The rough translation (although without meter) would be “There was a(n old) castle in the mires, standing(/having stood in the past) guard at the river, nestled in the middle of seven forests and eight mountains(/hills/big rocks).”
(Finnish words for ecological regions and the like don’t translate neatly to English, or if they do I don’t know how, unfortunately. I’m mostly swapping them with Wikipedia.)
This month has been slow for me writing-wise. I’ve been focused on home, family, and health, which is good but I’m behind on the goals I’ve set. The good news is I’ll be putting together a demo this weekend to get ready for a private beta testing phase before submitting it to the back garden in Spring Thing. If anyone is interested, I should be making a new topic in the forum for my WIP in the next week for that.
As for my goals, I’ll be happy if I get chapter 6 finished and submit the demo for Spring Thing. Chapter 7 can wait for April.
For this snippet, I’ll continue sharing from one of the books you can pick up at the market in chapter 5. This one is from the thriller.
The black leather cover of Drowning a Morpheus by Tov Revlan has blood red lettering that promises danger and darkness. You turn to the first page and start reading.
Chapter One: The Morpheus
I’d never been so sure I was going to die. Not the time I faced down a gang of pirates in an alley, the time I jumped off a ship into shark infested waters to escape murder, nor my most dire hour trapped in a wreck at the bottom of the sea. I made it out then, and by luck or chance survived every other wretched situation I’d gotten myself into.
But this time? It was over.
The seas pitched and my ship bucked, launching another member of my crew into the sea. Henri. Poor wretch wasn’t harnessed in. There was no saving him.
A giant maw rose out of the ocean, swallowed Henri whole, then gnashed teeth big as my masts. The sea serpent turned toward the deck, where my two remaining crew members were holding onto the rails, eyes bugged out, mouths open in absolute terror. It had hunted us for leagues, pushing us into the storm, and was about to finish us off. We couldn’t outrun it, and I didn’t have a weapon big enough to do damage to a monster that size.
This was the end.
It started to descend on us, and I said a prayer to whatever gods were listening—but at the last second, the sea serpent swiveled its great ugly head. Its yellow eyes widened, then it dove down and darted away.
A shadow passed beneath us, blacker than night. It saved me then, that darkness, but instead of the relief I should’ve felt at the retreat of the sea snake, I was overcome with fear.
Terror crept from the depths of my soul.
*page_break You turn the page…
That was my first encounter with a morpheus. A monster with no body to pierce and no voice with which to treaty. A monster made of energy that feeds on the feelings of others. On memories. On trauma.
In the months that followed, I thought back often to the day I almost met my end in the jaws of a sea snake. Sometimes, I wished I’d gone like Henri, into the belly of the serpent. I’d have used my knife to hasten my death and transitioned to the paths between, leaving my body to decompose. My remains would’ve returned to the sea.
It would have been a swift enough end.
It would have saved me the dread that became my existence, waking and sleeping, until I found a way to drown the morpheus.
Now, with whatever is left of my soul, I tell this story. If you ever meet a morpheus, beware. The only way to appease it is to give a piece of yourself. Your feelings. Your memories. Your soul.
If you do not offer something, the hellmonster will take whatever it can get.
Life seems to go in waves of being super productive and then having to really focus on self-care and rest. I’m sure there’s a balance to be found, but it isn’t a constant. It’s an ebb and flow.
Along that line of thinking, I wanted to comment on this:
I can totally understand feeling this way. At the same time, I honestly think tenacity is where skill comes from. Determination and continuing to show up is what gets us anywhere in life, no matter the challenge. The way I look at it, talent is skill embodied, and writing is hard for even the most skilled people.
Perseverance is more important than talent, imo, because if someone has skill but gives up, they don’t get anywhere, while the person who doesn’t give up is still in the game and will continue to learn and grow. So keep going! And take good care of yourself. When I’m feeling down, I typically need to rest and recharge, whether that’s getting some exercise and fresh air or 10+ hours of sleep (usually both). It makes all the difference in the world for me.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! May the words be with us. 
no goals finished…disappointed…
Its okay, burnout, lack of passion hit at odd times. Key thing is to take that and then not let it make you give up. Take a break, return when ready and keep at it. You’ve only failed when you stop writing all together.
Hopefully not at the same time!
