- The Second Madness (2)
The First Second Madness was so cool, you just had to see it!
Madness of Redo
It's a shame you never will. It even had a this really cool thematic going on! Guess you had to be there.
Problem is, I left it out in the open for too long, came back to a bowl full of stale dough and empty of feeling. All gone! I didn't even know what the fuck I was talking about anymore, so I just moved on.
Speaking of being gone, have any of you, assuming there are any of you, wondered where I've been these past couple months? Activity has been spotty, at times out of need, at times because I had literally no idea what to add, but hopefully I haven't turned my site into some liminal horror type space, where anything could be there in the damp darkness of these abandoned hallways, thought likely nothing is, except me and the Nefarious Smiler. You know the guy, kids love him.
I will speak more on this later, but first some things I do remember wanting to discuss.
Madness of Branching Futures
I've been thinking on how to word this for a while now, yet have not the slightest clue on how not to sound like at least a little bit of a downer, so I'm just going to be honest and force some positivity at the end like cake frosting.
Now, I don't think it would be a surprise to anyone, but MAIT is kind of a flop. That in itself it fine: MAIT is, above all things, an experimental project written originally off the cuff so I could get both my feet wet and start learning to swim, metaphorically speaking, in the Webnovel river. I knew I had a lot of rough spots to improve, weaknesses I was utterly blind to, and in the sense that it—and the criticism of it, thank you everyone—helped me catch those, it was undeniably a pretty big success.
But at the end of the day, I'm not sure anybody else even cares about it? Numbers are unreliable on RR, but the constant slumps do show a pattern. Not going to blame anyone, but sure bums me out a little pouring all this energy into something that is going nowhere fast. I'm pretty sure my feelings have been showing on the work itself for a while now too, in which case I can only apologize.
If I was writing for myself exclusively, that would be another story. Posting things for others to see though, you inevitably feel some social pressure and anxiety, or I do anyway, and let me tell you, it ain't nice to feel like you're doing the former just to get the latter.
Eh, bones of the office I guess. Not like it's my first rodeo. Take this section as my way of leaving some of that bitterness at the coat rack and moving on.
Bottomline! I'm malcontent, and therefore am going to make some changes in the near future. Of what kind? What the hell am I planning? I-is MAIT about to be abandoned?! No such thing, at least as far as I'm planning. But there might some new things coming around soon. It will be awesome! Look forward to it! Yeeeeey!
Madness of Possibility
And! Speaking of finishing things, let's talk about Priga Locus: There is lots of work to be done and I have not the slightest clue how.
Let me give an example: The Tiled Tube of Doom! If you're here, you've likely seen it, I hope. It's the very first image you get when accessing the site, a tube of yellow tiles leading into darkness with a "CLICK" link in the middle and an "Inside" written above, subtle reminders of what the viewer must do to proceed.
The idea always was to have an ominous image greeting visitors to the website proper, thought the particulars changed: at first, it was meant to depict a futuristic hallway, decrepit and dusty, bunker door left open and inviting you deeper into the facility, my Priga Locus of course. This was related to another novel I had been planning since before MAIT and was going to be the next thing I got to after finishing it, which is no longer the case.
Still, I wanted to see what it could look like, so I cooked up something simple on blender, rendered it with some minimal post-processing, and bam, TTD! You have to admit, it looks kind of neat, doesn't it?
Regardless, the front page was, and is, a WIP. TTD was always meant to go away as soon as I had something better to replace it with, but therein lies the rub: I don't know what could be better.
...Kind of a lie. I've had a couple ideas, and a couple dismal experiences trying to implement them, followed by a couple pitiful blend files left to gather dust. Here is a fun fact about me: I hate making trees in Blender, and never found one I liked in the sites I know where to look. What the first section of this paragraph has to do with the second I leave to your imagination.
Recently, I have been blocking out this thing where—wait, I'm not going to tell you, or else I might pressure myself into going insane and never complete it. Suffice to say, I've had ideas, and if they come to something you will be witness to them, don't worry.
Madness of Excuses
Life has a funny way to make your delayed decisions for you.
This may or may not make any sense to you right now, and if it doesn't, give it a couple weeks. My memory has been all over the place lately and I can't recall when I first talked about it.
Anyway, a little over a week ago at the time of editing, a rather sudden emergency hit my household, completely upheavaling our routines and leaving me with very little energy to write. Coincidentally, that week I was going to get started on the last chapter of the BoHR arc before its Closure.
Then, several hours ago at the time of editing, I got sick, just as several IRL things I had to do came up. Odd coincidence.
Anyway, the MAIT clock is about to hit midday soon, the ending of Book 1: A Post-Mortem for Holly Seneschal already on the horizon
Surprised? Me too! Dividing MAIT into a duology isn't exactly a fresh idea, but also not a concept I paid much attention to until recently. Part of those changes I teased earlier. After that? You'll see.
Getting to the point, the last chapter of BoHR before closure will be a two parter depicting a final, deadly confrontation of bodies and ideals, and something I've been looking forward to writing for a while.
If I was to summarize my feelings on MAIT, I would say I still love it. There are a lot of flaws, a lot of things I would have done different if only I knew, hindsight is 20/20, but it's just too personal to hate completely. Unwilling to go back and languish with the past, all I can do is carry on and hope I simply can't see the love others may feel for it.
I think this is it for this blog post. There is more I want to say, but that's just the yapping animal inside of me chomping at the bit. Nobody wants to see me going in circles, except me, and I can always make another post.
I hope you've been enjoying yourself. Have a nice week, and see you soon!