Welcome all to the support thread for January 2021.
If it seems that December was a tough month for you, I share that same feeling. I am going to be a bit quieter this upcoming month, because I do not see it getting any easier.
Thank you, everyone that continues to participate in these threads – it helps others when you do participate, sometimes more than you think.
I’d also like to suggest new writers visit @poison_mara’s Workshop Thread and Game Jam Thread.
Writing goal: write something every day.
Stretch goal: 2k words a week all month.
We’ll see how I do here, heh. I really need to get another chapter out on both my projects; at a certain point it just feels really disappointing when I haven’t been able to manage it in what feels like too long.
January! It’s a bit of a strange month for me. We’re in lockdown again, but with more expectations for working from home. I think I’ll have a decent amount of time. Not like summer, but better than the fall.
Well, my goal can’t be word count this time. So, I think I’ll go with this:
Finish proofreading my recently written scenes.
Add the 4 things I’ve placed on my to-do list, although they may get added by Alpha Testing.
Alpha Test at least once to the very end, fixing all errors on the way.
And finally, do more Alpha Test playthrus. 21 ends, 6 races, 5 departments, and countless combinations of choices, including: parent good/bad, psi/cyber, 6 ROs, raising a child, various upgrade combinations of the robo-pet, various branches of possible scenes…
I’m tempted to try to finish Alpha for January, but I think that might be unreasonable. Just having one finished error-free play through would be fulfilling enough.
Also, I don’t know how long that will take, but I know the first completed play will take way longer than each subsequent.
Good luck, everyone! Creation should be fun and playful. If you find yourself too stressed, please pull back a bit! It’s easy to end up creatively burnt out, so please remember that you’re immensely important, and that your self worth most definitely does not lie solely in the amount of words you can crank out each day.
Enjoy the process, friends. It’s going to be awesome.
Personal Goals
-Finish outlining every chapter, down to the nitty gritty.
-If possible, start work on Chapter One.
On my side of things, my main focus is just to keep up a pace of 500 words a day or 1,000 every two days in case I need a break day. Not sure how that’s going to go though, given I should be starting a new job soon. But! Here’s to hoping things don’t have to change too much, right?
I also want to be more responsive to other WiP authors I follow… we all need to support each other!!
I’m going to start taking note of my daily word count again this month, and will be trying to get chapter 3 of my wip finally done. I’m starting college again soon, so I don’t know how that will go, but I’m hoping I can do it.
I also keep telling myself to write something just for fun but never actually do it. I don’t think I’ll have time for that this month, but if I can squeeze it in somewhere I’ll do it.
Good luck to everyone. May we be healthy and happy during 2021
Last year was a surprisingly good one for me. My final wordcount stands at 233,000, and I’m going to keep up the resolution of writing a certain amount every day. Becoming disciplined about it has greatly helped my productivity, rather than sitting around waiting for inspiration to strike. This definitely needs to be the year I post a public WIP, too!
My first written scene of 2021 is part of a side quest, where the MC explores the desert palace of a rival sorcerer, to get revenge for some wyverns he tricked. It was partly inspired by the fantasy/horror fiction of Clark Ashton Smith, and partly by those two gay penguins in the zoo who kept trying to hatch egg-shaped rocks. Make of that what you will.
Revisiting my Exhaustion mechanic after I got confused how it would work… The more I think about it, the more I wonder why I included this stat. I could easily use Injuries to replace whatever the Exhaustion stat is doing, so I might scrap this.
It won’t be used in skill checks and only prevents readers from investing skill points into skills/abilities. So a minor obstacle at best. Thankfully I don’t think its removal will have much of an impact that I’ll need to do major revision elsewhere.
I haven’t written anything significant for a long time, and since getting back into choice games I’ve kind of wanted to. Not sure if I have the time, but it would be nice to have a reason to put pen to paper.
I know how hard it is starting again after being out of writing. You just have to spread your wings and just mark a goal you are comfortable with something like 250 words every day or any amount you like.
Happy 2021 everyone! My goal for this month is to get out of my own head, stop overthinking everything, and just write. I’m hoping to make some good progress on my game for the Valentine’s Day Game Jam and come up with something that, while not perfect, I can hopefully be proud of. Good luck to everyone this month, I know we can do this! If last year has taught us anything, it’s that we’re tougher than we think.
I think the pandemic hit us all a little to hard last year. Let us hope it is better this year
