Extended Writing Update

I'm caught up on all beta feedback, the beta closes on Tuesday, and Harper and Cash officially have kiss scenes in Flashpoint. Not a bad week of work, if I say so myself!

The past two days of writing have been a desperately-needed break for me. I got caught up on Leas on Friday, so I've only had one project to work on instead of the usual two. It gave me some space to get a few chores done around the house, get used to a new medication I'm on, and just kind of pace myself to avoid true burnout. I've got Flashpoint's skeleton all laid out and have been working on filling it in. I wrote the kiss scenes mentioned above, and I'm about halfway through Ari's. I tend to jump around as I write, so I've also nailed down a chunk of the action-side of the story. I don't think it's a secret to anyone that the second half of the game is where everything comes to a head, and whoo, boy, the night takes a turn.

One thing I'm playing around with in this year's jam game is similar to what I did with The Visitor and the Magician last year. When you lose the game, there's options for how you want to integrate that into the story. Instead of just saying "game over," you can sort of decide how you want to deal with the loss, either by referencing the "dream" part of the prologue and restarting/retrying the previous choice, or by accepting your fate and seeing how that ending looks. I have a real love for games that do things like this, and have wound up doing it twice now without even intending to. Blame my love of Kingdom Hearts, I guess 😂

I was also deeply self-indulgent for an hour today. I've been so disciplined about only working on Leas and Flashpoint because they're both in intense stages now. Leas with the beta, and then I've got to get Flashpoint totally done by end of month. Not a lot of time in there for side projects like fanfic, regular stories, or other IF, you know? But I did write a little of Apotheosis today and it felt so good. It scratches a totally different creative itch than the others, and I needed it. I outlined a little of the skeleton of the first two chapters and filled some random pieces in, and chose one of the RO's names (there's an angel, a demon, a fae, and a vampire - I named the demon).

Here's this week's preview ~

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"Hey," I smirked, pulling {harper_himHerThem} an inch closer. A grin grew on {harper_hisHerTheir} face in an instant.

 "I missed you. Where you been, huh?" {harper_heSheThey} said, leaning in so close I could feel {harper_hisHerTheir} breath on my lips.