Same. Like you, I see this as a potential building block in a relatively early retirement plan. Step down from full-time work and have a couple of side hustles (specifically, this and eBay, although I might also go back to trivia show hosting once the girls are older) carry me through for a while until Social Security and my wife’s teacher pension. But the time is so limited (and, admittedly, I squander a fair amount of it anyhow). Best thing I can suggest is just be glad you are making progress on the goal, however incremental. Plenty of others don’t or can’t, so it’s something to be thankful for even when you wish there was more time, more words, more all of it.
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My psychotherapist said that I must stop comparing my life with someone else’s one, even more so when we are from different generations and they already had a job in their early 20s while I’m still struggling at 27
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@Rinnegato That’s very wise advice, and unfortunately one so difficult to truly put into practice. I hope things will go better for you 
In other news, I have not added much to my prologue since my last post here, but I have realized that some things were better in later chapters than in the first! So, barring one scene that needs a rewrite, an outline for chapter one has been written - hopefully, I can get that down to paper soon, such that I can write sufficient enough plot for a first demo.
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I have not managed to reach this goal, but I’m halfway through the fifth episode (of six) now, and have sent in a total of 339 screenshots with corrections since the 29th of March. An average of 10 screenshots per day is hardly a bad result, especially considering most screenshots contain multiple corrections. At this rate I will probably finish proofreading some time in May, although I won’t be able to cover all branches and get to all the character-related events. There are simply too many different variations.
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Over 300 corrections! I usually get sent a half dozen at most. For both of my finished games, I sent out a call for private beta testers, had about 50 express interest, and then they got whittled down to 7, so I’ve never had a huge amount of corrections sent.
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I haven’t posted anything for a while now as I was getting a bit frustrated with the progress I was making on my book. In line with what @Eric_Moser started, I have been overwhelmed in my day job the past months, which is writing. Leaving me wishing I could just do the creative and fun parts. Or just have more time to read other people’s books.
There has been progress though, more planning and a complete stat system to keep track of your expedition should be working now. If only I could get myself around to do the more straightforward bits, I would have a massive update out any time now.
I really do hope I get to it soon! I must say reading through these support threads do help!
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Same-ish here. If I understand right, @Nocturnal_Stillness got so little feedback on his private beta that he changed it to a public beta, which is when I took notice of it.
(I’d done some testing for the first Unnatural years back, because a lot of the romances were broken, so this is all pretty nostalgic.)
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34,000 words and not-quite-everyday-but-more-than-10k later, I’d say I’ve been pretty successful this month. I also moved house last week, which was incredibly stressful but is fortunately over and done with now.
Whew.
Is it just me, or is this year going really fast?
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This month I ended up doing twice the amount of writing that I had tentatively assigned myself! Turns out having to rest physically, being off work and having brain space to write = extreme productivity. I did most of my Royal Affairs edits (the more involved ones are TBD, I’ll be doing them once I’m done with my NO draft), and wrote about 35000 words of Noblesse Oblige, drafting Chapter 5 and Chapter 6 a month early, and will be getting on with the final Chapter 7 during May (which will be at a much saner pace, since I’ll be back at my day job and much busier as my recovery continues). Whew!
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April has come to an end!
What I accomplished this month:
- Completed The Gray Painter
Will be riding that high until midnight (in 41 minutes) and then back to the grind for May.
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Y’all are crushing it! Congrats to @Jaybirdy @HarrisPS @will for those accomplishments.
@hustlertwo I hear you, man. I agree about the building block. I guess we all know that CoG/HG won’t be around forever (unless Jason’s vampire games are auto-biographical) but hopefully we’re all strengthening our craft in ways that can be applied to other projects, books, games, platforms; i.e. the long haul. Who knows what the game/book space will look like in 10 years? We might all be “managing” AIs to create content, for all we know.
