I am back with an update on my progress throughout the month of July! To begin with, here is something I am bad at: math.
49500 + 16600 + 17700 = 83,800 words I have written so far.
49500 + 16600 + 41300 = 107,400 the current length of Warsong, pt. 3 of Gravesong Book 2.
If that confuses you, well, I’m bad at math. But to clarify, here is how things went after the last chapter I wrote. I took a week-long break to recharge, which felt too short and less restful than I wanted, because I was stressed about Book 2.
Then I began writing the final ‘part’ of Book 2, and that has been my focus until now. In fact, I plan on getting back to work after this, but I felt, for the start of August, I should tell you where I am.
Writing Gravesong:
I do not often communicate personally how things are with me. I complain a lot, but you notice that line between the author’s personal life and, sometimes, other details about me that I try not to cross? Well, that’s not professionalism because I don’t feel professional, but it does matter.
We have seen a lot of unprofessional ‘content creators’ online in how they interact with fans, other people’s hard work, and we will continue to see it. One way to avoid that is never to engage, but I like speaking mostly through the story because that’s what matters. I am not a Youtuber; the stories I write trump the personality of pirateaba.
However, telling people how I feel sometimes matters, and I shared, last time, how much of an asskicking writing this book was. I managed two parts, 150,000 words, in a month, and had to quit and rest because I burned out so hard. Thus far, I’m merely tired because I’ve tempered my pace, but writing a novel is hard.
I don’t understand how to pace it well. I’m used to outlining a bit of story and not worrying about ‘when’ it gets done, only that it’s good. In this case I’m racing a deadline, and just getting the 1st Draft done makes me worried.
I think, as of now, I am on-pace to get it done with enough time to edit it up. And I think it’s not beyond repair, even the weak points. But it is stressful. I have two analogies I wrote, one about ships at sea, another about, um, searching for quality in a sea of poo? The other one’s weirder, but the third analogy I wrote after being burnt out was wild, and I’m glad I didn’t share it. That one was about faith. Let me try to do it justice here.
Imagine there is the idea of the ‘god of writing’. Which isn’t capitalized because I’m not referring to any actual religion. But just imagine there is sort of one, and you aren’t rallying a charge to breach the gates of heaven or rising against the omniscient overlord–or praying for a miracle.
It’s just an idea. And the idea goes like this. You put things on an altar or sacrifice them to writing itself. Your time and energy, creativity, and sometimes, even your health or the effort you could put into relationships, family, or just hobbies or other things.
There is no guarantee you’ll ever get anything back. The god of writing (or goddess, again, it doesn’t matter), doesn’t ever give you a sign. Also, you don’t have to give anything. That’s what’s so frustrating. You have to take care of yourself and live and earn money, but it’s always there, waiting for you.
It’s like a gamble. If you put in enough time, energy, and faith, this will go well, and work hard, maybe it will all turn to dust. But maybe you’ll be rewarded with something amazing. And again, if you do, it was because you did it. If there is anything that you’re blessed by, it’s a moment of inspiration, grace when writing, but it’s that kind of relationship.
That’s the idea of the god of writing I sometimes picture. This bored being presiding over people working endlessly hard, watching them suffer and curse and, sometimes, enjoy it. Waiting for a good story to appear. Which is why I want to write as well.
My analogies are getting weirder, but that’s how I can explain the mentality of writing Gravesong 2. Maybe you’re already concerned, but don’t be. I’m calmer now than when I began my break because I see the shape of the story, and I feel like I’ve been writing a few good scenes. It was far worse when I was dreading going back to working on this because I thought I would fail.
Story Reviews:
I’m not just writing. True…that’s like most of my time, and thinking about writing even when I’m not actually writing takes up most of my day. But I do things! Like non-writing work.
Sigh. But I do play video games, as you know, and I thought I’d write some notes out about the stories I consumed during my break. I don’t have the motivation to read books unless I get about two weeks off, after which I feel recovered enough to consume more complex stories. But I can do webcomics, manga, and video games, and here’s a short list of things I played/read. Don’t worry; there shouldn’t be any essays of rage. There is one game that deserves it, but I think people are on the same page about that one.
