Let's try again

I tried to start a blog here about 6 years ago, and it didn't really work.

I've grown a lot since then, but the original idea of this blog still appeals to me.

I'd like to talk about what I'm working on, and share what I'm learning as I go.

My current project is very different from the one back then.

I've always been pulled in a lot of different directions. I make art, and music. I write stories and code. Ever since I wrote my first novel, almost 10 years ago, I've been looking for ways to combine my media. The graphic novel I used to blog about was one of the my first serious attempts at this. Since then, I've worked on a number of projects.

A year or two ago, I got it in my head that I wanted to make something "halfway between a novel and a movie". I eventually realized that the thing I was imagining was, roughly, a visual novel, albeit sans many of the conventions of the medium.

So I experimented with making visual novels.

I used Ren'Py for my early attempts (wonderful software - would highly recommend it) but, since I wanted the final result to be web-based, I ended up hacking together a custom engine in javascript/HTML5.

For my illustration, I've shifted to physical media in the past year. I've been drawing a lot of comics in pen and paper, sometimes adding a bit of watercolor or marker. For one of my visual novel experiments, I decided, on a whim, to try wax crayon.

And I immediately knew that this was the medium for my next major project.

With this little epiphany, I was able to power through all the plot and character planning I'd been struggling with for a year and a half in a matter of weeks.

So now I have a bare bones engine for web-based static visual novels, an illustration style I'm happy with, and 14'000 words of detailed planning. Now I just need to turn it into a book!

I guess that part may be easier said than done.