Beautiful dog and lovely sunshine, but I’m so sorry to hear about those difficulties. I hope you - and the car recover soon.
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Goals for February:
I realized when rereading a scene where the player learns that one character’s parents (who were spies of the king) had secretly killed another character’s brother (a general of the kingdom), the second character’s dialogue of what had happened and attitude toward that first character in other interactions made him seem too blase. I was going for the “if i make a big deal out of this i might get killed too or start a kingdom-wide war so let’s pretend everything’s cool aaaahhhhhh” so now I’ll have to go through and add more awkwardness.
Update my WIP!
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Look at that doggo, he looks like he holds a 9 to 5 with the highest of excellence, deserving of such a badge.
Hope you both get well soon and complete your moving with the best of success!
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Izzy’s got a full time job as my PTSD doggy 
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Let’s name some characters based on the advice!
- Visualise your characters.
In your mind, picture your characters. What are their defining features, physical and otherwise?
My character’s name is Lovingfather Cirrhosisliver.
- Era, Age, Locale, and Culture
Here is one resource for ethnic names (but there are many others): https://babynames.com/.
For the last decade, dictionary or “word” names have become more and more popular … like Rugged, Heavenly, Powerful, and colors like Azure and Indigo.
My character’s name is Rugged Azure.
- Ethnic Names and Name Meanings
Use foreign names sparsely, if possible, but if you can’t avoid a lot of them, try to keep most of them short.
My character’s name is Cho Chang.
- Unless your book’s era, geographical location, and culture warrants it, try to avoid using unpronounceable or hard-to-pronounce names such as Xiuhcoatl or Xzighlab or Zbigniew.
My character’s name is Axolotl Nyarlathotep.
- Names with Odd Associations
To me, “Bambi” sounds like an aging stripper, and not, say, a professor of economics.
My character’s name is Dr. Bambi Fuxalot, PhD.
- Names with Famous Associations
The last thing you may want is for your unique, original protagonist to remind readers of someone else.
My character’s name is Adolf Hitler.
- Soft or Hard? Pretty or Ugly Sounding?
Some combinations of sounds are soft; others are hard and sharp. For example, names with a “k” sound—Katrina, Brooke, Mackenzie, Parker, Dirk, Rocky, Michael—will give your character a harder edge.
My character’s name is Down Pillow.
- Avoid Duplicate Names
How many Davids do you know? I can count about twenty in my broad circle of acquaintances, past and present. It’s important to remember that a novel is not real life; it’s art and artifice.
My character’s name is Muhammed Smith.
- Subtle Impressions
To one reader, the name Elizabeth might inspire an image of a green-eyed, titian-haired, voluptuous woman, while another might envision a petite brunette.
My character’s name is Elizabeth Imagineapetitebrunetteplease.
- More Tips: Variety
Mix long names with short names
My character’s name is Beelzebubbliramensteinentackersaxonaftermarketlongwaysdriver Li.
- More tips: Alliteration
Use alliteration for a more memorable name.
My character’s name is Dick Drinker.
- More tips: Differentiation
Mike, Mack, Mick, and Mark might be easily confused
My character’s name is Mork Wahlborg.
- More tips: Odd Acronyms
Maybe you deliberately want to name your lecherous womanizer Calvin Arthur Drummond.
My character’s name is Penelope Enveloping Neverweather Instagram Smith.
- More tips: Liability
If your book becomes a best-seller, you don’t want anyone coming after you angrily threatening a defamation lawsuit because you’ve seemingly implicated them as a criminal.
My character’s name is The Actual Real-Life Rupert Murdoch.
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Ah, marshes! Reminds me of the salt marshes from my hometown. Very peaceful way to spend the morning. Sorry to hear that things were rough later in the day, though. Taking a break is a good idea - even from a productive standpoint, nature is good for creativity! Breaks are good for making your brain work better! Enjoy your outdoors time!
As for me, I’m pretty happy with the progress I made in January, even though I didn’t manage to publish my fifth chapter due to some last-minute major changes. So, for February, I aim to finish up the chapter and hopefully push it out! I worry I won’t have enough time since February is short, but this is a leap year with an extra day, so… maybe?
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Look man, get out of my WIP OKAY??? 
Sorry to hear it’s been a bumpy start to the month (or end to last month?) for some folks in the thread!
I finally got around to putting actual prose in my WIP, and also finally got around to figuring out why randomtest was erroring out on gosub_scenes all of a sudden after doing no such thing before. (spoiler: my scene_list was not in the proper order.)
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That made me laugh. That said…
Use foreign names sparsely, if possible, but if you can’t avoid a lot of them, try to keep most of them short.
Unless your book’s era, geographical location, and culture warrants it, try to avoid using unpronounceable or hard-to-pronounce names such as Xiuhcoatl or Xzighlab or Zbigniew.
I feel personally offended by these. Like I am not allowed to make characters from different cultures. And like I’m not allowed to decide which cultures they come from! My Fennoswedes aren’t going to have American names, thank you very much.
(I also have two Nates on purpose. I hate the “no duplicate names” rule with passion.)
