Hi everyone!
It’s the middle of the quarter, so it’s time for another Currently on my art update. This time, I have announcements to make!
First of all, my Flash Fiction Month 2022 collection, Untitled Hearts, is finally out. Releasing it has been on the to do list for a good while but I only found the time to get it out into the world now. The same with the 2022 World Collections, which I decided to release only after Untitled Hearts is I don’t have to update this year’s World Collections with the release of Untitled Hearts too. Since I had everything ready, I decided to get two birds with one stone and release both things and have the announcement in this update.
You can get Untitled Hearts for free on Smashwords while the World Collections are available for free on this website.
That’s all for the announcements. Otherwise, it’s been an eventful quarter so far. After easter, my apartment got a sudden-ish bathroom renovation (I got about 1.5 weeks’ warning time that it was coming up), which meant clearing the bathroom and figuring out where to store the stuff for the duration of the renovation and times when it was not a good idea to stay in the apartment due to noise. Of course, I wound up getting a cold in the middle of the renovation, so I had to stay at home despite the noise since I couldn’t or at least shouldn’t go elsewhere unless I had to. This cold, of course, hit me hard on the third day of my summer job – a lovely surprise that forced me to go on sick leave since going to the office to get my work laptop for remote work was out of the question as long as I had a fever. Well, better the third day than the first since that way I didn’t miss orientation stuff – and like my mother remarked, it would have looked suspicious to be unable to work on the day after May Day, haha!
Anyhow, I’ve now gotten better, although I did have to spend this week working remote. Here’s to hoping that the worst is over for this summer!
As for my creative projects, the only one that has seen good progress has been Navigator’s Glove, which is now nearly halfway through in editing. It’s still got a couple of missing things I need to catch while I play through P5R for my master’s thesis (the progress of which has also suffered from the mayhem with the bathroom renovation and cold). The Fate’s Way does progress as well, although it’s been slow especially since I haven’t found the time to revise and release next chapters of it. I was hoping to get back to wrangling Lyokostar 1 and its heavy need for reworking, but I didn’t get around to doing that. Maybe next month.
As for Greenfield… I discussed it’s current standstill status with my boyfriend one day and complained about how editing the early chapters is a massive pain because the original years-old version that I started when I was like 14 is garbage and needs heavy-handed modifications. He ended up asking if I still am interested in telling the story, whatever its proper form should be, despite it being built on such an old foundation. In the moment, I said yes but afterwards I asked myself if that was really true. So far, the answer is that I don’t know; I’ve been pushing through editing because I wasn’t going to give up now that I’d gotten the first draft ready. But what is the reason why I’m telling the story? Is it just the sunk cost fallacy of having spent so much time and effort with it over the years or do I still have some passion for it? Right now, I’m editing Navigator’s Glove and even if there won’t be major changes to it in the editing phase, the reworking phase is going to add a significant change to the plot. It’s going to be a pain to keep things from falling apart but I’m looking forward to it because the plot bunny that’s going to be added is a story I want to tell. I like reading through and working on the now 600k+ words I’ve written to the point where I’m already thinking of sequels and how to address Persona 5 spin-offs other than the sequel Strikers. I have passion for it. I’ve also finally gotten to the interesting part of The Fate’s Way, so I want to keep it going even though it’s slower. Lyokostar 1, on the other hand… it’s my first big story and one that I’m going to bullheadedly keep working on, no matter how slow or hard it is, because it’s close to my heart as a part of my roots as a writer. Plus, Lyokostar 2 is hopefully far less of a pain to handle in addition to being better, so I want to get to working on that even though I no longer work on Lyokostar 3 out of a lack of interest and its homepage being a ghost town.
But Greenfield… honestly, thinking about continuing it and the number of books I originally planned for it makes me feel dread. Right now, I can only imagine it being like pulling teeth and little more, much like Exceptional Jedi had turned out to be when I put it to rest. Continuing it feels far more like giving in to a sunk cost fallacy than the bullheadedness of continuing Lyokostar 1. I’m going to have to dedicate some time to looking at the world and its characters and ask myself if I really want to continue it. Right now, I think I could push through the first book in time with sheer force of will, but the storyline will be far from complete at the end of it. Do I really want to continue it, even if it means burning down my plans and building it anew? Do I want to built it anew and rework the world that was never properly fleshed out?
I have no idea, other than that as I’m writing this, I’m more inclined to saying no than yes. It’s a story I have little passion of any kind for right now. But, for now, I’m going to keep it at its limbo-like state and try to find the time to look at it with a critical eye.
That’s all for now, though. Let’s see how things are going with my projects, as per my project widget:
- The Fate’s Way: Chapter 78 is in editing I still need to redraw the regular Alyssa and also Alyssa’s friends and family and the other important people, like Matti, someday. I need to revise chapters.
- Off-DA projects: Nothing notable here. My master’s thesis progresses slowly.
- Greenfield: Editing is currently stuck at the stop position. I need to reflect on whether or not I want to continue this or if I’ve just been stuck in a sunk cost fallacy for a while. I’m currently working on editing chapter 5. Read more about the project here.
- Lyokostar: The second part of story 7 is still waiting for betareading (or rather alphareading, which I still haven’t gotten around to doing). This story is in need of massive reworking, so it’s going to take a long time to finish. References need to be done.
- A Wandering Aura: I haven’t done anything for this in ages. I probably should put this on hiatus… I should think on the likelihood of continuing this too.
- Navigator’s Glove: The segments for Confidant meetings that I hadn’t written have been added. I’m now editing, with chapter 33 being up next. Once editing is done, I’ll be reworking to add a considerably big plot bunny into the fic. 65236 words have been written during this quarter, making the total wordcount go over 600k. Whoops!
- Gaming: Habitica, Pokémon GO, Pokémon Masters EX and Dr Kawashima’s Devilish Brain Training keep on going, although Pokémon Go only rarely nowadays. I’ve also played the remaster of Persona 5 Royal for my master’s thesis for a few hours now.
- Other stuff: I released my FFM 2022 collection and 2022 World Collections today. I have been reading fanfics mostly. I still haven’t gotten started with IDW’s Transformers comics and at this point I might just postpone them to tackle some other stuff I want to read since the ones that I’m missing are no longer available digitally as far as I can see.
- Personal life: Like discussed above, a bathroom renovation and a cold came up. I also started my summer job and celebrated what’s probably my last May Day as a student. Not really anything else.
WindySilver 