I just did 987 words this evening as I had a busy day at work and feel a bit tired, but I still sat down and wrote as I want to keep this going, as it feels good to write consistently once more.
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It wasn’t a meteor but a virus that struck me, but I still feel like I did this to myself. 
I did finally get something out, even if I’m not exactly satisfied with it, but I maintained an average of 500 not scrapped words a day which isn’t that bad considering. Here’s hoping it’s all clear skies from here. 
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Lost most of my writing time today trying to transfer my stuff to COG Demos, and had a much of bug fixing I had to do, including one moment where I waa looking at code that should work, but was still throwing an error, and I yelled at my computer loud enough that my husband heard me ftom another room.
Any way, I am finally actually adding stuff, but I don’t know how much I’ll do before I quit.
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Having a great time playtesting my chapter and encountering typos such as this one that somehow made its way in. Friendly reminder not to write while, just perhaps, sleep deprived
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That is such an awesome number. 
I’ve found that beeing sleep deprived is a perfect state to produce text, but you’ll definitely want to proofread it later.
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Oh yes totally! I always burst with ideas and turn quite productive towards the evenings and in the middle of the night. But its the same level of creativity as the non sensible and chaotic dreams you sometimes have. Proofreading it is c:
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Technically not writing related, but I’m starting Uni again this upcoming Tuesday. I’ve been out since 2022 after my life went horribly wrong, so I’m equal parts nervous and excited. It’ll obviously cut into my writing time, but I’m hoping since I’m starting back slow it won’t weigh me down too much.
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Loading up your work with too many ellipses and dashes in quick succession makes it harder to read, and can make it feel a little overwrought. In this case, since you’re asking, I think the pause before “beings” is perfectly represented by an ellipsis, but that you could get by just fine with commas around the next clause rather than dashes.
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What do y’all do when you just cannot focus on your story? I have to work a bit later today so I thought I’d use the time to write a bit already. But my adhd brain just keeps drifting off. I read half a sentence and I’m somewhere completely different mentally. I’ve tried putting on some music and putting in my airpods to avoid distraction from whatever is happening around me but that hasn’t helped much. I just keep thinking about other random things not related to the story at all. I spent about an hour and a half and I’ve not managed to get anything written.
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It is above my target of 833 which is why I’m not sad it isn’t as high as the last few days. 
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If it really isn’t happening with music, switching off distractions, and so on, I go for a short walk as a reset.
My day is disrupted today as my child is poorly and off school, so writing is going to be minimal if it happens at all. But I got my editor notes back from Chapter 1 in record time so at least I know exactly what I need to do next (and they look both useful and not too complicated).
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Speedy recovery for the poor kiddo!
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Think about something that makes you excited to write this particular scene. It can be a description, a witty dialogue, a tense action scene, a conflict that reveals something about a character… Anything, really. Or if there’s nothing, you can come up with something - chances are, this’ll make the resulting text more exciting to read, too.
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Hope your kid gets better soon!
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Somewhat off topic but my graphic novel of Dante’s Hell finally arrived and it looks amazing! And while in the bookstore I also took The Witcher - Time of Contempt with me for inspiration
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If I find it impossible to focus, I don’t even try and instead take a break.
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Hey guys. When writing an emotional scene that involves let’s say the death of someone close to the MC. How would you go about writing the scene and what feelings are you trying to invoke? What devices do you use?
What I’m asking essentially is to list the steps you take when writing powerful scenes like that. By the end of one of my books a major character will kick the bucket and I want it to be sudden and unexpected for the MC/)Player but impactful at the same time. Any advice?
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Do not impose emotions on the player. Don’t say ‘it’s such a shock X character is gone now’ or ‘You’re sad/angry/upset that X died’ in the narrative. If you have to include things like that, put them inside a choice alongside more neutral (or positive) ways to feel about it. (For the people who dislike the character.)
If you wrote a good character, the emotions at their death will pop up with the reader on their own.
As for steps, make sure the scene:
A: Fits the story you’re trying to tell.
B: Is something the player feels could realistically happen in that setting/does not happen out of the blue.
For an example of what not to do: In a contemporary/non-magical setting heart attacks are a thing that can kill people. However, do not include one in your story unless the character it happens to has a history of heart issues or has heart-related deaths happen in their family that the MC knows of. In real life such things can happen out of the blue. In a story it needs to serve a purpose. (No, ‘I want to write a scene where the MC has a dramatic emotional breakdown’ is not a valid literary purpose.)
For an example of what to do: If you’re writing a political intrigue where people regularly die of stabbings/poisonings/falling pianos/etc that is a completely valid reason to have a major character get stabbed/poisoned/crushed by a piano at a moment of your choosing. It might still be unexpected that it happens to that character at that time, but it is something the player would have expected to happen to someone at some point.
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I second the advice to not outright tell the player how to feel. Show them, let them feel themselves.
Images (ex. the person slumping over), sensations (ex. hot tears, warm blood, cold skin), jumbled thoughts, denial (no, no, it can’t be, nonono) followed by anger or numbness… memories of better times (looking at the face & remembering how they smiled at you only a day ago), maybe regrets (and now you’d never get to tell them that xyz)
Actually I did post the desc of MC encountering the body of someone they knew in one of the previous threads… though it wasn’t someone very close.
found it
You turned to Grey. The impression that struck you was how small she looked, a child compared to the two bodies next to her. And… that’s what she was, at the end of it. A child caught up in something decidedly un-childlike.
And it cost her her life.
“This is wrong,” Neith mumbled, sounding distressed. “She wasn’t that badly hurt. They could’ve kept her alive. Why didn’t they keep her alive?”
You had no answers to that. You couldn’t afford to dwell on it too much, either, your composure already fraying. You needed out of that cursed house.
Instead, you crouched down by her side.
Touching her - searching her - felt wrong, like a sacrilege - let the dead rest and all that, but if nothing else, you owned the answers to her. Carefully, gently, you moved her onto her back. Her headscarf came undone, black hair spilling onto the dusty rug underneath. Her face almost looked peaceful now, clear of worries. If not for the marks on her neck, you could’ve believed she was just sleeping. Her hand fell away from her chest, fingers stained with blood. Your gaze followed it to the ground.
For yet another time, your heart sunk.
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