I Am Busy. Oh So Busy. I Am Busy And Dizzy And… You Get The Joke (12/17/2019)

Ah, the benefits of being an old soul in a young body.

So, as you can probably guess, I’ve been a little preoccupied. Just to keep you apprised of the situation, we recently had a business meeting and it mostly centered around our plans for next year. Some of which have already begun and have kept us exceptionally busy. The big thing being, of course, Burning Sky. But I’m also personally working on PROJECT ACADEMIA (which still has no official title ;-;) That aside, I’m dealing with Bulletoon. Currently, I’m in the process of editing our Year-End Episode, which is reasonably long and involves some slightly more complicated editing. Plus a lot of clips and images that I hope aren’t going to get the video dinged by YouTube’s dumb system.

That being said, I don’t really have a lot else to report. I haven’t had any particularly deep thoughts, of late. Just focusing on my work. It kinda keeps me stabilized and keeps my head on a level field. I guess it’s sort of like… my mind is outside of myself, if that makes sense.

I got some early feedback on PROJECT ACADEMIA (ProAca, maybe?) and it’s always nice hearing genuine criticism. I’m not really someone who’s ever really fazed by it to any great extent. I don’t take it personally and, having attended a creative arts school, nothing anyone ever tells me is worse than some of the things I heard from my own instructors – all of whom were and/or are active in the industry. So they know what’s up. On the contrary, I like it when people point out my mistakes in a story or when they can point out something that doesn’t work for them and can clearly explain why. Helps me develop my skills or, at the very least, understand more of how other people are likely to perceive something I’ve written (I’m not always under any obligation to change things, after all).

It should be a fairly low-pressure experience, receiving criticism. Unfortunately, we have a way of making it feel more than that. And I think both ends of this are responsible. One side fears their baby being “torn apart,” and the other side, knowing that’ll be the case, unintentionally (and ironically) makes it worse by trying to deescalate the situation and having the exact opposite effect.

My favorite kind of criticism to get… this might sound weird, but it’s the kind where someone points something out that I was already concerned about. Not quite validation (Though I’m sure that factors in, like “Aha! I already knew that, so it stings less!”) For me it’s this feeling of “Okay, cool. So I was right to feel weird about this.” Having a nagging feeling about it in my head, only for it to be confirmed, creates this sensation of “Cool. So that means I was wise to this and that means my skills are sharpening.” I don’t really mind being blindsided either, though I freely admit that if I am, that tends to make me a little paranoid for a while as I feverishly try to be mindful of it whenever I write something new. At least until I’ve managed to kick the habit. It’s just an observation, though.

Just from recollection, I don’t believe I frequently get content tweaks. Which is weird since genre fiction is the type of writing that’s most open to those. Though it’s also the kind probably most resilient to them since a lot of the time they’re just refections of the creator’s ideologies and they’re (usually) not under any obligation to change that stuff. Barring the obvious things that you’d get a sensitivity reader for. But that’s not quite what I’m referring to, anyway. More than anything, I tend to get style and continuity suggestions. Things like sentence flow and things I can do to boost engagement levels. I pride myself on my ability to write things that sound pretty (when it matters) but also have an ironically robotic writing style, at times. Which is probably just a factor of most of my training being in scriptwriting, not prose.

In any case, I’m going back over the story to make some tweaks while also getting some work in on our other projects. Getting started on new chapters in the saga that is Burning Sky soon. And there’s that special little surprise we’re going to be pumping out on Christmas Day. Look forward to that. As for Bulletoon… I honestly don’t know when the episode is going up. I’d say the edit’s about 40% done? Maybe? I’d say to expect it Friday at the earliest unless I just go on a tear.

I’m fine, for now. Nothing’s wrong. Just busy.

Keep up the Awesome,
Voyager