#ootb:update

It’s almost the end of the year. Again. How wild is that? 👀

✨ I just wanted to update you guys and be completely honest with you. Writing Chapter 2 is just... not going well at all, and sometimes I almost feel tempted to quit this project all together because I’m so frustrated — with myself, with my plans, with everything. The demo still stands at around 30 000 words and I haven’t been able to write much lately. But I’m not quitting, because I want to tell this story and I love the characters too much to give up now. Maybe I just need to change my approach and routines.

I’m typically the type of person who, when feeling overwhelmed with things to do, procrastinates and ends up doing nothing. Then feeling terrible for it lol. It’s a cursed trait, I know. So I’m going to take some time to really get organised and get all my shit stuff together. When I started this journey I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into, but I’ve learned so much since then, about Twine, about interactive fiction, about writing and planning, so I feel like I just need to reboot with all this newfound knowledge. Plan things out a little more and narrow this overwhelming sense of chaos down to manageable steps.

✨ I think I’m also going to change this blog from vahnyawrites to outoftheblue-if because it makes a lot more sense and makes it easier to find. I went for vahnyawrites because I thought I might start other WIPs, but if I ever do, I’d much rather create an entirely new blog for that to keep things tidy. So just a little heads-up about that.

✨ I’m also going to go through all the posts and change/add tags to make things more organised on here + create a post with all the tags to make it easier to find stuff, and avoid stuff — for those that want to. 

✨ I also desperately need to change/update the pinned game post, and all the RO posts. 

I think a little bit of a revamp of all things is in order, so here’s hoping that helps! 🤞🏻

Once again, sorry for the lack of progress with the actual story — I promise no one is more disappointed than myself, and thank you all for your patience and support 💋 I wish you all a beautiful month of Christmas. Yule, Winter Solstice, or December in general — whatever you celebrate — I hope it’s swell ✨🤎

These update posts are just popping up at random intervals, huh 🙈 I don’t have one organised bone in my body, forever sorry about that. But anyways... Here’s a little update:

I’m currently going through a bit of a drought creatively and mentally. In fact, I feel like I have been for a while now. A nice period of ✨ writer’s block ✨. So I’m trying to switch between editing and adding to Chapter 1, writing Chapter 2 and working on other fun things, like templates and your coding asks (yes, that is fun for me lmao). Whatever I feel most inclined to do in the moment, because I want to be doing something productive, but it’s not coming easily. 

To be honest I’ve really been struggling with writing, not just for the reasons above, but also because I keep getting stumped every few paragraphs with logical questions of how I’m going to code things, and then I just sit there staring into the air for 30 minutes like that math meme lady lol. I feel like I was woefully unprepared for how massive an undertaking this project would be when I started. But the kind, wonderful and big-brained @doriana-gray-games (thank you 💋) helped me think of a different way to write, so I’m gonna try that going forwards. Fingers crossed it goes better!

I had about 5000 words down for Chapter 2, but then I decided to do it differently, so now I’m down to 3000, though all of that is completely new, so I still have the 5000 that I might use somewhere, and I’ve added a bunch of stuff to chapter 1, so I’m excited for you to replay it ✨

I’ve also got this one frantically waving at me every day like hellOoOo:

With another 14 asks in my drafts that I haven’t finished 👀👀 Lord help me, I’m the slowest ask answerer in the world. Thank you so much for all of them though, I really appreciate them! 🤎 I’m trying to channel all my bursts of motivation and creativity into writing, so it might take me a while, but I’ll get to them all some day.

I hope you’re all doing amazing! ✨🤎

Sorry for being so inactive on here lately! 🥺 I’ve been working a lot more shifts than I usually do at my job (I work 3 out of 4 weekends this month, ughh), and I’m a little knackered, not gonna lie. So I’m trying to channel all my spare energy into writing and doing less taxing tasks — like working on the template — but I’ll get to all your wonderful asks eventually, I promise! I see them, I read them, and I really appreciate them, they always make me smile 🤎

I’m trying to focus on...

✨ Writing Chapter 2, which includes POVs from all the ROs (I think... if I can make it work well), which is exciting as we’re finally getting to the good stuff!

✨ Adding in all the changes/improvements for Chapter 1

✨ Writing the Halloween snippets 🕷🎃 woo!

✨ Creating another Twine Template (this is my chill/fun task lol)

✨ And, of course, improving my own UI 

I won’t lie to you, writing has been slow this month. When you hate your job, it really does drain the life force out of ya lol. I will forever be wishing for more hours in a day, or just winning the lottery so I can quit my job and create full time 🙏🏻 But alas, ya girl has to adult to pay the bills *sigh*

I realised I’ve never really given a proper update on how the demo is coming along, beyond the sneak peeks you may or may not have seen on instagram and discord. I’ve just been too focused on apologising for it not being ready yet lol. So I thought I would update you now. 

The demo currently stands at 14,000 words, which isn’t really that much, but I’ve now finished most of MC’s customisation, so I can hopefully start properly churning out the rest of the chapter and all its variations this weekend. I’ve written MC waking up in Regency Era now, and them meeting the nice couple that took them in, as well as Richard 👀Finally the real fun begins!

