# **Preface** Welcome to the inaugural blog page! This is all still a work in progress, as are my stories. Here you'll find each blog set up similarly to a novel with Parts. There's a preface, parts, and ends with a conclusion. This week's vlog is published on [YouTube](https://youtu.be/OVFGOvgpp0c) as well. This week was pretty low energy, so let's instead focus on goals. Because what good is coming up with word counts if you don't have a word goal? Unfocused, that's what that means… for me at least. And it's November, which tends to be the time where my brain wants to reevaluate everything for the year ahead. # Part 1 **Classes** I'm about to apply for two classes on top of seeking out schools in Europe. And I don't know what that will entail yet. But I do know that I'm going to try and get two projects done before the start of the semester. That's just under three months. Plenty of time to focus and figure things out. Please don't let that be famous last words. But the two projects I intend to get done are the video game and short story. (Castro and Moonshadow) I'll have progress bars for both of them. # Part 2 **Project Castro** For the video game, I not only need to write the script but also need to bring all of the dialogue into a spreadsheet. I’m not the one coding, but I am the one who’s writing the story. From what I’m learning, dialogue is best in spreadsheet form. Coming from a filmmaking and novel-writing background, this is very different than what I originally expected. But copying directly from a screenplay seems to cause formatting issues. We all live and learn. So video games don’t have word constraints like novels or non-fiction books do. None-the-less, I’m giving myself a goal of five thousand words and calling this a Short Story. Knowing there will be about three versions of the draft, my coder and I came up with a way to keep track of the script. I forget if there’s a name for this, but it’s the most simple way to keep track of this script I could think of. I came up with using the alphabet for individual scenes and draft version numbers for the compiled script. This is so we can avoid using too many numbers for different parts of the script when referring to history versions. I know that certain scenes will be rewritten multiple times, but not all of them will have the same number of edits. So once I have the most up-to-date number of edited scenes, I can compile those into a new version number. I’ll draw a visual since that may not make sense for some folks. To end this part, I have about 2,000 of the 5,000 words for that script. And three of the five scenes done. # Part 3 **Project Moonshadow** Word count: 688 This is the Fae Area short story. I have 3,221 words toward my 5,000 word goal. And it’s still early on in the first draft. I only have about three scenes written. Which is wordy to say the least. So this may mean I need to make it all pretty lean once I start editing. But we’ll see what needs adjusting as we finish outlining and get back to writing the story itself. # Part 4 **Substack** Word count: 1,325 In the mean time, I’ve written down a bunch of non-fiction ideas for my Substack. Wild what getting off of social media will open up. But with those ideas I want to introduce more editing into my writing practice. Instead of typing something up, seeing if everything is spelled correctly, then posting it, I want to see what the point is of these little essays. Sometimes I fear I lose the point. And part of what makes a piece engaging is having a point and sticking to it. # Part 5 **Website** I've had a website with SquareSpace for a few years now. And I recently decided that it's time to get a new domain. It's been filmmaking oriented for a long time, and I have moved on from that. I'm a writer, artist, and game developer. And I want to reflect that. And be better about building a portfolio. I've never really done those before, so no time like the present I suppose. The Map Men channel have this [video about domain names](https://youtu.be/cD4hxKkqR4E?si=hjt9SvmHBx2IHR2K) that I found fascinating. But the biggest thing I got from it is that dot com is for commercial use. And what I’m creating is a portfolio to brag about myself to potential employers, not a business site.  SquareSpace is fine, but it’s main business is… well, business. Even the portfolio site templates are geared toward selling something. So I’m trying to find other ways to present my works. Wether it’s still on SquareSpace, Obsidian, or even neocities is TBD. But I have until January to really figure that out. # Part 6 **Stay Fashionable** I’m super scared that YouTube will hit me with some sort of strike. But I will try to include a snippet of one of my best friend’s band Stay Fashionable here. I’m not a filmmaker and I’m not the best editor. But I’m having fun messing around with what I filmed. Ashe and Dai, you guys are amazing. I’ll try to have the full set out soon.  ## **Conclusion** Well, that’s everything. All the current goals I’m setting for myself. Writing-wise as well as school-wise. I hope to become better organized so I can share those numbers in the upcoming writer vlogs. There’s a lot more in terms of my writings, but I’ll talk more about those once I’ve reigned them in. I hope you enjoyed and I’ll see you in the next video. Ultimate word count: 2,013.