So, as 2015 winds down, I have to think about where things are going from here for Square Zero. The blog will continue, of course. I enjoy writing these stories too much. I also still plan on finishing the second game at some point. It may take a while, thanks to school and work and life in general, but I still want to work on it.
More importantly, I'm going to be trying some new things when it comes to my actual writing process. My stories on here are very stream of thought. I make it up as I go along. Most of the time that works out okay, but when it doesn't work out, it REALLY doesn't work out (see Melody of Light and A Dark Lesson for examples... or don't). So, I'm going to do some little experiments when I write.
Looking around the internet for ideas, one constant I saw from story to story was the importance of actually writing, as in putting a pen to paper. So, I gave into my addiction to stationary, and ordered a pack of notebooks and some pens, and I'm going to do just that. I'm going to put pen to paper and see what happens.
It is weird to talk about handwriting a story as an experiment. I'm an 80's baby, and and a 90's kid. When I was younger handwriting a story was just what you did. I remember the magic of sitting down with a fresh notebook and digging in, writing story after story. A bunch of those stories actually inspired my second serial that I wrote for my original blog, Soap Sudz (you can check out the first episode of Spirit Lake here). I wrote my first screenplay in a spiral notebook that got passed around my 8th grade class. Then, once I got to high school, and eventually college, I stopped writing by hand, and just went to the computer. It was "easier". Except... it isn't really all that much easier. In fact, sometimes it makes it harder. A computer is an amazing thing, but it also offers countless distractions. When I was writing down a story into a notebook, the notebook was my only focus.
Hopefully I can recreate some of that magic.
I need to apply those same ideas to my second game as well. My brain runs a mile a minute, and when I'm planning a story my thoughts can fall all over themselves. I can think of scenes and story lines and characters, and what was supposed to be a simple, straightforward ghost story can suddenly turn into a grande exercise in excess.
Yes, part of the reason that ADS2: Possession is going so slow is because of how crazy my life has gotten. The other reason is that the story, while still making sense, has gotten too big for me to handle the game entirely on my own, at least when it comes to making the game in a timely manner. My original plans grew and grew, and now... now there are so many plot paths and story elements that just looking at the game file overwhelms me. Now I know why a lot of these games have multiple writers.
So, going into the New Year I plan to make some personal changes, but I also plan to keep this blog running as smoothly as possible. I'm trying to plan something to take the Monday slot after Elves of Darkness ends on the 28th, but I don't have anything in stone, so there won't be a formal announcement for a while. I've got plenty of ideas for new series, or continuations of old series, but instead of rushing them onto the blog, I'm going to take my time and try and get them right. So expect some programming announcements in the coming months.
Have a Happy Holidays, everyone.
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