In no order, here are the things I finished or mostly finished:
Video Games:
My Friendly Neighborhood – A short, fast game that, if you’re familiar with the style of game, you can blast through in one or two days. I did. I should have turned up the difficulty, but I’m terrified of horror games. This one is lighter on the edge of horror–I tried Amnesia: The Bunker and refused to play after the tutorial.
So maybe you think this isn’t a good game? Well, it may have simpler mechanics (though fun, I felt), but it did what few games do in horror–it has a story. And for that, and when I saw what the story was, I instantly admired it. A horror game that does something more than just ‘survive bad villain’ is a game that is trying towards something. So I do like this one a lot.
GYLT – This is the only game I actually thought ‘I’m too old for this’. Because it’s both mechanically very easy for me, and the story is probably for kids. It’s well-done, and I won’t critique it because it’s just…good.
If you’re younger. It’s still horror, but frankly, I’d let a kid play it. I don’t have much to say. I beat the game in one day, and I’d recommend it for younger people, and it was decent. But again, not challenging on many levels to me. But it was well put together, and I saw that.
Blasphemous – Hollow Knight is better. This is a weird Metroidvania-style game that you would enjoy if you like that kind of game combined with disturbing religious imagery. Christian imagery I’m sure. It’s…fun. Though hard.
But it is a game that’s either deep or looks deep, and I was mostly hacking and slashing and getting killed because I could read a lot into it, but I wasn’t sure whether there was anything there. Either way, I think this is a game that’s probably one of the best Metroidvania games you could find, and I did enjoy the challenge.
But I don’t know what it means. I’ll play the sequel, but I still do like being a bug-knight on a quest in a fantasy kingdom more than seeing self-flagellating people cutting themselves open. Might be a ‘me’ thing.
Remnant II – The story is really bad. And I don’t care and no one else does because it’s a decently fun shooter-looter-adventurer game best played with two other friends. But the story really is if you took a bunch of other games, cut their stories or basic premises out, and scrunched them all into this game. No, it doesn’t make any of them good.
But the bosses are challenging, the enemies fairly original, and I enjoyed almost all of it except for realizing you have to replay the game multiple, multiple times and be lucky to get rare loot drops. Also there’s a few enemies like a rotating Thwomp-cube and some edgy piece of wood-monster that can kill you automatically if you don’t dodge right. Fun, especially if you like grinding for the optimum builds. I do not…or not for this game. Elden Ring I’ll do that for.
Megaman Battle Network 6 (Replaying) – Nostalgia! I bought the collection of old Megaman Battle Network games…and realized why I enjoyed them as a kid. I ended up playing the final game because it’s the most polished being the last in the series.
And I also realized I am not made of time. The amount of time-wasting enemies you have to fight or running around maze-like maps makes me actually check the clock. It’s a fun series that other games like One Step From Eden proves you can improve on.
It’s nostalgic. And the story isn’t that bad–just cliched and repeated about six times. But it’s a novel kind of game I can’t recommend to someone new to it because the series is a bit old. But I enjoyed it…I just wish there were a more modern game that took more risks.
A Plague Tale: Innocence – An excellent game. I thought the first half of it was gritty, very dark, and was a model for the ‘movie-style game’ where it feels like you’re acting out parts of a movie. It’s still a decent stealth game, and the mechanics are solid, the art and voice acting are top notch.
I did feel like the second half lost me a tiny bit, but I still enjoyed the game quite a lot, and my gripes with the story are analytical, and I was keen to play the sequel and see how they did it. The first game is a self-contained story on its own, and if you enjoy this kind of story and aren’t scared away by the realistic brutality of the tale (it’s surviving the Black Death and inquisition, so imagine how rough that is), you will enjoy it.