So far, no, but there have been times I’ve been so tired I’ve wanted to lie down on the trail and take a nap. 
Mi advice when that happens is hug a familiar, person or animal you love. And offer them a tea or treat and sit with them for a while. Confide in them.
They will give you a boost and you will feel better. Not on the trail lol.
That is lovely advice. I always have my dog with me on the trail, and no matter how I’m feeling she makes me smile because she’s so happy and full of life. 
Sheltaaaaaaaa!
If that happened to me, and it wouldn’t be just a case of me running on too little sleep, it would be a clear indication that I’d need to eat something pronto. I’ve confused low blood sugar as needing to take a nap too many times, it never ends well.
Oh what a lovely pup!
I feel a lot of empathy for those struggling at this month mid-point, and the feel of ebb-and-flow of creativity. Because of various life whatnots, my last four work weeks have looked like: disrupted, excellent, disrupted, disrupted. I’d much rather have a steadier middle ground, and had reason to hope that this month would be more like that, so I feel a bit disappointed that I haven’t been able to finish my chapter draft yet. I am going to step outside of one of my routines and hopefully do some writing at the weekend to brush up on things.
However: any creative project is a journey, and it’s important to look after yourself.
(Regarding trail walking: I did have a lovely time a couple of weeks ago on a 11 mile hike with a friend, but I got runner’s knee as a result and needed to rest up a short while, so that’s what looking after myself looks like right now.)
Here is an excerpt from my Chapter 6 for anyone who’d like to have a look:
Summer begins in earnest over Elene's Prospect and Ozera. The lambs, even Matilda the sickly one, have been turned out to the pastures with the help of Lulu and Bramble, and many of the students follow their lead even in Math and Literature classes. Frequently gaggles of golden-uniformed students make notes or do sketching in the gardens or beyond while a teacher holds forth; often, they'll play instruments out in the garden, and you can hear the music through open windows.
Over the weeks, a great deal of bustle builds between town and school: Matia has ${mat_their} work cut out ferrying students back and forth. There's to be an art exhibition in the town hall, the first of its kind to show off the older students' artwork, and the students old and young are doing much of the organization. The families are to come, and a number of artists, and academics too.
"The way we show our art," Kass says dramatically over breakfast, "is the way we shape how it is seen."
"And," Tibor says while Kass isn't listening, "these big occasions are how we get the families to donate. It doesn't matter what they make us call it—we could do with a Roldan Wing or some such."
*fake_choice
#"I'm glad the students' work will be appreciated."
Tibor nods briskly. "Yes, yes, and they've done a great job," he says. "You sound like Kass. But if we want more facilities, we need more cash coming in. Maybe Elian's parents will be interested."
#"Fiore Roldan might be more likely to donate to a science laboratory."
Tibor groans. "We already have a brilliant laboratory," he says. "If only ${fio_their} daughter was more interested in garment design. Maybe Elian's parents will be more interested."
#"That's rather mercenary."
Tibor shrugs. "You sound like Kass," he says. "But if we want more facilities, we need more cash coming in. Maybe Elian's parents will be interested."
#"Does that really work?"
Tibor's grin is sharp. "Oh, yes," he says. "Kass likes to think it's all pure intent, but she knows what's really going on. If we want more facilities, we need more cash coming in. Maybe Elian's parents will be interested."
It’s oddly comforting to know that I’m not the only one who’s seriously struggling with writing this month. So far, March has been rough. Hopefully it will get better, and I wish everyone well.
I’ve done a couple of things regarding my WIP. First, I finished the outline. Not completely—I’ll do more in-depth outlines of each chapter as I get to them, but the base is done. I’m pretty satisfied with what I have.
Second, I made some banners for the game’s title and for each chapter. They aren’t perfect, but I don’t think they are horrible either.
Lastly, I wrote a fair bit of lore, but instead of clearing things up it made everything even more confusing. Somehow it always turns out this way.
Regarding actually writing, I only wrote about 5K words. It’s really hard to get back into it even after a short break. I imagine a long one would have been even more disastrous.
Trying not to be mad at myself and just doing it at my own pace, although it’s still not easy.
You stand up and immediately fall flat on your stomach, hugging the ground and breaking the dry leaves. Your whole body hurts beyond the comfortable level. Years of distancing from anything physical—from feeling the touch of another person to hurting from agonizing pain—must have made you softer.
