• Member Since 11th Jul, 2011
  • offline last seen Apr 3rd, 2023

Bluesparkks


  • TBroken Wings, Scattered Dust
    A weary terror from an urban myth postpones her retirement for one last job at the behest of a friend. The weirdest and least straightforward job she's ever worked on follows--and then her little sister goes and gets herself tangled up in it.
    Bluesparkks · 96k words  ·  19  0 · 489 views

More Blog Posts20

Aug
29th
2014

Patch 29.8.2014 · 4:28pm Aug 29th, 2014

Previous: Patch 23.7.2014

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WRITING


(Faithless is just a code name, real title TBD)

After careful (but not lengthy) deliberation, and consideration of what I've learned over the past few years, I've decided to start over. Again.

WAIT NO TORCHES HEAR ME OUT

BWSD, although it was the best iteration of my saga so far, suffered from numerous, glaring problems that I can't ignore anymore. I tried to do too much with it; explore a meta theme, present a cast of compelling characters through the eyes of another, flesh out a living, breathing world, take the theme of Friendship == Magic to another level, make fun of some tropes, and put up a display case of cool ideas. The end result--and a severe lack of discipline when it came to deciding which ideas went in and which stayed out--made a garbled mess with only the faintest sense of direction.

Do I regret anything?

I regret that I put so much of it up for you guys to read before I woke up and decided it needed tearing down and a do-over. That's about it. I learned a lot, and this time around I'm being much more careful about what goes in vs. what stays out.

Don't get me wrong--the heart of Faithless is still the same as BWSD's. Zeph, Whimsy, Descant, Dust, Tia, Luna--every major player (critical to the central theme, not just "had a lot of screentime") is still present. Zeph and Whimsy haven't changed a bit. But this time around there'll be a stronger sense of direction and a far more tightened area of focus. Some themes that didn't fit are being cut while others that do fit are being worked in.

All that being said, I'm still putting a lot of effort into making an active world for a more minimalistic cast to explore; post-apocalypse is FO:E's ground, not mine. I still get to sneak in tons of--to borrow a friend's description--"crunchy" characters, so chances are you'll still see some of the better ones in Faithless--Burnout, Clepsydra, maybe Eve. I can't say for sure yet; I'm still establishing a solid outline to stick to before I go crazy with the side-character décor.

Rest assured, I'm doing everything I can to tell Zeph's story as well as I possibly can.

— « § » —

ART

I've imposed a bit of a schedule on drawing. Five days a week, six hours a day, although my slacker boss isn't too nitpicky about what I do during those six hours as long as I'm still mostly drawing.

As expected, this has improved productivity. Not by a mile, but enough that I don't spend every day and night tearing my hair out. But not as expected, a side effect of scheduling drawing like this is that I don't feel guilty for not drawing outside of those hours.

I've already finished a redo on Maybe-a-series, which looks waaaay better than the original. And I'm in the latter stages of finishing up Pinkie's redo. (Preview o:)

So all in all, slowly getting better at both drawing and the process of getting myself to draw. Commissions are still on the horizon--I need to know I can deliver before I tell people I can. The free-month and layout are still the same as before (see tentative rules here and here).

— « § » —

PERSONAL

Finally worked out the kinks with ComEd, so I have a better idea of what the cost of living here is. I have time, but not a whole lot. The pressure to find another/better job (and open commissions, damnit) is on.

My condolences to Robin Williams' family. The whole outcry about his death/suicide made me realize I'm still not exactly out of the pit-of-depression. The meds I'm on are technically anti-anxiety (but they're nonaddictive, thank Celestia); I don't know what difference real meds would do, but these make feeling content/happy at least possible. I'm still not out of the pit, but thanks to some magic--err, some friendships--I can say I'm feeling a change for the better.

Random: To people who shout "attention whore" when someone attractive posts a picture of themselves bemoaning their appearance, or when an artist posts a drawing and claims it's "not very good"--stuff a sock in it. These people do not see the same person or drawing that you do. I'd wager 90-95% of the time something along these lines happens, the person is seeking positive feedback. Praise, compliments, encouragement, recognition, anything.

I can't stop you from calling them an attention whore, but I can tell you this: You aren't helping anyone if you do.

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