Project Rialar and Coming Shorts
This month has been crazy when it comes to freelancing. It’s the holiday season with Halloween and Christmas, after all. While the flood of client projects has affected my other two endeavors of art and game development, I tried to make sure that I progressed my main passion, writing, at least somewhat. And boy did I do just that!
The way I write these days is that I put the story into Scenes, and plan the main ones out. Then I work on the nitty-gritty of it all, scene by scene until I am done. I have at this time written out 43 Scenes out of 81, which means I’m halfway done! That is, if nothing bizarre happens such as new characters popping out and wanting their time in the limelight (I’m looking at you, Granny Chaney!).
Another thing I did, which explains my ‘slow’ progress somewhat, is that I reworked the whole first half of the story. I put it into my new framework, fixed and added things, and did some major story edits. After that task was done, and let me tell you it was one hell of a task, I moved on to writing the second half.
Battle Scenes
One thing I’ve never been quite as good at as I’d hope is writing battle scenes. Be they big or small, somehow the hectic, dynamic nature of them always escaped me. Not this time!
I’ve been reading a lot of LitRPG thanks to the recommendations of my husband, and I find that the style I see there is amazing for these kinds of situations. The perspectives jump from one person to another, from one move to another, to highlight certain things on the battlefield.
Looking into these gamified scenes and almost cinematic point of view changes allowed me to write my first real battle – 4(+1) characters clash with a monster far beyond their ability to take care of. Well, at least far beyond the ability of 3 of them. Turns out that when you are protected by higher powers, you can do much more… just don’t get cocky about it, the divine doesn’t like that!
What about the Shorts?
My plan is to write out some of the side characters in my current WIP, to give more glimpses to the realms I create as they are coming out. This means, however, that I can’t really write them all out before the Story itself comes out, for fear that it will spoil the story itself.
That being said, I have five characters of varying importance in the pipe related to project Rialar. There’s everything from gnomes to Granny Chaney and some more predatory bad guys that lurk in the shadows. Guys which we only get to see as a flavor to the main storyline, with secrets of their own.
I will also consider writing some short stories that are unrelated whenever I finish the first draft of a bigger project. It will help me take that little break that is so sorely needed to gain the fresh eyes required for editing and polishing the work later on.
Art Project – The Forest Pond
Unfortunately, my art project was one of those that suffered more from the insane amount of work I’ve been doing for VanaVerse in the translation department. But it’s not all neglect and forgettance! I think I’ve got the bushes down, and am moving on to looking at grass for hours on end to try and analyze how on earth I can transform this forest floor into something that isn’t messy but isn’t flat either.
Read more about my Art Project in the latest ArtLog.
Game Development – Pink and broken
As many developers out there in the wilds may know, things tend to break. A lot. And I’m not even a good dev as I am now, I’m just a dabbler in the art of code! So, my learning project of an action RPG broke several times.
I got the common problem of pink textures that is solvable with some finessing of the URP (Universal Render Pipeline), project settings, and shaders. Oh, and don’t forget to check your Post Processing tick boxes and other relevant things. These gum textures can be extremely annoying with just one little box left unticked!
I also managed to break my UI, where some of the elements worked fine but others did not. It turns out I had some hierarchy problems, but with the help of my husband, we fixed it to a point where hierarchy doesn’t matter. You heard me, down with the hacky ways of doing things that rely on an object’s position within the hierarchy!
I broke one more thing. My bloody buttons. Push and Toggle buttons just wouldn’t work for the life of it. And when one is making a door that opens with either, it becomes an existential problem fast. My old friend the Object Who could not be turned into a Boolean made an appearance. I nearly gave up when all my door-opening buttons began spawning hordes of enemies… But it all got better in the end.
Read about how we solved the Broken buttons from my latest DevLog.
Restructuring the Creation
So, as I hinted in the title, I’ve done some restructuring in my creative journey. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not optimal to spin so many plates at once (duh, who would’ve known!), this means that I will focus on one project at a time for now.
Unfortunately, Art and GameDev need to take a bit of a back seat until I finish my Writing WIPs first draft. Then, I am planning to finish the Forest Pond, and after that, the course by Game Monkey.
I have had to adjust my way of doing things at this time due to well, not having enough time to focus on all three. Freelancing, while pleasant, interesting, and extremely needed for our economy, takes a toll on me. I’m sure many of you who work full-time can attest to this phenomenon, especially if there are times like this past month for me when you work day in and day out. But hey, such is the life of a Freelancing Housewife.
At the beginning of the new year, the orders slow down, and I will go back to my leisurely neglect of my passions. Wait, no, not this time darn it!
This time, I will work on my projects, and with the grace of my Creator, I will create. Somebody please pray for me, I’m terrible with procrastination and time management! 😅