A Plague Tale: Requiem (Unfinished) – Sequels suck. This game? This game is worse than God of War: Ragnarok to me. It’s somehow worse than Last of Us 2, both games which I hated for failing to live up to the excellent first game. I have been playing it while writing Warsong, a few hours each day because I can’t stomach more and ranting to my poor beta-readers each night about how sometimes every single scene is off or badly thought out.
And I could put this down to me being a snob or nitpicking, but apparently a lot of people disliked this game, so I actually don’t feel the need to write an essay out. For now. It’s just…a strange example of how such talent from the first game can be squandered by, I think, an attempt to be appealing over telling a good story. I said ‘Hollywood writing’ in the most derogatory of senses while playing it. I don’t know if that’s accurate or I should clarify it, but this game sucks.
I want to play through it just to see how bad it gets. But yeah. Wow.
Five Nights at Freddy’s: Security Breach, Ruin DLC: That has so many clarifications to it. I played through this game, and I’m bad at horror, so Security Breach was the only game I could play due to being 3D as opposed to watching Youtubers play it. I’m somehow up on the lore, and, uh.
This game is just designed to give theorists like MatPat a headache. It’s not that fun on its own; it’s repetitive, and I have no idea what the ending means. This franchise is weird. But I look forwards to the GameTheory videos. I think the game’s story is a huge wasted potential, though.
The DLC could have been a prologue, a rare instance where a prologue where the animatronics get to be good guys fighting a hopeless battle would be actually heartfelt. Instead, I was running around a rotten, roach-infested place, chased by some weird rabbit while a fake kid on a walkie-talkie shouts at me. Not even fun as it sounds.
Diablo 4 (Quit): I don’t like ARPGs. When my computer died…again…I played it for a bit. Story sucks. Gameplay’s boring. But the story really does suck. For a game about heaven and hell, the opening cinematics are top-tier.
Everything else is just…boring. It wasn’t even that hard. I played on Hardcore until I ran into a boss that made the floor lava and had no idea what was going on until I died in three seconds. It’s not my kind of game, but seriously.
Even the angel is boring. Maybe I have to be in the franchise, but for a game this hyped, I had no idea why.
Webcomics:
O Human Star – All three webcomics here are top-tier. I don’t know why I didn’t read them, but each is different. O Human Star is the shortest, and the only finished one. It is not for everyone.
But I would legitimately recommend it to be taught in classes because it is literarily strong, and it is the kind of story I wish a lot of people read. Because you could find out something about yourself by reading it. Not everyone will, but the potential for a story to change someone’s perspective is one of the highest compliments I can give.
With that said, I disliked one of the protagonists intensely, and that’s a good thing. The characters are real, flawed, and still arguably better than any real-world counterpart in their field. You’ll see if you read it. I respect this story. I could have used more, which is also a sign of enjoying it.
Paranatural (Ongoing) – Fantasy as opposed to sci-fi. I will confess…I stopped at a certain part not because the story was worse–I read all day and into the night during my break when I should have been asleep until the comic ended and ‘text with illustrations’ began.
That was actually harder for me to get into, and I may come back to it, but I sincerely enjoyed this webcomic. It had incredible chaos and so many little plotlines I wondered how they could juggle them and whether it’d all pay off. It felt like too much!
Then someone pointed out TWI to me. But seriously, I was into it. The shift into a different reading medium threw me and honestly made me worried because while I know I have written too many words (including here), it is consistent, and a webcomic that begins to be mostly text might lose readers. It might have lost me, but up till that point? Hooked.
The ideas were great and fantastic, and the art style grew on me. It’s like a mixture of manga and western drawings that captured more emotion, and that’s better than the classic superhero-style comic to me.
Gunnerkrigg Court – I read this entire thing, over 2000+ pages, in one night. I had tried this before, and bounced off the first few pages twice in previous years. When I finally got into it, I just…kept…reading.
It’s fantasy and sci-fi in the most literal sense. Oddly, I’d put it below the other two webcomics for pure enjoyment just because the other two are so good.