Still face in the dirt, you move your hand to your lower back, trying to find the bullet hole. Instead, you feel a soft bandage tied around your lower torso with a wet patch on what you deduce to be the wound. How strange. Never would you have thought you’d be treated by Inquisitors.
Why would they even do that? You wouldn’t have died if they did nothing, so they simply wasted their resources on you.
*if (beatup = true)
And then ${isa} beat you senseless anyway.
There is still lots of things to do, and I’ll do my best.
Here’s an excerpt from the NaNoRenO game I’m working on.
I am Joseph Craig de Asigna, the founder and CEO of Legit F2 Logistics Company here in Hizzokahpolis.
And I’m heartbroken due to the death of my female friend, Marie Claire Sheridan, at the hands of the notorious incel named Severus Carrasco.
For the past few months, I’ve been cursing at him and his like-minded creeps to no end…
…but that cursing is all in my head.
It’s not just for formality’s sake.
I also have to uphold the principle that vigilante justice isn’t all that effective.
When used improperly, it can backfire.
So the most important thing I can do right now is to uphold my work as a caring executive and father to my employees, in a world full of ruthless ones.
There is still hope in achieving justice for my fallen friend via legal means, after all.
It’s a typical day here at the office.
Unlike most other CEOs, I have to be present at the office everyday, not just because it’s mandatory to be in charge of my company’s day-to-day operations, but also to personally see for myself how my employees are doing.
If they’re burdened by personal problems that hamper their performance at work, I get to be in the front lines in terms of approaching them and letting them tell their ails before coming up with viable solutions.
An employee named Slaine Brocknell then approaches me.
“Hey, I’ve got something personal to vent on. Not to rag on HR, but I know you can be trusted on what you’ll say regarding my predicament.”
I thoughtfully reply, “Sure. I’m all ears.”
“Thanks. Well, you see, someone whom I regard as my mortal enemy accuses me of keeping a super-secret bank account.”
“With the implication that you’re dodging taxes?”
“Right on the mark.
“And I don’t even care if people like them vehemently hate the likes of me. What I don’t like about them is that they name and shame people that do something that is a mortal sin in their eyes, literally vilifying them with random irrelevant social media and video posts as proof. Also, constant tired-as-a-broken record 24/7 anti-others crap-posts and memes that aren’t even funny or smart add nothing but stroke their egos. Their enablers are extremely biased and there are obvious anti-others trolls that literally post nothing but anti-others content that I don’t even think that they’re genuine about the consequences of their posts, but just to farm imaginary karma.
“Seriously, this space they’re in has turned into what others call… an echo chamber.”
Hearing everything I wanted to know, and knowing that from the look in his eyes, he doesn’t hide anything, I jokingly reply…
“Well, you should’ve been named Christopher. Christ on the job, Lucifer on the bed.”
He just laughs at the punchline I just gave.
And now, time to get serious.
“You should already know this by now, but get straight to the source… the enemy themselves. You know them, right?”
“Yeah. They’ve bullied me since elementary school. What’s their beef with me, really? With a grudge they couldn’t simply let go as they grow up?”
“You may never know… you’re most likely a victim of a clan feud. A thing like this should be passe in the modern era, but some are really hellbent to burn their rival clans into oblivion. Maybe… you can hire a private detective or something? And I’ll give you the necessary protections and all.”
“Oh, how will I ever thank you? You’re really a father to your men… and women and non-binary people, too.”
“It’s what I do. Rest easy now.”
“Thanks.”
10 days left until the exhibition, and I’ve got a bunch of art pieces which are close to done, and bunch of older stuff to fall back on.
I’ve checked off one goal, finishing Chapter 5 of Villain Juice, which was great! I also figured out how to implement a chapter skip feature which felt pretty good. Getting into Chapter 6 now and mildly sulking because I’m extremely pumped up for things like, two chapters ahead which isn’t really where I should be focusing my energy.
I’ve been mildly sick the last couple days which has dented my productivity, though what’s nice is that it’s feeling as if my minimum threshold is increasing and I’m more able to write even when I’m not at my best.
excerpt, I get a kick every time I realise I can deploy multireplace instead of *if, makes things flow so much better.