@Rinnegato I think it’s healthy to remind ourselves that comparing ourselves to others rarely is a positive thing. Everyone’s life experience is different; we all deal with different advantages and disadvantages, many of which may be out of our control.
@lisamarlin a kindred spirit! Although I tell myself that having the day job income and not having to rely on the story/game income relieves a lot of pressure that might otherwise be there.
@Jaybirdy I just told a client on Thursday, “Wow the year is already 1/3 over and I’ve just now finally gotten used to writing ‘2022’ on everything.” I totally agree it’s speeding by!
I’ve managed to create 27k words of a new project while I was waiting on beta testing feedback on another. @will I’m sensing you share the “can’t sit still without a project” gene?
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Yeah and I’m very appreciative of the time and effort you’ve put into the feedback 
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Have to work on something or I start going stir crazy.
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So the Dachshund shifter romance got postponed because the deadline was later than I thought, and I whiffed on the deadline for the Eldritch hotel antho. But I got the shorts written for the new political sci-fi, and I did peck away at the Norse demigod series, although not as much as I should have (Someone downloaded Hades onto my computer and bought me a controller. That someone might have been me, but I won’t confirm or deny that.).
My 60K in April turned out to be closer to 22K (Not counting anything I happen to write today. Although signs point to no.).
The publisher on the aforementioned big gorgeous fancy anthology did put out the list of acceptances, and it’s a hell of a list to be on. Ramsey Campbell and Adrian Tchaikovsky, plus classics like Poe, Kipling, and Wells 
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Thanks everyone for helping make the support threads successful 
This month I dove deep into Patchworks – I broke the first chapter in the old draft into 1/4ths … and ended up more than doubling the word count, with half the rewrite of the old chapter to go.
The growth was not unexpected, because I tore out the old mechanics systems and started to implement new redesigned systems. So far I am extremely pleased with the results, but it is more complicated than the old systems, so there is more to keep track of and balance. @Eric_Moser – what you expressed in your Last Monologue project hit home for me as well.
When working on a total rewrite/new draft, word count is a fickle measure. I took 4,000 words and reworked them into 12,000 one week, and the next week I wrote 5,000 completely new words for a path that I initially skipped writing in the original draft. Is one measure better than the other? I have no clue; I only know, just as comparing yourself to others is a false flag, comparing yourself to yourself can be as equally dangerous.
@Cecilia_Rosewood – What you have done deserves major kudos … it is hard and often unappreciated (although I know @Nocturnal_Stillness appreciates it very much) to do “grunt-work” of quality control. Having a ton of experience in this, I know what you do is very valuable and necessary.
Those that have just completed a project, or are on the verge of completing one – thank you for sharing your successes. @will – you are awesome with your output, and @Eric_Moser … you continue to help blaze a trail others can travel with how you are evolving as a writer.
At this time, I’d like to share my excitement for those on the verge of releasing new and rereleasing old works on new platforms. @Lucid – it is awesome that you will have two games that are a must have on Steam next week.
Also, it is exciting that @Anathema has received a firm release date and now a Steam store page!
I’d like to welcome back @FayI … i saw her posting on her HC project… also saw that she finished her draft of the highly anticipated project. Well done!
@HarrisPS – it seems this forced “rest” period has been extremely helpful … both of your projects are coming along very nicely.
I even saw that @Jacic and @adrao were working on a new collaboration.
Lastely, there are many authors that are showcasing art with their projects. @CC_Hill and @Schliemannsghost have shown off original artwork recently… check out their threads for details.
Sometimes there is so much going on that things can slip by.
I will be opening the May thread tomorrow, so until then,
Happy Writing 
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It was a good plan, and while I’m happy to report that my Passover cooking went unprecedentedly well, I have made less progress on Turncoat Chronicle than I’d hoped. Several of the weekly tasks I set myself kept migrating from one week to the next, getting broken down smaller and smaller each time. Still, organizational work is always a learning curve for me, so I guess I could frame it as “I learned something”.
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