Another Bi-week, Another Blog
Greetings, Laurentians (and other readers, should you identify differently). I must apologize for the delayed publishing of this update. For one, I have been studying about 90 minutes a day for my upcoming Tailwinds Math Placement Exam in April of 2027. My brain is boggled and boiled by finding function domains and ranges; calculating sines, cosines, and tangents; and reviewing other collegiate math fundamentals. For two, I strained my back a couple days prior while doing some heavy-lifting around the house, which came back to bite me yesterday. After trekking around on Friday to interview and apply in-person for nearby jobs on the 16th, I walked home, and my left knee and lower back began stinging with some pretty sharp pains. I passed out about two hours after getting home, and didn’t wake up until 01:00 on the 17th! Oof! Anywho, I should be breaking my back on a job, not whilst searching for one. And anyway, here’s the progress I’ve made pertinent to my projects over the past few days. No specific segments this time, just dates and stuff done.
10/13/2026
Poetry & Website
Uploaded readings of 4 poems selected from Sighs of a Once-Defeated Heart, adding them to the relevant page which can be found in Writing Projects
After navigating to the Sighs of a Once-Defeated Heart page, below the Table of Contents images is a header titled “Thus Spoke Laurentia”. There, the readings can be found and listened to for your elucidation and enjoyment.
This week’s featured poems from the collection include:
Love, frozen, frozen in time
Where no love treads
deceptively strong
Dissonance, Bloomed
Abode to Terrodia & Worldbuilding
Wrote 3 pages expanding upon Auphula & Erekhule’s travels in the galleries of their colony. Also introduced the burrowers (reddish-brown squishy cylindrical worms with segmented bodies ringed with curved, dull gray prongs) in-universe.
Excerpt:
As they both scurried, Auphula detected Erekhule’s pheromone trail closing ahead of her; they were slowing down. She quickly felt why; the tunnel floor wettened beneath her, and her claws sunk deeper into it with each footfall. Auphula’s pace slowed as she exerted more energy to pull her legs out of the muddy gallery floor in addition to scurrying through the tunnel. Beneath her, she briefly felt a squishy, wiggly, cylindrical mass moving under the tunnel floor. A burrower? Here? Auphula thought as she scurried over the moving mud. Then she felt the floor under her continue to move. Writhing, shifting, wiggling. She continued to feel squishy masses under each of her steps forward. A clew of these burrowers squirmed beneath her footfalls, tripping Auphula’s footsteps and causing her to face-plant into the muddy gallery floor.
Her mandibles got caught on a burrower as she tried to pull her head out of the floor. Auphula forcefully tapped the gallery walls to signal, Stuck! One of the burrower’s rings of dull prongs around its segmented body interlinked with her left mandible. Auphula rapidly shook her head from left to right, but her mandible stayed interlocked with the burrower’s ring of prongs. The burrower then pulled Auphula along the tunnel floor. Her head dragged through the muddy gallery substrate, coating her antennae and body in mud. How did Erek get past them? Auphula’s thoughts raced.
As she got pulled toward the tunnel wall, Auphula thought of one last way out from the burrower’s prong; biting through it. She directed her head as much as she could toward the prong, closer to the worm. Auphula’s right mandible repeatedly clamped with its stuck left, and she chewed on the burrower’s prong. The burrower wriggled violently as it squirmed toward the gallery wall, but Auphula continued chewing on its prong. She chewed and chewed until the prong snapped, and she broke free.
Auphula pulled her head back into the air as she broke free from the prong. She steadied her footing so as to not trip over any more burrowers, and leaped over the remaining burrowers ahead of her. She tapped the wall of the gallery with her forelegs to communicate such, but felt her legs indent the moist tunnel wall. Auphula’s vibrations were dampened by the moisture; no other fellow nymphs, helpful Dwellers, or protective Escorts could detect her signals. The gallery around her felt wetter and wetter with each of her footfalls closer to Erekhule. Erek better live, Auphula thought again to herself. She began scurrying ever faster, leaving many sets of light indents in the floor behind her. Erekhule’s unique pheromone signal grew stronger, and Auphula began tapping her forelegs together Found you!
Differentiated Obsidian Vault notes of Abode to Terrodia’s worldbuilding into separate files: In-Universe and Meta-Universe notes in a folder.
I was having trouble with including expository information about the history world of Abode in the same text as Abode’s character and plot-driven story, so I simply separated the two.
The above-excerpt is an example of In-Universe writing, whereas Meta-Universe writing would entail something explaining a fundamental aspect of the world-building.
