Status Report for January, 2025
Feb. 1st, 2025 03:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tuftearsWell. It has been an interesting month.
Leaving aside external factors I can do little about, let's run down the checklist.
1. I'd missed my October dental appointment and the dentist office wasn't answering my text messages so I wound up just walking in and scheduling it. I got an appointment for the subsequent week, and my teeth have been cleaned and my next appointment scheduled, and I got their email address so hopefully we can avoid future issues of this kind.
2. I installed shielded speakers on my new gaming PC and... the speaker issues I was having went away. I'm guessing that the old speakers had just taken enough abuse over the year they were no longer sufficiently powered.
3. I quit Final Fantasy 14. The latest endgame dungeons have become super-hard and one of my friends that I had been playing with it has become incredibly reluctant to do those things, to the point of just not showing up. It got to the point that I actually got offered a returning player bonus when I logged in again... That's how I knew it was time to knock off until a content update or two.
4. In World of Warcraft, my guild beat heroic Queen Ansurek, earning us the Ahead of the Curve achievement for that raid. Woo! Our raid leader decided, after a victory lap clearing achievements from the normal version of the raid, to knock off raiding until the next season. Which is probably going to be in a few weeks, give or take.
5. In light of that, after some poking at various potential cooperative games that we could play on Caturday evenings, I finally decided to try and try out these solo RPGs that I've heard so much about from Rowyn and others. The most interesting of the bunch, and most recommended, turned out to be Ironsworn: Starforged. If you're curious about it, you can have a look at the first chunk of the rules here.
My first impression is, if you're a frustrated writer, this is pretty good for tapping into the writing muscles to make story happen. There are lots of oracles for generating random things you might encounter, and progress tracks and mechanics for knitting them together into a narrative progression. It's best suited for 'journey'-style games where you're going from one place to another and anything at all could be in between.
Anyway, we ran the first session this past Caturday and I think it seems promising, but we won't know how it plays out until we actually get the characters out into the big unknown galaxy. If you're curious, meow and I'll share a link!
6. Coloring on the Timecrossed Engineer cover is virtually done, I am just holding off on it so I can come back with fresh eyes and see if there are any further issues I need to fix. The advice of others has been really helpful in tweaking anatomical/coloring issues. Rowyn is about 80% done with her first read as well, I have been enjoying her comments as she wades through it.
7. I have been flailing at other potential books to be next. Some potential suspects include:
So, I guess it'll be on to draft 6 of Alien Tastes... hard to believe I've tossed out five different drafts of the same story, but that's just the way writing is sometimes!
Oh... And I wrote a 1430-ish word short story about a healer in the tone of the Black Company. Clicky if you're interested!
Leaving aside external factors I can do little about, let's run down the checklist.
1. I'd missed my October dental appointment and the dentist office wasn't answering my text messages so I wound up just walking in and scheduling it. I got an appointment for the subsequent week, and my teeth have been cleaned and my next appointment scheduled, and I got their email address so hopefully we can avoid future issues of this kind.
2. I installed shielded speakers on my new gaming PC and... the speaker issues I was having went away. I'm guessing that the old speakers had just taken enough abuse over the year they were no longer sufficiently powered.
3. I quit Final Fantasy 14. The latest endgame dungeons have become super-hard and one of my friends that I had been playing with it has become incredibly reluctant to do those things, to the point of just not showing up. It got to the point that I actually got offered a returning player bonus when I logged in again... That's how I knew it was time to knock off until a content update or two.
4. In World of Warcraft, my guild beat heroic Queen Ansurek, earning us the Ahead of the Curve achievement for that raid. Woo! Our raid leader decided, after a victory lap clearing achievements from the normal version of the raid, to knock off raiding until the next season. Which is probably going to be in a few weeks, give or take.
5. In light of that, after some poking at various potential cooperative games that we could play on Caturday evenings, I finally decided to try and try out these solo RPGs that I've heard so much about from Rowyn and others. The most interesting of the bunch, and most recommended, turned out to be Ironsworn: Starforged. If you're curious about it, you can have a look at the first chunk of the rules here.
My first impression is, if you're a frustrated writer, this is pretty good for tapping into the writing muscles to make story happen. There are lots of oracles for generating random things you might encounter, and progress tracks and mechanics for knitting them together into a narrative progression. It's best suited for 'journey'-style games where you're going from one place to another and anything at all could be in between.
Anyway, we ran the first session this past Caturday and I think it seems promising, but we won't know how it plays out until we actually get the characters out into the big unknown galaxy. If you're curious, meow and I'll share a link!
6. Coloring on the Timecrossed Engineer cover is virtually done, I am just holding off on it so I can come back with fresh eyes and see if there are any further issues I need to fix. The advice of others has been really helpful in tweaking anatomical/coloring issues. Rowyn is about 80% done with her first read as well, I have been enjoying her comments as she wades through it.
7. I have been flailing at other potential books to be next. Some potential suspects include:
- Junkworld Mech Designer: begun as an idea for making a mech design-centered book when "The Mech Touch" appeared to have gone on hiatus, I poke at it every now and then, but it would be decidedly an epic series, and I'm a little shy of committing to one of those, especially with such a loose outline past the first book or two.
- Grand Theft: Dragon. I've always wanted to make a book that properly deserves the title 'Steal the Dragon' (a book by Patricia Briggs which has neither stealing nor Dragons') so I spent a chunk of time world-building, then trying to put together an outline. I have this pretty much outlined but in the process, I seem to have run out of motivation. It needs more *clever thievery*. While I really enjoy that, I have a lot less experience writing it.
- I noodled a bit about whether it was possible to write a mech story in one book, had a thought about making it a time loop to allow trying different approaches without much changing the setting, but ultimately I don't think that'll be a fun book to write either.
- Back to Alien Tastes! I realized that the first book was bothering me because nothing much really happens, and after thinking about it a bit, I realized what I needed to do was to set up and resolve the first challenge Molly actually needs to overcome, not a made-up feud that has no real impact on her college education. I have managed to work that up into a suitable outline.
So, I guess it'll be on to draft 6 of Alien Tastes... hard to believe I've tossed out five different drafts of the same story, but that's just the way writing is sometimes!
Oh... And I wrote a 1430-ish word short story about a healer in the tone of the Black Company. Clicky if you're interested!
no subject
Date: 2025-02-09 03:49 am (UTC)Fascinating that FF14 has less staying power for you than WoW, but understandable. I've been playing Time Princess for 4+ years now and wondering if I'll ever actually drop it before it shuts down. (No particular reason to think it'll shut down any time soon, but most games do not have WoW's longevity.)
no subject
Date: 2025-02-09 07:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-10 12:02 am (UTC)Heehee! No, that's fine, I can quit games when I don't want to play them anymore. I don't need the whole game to stop existing for my benefit. XD
no subject
Date: 2025-02-10 12:22 am (UTC)Maybe just a matter of MMO companies trying to be the biggest, and when they don't get the numbers they expected, they shutter in quick order. A byproduct of the vast amounts of money and content needed to make an MMO...
no subject
Date: 2025-02-10 03:01 am (UTC)Yeah, there's much more of the lock-in effect than when we were young. I never would've expected WoW to last 20+ years. But I never would've expected Facebook to still be a powerhouse 20+ years later, either. 30+ years ago, the current big thing was never more than 5-10 years old and the next big thing was always Coming Soon.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-10 03:12 am (UTC)WoW: *keeps on chugging*
Me: "I feel we have been lied to."
It's true, some of the old stalwarts have lasted an amazingly long time... Makes it all the more a shock when one of them finally does keel over.