Hello readers,

This month felt slower than April, but things have been progressing. It’s hard to think that I’ve made it this far, and I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve worked on lots of different things this month, so let’s jump into it.

Story Update

The copyediting and proofreading is complete! I’m now incorporating the final feedback, making sure it’s all good for publishing. Thankfully there aren’t any major changes required, so it’s mostly just going through with a fine-tooth comb to ensure it’s ready.

I’ve been having fun with the LLM literary analysis tool, as well as some other tools that will be released in the coming months. The LLM runs locally, so nothing is shared online (after downloading the model in your browser you can go offline and it’ll work). It’s far from perfect (and may never be), but it’s useful for pointing you in the right direction for comparable authors and genres. I’ve also implemented a chat box so you can discuss your novel and results, or even just chat to it without running anything. Idea is to have something that can easily be used locally without disclosing anything online. I’m just making some final tweaks, so I’m hoping to release it next month. As such, I’ve made some changes to my website to make it more streamlined. The tool will be found here once it goes live.

I’ve also decided to move the newsletter from Substack to MailerLite. There’s more control for emails with MailerLite, and I’ve become more appreciative of the marketing side of things that I need to work on. I’ll continue posting to Substack for now, but if this interests you subscribe to my newsletter.

Plan

I’ll be working on the copyediting/proofreading comments, but I’m hoping it won’t take too long. It’s mostly grammatical, but there are a few scenes that need a bit more tidying up. I think I’ll give it to one last reader to ensure it reads smoothly, but I’ll see how time goes.

I want to work on the reader magnet for my newsletter. Because of this, I’m thinking I’ll continue publishing on Substack, MailerLite, and my website to increase exposure. I’d like to have a preview of the book ready as a magnet, and maybe even some internal artwork I’ve commissioned. As a subscriber, you’ll be the first to know once it’s live.

I plan on working on the website (since the last change there are some formatting issues I need to resolve). I’ll also try and push the local LLM tool to the website (and Github).

I didn’t do as much work on the socials, so I’ll try and do better. I’ve also realised these updates aren’t super interesting because as I’m not disclosing anything about the story. I want to avoid spoilers, but once I’ve released the preview I’ll try and be a bit more specific about characters and scenes. But at least this newsletter gets me into the habit of providing loose updates and some accountability.

Cool Science

Researchers using a technique called helioseismology have been tracking the Sun’s own vibrating sound waves as it follows eleven year cycles of magnetic activity. They can use this to track intense solar flares that occur during the peak of these cycles. Interestingly, these readings suggest something has been changing about the Sun’s cycles. Why this is happening (let alone what it means) is still unknown, but it’s interesting to consider how small shifts within the Sun itself can have such grand impacts on our little planet.

Only love,

Lucifer Read