You're on top of the officer in an instant, using all the strength you've got to wrestle him to the ground and pin him there, clamping a hand across his mouth. Despite his struggles—he twists his body this way and that, desperately attempting to get loose—you've got all the leverage you need to keep him down indefinitely.
*label tieup
@{(rel_wil > rel_teddie) Ghoul's suddenly at your side, delicately handing you some zip-ties.|Fracture appears by your side, thrusting a fistful of zip-ties at you.} Nodding acknowledgement, you get the guard bound up nice and tight. You dump him off in the passageway and swiftly return to the others.
@{(rel_wil > rel_teddie) "Good work," says Fracture before immediately setting off again. Ghoul glances at you,|"Nicely handled," says Ghoul, miming a clap. "Guy never stood a chance." Next to ${whim}, Fracture grunts impatiently and sets off. Ghoul} gives an amused shrug, and then follows him.
I’m finding myself quite deep in doing research for making a conlang… and all this seems way too excessive for the purpose of a fan project that’s not even being written, so maybe I should actually use it… hmm.
Wonder if putting a fictional language in a real-world (albeit far in the future) environment would be weird.
Has anyone else noticed an uptick in unexplainable/incorrect randomtest flags lately? Or is it just me? I’ve been trying to troubleshoot Raishall ages and it seems to be still flagging errors only on some random tests while others will pass through 10000 or more rounds without an issue. I’ve been trying to step by step it with an *ending command, but it’s impossible to find as you’ll think the error is gone, and then it’ll pop back up again several random tests down the track. I’m guessing there is a true error in there somewhere, but some of the “recursion error” flags have not been recursion errors. Is my project just really bugged somehow, or is there something going on with the tester at the moment that’s causing it to play up? I’ve never seen this level of problems with it before ever.
I have been busy with work lately, and I am trying not to worry about my upcoming surgery. Although I still don’t have a date, the medical team informed me that I should be seen by the end of March, which means I could be called in for the surgery any time in the next couple of weeks. Owing to this, I have not been able to write much for Chapter Three of Daemonglass as I would have liked, but I did manage to make some progress.
What I have managed is to go over chapters one and two adding a few extra choices to replace some of the page_breaks. Altering the colours of Luminal Essence so there are now three main colours red, green and blue but each one having four shades (I made the switch to the three primary colours as I intend to have some scenes where you can weave runes with someone else and their colour will mix with your own creating a new one).
Also I’ve aged the protagonist and Emery up to 19, with Haven becoming 21 and Quinn being 18 and making sure that your height has more of an effect on the story. For example Jack will now be able to lift a short MC off their feet during their first encounter.
Tomorrow I intend to extend some of the choices that only have two options for example the choice whether you intend to kill the host or not. At the moment it is I will kill v I will save but I am thinking of splitting each one into two choices for example…
Note: these are just examples I will come up with better choices when I do it.
All right, I’ve started my Diversity Jam story. It’s a Rapunzel-like story told by an Italian Grandma who likes to scare you a little with bad endings.
La ragazza nella torre
(The Girl in the Tower)
The title is all I have so far, but progress is progress! 
I’ve been thinking lately, and I’ve seen a lot of commentary in places about difficulty getting viewers to WIP threads and similar things. IMO, the first step to take about this is to really take a good look at your thread title. What does it tell me about your game? Does it tell me anything that makes me want to open it up and read it? So many WIPs have thread titles that look like this:
(WIP) Ocean House [90k words] [Updated 3.1.24]
I know it’s got a recent update and a fair amount of words, but nothing else. What is this game about? Slice of life about running a beachside B&B? Haunted house story? Pirate story? Romance? Suspense? I’ve got no way of knowing. The name alone tells me nothing unless the name is a reference that I understand. You’re basically hoping that the name alone intrigues me enough to open up the thread and read the post in the hopes that it’ll sound like something I’m into. Kind of a long shot.
Something like this, on the other hand…
(WIP) Ocean House [Lovecraftian RomCom] [90k words] [Updated 3.1.24]
Well. That’s a different story. I’m going to click that thread because that’s something that I’ve got to at least look at. Or if you put [Vampire Murder Mystery] there, I’ll click it because I’m a sucker for vampire stories. The thread title is your first chance at selling me on the game. Tell me something about it!