I finished coding the outfit and tattoo options today, which was a task. Those alone added like 3000 words to the demo, but I’m really excited to now be able to incorporate those into the story, and explore people’s reactions 🤩

I’m not very good at productive writing though, as I keep going back to read previous writing and immediately begin editing and changing things, instead of powering forward and leaving the editing to the end 🙈I’m also very indecisive, so I keep changing my mind on which variables I want to track for MC’s personality and traits and... writing interactive fictions is... hard 😂who knew lol

Anyway, I’ll stop rambling now. Just wanted to give you a lil update. I have this weekend off, so I’ll hopefully get lots done then ✨🤎 I’ll try to answer some more reaction/scenario asks as well, don’t think I have forgotten you! 🤎

Friendly reminder that I have polls on my discord that help shape the story, if you want to be a part of that. I’ve just posted one about whether or not you’d like to be able to chose MC’s body type and build which can then feature in POVs and impact the story (ie. how strong you are etc), so you can join here if you want to vote on that ✨

Much love! ✨🤎

The past week was a lil busy, not gonna lie, but I did manage to do some important things with the game. 

✨ I worked on incorporating the body types for your MCs, seeing as the ability to chose body type got a good amount of positive votes on the poll in Discord. For now we have: 

athletic - average - big - curvy - chubby - fit - muscular - petite - plump - scrawny - skinny - slender - stout - thick

Let me know if you want to see something else included or if something rubs you the wrong way. It’s difficult to find good words to describe body types, and english isn’t my first language, so I may very well misunderstand something. I might code in sort of an explanation of the body types and how I view them, if you guys want, so it’s easier to chose. 

✨ Looked into potential vices to explore/include in the game. I haven’t fully decided if I’m going to incorporate this yet, because vices are so different that they would likely come into play at very different times and places in the story, so it would be difficult to code. Not quite sure how I could tackle that yet, but I’m still considering it, for sure. 

✨ Finally found a way to incorporate the “Fairmath” variable setting that CS uses, in Twine, seeing as I’m displaying variables in the same way CS does. I was really struggling to find a way to make sure variables don’t ever exceed 100%, and I think I have. Now I just have to go through all the links that are setting variables and change them... *winces*, but I think it will be worth it.

Beyond that I’ve just been editing a lot. I can’t help it. I’m very indecisive lol. 

But some good amazing news: I’ve been granted 10 days vacation from work starting Monday! I’m so excited to have some time off, I swear I quit my job at least 5 times a day in my head lol! So I’m in desperate need of a nice vacation, and I’ll have lots of time to write as well 🤎 Can’t wait. 

I have work this weekend though, long days, so I’m gonna try to answer some asks while I’m there ✨

Ok, that’s enough rambling from me for one day, I hope you’re all doing great! ✨🤎

Okay guys, I’ve finally made some proper headway on the demo. Yay! I very unexpectedly got four days off from work, which helped tremendously. Also, I think I’ve mentioned this before, summer is really not great for my creativity and productivity. I much prefer rainy days and dark nights to sunny and hot, so I’m very excited that fall is slowly approaching and the nights are turning dark once more. It fuels my soul!! 😍

Like I said in my previous ask though, I have no idea how much or how little I’ll be working (in my real job) going forward, it’s all a little up in the air still, so I can’t really say definitively when the demo will be ready. Still sorry about that 🙈 But we’re working on it!

I also have an overwhelming amount of unanswered asks in my inbox, which honestly makes me so so happy 🤎✨ but also a little stressed, because as you know, my slow and old brain takes a while to get through them lol. So I don’t know whether to close them for a while, until I can get through them all and until the demo is up (so I can spend all my free time working on that), or if you’d rather just keep sending them in, just knowing that they might not be answered immediately? Let me know 🤎

Simple questions will be answered quickly though, it’s the scenarios and reactions that take a while, because I really have to sit down and channel the ROs for them.

Hi everyone! Hope you had a lovely month of June and a beautiful celebration of pride! 🏳️‍🌈✨🌈

I swear I am working diligently on the demo, but a June release was clearly very ambitious of me, lol. Work has been more crazy than usual, and I had to help my mom move out of her house, so that put a damper on things. But that’s life for you. 

If you haven’t already caught wind of it, I’ve decided to make some changes to the story. Most notable is the fact that MC is no longer genderlocked to female, so you will now be able to play as male or nonbinary. Yay! I’m really happy with this decision, as it never sat right for me to have a story that wasn’t inclusive for everyone. However, that does mean I will have to make some changes to the story and the demo, so it will push the release even further away. But I think it will be worth it. You might see me making some changes to the promo post and character backgrounds as well, as I had to tweak a few things. 

Beyond that, I just wanted to thank everyone for your support and your interest in my story! I’m blown away, and so incredibly grateful, for all the messages and asks and likes and follows. I swear, it’s the highlight of my life atm 🥺❤️

I will keep working diligently on the story, even though summer is like the worst time creatively for me. I crave cold and rainy nights and crisp autumn air 😩It gives me life!