hello all, and happy september!! i’m excited for another fabulous month on this forum with you all.
for any newcomers…
these writer support threads are a no-pressure way for us writers to keep track of our monthly goals, writing progress, and any writing-related thoughts or whatever that come to mind throughout the month. typically the first day or two of the month sees everyone who wants to participate in the thread listing their goals somehow, which we then reflect on for the last 1-2 days of the month.
a few notes for the present moment
Harris Powell-Smith (@HarrisPS) once again blessed us with their monthly digest of CS releases, WIP updates, and related interviews/reviews. releases consist of Games of the Monarch’s Eye by Saffron Kuo (CoG), Star Crystals Warriors Go! by Holly McMasters with additional content by Brian Rushton (CoG), and Saturnine by Jon Mattieu.
on August 29, the fabulous Mara jade (@poison_mara) created a thread for the upcoming Halloween Jam 2025.
and finally, AUTUMN (aka prime writing season, in my opinion) IS ALMOST HEREEEEE
(note: if anyone has any updates that would be good to include here, pls DM me or reply in the thread and i will add them!!)
a few resources i’ve enjoyed this past month
i’ve moved more to drafting than doing super super intensive reading up on IF theory and writing theory, but i have a few articles/essays/etc. that i’d like to share in case they interest anyone here!
From Game-Story to Cyberdrama
An essay by Janet Murray from 2004, so it’s perhaps a bit outdated. Still, I found it very interesting to look back at a scholar’s thoughts on digital interactive fiction as the genre was evolving. Murray also has an interest concept that she calls dramatic agency, but I haven’t read too much on that.
Turkey City Lexicon
This is also a speculative fiction resource. I guess I went down a rabbit hole one day and found a lot of good papers, haha! I like this because it has a lot of clever names for common writing missteps (although they’re all subjective in application, of course—it’s just interesting to look and see a big list of overused or poorly applied tropes/mini techniques).
The Digital Antiquarian
I can’t even remember what specific essays I’ve really enjoyed, but this website is a massive archive of reviews of IF games, thoughts on game design, and the like.
any last words..???
have a great month, all! super excited to hear from everyone <3
It’s now September here in Manila, and it’s time to make chapter 2 of Lily Adventuresses! Episode 3.
As in chapter 1, there will be two adventuresses who will tag along with Zinnia and Azalea in their quest. They are Valeen and Odette, and I cited Misaki and Mashiro from Aokana: Four Rhythm across the Blue and Bulk and Skull from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers as inspirations for this duo.
Now if I ever have quintuplets, I have names all ready. Those are great names!
For September, I’ve got three writing goals:
Summary
1 - Make more progress on Sense & Sorcery; If possible, post excerpts for the inn section and the cavern adventure section, if I ever get those done. Also hoping to eventually get to the London day trip adventure and simplified combat and to fill in some sections …. and there’s so much to do! Let’s hope I can do some of it. Gonna try to better my 20k from last month to 30k this month.
2 – Add on enough to Daughter of Elves, so that I can post it to CogDemos and maybe make a thread if I feel its warranted. Sadly with all that real life stuff over the last couple months this one has been hiding in hibernation, but maybe this will be the month . . . though I go back and forth on keeping the title as Daughter of Elves vs. Oh, Daughter of Elves! I like the first one for brevity, simplicity, and that it makes a nifty abbreviation, but the second one more fits the sass and sorcery tone. Honestly, probably don’t need a ton to do this. If I can manage 10k here I’d be happy, though probably need more than that to post anything.
3 – try to do Mara’s Halloween Jam prompt. Really loving this one, and I hope I can do it justice. While I’ve got the title all picked as Blood & Blooms I keep going back and forth on what to do with it. For the first half hour I figured I’d have a space adventure (its always night in space? maybe . . .) on a Celtic themed multi-generational ship. Then, the next half hour I figured I’d have a super hero adventure where the superhero was called the Celtic Rose. Then I figured I’d just have a sword & sorcery adventure with gallic tones. Then I thought I’d have some sort of last druid adventure or maybe an adventure where you get to play as a shape shifting dragon …. think I’ll sleep on it and hopefully one of these will coalesce as thee story idea. Anyway, seeing as I have till the end of October, think I’ll aim for at least 10 k towards this.
As this is my birthday month and the vicious soul drinking mosquitos that live in my state may eventually go away when there’s finally a freeze, this is one of my favorite months and times of year. Assuming all the drama of the last couple months quiets a little, looking forward to some nice warm autumn drinks and watching the season change as I write.
This thread saddens me, for it means that I accomplished nothing on august
Been struggling to finish the story itself, it may sounds funny but that’s my problem throughout august, I’m unable to finish the story that I started, running out of scene
do I need to play more games to find references, or do I need more coffee?
I’m pretty new to writing in general but I’ve been in love with IF books for a few years now so I finally decided to start writing my own IF a couple of days ago! Finished the prologue and am currently writing the first chapter. I’m hoping to post the WIP by the end of the month once I’ve written enough content to it. Hopefully I can make it
I’m hoping to draft Chapter 4 of the secret project. I’m not sure if that’ll happen because there are house renovations happening at the same time, but I’ll go through as much of it as I can.
I’m going to start September by being pessimistic. I once read somewhere (maybe in my yearbook or a book whose title I can’t remember anymore) that “The best kind of optimism is pessimism; if you don’t expect anything and something good turns up, you’re pleasantly surprised.”
So, no:
I WON’T be able to write at least 20k words this month.
I WON’T be able to submit my entry for the Halloween Jam 2025.
I WON’T be able to finally post a WIP at the end of the month.
Hopefully (or not!), the reverse psychology will work too.
I’m just aiming for a very steady more-of-the-same kind of thing this month. It’s been getting me through the game one step at a time, and with as down as I’ve been feeling lately I don’t want to risk a change and crash out.
So:
I’m aiming for 40k words on Blood of the Living this month, which will hopefully be almost enough to finish Chapter Six.
And that’s it.
Good luck to everyone as we all pull ourselves forward through the next thirty days.
I have the same goals as August (which were not reached): complete editing and push a minor update. I have suffered a minor set-back in the form of a file corruption losing me some pages, and the detrimental amoung of time I have spend grieving for them, but well, my frequent backups served to minimise damage so it’s fine.
Wishing everyone a literarily bountiful Septemper!
Another month where I can hope to finish editing my work enough to submit it for publication. Unfortunately, I’m still in the busy season at work and have been struggling to concentrate on getting writing in.
Here’s a video on the use of Plot Grids as a way to organize and plan your writing for you Planners and Plantzers.
HelloFutureMe has a new video on writing tragic villains.
Maybe combine them and make a spy thriller space opera.
Oh I will, but not with a story I’m already halfway in and is about an off-brand Enterprise getting Voyager’d into an off-brand Mass Effect corner of the galaxy. It wouldn’t be switching gears, it would be replacing the whole gearbox.
(It has some spy stuff, but that’s going on on the sides and the MC is very much out of their depth with it and can choose to ignore it.)
Zinnia, Azalea, Valeen, ODETTE ??? i love them omg
