I made my worldbuilding goal into smaller goals and plan to do lots of writing this month.
Wishing everyone a very autumn-y and productive September!
Feeling hype, I just updated Westbound Travel! Excited to start working on companion quests next.
Pray for me getting the next chapter for Ashenmaw done.
I was about to wrap it up… then several new characters marched onto the scene because it made sense.
Halp.
My first goal for this month is to work on my Halloween Jam entry. I’ve got about half a dozen different concepts floating around already, but none of them seem quite right yet.
Second goal is to keep working on the rewrite of a couple of scenes from last month. I’d like to get at least one of them done sometime in the next few weeks.
Ahhh, this made me feel a bit old. What a classic. It was bandied about as a real authority, when I first started refining my style.
Hey folks–just posted this update on my WIP thread, but it’s worth having over here too.
August ended up being The Month Where I Mostly Did Other Things to Support My Family. Notably, I worked as a temporary ninth-grade English teacher at my kids’ school to gap-fill while a recruitment was underway, in exchange for tuition reduction for the Havenpebbles. (It’s a good thing I’ve always liked To Kill A Mockingbird.) My replacement starts tomorrow, and I should be fully handed over by the end of the week.
I’ve also spent the past week turning a vivid bad dream into a sci-fi short story that I’m hoping to sell. (About a hotel on Mt Everest reachable only by wormhole portal, which works out about as well as you’d expect.)
But August hasn’t been entirely without XoR 2 progress, and September will be entirely devoted to churning it out.
Monthly Progress Check
Project: Lamplighters Guild
Current Word Count: 135,668 (excluding code)
Current Chapter: 3
Current Scene: The MC helps an RO deal with a missing pen. The MC can help find the missing pen, source a new pen, or fix a faulty pen the RO also has. While these are certainly light stakes, the scene should serve as a fuller introduction to the RO and what he’s dealing with (and what the MC will encounter should they pursue him). Of course, I’m also using the scene to reinforce worldbuilding, remind readers of a festival that will occur later in the story, etc.
Goal for September: Finish chapter 3 and begin chapter 4. I’d like to try to hit at least a net total of 25k words added to my story.
Resource to Share: Three Solutions to Three Problems in Interactive Fiction This is an interesting article about concepts and ideas to consider while writing IF. It makes me wonder how I’m resolving each of the tensions the article lays out in my own writing.
My goal for August was simply to get something written, which I technically did, but I really did not get much done at all, which is fine because I knew I’d be busy with funeral travel, then I got sick, so it’ was a month, but hopefully it’s over now. Plus September is my birth month, so if all else fails I’ll have my birthday.
I’m trying to go light on my September goals while I adjust to my daily schedule after being gone for a month:
I’m currently trying to a) wrap up a character sheet for my first ever TTRPG campaign character (I took part in a one-shot playtest last year but that’s not the same thing) and b) prepare for a job interview (terrifying!) but I’m also apparently writing—
You duck into the ditch, out of sight, and settle in to wait the patrolling guard to continue on his route. Instead, he sits down, lights a cigarette, and stares at sea.
On your left, [D] stares ahead, eyes wide and mouth slightly ajar. On your right, [E] frowns like it could solve all your troubles. You need to get moving, and soon; the window’s narrow enough as it is.
“You,” [E] hisses—he’s staring at [D] now—“do something!”
“Me?” [D] whispers back.
“You’re the local!”
“Right. Right.” [D] pinches the bridge of his nose. “Of course. I got this.”
He straightens his shoulders, and then you stare, incredulous and more than a little terrified, as his whole demeanor changes in front of your eyes. His expression closes, and away goes the soft-spoken, mindful, if a bit too glib [D]; the man who steps out from behind the treeline and on the road is a whole different [D]—cold, arrogant, ruthless—and even the limp on his left leg isn’t enough to hide the easy swagger of a professional killer. If anything, it makes him look more dangerous.
The guard notices him, does a double take and turns his way. “What… where did you come from?”
“The road,” [D] says sharply, and you have to admit he’s still glib at least. “Obviously.”
[E] turns to you. “I don’t like this. Why did they have to send him with us?”
“You said it yourself,” you whisper back. “He’s local.”
“And that’s exactly why this won’t end well. He’ll sell us out the minute it benefits him to do so.”
“Command thinks he’s on the level.” You think for a moment. “Or that it’s worth the risk at least.”
“But is it?” [E] points at [D], who’s currently berating the guard with such authority that even the lack of uniform isn’t diminishing it. “Who’s to say which one’s the true him? You saw it. You saw how easily he switches roles.”
“Part of the job.”
“Yeah, credit where credit’s due. He’s a real pro at least. Won’t stop me from shooting him when he turns against us.”
“Look,” you point. “It worked”
Indeed, the guard is scrambling on his route. Hastily, you might add. You wait until he’s out of sight, then climb out of the ditch, [E] on your heels, to the road.
“I hate doing that,” [D] mutters as you approach him.
“How can we be sure?” [E] accuses. “How can we trust you?”
[D] turns his head, slightly, in a way that lets him side-eye you and [E] while watching down the road, and stands still for a moment. “Probably for the best if you won’t,” he finally says. “I’m not a good man.”
Just downloaded the Choicescript IDE to get an accurate “Word Count”. I see there are two — Including command lines, and Excluding command lines. Which one do people mean when they post a word count for their stories?
I’m inclined to think it’s excluding code to be modest, but I think I’ve read somewhere that COG posts word counts including code for the published games. Even in HG, where the requirement is at least 30k words including code.
Its gonna be so good and Amazing
Usually I see people posting “excluding code”, and I assume they’re including code if they don’t say that (that’s what I do).
I have so many papers, presentations, and conferences to prepare over the next three weeks that just thinking about it makes me want to cry. So, understandably, the will to keep working on After Dark and The In-Between is basically zero right now. But! This is also why I set public update dates, to force myself to stick to them. So fingers crossed I don’t have a nervous breakdown this month! 
Good luck with your papers and presentations etc.!
Thank you! I’m still pretty new to academia, so my stress and anxiety are kind of through the roof, haha. But I guess that feeling despondent as a PhD student is pretty much a given. Hopefully it’ll get easier with time, and maybe creative writing can keep me at least somewhat sane 
Hi, so as a bit of a newbie I didn’t really set a goal last month. It didn’t really make sense with having to factor in all the learning of how to actually get things done in choice script. But having said that I was pleasantly surprised at what I did get done. So…. If I can just match that in September I’ll be happy 
Wow, great. My word count instantly expanded from 60k to 67k with this one handy “include code” trick!
Sadly it doesn’t make the story any closer to completion! But if it helps your motivation, great.
I’m making fairly good progress on writing now, but I need to continue to monitor my health. I’m hoping to get Scarlet Sorceress and Dreamwalking Elysium done by this year, but if/when to submit them to HG is another big question mark.
Tentative art for my mini project, Dreamwalking Elysium. (From shopping on Pixabay)
Splashscreen:
Title: (Needs more work)
I could create the WIP thread now… but might be better to finish it first, since the game is already on the shorter side.
On another note, if anyone wants feedback for their WIPs, feel free to reach out to me.
