What's happening behind the scenes to bring new GHAWG content? The GHAWG Diaries is my recap of what I've been doing.
Base image came in another form from PublicDomainPictures.Net. 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. With posts in the GHAWG, Uninterrupted series on hold at Interlude 3 while Act 7 remains in progress, I decided to share these diary entries with everyone on Hive blockchain.
On Mondays which don't feature a GHAWG, Uninterrupted post-- GHAWG-U-- I'll post diary entries from the previous 7 days or between GHAWG-U posts if the time between them is short. For Part 21, there are 7 days' worth of diary entries. The first entry starts on 2024-March-25.
Before anyone scratches their heads at a few terms, here are 3 I began using many posts ago:
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
Rat 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-March-25
📓 Although I have looked at digital maps showing Old Route 66 through New Mexico east of Santa Fe and into the Texas panhandle (as misshapen as it is), I'm not finding much storytelling material there. I may need to consult other sources before I go back to the digital maps. I'm also seeing the need to fill in gaps earlier in GHAWG (especially the pre-STURGIS portion of the serial, when it was really all of GHAWG). Character introduction has been a problem for me with the zapfic format, so now I plan on addressing those shortcomings by backfilling these gaps with their own zapfic entries. It's not the first time I do this, but now it will be for the purposes of introducing characters in a more traditional manner. Characters needing this help include The Brothers Marchenko, The Kids, and Slim (who had taken over Guardia Courier Services when David Guardia began his Epic Ride as a way to live out his mid-life crisis.).
Tuesday, 2024-March-26
📓 The "Fun with Maps" subseries of the GHAWG Behind the Scenes (GBTS) series has been dormant for a while, but I had not forgotten about it. The routine I had developed for working on it fell apart and ended up getting discarded. While I know that I should batch the various pieces (place names, reasons for interest, origins, and the digital map associated with them), I hadn't figured out a way which worked for me, especially with other things going on offline for me. So this is something I need to figure out so I can resume publishing these posts more regularly. If I could do it before, I can do it again.
Wednesday, 2024-March-27
📓 Earlier this year I began working on a GHAWG post whose purpose is to list "the first time" for anything mentioned in it. Among these firsts would be these items:
- the first time something is mentioned by name;
- the first time something is mentioned by reference (via description);
- the nature of that thing (main, supporting, extra, etc.);
- URL "stub" (the variable part of the URL).
When I began this, I was under the impression I could get it done in a week or two. This was then GHAWG had nearly 300 zapfic entries. I had totally underestimated the work involved, and GHAWG now exceeds 400 zapfic entries. So this will be another project I need to complete which will make future work much easier for me in the long run. It won't be anything like @leoglossary, but it will be useful for The GHAWG universe.
Thursday, 2024-March-28
📓 While walking around my neighborgood today I was thinking about the ending for The Bronze. For a long time, I had seen it as the end of the road (no pun intended) for {David Guardia}. He completes his final mission for The Lord, then he dies in peace a short time later. That was going to drop the curtain on The GHAWG Universe.
Then I was considering extending The Bronze beyond this point:
- One option was "life after" the Final Mission. David Guardia had lost everything by the time he began his Final Mission, so life after would show him living a solitary simple life before people from his past-- whoever is left from Our Heroes or Felix Legion-- adopt him into their family so that he doesn't die alone.
- Another option was for {Harry Hoqualogue}-- a prominent figure in
The Bronzealready-- to bring David's cremated remains to his niche at the cemetery near what had been his home with {Rhonda Bella Guardia}. Along the way he has his own moments, similar to what David had before he reached STURGIS.
Friday, 2024-March-29
📓 Once again the Weekly Summary post snuck up on me. Why I keep finding myself surprised by this remains a mystery to me. No matter. The accelerated schedule of one Weekly Summary post every 6 days will come to an end in early April. Then it becomes even more important for me to have the zapfic queue at least one month ahead.
Saturday, 2024-March-30
📓 Last night I went down the rabbit hole to find useful information regarding the Felix Legions made famous by lead character Maximus Decimus Meridius in the 2000 movie Gladiator. What did I learn? While I didn't learn as much as I had anticipated, I still learned enough to make use of it in Rat Bike. What I had learned was enough to require a separate post, which I will publish during the first week of April 2024. One item of note: the logo for the historical Legio IV Flavia Felix is a lion. Given that GHAWG is the first daily zapfic serial for LeoThreads at InLeo, you know I will incorporate this deatil into GHAWG sooner or later.
Sunday, 2024-March-31
📓 Today I took a look at the zapfic queue. It only goes through 2024-April-15. It's down to only 16 days! I need to add to this queue, even it the srial itself remains in place. Recently I've been making zapfic entries which fill in the gaps from entries made much earlier.
Why would I make those entries? While possible, it's not easy to define characters with just one 240-character microblog entry (actually, 228 characters since the hashtag and surrounding spacing count toward the total microblog entry size). Even basic information such as character name and either hometown or profession take up space that's also needed by other elements needed to for the zapfic entry.
It's one reason David Guardia himself didn't get a name until we see him meeting the uncanny Manny Rey in Sandusky, Ohio, US. It's also another reason we don't discover that The Twins-- Hank & Frank-- are The Brothers Marchenko until later.
Another thing to keep in mind: The reason I'm using the zapfic format to present GHAWG is to tease out the story 240-characters at a time. Much of this story is seat-of-the-pants writing around only a very broad frame (not even a framework). One side effect of this approach to writing is to backtrack and fill in gaps during the telling of the story itself. For this reason my telling of GHAWG is considered only a first draft. So I will fill in gaps where I can, and I will advance the story as soon as I can.
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.
(Plese note that the Weekly Summary posts will be posted on an accelerated schedule-- every 6 days rather than every Saturday-- in order to bring those posts in synch with the daily zapfic entries. Synchronization should be finished by mid-April 2024.)
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 LeoFinance profile page
That's it for this edition of The GHAWG Diaries. I'm 
[!!]
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