Also, I don’t like the narrative as a whole as much as the other two for reasons I’d have to spoil you about. But with all that said? It’s just a really great webcomic a lot of people might be into. Stories like these are probably the top of the webcomic genre, and I was amazed I hadn’t read some of them. Others, like Order of the Stick, or Girl Genius, I know about. But I was delighted to find three such great stories.
…Even if I disagree with plot elements just because I’ve seen them before! No spoilers.
Spoilers: Trickster gods are a pain in the ass, and having them in stories sometimes feels like a lead weight because they’re so annoying. Also, I dislike transhumanist ideals, which this story feels a bit on the side of. The think-tank few being superior. Chosen one narratives that go too far on the side of the chosen one. Still a great story.
Watchable Content:
Skibidi Toilet: The only thing I watched aside from Youtubers or Twitch. The only thing you need to watch. You may laugh. If you do, you’re a fool.
It looks stupid. But I genuinely enjoyed this more than most TV shows. Why? It’s short. It has a plot, though parts are generic. And it’s entertaining.
I think this is huge, and I sincerely mean it without jokes–because some people will look at this and call it ‘Zoomer television’ and talk about how silly it is, or how short and stupid the song is.
And you know what? If you’re that person, you’re old. This is a new way of making a show that millions of people are watching. Literally–some episodes have over 40 MILLION views. And that’s only on one Youtube channel; it’s got reach on TikTok, Youtube Shorts, and everywhere.
It may not be the best story (I think there’s too many generic plot points, not enough characterization of permanent characters, and other things)…but it felt like the first time I heard of web serials. In time, this might become a syndicated show when someone finds a way to try to monetize it.
But it is a phenomena, I quite enjoy it (it takes off after the first ‘season’ of ten short videos when it finds its footing, the entire thing is like 40 minutes tops to watch everything because each video is a minute long), and I want to see how it goes.
It could flop as a story, but as it is, I am into it. If you use the word Zoomer without irony, you’re old. You’re behind the times, old man. This is Archmage. Skateboard trick away! Wait, I’m old.
Conclusion:
Wow, I wrote a lot. No, wait, it was only 2,500 words. I’ve been trying to write 10,000 every day I actually work on the book, and I intend to get to it after posting this. I hope all of the above was entertaining and you understand a bit of where I am.
It’s hard to share personal details. Hard to talk about myself and feel like I’m being entertaining or giving you anything. The story is where I feel I’m showing something of value, and I apologize for the break.
As I said, if I need to take off more time, I will, but I feel like I’m on track to come back midway through this month. I appreciate the support of all of you waiting, and Patreon hasn’t even dropped much.
No, wait…it hasn’t even dropped. The support on the part of silent readers, Patreon and public, isn’t something I don’t process. I’d like to say it makes me humble, but I think I’m sort of a jerk. Don’t ever meet me. But if I could give you something, I would.
Like, say, Ghostsong, the second part of Book 2? If you’re a Patreon, go log in. It’s about 80,000 words if I recall right, and this is only the 1st Draft. But I feel comfortable sharing it.
Book 2 of Gravesong is organized like this:
Huntsong, following the perspective of Hunter Haeight. (~89,000 words)
Ghostsong, following Princess Seraphel (~95,000 words)
Warsong (working title), following Cara as she bridges the other two narratives and ties into the larger, complete story. (107,000 words as of writing, might be really long).
I hope you enjoy Ghostsong, which is a semi-complete narrative on its own. Some parts need upgrading or refinement, but maybe it’ll tide anyone curious over? Thanks for the wait, and wish me luck.
Also, Baldur’s Gate 3 is coming out in a few days. I really hope it’s good. If I start ranting on Discord’s server or posting long essays…you know I hated it.
pirateaba out! Oh, as a final note, I played Dave the Diver, and it’s fun but…I dunno. I don’t like diving and making sushi. It’s a really fun game. But the two things I do are literally not my cup of tea. Also, I don’t like tea.
