It's amazing how quickly a scene that had been baffling me for well over a week can suddenly find a solution. Sometimes I forget that a lot of my own writers' block situations can be resolved simply by letting the scene play out in my head and then remembering how it went down. Very often, my characters have a way of writing themselves when I just put them in a situation and let them do their thing naturally. In this case, all it took was a brief bout of daydreaming as I was brushing my teeth last night and all of a sudden I got enough material to belt out 1,700 words in a scene I'd been stumped on. I know it's 1,700 words of material because that's how much I wrote out earlier today (well, 1,770-something, but you get the idea). What makes me extra-proud is the fact I resisted the urge to play video games during that time, which is a temptation I've been falling into lately when I get stuck on creative projects. So! Inching ever-closer to ARC Knights' conclusion in spite of setbacks.

Of course, not every setback is a bad thing.

Saturday as I'd been mulling over the aforementioned scene, my muse came up out of the blue with something else to try. I've learned by now that when inspiration presents itself, take it before it flees! As a result, I'm now 500 words into a short story that I had originally planned to begin later this year, like around summer. Here, we return to the Spirit Wilds of New Atlantis, this time following Maple the deer. Interestingly, this particular tale was one I'd been contemplating ever since beginning a scene-study drawing featuring Maple. Originally I had the faintest idea of a tale to tell of her, up until I began putting a basic plot together for her story. Like magic, it seemed that just writing out basic plot details wound up filling the major plot holes and providing an ending that had been missing since I first had the idea to give her a tale. Love it when that happens :D Plus it gave me some ideas on how to separate her from the other characters with unique skills. In this case, Maple is a Rune Weaver: a person who paints and activates those glowing runes you see on the characters' bodies. They work sort of like foci over chakra points on the body to aid their natural abilities. More on that when the story comes, but that kinda gives an idea of what I'm working with. While I didn't originally plan to even start the story until months from now, it's nice to have a foundation already present, and maybe circumstances will accelerate the project depending on how my others go. I've already got artwork to go along with it!

Speaking of art, I've got not one, not two, but THREE New Atlantis-related drawings that are already in the inking stages. This is one of them, and the rest are similar in scenery, so it might be a while before they're shown. In any case, something for you all to look forward to.

And on top of all that, amidst the writing today I also finally got around to organizing my files on my new computer, which was something I'd been putting off for a while (art references, artist collections, etc.). So yeah... a few good things to be proud of today.


And to reward myself I enjoyed some video games afterward :p Metroid Dread is fun!