Tag: writing

Full Circle

Veronica

Tomorrow, I graduate with my bachelor’s degree in the place where I began my journey in 2015. There’s a bit of irony in returning to the same small town university that I left after one semester and never thought I’d be back. Regardless, I’ve been feeling really grateful for the choices I’ve made and things I’ve learned. Without this journey, the realm I’m building probably wouldn’t exist, and honestly neither would my motivation to write a novel. Sure, poetry was something I always loved and experimented with, but passion for writing styles beyond that remained undiscovered.

I painted my grad cap, too! It’s pretty relative to my journey since it involves Shakespeare’s Hamlet. A giant skull with a tilted crown sits between the words [ ENTER GHOST ] and over “Thou art a scholar; speak to it, Horatio.” My love for Shakespeare runs extremely deep, and I’m passionate about the stance that he’s not the man that historians claim he is (which was solidified by a course I took about the author). It’s reflective of my time here, growth as a reader, and knowledge all in one.

Needless to say, I’m excited to find a job where I can thrive and put my experience into play. My multimedia knowledge only enhances my ability to present the best work possible, and that’s my dream. When I get to be creative and experiment with new things, that’s when I find motivation paired with happiness. So I suppose that’s what I’m hoping my next step involves: Acquiring a job where I can finally use my experience and education to grow as a writer and employee. Wish me luck!

Novel Notions

Veronica

My summer involved a lot of thinking, planning, reading, and napping, and I’ve never been more grateful! In an effort to gather up every possible bit of inspiration, reading popular fantasy novels has been my go-to whenever I’ve had free time. Writing my own novels is no joke, but I’ve put my heart and soul into the start of this project, so I’ll be damned if I don’t finish it strong. The duty of worldbuilding slowly spirals into discovering side characters and untied strings that I track until I get to the end before starting all over again. Finally picking a direction for the story has made it significantly easier, and I let my characters’ choices come naturally from the traits I’ve given them.

It’s interesting, looking at the early stages of my realm and seeing its evolution. In reading, I’ve stuck with the popular choices on TikTok to better understand my desired audience’s wants and needs (especially because I may or may not be included in said target audience). The worst thing is that each series brings heartbreak along with its victories, and I’ve been hurting as a result of every fictional death or mistake. The Thirteen. Cardan’s missing letters. Poppy’s brother. Sam Cortland. UGH there’s more, of course, but just to name a few.

My goal is to envelop readers with so many emotions that their senses become invested in, their adrenaline rushes in effort to find answers about, and their hearts burst with love for these characters. I want to keep feeling sad when a fictional person dies or happy when they finally smile after so many moments of pain, because I felt what they did, too. That’s what makes up the beauty of reading. We find connections to the invisible, to the unseen and untrue, in order for us to make sense of the world we live in.

I’m so close to finalizing this plotline and move on to writing the adventure, but it’ll wait for now.

Game Writing & Progress

Veronica

After chatting about careers the other day in class, I’ve really been thinking about how serious I am about getting into UX writing. I know it’s not “game career” related, but I can see how my skill set is growing now that I’m developing my game. I’d love to take the Google UX course this summer if I can manage it, but it’ll probably have to wait and that’s okay. The resources that we’ve been given are extremely valuable when it comes to fulfilling our potential and using our degrees, so I’m taking advantage of them and doing everything I can to understand my career options. 

When it comes to game progress, I’ve been grateful that I sketched out my storyboarding before starting my development in Twine. The rule of 3 has been my guide for this project, too. I have 3 objects that are required to win the game, 3 opponents, 3 starting locations, and 3 intertwining locations that lead to opponents. I’m choosing to use the weapons as passages instead of inventory items to streamline my coding. The inventory feature is going to be used for the objects required to win and return magic back into the world, so I eliminated a bit of the confusing bits of the code that might bog me down.

You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.

Ray Bradbury

Luckily, I practically have everything coded and need to just make sure the passages align before starting the description and writing legwork. I’m excited for that part though! This game is inspired by my novel that I’ve been working on since my long form fiction class, so the world is already created in my head. I’m going to save the descriptions that I use and reference them in my novel too, so this serves a dual purpose. It’s going to be fun to share bits and pieces of the kingdom I’ve forged in my mind with everyone, and I look forward to trying out the other awesome games my classmates make!