Something more like this excerpt:
Their lives could only be measured against how moisture increased and decreased in their mudbanks as they molted thirteen times in total, from larvae to adults. The water levels near the mudbanks would recede past the shallows, expose the various gray, red, and black algae to the air, and the mudbanks themselves would harden into dirt for nearly six molts, which the progenitors noted as a dry cycle. During dry cycles, odors of decaying algae would fill the subterranean air, which became arid and stale. Food and water were less plentiful, few eggs were laid, and fewer progenitors survived. Eventually, the water levels would rise back up to the mudbanks, re-covering the dead algae and softening the dirt slopes back into mudbanks for nearly seven molts— a wet cycle. With the wetness came more food and fertility, but also a return of the long dark shapes in the waters. One new generation of progenitors took about one dry cycle and one wet cycle to fully mature.
I also linked the source materials for my research to each note utilizing said source materials in my Obsidian Vault.
I already had a Source Materials folder with a [[Web Links]] file containing all of the links to various articles and ebooks pertinent to my worldbuilding, but I then added sub-headers under each source material titled “Sourced in:”, and linked relevant daily workshop notes under the subheaders.
This way, I can quickly revisit each source used by each note, and document which notes use which sources in my Obsidian Vault
I also researched the heck out of termite mandibles. Specifically, the asymmetric mandibles possessed by Pericapritermes nitobei soldier termites.
Left-mandible is substantially longer than the right, and stores all of the elastic energy expended in Pe. nitobei “snaps”
The asymmetric mandibles are selected for left-frontal aggressive and defensive snaps in narrow termite gallery environments, requiring less space to perform their snaps compared to symmetric mandibles possessed by other termite species
Associated with higher rates of lethality with lower amounts of snaps required when Pe. nitobei soldiers engage ants and/or termites of an opposing colony
Higher accuracy documented in asymmetric mandible-snapping termites compared to symmetric mandible-snapping termites
I intend to include at least 1 Abode prototerrodian colony with asymmetric mandibles selected for similar specialized environments
10/14/2026
Getting Connected with other Creatives
Virtually met with authors Paulette Brooks, George Matta, and Joanne Flood via The Write Stuff meeting group
discussed publishing, distribution, ethical research
learned that Amazon KDP provides tax-exempt purchases of print copies to authors
learned not to purchase ISBN’s from KDP, as they do not apply to distribution and identification of a work outside of Amazon’s KDP library
obtained feedback on my current cover-art pertinent to my two poetry collections
discussed Brook’s extensive research done to complete her dual-timeline historical fiction novel Not Just a Homemaker: The Extraordinary Life of Sheila MacGregor, Flood’s sequel plans for her mystery-thriller fiction novel Every Evil Deed, and Mattas’ historical nonfiction memoir Prisoner of War: North Korea 1951-1953 about his father, in addition to his plans for the two following books also inspired by his family’s experiences and his documention of everything as the “as told to” author.
Set up future meets in addition to getting connected with the Central Indiana Writer’s Association and its relevant virtual meetingevents
Abode to Terrodia & Worldbuilding
Edited character interactions throughout the first 3 chapters of Abode to Terrodia to feature more nonverbal insectoid communication and remove all instances of spoken dialogue
“screeches” and “screams” are replaced with “chitters”, “rapid taps”, and “ecstatic vibrations”
Updated Terrhod’s description throughout the first 3 chapters to resemble that of other reproductive castes
has a flaking umber-clay substrate-coating that cakes his black exoskeleton
symbols of wing-like appendages and footfall-markings etched into his coating signify his travels in search of a mate
his coating is flaking, gradually deteriorating from wear, tear, and distance from his colony’s substrate
I also celebrated my sister’s birthday on the 14th of October! She’s been around for 23 orbits now, she’s grown taller than me, and she’s helping take care of our grandmother wonderfully. She hopes to further pursue P.A. school after helping out with our grandmother, since she graduated earlier this year with a B.S. in Human Biology. I was grateful to be there for this birthday since I haven’t been present for others, and I really appreciated seeing her excitement when she opened the gifts my mother, brothers, and I got for her :-)
10/15/2026
Abode to Terrodia & Worldbuilding
Researched a lot about the biogeography of geoxyles as to properly develop and render Abode’s surface-biomes (that are far from lifeless) and Abode’s xenoxyles
Geoxyle growths occupy wetlands, drylands, arid & mesic savannahs, and other open-canopy (biome with sparse tree growths) ecosystems wrought with environmentally stressful disturbances (fire, frost, herbivory, waterlogging/flooding)
Geoxyle growths persistently resprout in the positions of their original growth (in situ)
Underground geoxyle organs can be quite variable:
long, thick, compact lignotubers that store food
rounded, woody, long and tangled rhizomes that store food
bed-bulbs full of resprouting/reproductive material for the geoxyle
long, wide-radius encompassing, and multi-branched xylopodia that store food, water, and reproductive material
Above-ground geoxyle organs also vary
shrubs
short/small trees
Geoxyle’s limited vertical growths may be an evolutionary tradeoff for them to occupy a ‘persistence’ niche pertinent to their in situ resprouting and their longevity:
geoxyle growths are oftentimes indicators of old-growth savannas, and geoxyles themselves can endure for several decades
Abode to Terrodia’s surface-biomes may include mudlands brimming with violebacteria* and other Abode microbes flourishing in the muck, with waterlogged xenoxyle growths providing shelter and sustenance to several creatures both above and below the surface.
