Sunday, Monday and Tuesday were a lost cause. I’m holding out hope for Wednesday, if I get to the library sometime in the next checks watch two or three hours. Writing from home has too many possible distractions.
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Tuesday’s session turned out to be productive at 2,065 words. I could have pushed it further but I want to prevent burnout and feeling fatigued, I thought it better to stop and just begin the next session earlier for Wednesday.
I also (re)found a version of Scarborough Fair that will be good to listen to for the upcoming session.
Updating the post up-thread with Tuesday’s statistics.
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Well done Eiwynn
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Only 600 hundred words today. Properly a good thing I never aimed for anything, but finishing my opening and getting over my writers block.
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Yesterday I reached the 20k words landmark on Ghost Simulator. Yey!
Some questions I asked myself along the way:
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If a ghost possesses someone who is smoking a joint, will the ghost get high too?
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Can ghosts taste lobster rolls while possessing someone?
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How it is to experience “humanity” from an outside perspective—an attribute that you used to have but somehow lost?
I intend to post the initial version of the WIP demo, including chapters 1 and 2 out of 5, within the next days.
As a ghost, most of your struggle will be based on attempting to interact with humans in the so-called surface world. To do so, you can choose from 2 (or 3, not decided yet) out of 5 ghostly powers:
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Apparition. You can materialize in the surface world for a short period of time. This ghostly ability tends to shoot up the Terror level of anyone who sees you. If any character reaches Terror 100%, an ending sequence of the game is triggered.
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Possession. You can possess people and control them—including what they say—for a short period of time.
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Poltergeist. You can interact with objects of the surface world.
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Dreamwalk. You can invade and manipulate someone’s dream (or nightmare). That means, yes, choices inside dreams.
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Whisper. You can communicate with humans through ghostly whispers.
The story will revolve around the Brooks family, the first people to move into the Edgeworth Manor after your death. Each family member has their own objectives and struggles. Will you be an evil spook or a benevolent spirit to them?
Samantha Brooks. A former journalist who became an acclaimed non-fiction author. She currently works on a book on hauntings in New Hampshire, and her dedication to this project is taking its toll on her marriage.
Michael Brooks. A nurse anesthetist who overcame an opioid addiction in the last years. A colleague who went through a divorce—doctor Elisa—is hitting on him just when he thinks that his wife, Samantha, is becoming distant. In this scenario, if the Edgeworth Manor proves to be a haunted hell house, he might find solace in the morphine syringes—or in the arms of another woman.
Oliver “Ollie” Brooks. A high school senior who is divided between his friends and his girlfriend Becky. While his RPG buddies keep offering him drugs, Becky is totally against the idea—since her father died of overdose.
Amber Brooks. An English sophomore at the University of New Hampshire, she only has eyes for Laura, a colleague. However, Edgar, a friend from Amber’s high school time, still tries to win her heart. Amber intends to throw a big Halloween party at the Edgeworth Manor and use this opportunity to sleep with Laura. Also, she is quite perceptive about the way her parents’ marriage is crumbling down since they moved into the house.
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Past the halfway mark now! Managed 2,326 words today bringing the count up to 26,720 words.
Part of that is because of a chat with a work colleague who I’d been talking to the past few weeks. I mentioned this morning about “the seven”.
The Seven are the first seven lesser demons created by the greater demons in hell. They are also known as the seven sins each one being the personifaction of one of the sins.
In Hollywood Demonic they have become procurers and traders of artifacts having amassed a large collection of “treasures” over the centuries. It is possible for someone to summon “the seven” to attempt to trade for one of their artifacts.
The ritual to summon them consist of seven circles (one of which the summoner stands in and six circles around the seventh circle). Well when they are summoned you only actually summon six of the seven, with the sin you most identify with staying where they reside and you summon the remaining six. So prideful man would summon Lust, Envy, Greed, Gluttony, Sloth and Wrath and temporarily takes the place of pride during the ritual.
When I was explaining it to my colleague, she asked “What would happen if someone possessed all the sins in equal measure who would get summoned.” I admitted I hadn’t considered that but we shot a few ideas together and created a lesser demon called Wilbur, a meek, insecure and very weak. Wilbur is effectively a messenger of bad news. He is always summoned to tell people no etc. This often results in Wilbur getting the brunt of the summoners anger usually ending in bad injuries or even death (saying no to demons isn’t seen as a healthy choice) However the only reason Wilbur is in his job is he is cannot be killed, well thats not true he can be killed but he never dies. No matter who badly he is wounded or how horrible he is killed. Wilbur always regenerates. He is the perfect messenger in a world where the people he gives messages to would quite happily “shoot the messenger” literally because of a bit of bad news.
Talking about it got me extra inspired to write him into the story. He comes across as a comedy relief character but his introduction fits into the story because I have a character who would have the sins in almost equal measure becuse they have multiple souls within them all with different vices so its plausible they would be almost equal amount of sin within them.
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Wednesday session was a fun session – I got to work on dialogue and to develop a few of the central NPC characters of the game. I wrote 2,306 words today, more than hitting my daily goal.
