 days' worth of diary entries. The first entry starts on 2024-December-23.
Before anyone scratches their heads at a few terms, here are 3 I began using many posts ago:
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
Rate Bike | Code name for #GHAWG (the first and current zapfic serial) |
Blue Lion | Code name for the middle zapfic serial in the GHAWG Universe |
The Bronze | Code name for the final zapfic serial in the GHAWG Universe |
Monday, 2024-December-23
📓 I wanted to review the zapfic queue before adding any new entries. As it turned out, I didn't add any new entries, so the queue ends at 2025-January-15. Interlude 4 ends with Felix Legion being taken to the Illinois-Indiana state lines by motorcycle escorts provided by Lieutenant Terry Leo of the Chicago Police Department Auxiliary. Once within Indiana, Act 8 starts. At this point, Felix Legion spends a full day in Gary apart from the overnight stay for sleep. The ride from Springfield, Illinois to Chicago, plus the events at the Obama Presidential Library in Jackson Park near Lake Michigan, took a lot out of the hearty crew, so extra time in Gary was needed to rest and unwind before embarking on the ride to bring The Kids, Sanjay Rampersad and Lionel Odunsi, to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Although I didn't add to the zapfic queue today, I was able to get some things sorted in my head before I resume adding to the zapfic queue.
📓 As of today, the zapfic queue goes to 2025-January-22. It takes place one day after the events in Chicago. Not even 24 hours after events at the Obama Presidential Library, old news is being dredged up to create a scandal for Terry Leo. Although he wasn't held responsible for what happened in that scandal, he still had the taint from that scandal on his personnel file. No surprise, he discovered this news by watching the local news on television. That scandal will not harm his campaign for mayor, but it will remain a topic of discussion between the present day and Election Day. He's going to endure at least 2 more scandals, at least one of which will be covered later in Rat Bike. That scandal will feature an extramarital affair which resulted in a love child.
Tuesday, 2024-December-24
📓 Before I can add to the zapfic queue, I need to know what route Felix Legion will take to reach UNC. Until now, the route I generated using digital maps has Felix Legion taking toll roads. This isn't good for the characters, and it's not good for me as the storyteller. So I spent some time rerouting Felix Legion in order to avoid the toll roads. Due to the limitations of the digital maps I used without registering for an account-- because why would I freely give up my data for a service I loathe?-- I was capped at 10 stops along the way. This means that my route ends at Lewisburg, West Virginia. This puts Felix Legion about 570 miles east of Gary, Indiana, US. More importantly, it leaves Felix Legion roughly 230 miles away from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, US. Now that I have at least this portion of the ride to UNC from Gary defined, I should be able to add more zapfic entries.
Wednesday, 2024-December-25
📓 While reviewing digital maps of the area between Gary, Indiana, US and Chapel Hill, North Carolina, US I noticed that the route generated for me has tolls. I didn't want the characters to deal with tolls, so I had to tweak the route in order to avoid tolls. I also wanted to take advantage of towns with interesting place names. It took me longer than I had expected, and that was before I ended up having to start over. Once again, I defined the route I wanted Felix Legion to take to reach UNC Chapel Hill. The scene I want to write which takes place in the fictional town will be located in the southwestern part of the commonwealth of Virginia.
Thursday, 2024-December-26
📓 My plan was to add an entry to the zapfic queue for 2025-January-21. This entry was going to be a brief discussion between The Twins and the Brothers Marchenko regarding Karl Marx, the most famous proponent of the ideology we know as Communism. It did not originate with him, but he added so much to it that a variant of it bears his name (Marxism). Before writing the entry (or entries), I went to Britannica.com to read the article it had about Karl Marx. My recollection of what I had learned about Karl Marx didn't match what I discovered in that article. It also didn't help that it took me a couple of hours to read this article because I kept dozing off (for reasons unrelated to the contents of the article). As a result, I did not add to the zapfic queue. Whatever discussing Lindsay will have with The Twins will have to revolve around a different topic.
Friday, 2024-December-27
📓 I spent much of the day offline, so I didn't get much done for GHAWG. However, I reviewed the zapfic queue to see if I could find a topic of discussion Lindsay Etxeberria could have with The Twins and with David Guardia. I still drew a blank on this, so the zapfic queue stayed where it has been.
Saturday, 2024-December-28
📓 The brief discussion Lindsay Etxeberria was going to have regarding Karl Marx has been replaced with one about immigration. Not mentioned in the discussion is when the ancestors set foot on US soil, but based on how I had them answer it's safe to say they arrived a long time ago. One of the most famous immigration entry points was Ellis Island, located in New York Harbor near the Statue of Liberty and a few miles from Jersey City, New Jersey, US. Just because of their ages, it looks as if ethnic Russian Ukranian ancestors of the Brothers Marchenko arrived a generation before those of Lindsay's from the Basque area between Spain and France. Never mentioned in GHAWG until now, I decided that David Guardia's Spanish-Catalan ancestors entered the US at the port of Miami. I don't expect to make use of these ancestry details in Rat Bike or elsewhere in GHAWG, although I will include the details in the character dossiers I will write for each character for publication to Hive blockchain later.
Sunday, 2024-December-29
📓 While I've mapped out the path Felix Legion will take from Gary, Indiana, US to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (and I even figured out how to avoid tolls along the way), there is one task which eludes me using digital maps. That is, how do I find a location at a given distance?
Digital maps can tell me how many road miles Point A is from Point B. What I want to know is where Point C is located at some distance away from Point A. There may be a way for me to do that, only it eludes me.
Until I discover this technique, I will find Point C the old fashioned way: by measuring out the distance segment by segment along the route to Point B. This is what I did tonight. This is how I discovered that Ripley, West Virginia, US about 180 road miles east and south of Dayton, Ohio, US. Between Dayton and Ripley there may be a stop for refueling or some other reason; I have no idea at the moment, so I will let the digital map determine that for me. All I can say is that it will be one day between Dayton and Ripley.
##When (and Where) To Catch #GHAWG
When
This is the normal schedule for the posting of content for #GHAWG:
● Daily -- Each zapfic entry is posted shortly after midnight, from New York
● Weekends -- Weekly Summaries (with modified screen capture from LeoThreads as cover image) are usually on Saturday, sometimes Sunday
● Monday -- Either GHAWG, Uninterrupted if present, or The GHAWG Diaries
● Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday -- GHAWG Behind the Scenes -- The goal is to publish these posts on all days not dedicated to the Weekly Sumamry, GHAWH-U, or The GHAWG Diaries (TGD). There may be days with no post, so I'll minimize those occasions as best as I can.
Where
● Daily zapfic entries drop at LeoThreads, usually posted shortly after midnight from New York (sometimes around noon)
● All long form posts-- Weekly Summaries, GHAWG-U, and TGD-- can be accessed using the #GHAWGnav sticky post or from my InLeo profile page
That's it for this edition of The GHAWG Diaries. I'm 
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Thanks for your time. Give the post an upvote or a reblog if you liked it. Feedback is welcome. Until next time!
[!!] -- Graphic signature was designed by @ahmadmanga