Many of Abode’s prototerrodian xeno-insectoid colonies are based in and around xenoxyle growths to provide them with a constant source of nest-building materials and sustenance
* still in development
Poetry, Memoiring, and Publishing
Uploaded readings of the poems featured as the preface and afterword of An Authentically Autistic Perspective to its eponymous Writing Projects page
new header beneath the Table of Contents pictures titled “Laurentia Speaks” added
recordings of the poems as well as a weekly featured recorded excerpt I read from the book are included under “Laurentia Speaks”
edited the Author Pages of An Authentically Autistic Perspective and Sighs of a Once-Defeated Heart to remove information that was out-of-date or no longer appropriate, and to include ongoing academic endeavors
10/16/2026
Abode to Terrodia & Worldbuilding
Researched a lot more about Lichens, courtesy of a good book titled Lichens of North America
lichens are not so much characterized by shared ancestry, but by shared modes of nutrition
modes of nutrition and food/energy exchange vary from lichen to lichen, but all entail…
lichens are a composite organism of a fungus and a photosynthesizer, often called a “photobiont”
the fungus and the photobiont engage in a mutualistic-symbiotic relationship with each other
the exact nature of how energy via photosynthesis is exchanged between photobiont and fungus varies from lichen to lichen
in short, “Lichens are fungi that have discovered agriculture”
documented the nature of fungi that form lichen
very few mushroom-producing fungi associate with lichens, rather…
ascomyecetes that produce microscopic reproductive spores in cylindrical sacs help form the overwhelming majority of lichen associations
fungi are often unrelated across lichen associations
lack chlorophyll and/or chloroplasts necessary for taking carbon dioxide & water in sunlight’s presence for energy conversion via photosynthesis
documented the nature of photobionts that feed lichen
green, golden, brown, and blue-green (cyanobacteria) algae are photosynthesizers that associate with lichen
green algae species have chloroplasts in their photosynthetic cells, and are the most common photobiont associated with lichens in the greatest array of environments
fewer photobionts associated with lichens are golden algae or brown algae; the former associates with freshwater fungi, the latter with maritime/saltwater fungi
brown algae is often associated with parasitic fungi, but no fungal associations between parasitic fungi and brown algae form lichens
Cyanobacteria lack chloroplasts, but have chlorophyll in body-fluids, and are more associated with gelatinous & filamentous lichens
cyanobacteria-associated lichens form commonly along moist rocks
lichen substrates can include trees, rocks, any type of soil, and even insects.
Lichens of Abode form protective crustose layers around the Xenoxyle xylopodia, lignotubers, and rhizomes they use as substrates
associate with black, gray, and red algae that photosynthesize limited amounts of sunlight from Abode’s surface in subsurface habitats
is a substrate-coating for at least 1 of the 9 prototerrodian colonies’ reproductive castes
the protective crustose layers that lichens form around Xenoxyle underground-organs help protect Xenoxyles from proto-terrodian consumption while the Xenoxyle provides a substrate for the lichen to root in
That’s all for now.
Thank you again for tuning in this bi-week, Laurentians and other readers. Anyone willing to read my words and listen to my void-screams is certainly worth the gratitude. I’ll continue to keep this site updated in light of recent developments, as delegating time to school and (hopefully more) work may cause some delays or even hiatuses in developing my projects. But I persevere nonetheless.
Clarity in Action & Solidarity in Purpose
~Laurentia
