Hey there Mothership fans, Bo Ryan here checking in with some Pipesong updates.
Levi and I finished the first draft of the manuscript at the end of march, and I immediately had a horrifying realization: basically every paragraph was way longer than it needed to be. I got started on an epic brevity-editing-pass, and as of today, we are in a good spot.
I've got a bunch of images to share below, so I'm going to do my sign off here. The book is coming together, and with our current pace, looking at having a sans-art version ready to go by the end of the month. I'll make that available as a preview PDF for backers.
I've been posting a daily-ish Gravy Press updates on bluesky. @gravy.press if you're hungry for more updates, or you'd like to hear about other Gravy Press stuff (I've got a shadowdark book that's going to release, like, any second).
Talk to y'all again at the end of the month, or later tonight if you're on bsky!
I'll work when I'm dead, Bo Ryan Crum
On to the granular updates:
Levi and I had a work call yesterday, and we got all of the remaining writing (tables, asides, phase alterations...) and editing assignments into a tracker document.
It's a daunting number of tasks, but everything is already written down in Levi's giant google doc, we just have to go pull those ideas out and put some polish on them.
I've been getting into the real layout work:
Pipesong's largest platform.
The Hive is an enclave of cooperative criminals deep in the tangle.
Lots of NPCs, and some 'cheap' spaceships for sale or rent.
And after much experimentation, I've landed on a style for the tangle map that I'm happy with. I'm going to take another run at the Hive map with what I've learned here.
Here's an overview of how the whole book looks as of today:
