October 2024's Writer Support Thread

Sigh… it’s a fairly basic WordPress thing that’s too expensive for what I need it for, and WP are now constantly trying to sell me their LLM rubbish… Unfortunately I’m not sure I have the money/skills to make it nicer or less annoying. The blog part is OK to use, I just only rarely do anything with it because many more people follow me on other platforms (searching hpowellsmith.com on Google gets you all the other places I am rather than the site itself).

So in short… sigh.

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Ohhh dear, yeah, I rest my case. WordPress itself is free, so you shouldn’t even need to pay for that, but then you of course would need to get a web hotel and keep the installation up to date yourself (or hire a professional to do that), so I guess the paid version has its uses.

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Some friends have been making bare-bones (bear-bones??) sites and blogs with Bear recently and I’m considering that - my current setup looks sleek enough, but each time the annual renewal comes around it makes me grumpy because I really am not doing enough with it to justify the cost.

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Alien Encounters.

Actually, this font was preinstalled on my computer, but despite Microsoft’s terms on font redistribution for pre installed fonts, I did some digging up, and it seems that the license only allows non-commercial use. The foundry which made the fonts is now dead though, which complicates the matter further.

Ah well, might be best to source a different font. Copyright issues are always a massive headache when making these games, but one which needs attention.

The beauty of the Public Domain:
PROMOART 408x272

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At this point, making sure of your license and terms of use is essential as an indie – it just is becoming easier to get entangled in shenanigans in today’s gaming world.

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Yeah, it’s a headache. And finding the licenses for preinstalled fonts is a nightmare. Best to make your own if you can.

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That first mood board looks fun!

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My not-so-guilty pleasure is finding pictures that have good vibes for my various Pinterest boards for each project/setting. Now though, I’m waiting to hear which (if either) one I’ll develop which is always a bit of a tenterhooks-feeling. It’s strange not having as much work to do as I have done for quite a while! (But I do need to do the blog posts and such so that’ll keep me occupied while I wait.)

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…speaking of fonts, I am suddenly finding myself struggling with the fact that I need additional letters to alphabet that computer chars don’t have and now I need to find a way to solve that. :person_facepalming:

I’ve had to stop doing that because I ended up spending so much time searching for pretty pictures that I had no time for anything actually productive.

(Also today’s best typo: I was doing my Swedish exercises; “democracy” is “demokrati” in Swedish; I wrote “demonkrati”, which… sounds like a fantasy government system that’s being governed by demons.)

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I need to start researching train lines in the US so I can find one that would be believable to have a private cargo train travelling on it.

Wish me luck!

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My Goals:

Progress on my 2024 goals

  • Complete Phoenix Rising
  • Begin Editing Phoenix Rising
  • Participate in at least 1 game jam - I’m beginning to think this is a pipe dream for me
  • Complete at least 1 game jam - definitely thinking this is a pipe dream
  • Learn Spanish enough to be able to use it at work (earn a $2 raise by doing this) - Duo has risen to giving me dire threats. Also, I’m considering switching after learning that they’re using AI…

October’s Goals

  • Finish Chapter One of Phoenix Rising - I have not finished the daydream section. It’s still making me want to rip my hair out with how repetetive it is. BUT IM CLOSER TO THE END.
  • Get posts on the Nascent Souls Tumblr up to end of november. - Oddly, this one has been easier to keep up on…
  • Get the game to a point where I can ACTUALLY POST AN UPDATED DEMO, GODDAMMIT. – stares balefully at it It’s mocking me, I know it.
  • Bonus at work. - I BONUSED IN THE FIRST THREE DAYS?! WHAT THE HELL?! (I sold 14 policies, in 3 days. This is a first, and also THE MOST IVE EVER SOLD IN A SINGLE WEEK EVER?!)
  • Keep up with my Accountabili-Buddies so that we all make progress on our games. @RascaldeesV2 @Phenrex @eveelution @levviathan@Suyin @Eiwynn . Also looking for more accounta-bilibuddies too! Apply now!

I am vibrating with excitement.

I wanna see the coding on thissssss, mostly because someone has ALREADY ASKED for a walkthrough on Phoenix Rising, and I’m not even sure how to BEGIN writing such a thing.

I’ve been feeling it too, and oh god is it bad. TAT

It’s a reference to back when people used paper day-calendars. People would use pencil to write in appointments that may end up moved later.

How odd that you and I have done this thing, both, seperately. I used purple ink.

…Not a year and a half, but… I haven’t played through Phoenix Rising entirely in at least 6 months. wow.

Okay, October is setting up to be a fantastic month.

I may have had a slight advantage as A) I was a tutor/nanny at a coding camp for kids, and got to take their classes with them for a little while and B) I tried to teach myself Unity AND Renpy, so I had kind of a small basis. The best advice I’ve ever been given when it comes to coding is this: Computers are fast they are not smart, so you must be very, very clear with what you tell them.

Another thing: Sometimes writing out what you want to happen helps you in determining how the code should work. for example, if you want the code to spit out a specific dialogue option when the player clicks on something then write this:
If player clicks on Twig
Then: Display “Leaf that alone!”