One of the fun things that keeps inspiring me with this game and helps motivate me is that I can take common every day items in our modern life and re-introduce them in the context of a Victorian world where they are wondrous new inventions.
One such example of this is the ball point pen.
For those who are curious, here is a sample of my writing featuring the ball point pen:
Alpha Writing Sample 11/13/19
Exhibiting a death grin of a smile to both the sheriff and the dandy, Cheron pushes both the paperwork and some sort of stick-like contraption towards you. Taking both the bill and the contraption in hand you look over the unknown item. “What is this?”
“It is a ball pointed pen.” Unlike the fountain or safety pen you are familiar with, the ball pointed pen does not have a cap to unscrew or a nib which dispenses the ink inside. What it does have is a nub at one end and an opening with a small ball bearing trapped at the tip on the other end. ”Push the nub down at the top to prime the pen and then roll it across the paper as you sign your name normally.”
Experimenting a little with the operation of this new ball pointed pen, you shake your head at the inventiveness of modern people; what will they think of next, a flying machine, as the fantastical stories talk about? “I see.” Sighing with pleasure at how easy the ball pointed pen works, you work your way through the five pages of fine print and numbers, signing your mark wherever Cheron tells you to. “I’m not sure about the date. Everything has been a blur.”
“Don’t worry about it.” Taking both the paperwork and the ball pointed pen back from you, Charon stuffs both inside the top drawer of her desk. “I’ll finish this up later and send it with a courier to your offices Sheriff.” Turning her attention to the desk for a moment, Cheron opens another drawer, rifles within it for a few moments and then pulls out a small leather courier’s pouch.
“Is that for me?” Hiding excitement that flashes from his eyes, the sheriff starts to hold out his hand to take the pouch from Cheron.
“You’ll be getting yours in due time Sheriff.” Offering the pouch to your hands, Cheron completes her thought. “This is the final thing I need to give you before we part ways. It is from your sponsor and I am told you should only open this in private and in a place of safety.”
Curiosity overcoming discretion, you blurt out: “What is this, more mystery?” Blushing in embarrassment, comprehension hits you and you shyly look at the reactions of everyone around you. The dandy has a cat’s grin on his face once more… that is not what you need, something to reinforce the image of you as an exotic creature in his eyes. The sheriff is looking at you as if you are an onion to peel, with the answer he is seeking deep inside. Dove, hiding a gasp with a gloved hand has eyes as wide as a doe’s, peering at you as if you startled her once more. Cheron, shaking her cowled head, has a blank poker faced look plastered on. Can you be any more dense?
“Yes, well, that will be your discovery once you are settled in Hell’s Half Acre.” Pausing long enough to prevent the awkward moment from resurfacing, Cheron says: “Now, is there anything else, or are we done here?” If you want to make a request of Cheron, now is the time to do so.
I’ll update the post up-thread. Everyone have a good day/night ahead of them.
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1099 words today. 
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653 words, but maintaining a streak and keeping the habit is also important. I also determined that the state of my final chapter isn’t as bad as I thought, and did some more important outlining. All setting up so that next week I can easily slip into an unfinished passage and churn out my daily words. Slow and steady wins the race, or so the saying goes.
Also worth noting that TC has now exceeded 90K words (with code). I originally planned for it to be 30K total. 
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2,000 words today and the night still young.
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Thursday’s session ended up being 2070 words. I’m still working on dialogue, so writing goes fast… but because it goes fast, it means I have to go back and edit/re-edit my writing in more detail than normally for an alpha … sometimes my brain works faster than my typing gets my thoughts to paper.
One thing I have to continually fight is the perfectionist in myself – she wants me to stop and rewrite until the material I just wrote is perfect. At the same time, I am training myself to keep the momentum going and actually complete something.
With dialogue, the happy medium is tilted more to the need to “be perfect” but I still must guard against stalling myself out.
Enough of my babbling — Discourse says I’m hogging the topic; sorry everyone 
Updating the post up-thread with this session’s statistics.
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1944 words last night bringing the count to 28,644 words. I really think I need to keep this up past November more often
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I really think we here in the forum should make more contests and even Speedrun to write scenes in hours and something that challege people and cheer us to improve our writing.
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That sounds like a good idea. but maybe workshops as opposed to contests?
Like there is a prompt and a word limit and everyone can submit something?
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Yeah, something like that challenges but it doesn’t need to be a competitive thing. Could be on teams like workshops.
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Since we’re at the halfway point, an update! I’m at 24,796 words and only now getting to my actual project. 
The pre-work was a lot more than I was expecting. We trod onward!
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Cheers to everybody here taking this challenge. It is really difficult to get the needed amount of work done on a daily basis
Well, we are halfway through NaNoWriMo and I am delighted to say that I have a playable version of my project 
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2361 words today bringing the total count to 31,025 words.
Well done everyone. Keep it up!
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Today has been little less than 2,000 but I started the code and edited a little so I am happy.
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This busy weekend I’m about to have is about to derail me and I’m going to have another 5k day 
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