So, I said in my last post that the industry I work in generally more or less shuts down at the end of December, and that that meant I was going to finally get some much-needed free time. So, now that it's near the end of December and I'm presumably free, how much have I gotten done on the Wongery in the last week or so?
Well, unfortunately, nothing.
Okay, that's not entirely true. I've made some minor tweaks to a few articles. But I haven't written any new articles. (I really need to write some new articles. It's been way too long since I've posted a new article.) Nor have I actually made any progress toward finally implementing the stat blocks in the RPG space, which is another thing I really want to get done.
So what have I been doing? Well... first of all, I haven't actually had that many free days yet. I was working almost every day right up until the 23rd, and then the 24th and 25th I had family obligations... like I said last year, I'm personally not religious and don't particularly care about Christmas, but my family does celebrate Christmas and it wouldn't be right to skip out on the family gathering, even if that meant more time I couldn't be working on the projects I wanted to get done.
Which means that not counting today—which isn't over yet!—I've really only had three free days so far. And even they weren't completely free; I had to take my car in for service on the 26th (and don't have it back yet, though fortunately over the holidays I don't have anywhere I really need to go). But that's at least two days, and actually okay close to three because taking my car in for service wasn't an all-day thing. So if I haven't been working on the Wongery, what have I been doing?
Well, one thing I've been doing more of than I anticipated is, uh, sleeping. I said in my last post that I wasn't getting enough sleep and was very tired, but I guess I hadn't fully appreciated just how sleep-deprived I was. I've just been... spending a lot of time in bed. Which feels like a waste of time, but on the other hand I... guess I kind of needed it.
Still, I do want to have some productivity over the holiday, so for today I finally did what I maybe should have done the previous days, and set out a schedule for what I want to work on today. I failed to keep that schedule almost immediately due to, uh, oversleeping, but even if I didn't stick to it exactly I'm going to get as close as I can, and hopefully today I'll get something done. I did allot two hours in my schedule to make this blog post. Usually it takes me a lot longer than two hours to write a blog post, but I figured this one would be relatively short and not involve much if any research, so it wouldn't take too long. I've also allotted some time to work on Wongery articles (I really have to post new articles), and to get some things done for "WorldEmber", and to make some more headway on those Udemy classes that will help me develop some skills that will be useful in creating Wongery content... among other things. And I'll continue to schedule some time over the next few days for these and other projects... including finally getting those templates working in the RPG space. (And when I say "the next few days", I really mean probably the next week or so; I said the industry I work in shuts down for the end of December, but really work may not really pick up again until the first full week of January.)
One thing I haven't scheduled any time for, and don't plan to any time soon, is continuing work on the novel set in the Dreamseas that I wrote 50,000 words of (technically 50,078) in November. I do eventually want to finish that novel, yes, but it's not a high priority. Besides, one of the reasons I had such a hard time writing it during November is because I hadn't really planned it out much ahead of time... and I'd want to do a lot of planning before that novel's finished. Sure, I've already written what's likely to amount to about half the novel (though obviously it's going to need a lot of editing and rewriting before it's ready for (even self-)publication), but the closer I got to the ending the harder it got to write, because... I didn't know yet how it was going to end. But that's not the only thing that was missing. As I said in my wrap-up post about the November writing challenge, I do think there's some good stuff in what I have so far, even with how hastily most of it was written. But there are some important things missing, mostly due to my lack of planning, and I need to put in the planning time and figure out those missing things before I do any more actual writing.
So what are those missing things? Well, specifically:
- An ending! Okay, I already mentioned this, but this is a big one. I don't know how the story is going to end. I do know that the characters from the two initially separate plot threads are going to converge in one location and meet; I know that the main characters will be with the antagonists when they find the MacGuffin, and... then what? I don't know. Which characters will live, and which will die? I don't know. How will the villains be defeated? I don't know. Will the secondary antagonists also get involved, and if so how will they react to the main antagonists and to each other, and what will happen to them? I don't know. What will be the lasting consequences of the characters' experiences? I don't know. I really ought to figure out how the story ends before I try writing much more of it.
- What is the MacGuffin? At the risk of a spoiler here (though maybe not much of one, since it's introduced fairly early on), the main villains are after a legendary treasure, and their search for this treasure is the main thing driving the plot. But I have no idea what the treasure actually is. (It's not necessarily just gold and like items of monetary value; I guess it could be, but that seems kind of anticlimactic.) Is it important? Maybe not; the exact identity of the MacGuffin generally isn't. But then again... maybe it is important; maybe the exact nature of the treasure has an important influence on the ending. (In which case I guess maybe it's not really a MacGuffin, since MacGuffins by definition drive the plot but otherwise have no inherent importance, but whatever.) So I guess this is tied to the first item, the ending, but maybe it's worth mentioning separately.
- Character arcs! Generally, over the course of a story, the main protagonist changes in some significant way, experiencing a character arc, be that by learning to overcome a fear or prejudice, by coming to terms with something they were denying, or by any other sort of character growth (or regression). This isn't necessarily only true of the main protagonist, of course; other characters also can and often do go through their own character arcs. My novel has two main protagonists, or at least two viewpoint characters—until near the end (and possibly even then) the chapters alternate between them. But neither undergoes any sort of significant character arc... not in as much of the novel as I've written so far, at least, but I don't have any particular arcs in mind for them in the remainder of the novel either, and I probably should. This is something else I ought to figure out.
So yeah. I do want to finish writing that novel eventually, but I have to do some more planning and deal with all these other matters first. And honestly there are a lot of other things that are a higher priority. Like getting the RPG space implemented, and getting the Wongery officially set up as a private limited company, and making the Akinetic Media License a thing, and, oh yeah, writing more articles. So it's something I do plan to do, but not something I plan to devote any time for this holiday.
So when do I plan to get it done by? Well, to set an arbitrary deadline, let's say June 2026. Okay, this isn't completely arbitrary; that's the month of Free RPG Day, and while I'm not remotely in a position to make anything available for Free RPG Day in 2025, hopefully by next year things will be different. And it makes sense (to me, at least, though I admit I may not be fully rational) to aim for a general marketing push at the same time. I hope by then I'll have the novel finished and ready to go, but some other things as well. I will (I hope) have other free RPG adventures and expansions available then, as well as a second novel that I'll write during November 2025, this one set in the world of Curcalen—and set to be the first in a series if there's enough demand to warrant it. (And this time I'll make sure I put plenty of planning in before November rolls around!) And also an RPG Maker game set on Meliauth, and... well, I have lots of other ideas; let's see how many come to fruition.
But again, that's still a ways off. In the meantime, I'm going to post this blog entry, and then I'm going to move on to the next item on my schedule (which I was supposed to have started half an hour ago).
And I'll see if I can get to bed early tonight and get up at a reasonable hour tomorrow morning. I admit, I'm still kind of tired...