It can help to look at it that way. Another thing that REALLY HELPED was looking at published game’s code, and reading through it to figure out how they used it. This Post Really Helped for that. But keep in mind, you have to OWN the game first, before you can look at it’s code.

WHY WOULD YOU SHOW ME THIS. WHY. NOW IM GONNA LOSE HOURS TO TRYING TO FIGURE THIS SHIT OUT INSTEAD OF CODING. TAT omg… (thank you for showing me this, I love learning new shit, and this is exciting. XD I just had to yell at someone or I’d have to yell at myself. XD …I should’ve yelled at myself, I’m sorry.)

I think I’ve got about 25% mastery?

TIS THE SPOOKY SEASON. SEASON OF THE WITCH. MY PEOPLE’S TIME.

HOW DARE! Oh wait, XD I’d read anything you wrote, probably.

A heavy goal indeed! But you can do it!

Dude at that point, I’d call that a migraine, omg. What the heck, I am so sorry, those are the WORST. longest migraine I’ve had was a full week, and it was HELL.

Good luck. XD I have a train line running through my town! …literally right out of my window, tho. XD It’s loud.

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People absolutely still do. Every place wouldn’t be full of them right now otherwise.

I mean, I was absolutely calling it a migraine on the first day. Still a headache though. (And funny how all literature says migraine lasts 72 hours max, but mine tends to last a week. Well, maybe it goes away while I sleep and it’s a brand new migraine next day, what do I know.)

Guess I had a slightly more of an advantage since I’m a software dev (a bad one, but C is CS not).

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So I didn’t make a goal last month because I knew a combination of overtime at work and struggles in life would make it a very slow month, and it was. I wrote 4k words. But, I at least posted the first half of Chapter Four of Meteoric.

This month, I’m off to a quick start with three days in a row of writing 400 words. My goal is 10k words a month so I’m on track, and should definitely post the rest of the chapter this month. Or, I hope so, since I have been working on Chapter Four for as many months

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Ah dip. I need to check my email, my bad buddy. :grimacing:

Same. I got a very threatening notification at midnight last night after a horror movie marathon. It knows what its doing. But I think the AI stuff is only with the paid version. Or at least, I’ve pushed several buttons to see what they are actually doing with it and thus far, I’ve just been prompted to get Super every time.

We are the same.

I’ve been going back to that post like once every couple months since 2021. Suffer with me lol

Real life stuff has to come first. Somebody told me once that the body wants 42% of your time to be restful. That could absolutely be a fake made up statistic but the “if you don’t take your 42%, the 42% will take you” part has always stuck to me. Give yourself plenty of grace; it sounds like you had a tough month and you still wrote 4k and posted some new work despite that and that’s great!

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Si necesitas ayuda con el Español, te ayudo. Además, yo al hablar la versión de españa te puedo ayudar a ver las diferencias con la versión latina (Ambas son legales y validas.)

That way you could flex for the job.

I am the proof that anyone can learn a language alone through brute force. That is also a plus. I know what it means brute force a language

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happy october everyone!

I’m hoping to get back to a place where I can get updates out once a month or so. (since, you know, it’s SO slow to update every 1.5 or 2 months… :sweat_smile:) - but genuinely, I kinda recognised that my discipline was tapering a bit and I agreed with my wife I needed to be better about sticking to task and not getting distracted. Taking breaks is definitely healthy, but I am fundamentally bad about any kind of break which isn’t just like, walk around for a bit and stretch. I can’t play a game for just twenty minutes, for example. I end up losing focus and taking forever to recapture it and productivity suffers badly.

Still, I got a couple milestones finished last month. I wrote my first intimate scene, for one :flushed:

For October I’m hoping to get chapter 8 of Villain Juice! done! First part of it at least! I’m gonna try out pre-structuring the chapter a bit more than usual to see if it helps out with my planning and routing.

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Today, I learnt that there is a word in Chinese that means something akin to “has a Finnish soul”. I’m… not sure how to take that.

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Today, I was doing research for a scene in my wip, and I found out that there is a species of frog that exists in the arctic, and survives by freezing its body during the winter. I planned to do just a quick google search to find out if frogs could survive in the climate of the fictional country my IF is set it, instead I’ve been reading about wood frogs.

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I didn’t know this (I do, however, know a species of fish that survive freezing temperatures by producing alcohol to their blood, thus making them a literal example of Finnish term for a drunk), what’s the species?

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Oh, no I know that. I use one daily, and it helps my auDHD ass keep organized. XD I was trying to sound old-timey and wise. XD

I had +1 pt of advantage. XD you have +10.

No worries there, buddy! XD

I laughed so hard I snorted beef soup. I blame you for this.

I read a quote in a HFY fiction that basically said: humans, as large predators, must rest large portions of their day just like any other large predators. It’s why lions and tigers and other predators sleep so much. They’re conserving energy for the next hunt.

Gracias por la offer, pero yo estudio legales de Mexicano Espanol por trabajar.

Mi goal es un dos dollares raise.

And that is the extent of my Spanish at this point in time.xD

The insurance vernacular is already like learning a new language and I’m totally not confident in translating that well enough to have a native Spanish speaker translate it back into Spanish for me. XD

I do appreciate the offer tho!

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