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Holy shit, same bro(gender neutral). Omg. I have been lucky that I haven’t had any REALLY BAD ones in the last month or so. They used to put me down WEEKLY for at least 2 days.
January was a hell of a year, man. What do you mean it’s only february. TAT
(and from last month’s thread:)
What’s a Stacked Choice? I’m confused.
FEBRUARY GOALSSSSSS, BOI!
- Finish Chapter One of Phoenix Rising- I swear to god, I’m going to finish it. Soon. …maybe.
- Get posts on the Nascent Souls Tumblr up to March.
- Get the game to a point where I can ACTUALLY POST AN UPDATED DEMO, GODDAMMIT.
- Bonus at work, which will require some sales. I actually managed to make my sales goal A SINGLE WEEK in January, so now I just need to keep that happening.
- Keep up with my Accountabili-Buddies so that we all make progress on our games. @RascaldeesV2 & @Phenrex we’re gonna do much better this month! I’m sure of it!
Progress on my 2024 goals
- Complete Phoenix Rising - laughs in full time employee
- Begin Editing Phoenix Rising - laughs even harder in full time employee
- Participate in at least 1 game jam - see previous goal
- Complete at least 1 game jam - see previous goal
- Learn Spanish enough to be able to use it at work (earn a $2 raise by doing this) - I have a 25 day streak in Duolingo! I’m doing good! I can also now ask someone the key phrase “WHERES MY MONEY?!” in spanish, so that’s fun.
At this point, I’m pretty annoyed by it, but it’s fact. I generally only have time to work on my game on saturdays and sundays, and not even always sundays. I get that one day a week is better than none, but still, it frustrates me. Also, HAPPY IMBOLC everyone!
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¡Buena suerte!
Translation: Good luck!
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…I wish you non-migraine weekends!
(I tend to have week-long ones monthly. It’s… not fun. Also making me feel I’m not 100% able to work full time, which isn’t a problem because I don’t have a job, but.)
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Gracias! Es muy … Shit, now I gotta look up the word “difficult.” DIFICIL! Ahem. I knew that.
That’s the kindest thing anyones said to me in weeks. Thank you.
Agreed. Real dififcult to feel employable when you end up not being able to work more than four days a week. TAT
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I definitely think you should use non American names. Maybe provide a pronunciation for the more complicated ones. But two Nates? Sorry, but that’s too far for me! It’s fine irl, because I can see the difference between the two Nates. But in text, it’ll make things too complicated, in my opinion.
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I held off on my goals because I wanted to see if I could get some of them done yesterday… and I did! I’m particularly happy with a little program I made that checks for incorrect verb endings. It points out typos where a nonbinary RO has a sentence like “they says.”
This month I want to finish chapter 11, start chapter 12, and edit chapters 1-5. Rooting for everyone here on their goals 
Every time I hear that phrase I get that old Héctor Lavoe song stuck in my head ~ 
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If only, but unless you can read IPA, my pronounciation guides would be useless because I have no idea how an English-speaker would write the pronounciation. (Besides, I’ve read translated novels most of my life, and they are full of foreign-to-me names with no pronounciation guides. I find the whole thought odd.)
That’s a valid opinion, but I’m not changing it. 
However, they’re minor-ish characters (I’m not exactly sure of how much they’ll appear yet, but they’re important only in relation to one NPC), are mostly referred to by another identifier (NPC’s brother and the same NPC’s family lawyer), and everyone involved is fully aware of how confusing it is and acts accordingly. Well, one is Nathan and the other is Nathaniel (going back and forth which one is which), but anyway.
I just love the “Shut up Nate, I’m talking to Nate” line too much, sorry.
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This month, I’m hoping to stay on track with my writing output while easing into a proper job search.
I’ve been a bit inconsistent in terms of how much I’ve been able to get done day by day and I’d like to smooth that out especially when I’m not going to have the luxury of sitting around writing for entire days very soon. I’m cutting myself a little slack cause starting a patreon was kind of a big deal for me and I was very nervous about it, but I need to amp up the words-on-a-page.
In any case February goal is for chapter five of Villain Juice. I’ve been at a fairly consistent chapter-per-month pace (although funnily enough the chapters have differed in length) and I see no reason to change that now!
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Not too much please, too long pages are horrible to read 
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oh no no, I mean the actual process of committing words to paper! Nothing to do with the actual length of pages.
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I had an infinitely better day today which involved me doing a 28 mile bike ride and musing to myself a bit about games while I did it. I think I’ll feel writingly refreshed when I get back to it after the weekend (or during the weekend if I do a cheeky short story which I would like to do - we’ll see).
In a random conversation Fay told me I had permission to make something in the Heart of Battle universe if I wanted to, which is making me turn ideas gently around in my head, a very positive feeling - I can tell I’ve got more energy when I start thinking about ideas, whether or not they go anywhere.
I’m now listening to a caustic but entertaining podcast in which they’re talking about writing about food which is rather inspiring. I’ve really been enjoying writing the Honor Bound food: most of the meals I write are ones I’d like to eat myself, but these ones are even more so, I think.
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