I feel like changing this out once a year is something I should, at the bare minimum, commit to.

So! As I'm sure you can see I've been slowly but surely getting over myself and actually posting some of my countless commissions. I've even written a few too. The thought that people want to lob money at my Mareepish self for words is still a foreign concept to me.

With regards to my personal projects:

---

-Metronome took, well, a lot more time and effort than expected to try and find folks that could help me with the 'visual' part of the visual novel. Which is how it goes with any passion project to be frank. Fortunately though, that's finally borne out! I have backgrounds taken care of. Designs are well under way if not finalized. Sprites are... well they're still a work in progress. But! As soon as said sprites are taken care of the first order of business will be releasing a touched up demo that, with any luck, will look somewhat professional!

-Aside from that I've been tackling tales, tall and not so tall, here and there. Along with yet more Monster Hugger! Updates are infrequent, I know, but until I reach the soft ending I have in mind it isn't something I intend to let fall off. New chapter should be dropping... uhh... hum. I'm loath to put a time stamp on it but it's already fairly chunky at 7,000+ words. It'll be ready when it's ready which hopefully isn't too much longer now.

---

So. Yeah. I'm still here, and will still be here, doing whatever it is I do. Whatever weird indescribable niche I've carved out for myself I'll continue to occupy it in earnest.

Howdy howdy howdy.

Been a few months since I lobbed up my demo for my first go at a Pokemon themed VN! Psst here's the link by the by:

https://raddareep.itch.io/metronome

Since then I've taken a bit of a break from it to let ideas gestate and my mind wander. That and I have been relaxing by... writing lots and lots of regular stories. Even been lobbing up some art I've commissioned here and there.

Now though it's about time I get back to it. Once I wrap up and post the next chapter of Monster Hugger, which I've been plugging away at for the past few weeks, the plan is to just dive right back into Metronome.

I've slowly been working with some talented folks on getting designs nailed down for the many characters in Metronome and I'm always on the lookout for artists open to scribbling up backgrounds and character sprites/art. So uhh... hey if you're open to being commissioned for a lot of Pokemon themed work and backgrounds then by all means let me know! Open to working with whoever to start making this project more visual than novel.

Is live!

https://raddareep.itch.io/metronome

Thus far I only have introductions in order. Around... 40,000 words worth of them spread out across far too many paths. Maybe 50,000?

For now think of this demo as a taste of the kind of humor you can expect from the eventual finished product along with a sneak peek at some of the characters!

The premise of this tale will revolve around you helping run a DynaMax Raid Den! Giving Pokemon a safe place to grow to silly sizes and blow off steam engaging in harmless rampages of their personalized choosing!

There... isn't any growth or curated destruction within this demo said to say. One day there will be! Hopefully. Probably.

Either way I've been cutting my teeth on this for the past couple months and I sincerely hope you all enjoy what I've managed to cobble together.

Time for the ever infrequent and unpredictable burst of activity on my end!

Hope folks have been well. As you can see been on a Monster Hunter binge as of late and writing and posting at odd hours about whatever catches my fancy.

Also been trying my hand at a visual novel with a very heavy Pokemon and Macro/Micro theme and focus. It's far more effort than I ever imagined, given I'm sinking my teeth into the novel part of the visual novel, but hey it's getting somewhere. Maybe I'll even have a brief demo/introduction to show off in the next month or so!

Given the frequency with which FA has been imploding on itself for... ummm... ever, I've figured now is a good time to commit myself in earnest to maintaining more than one place for my silly stories! That and may as well suck it up and actually start posting the oftentimes equally silly art I commission.

For the time being I'm setting my stakes here and on Weasyl. Annnd Twitter, I guess. Heck, I've even started posting random pieces of art, typically the very very big minded kind, elsewhere to give myself a prancing start! I'm not planning on ditching FA or anything like that. Just figured it'd be wise to find other places I like to frequent and share and store what silliness I do contribute to the furry fandom. As opposed to just frankly settling for FA.

With all that said, feel free to start following and poking at me on Twitter and Weasyl! Wouldn't mind the company elsewhere. :3

https://www.weasyl.com/~raddaraem
https://twitter.com/RaddaReep

Title says it all! Been feeling burnt out on streams and frankly don't feel like doing them anymore. Forcing out an idea one week after the next has certainly kept me consistent and on top of my output. That much I am grateful for. Less so the part where the ideas rarely feel fully formed and I'm lurching from one whim to the next.

It was nice getting in practice on learning how to keep short stories short to boot! However, I'd rather write stories and formulate the ideas behind them at my leisure. So. No more scheduled weekly streams. Who knows, I might boot up OBS and toss something up on Picarto when I feel like it but it certainly won't be planned in advance or announced.

Thanks to the handful of you who swung by the streams for the months that they did last! I'll still be around should you wanna poke or prod me with ideas though bear in mind my own are almost always going to be given precedence.

This week is Thanksgiving and I am out and about visiting my family. I am lazy and full of food and don't really feel like writing. So! No stream this week. I've been at this week in and week out without fail for months now so I figure I am entitled to skipping a week. |3

Heyo folks! Lately I've been making an effort to be more social and sort of pad out and extend my circle of friends. Instead of fretting and fussing and making it more difficult than it needs to be I figured why not just go with the direct approach? It's fairly obvious what I like given what I write about. Chances are if you swing by to read my stories you probably like the same big things too. Feel free to comment or note me if you would like to poke or prod me on Skype or Twitter or wherever it may be and get to chatting!

Though that comes with the disclaimer that my shoulders are plenty tired from carrying entire conversations in the past with folks. None too interested in going back through the motions with regards to that. Fair warning. :V

Now that the Twine has settled and I've managed to catch up on my backlog of submissions, I feel a little housekeeping is in order. As I've slowly added to Shady Impressions over the... years. Augh. I feel old saying that. Anyway, as I've kept adding onto it and tallying up the chapters I realize that I've built this thing up into an imposing piece of literature. There's a metric fuckton of it by this point that threatens to loom over any potential new readers and scare them off.

So! I've decided to reorganize how I categorize my chapters. I already write Shady in terms of arcs as it is, so why not categorize my chapters as such? That way instead of someone seeing me post "Shady Impressions Really Huge Freaking Number" they'll see something more akin to "Shady Impressions: Insert Alliterative Arc Name Here #1." That's much less intimidating to dig into. On top of that I figure that the arc names will be helpful in letting people cut to or reread certain sections of the story they might be more interested in than others for whatever reason. Rather than trying to remember what arbitrary chapter number corresponded with a certain set of shenanigans.

It's not a significant change or anything but I feel it'll be helpful in the long run. Removing every little barrier to entry to reading this ridiculous whatever it is I've written always feels like a step in the right direction. For for my first step I'll dig into all my old Shady chapters and rename them posthaste. I guess this is where I'll end my rant/thoughts?

And my perpetually in progress Twine story is done and posted. Copious amounts of video games and vacations did not help move that along but it got done. Somehow, it got done.

As for what to do now? Revel in the fact I can still complete a story that I start and take a break for a week or two before digging right back into regular Shady Impressions. Ideally I can commit to a chapter once a month, but we'll see! Goodness it feels good to finally have something to show for all those months of work.

Since I wrote up one of these things. Just figured I'd drop a journal to let folks know I'm still kicking about and quietly working on stuff in the background, seeing as how it's been nearly two months since I posted anything. I've been plugging along pretty steadily at a new Twine project for Shady Impressions! It's turned into something bigger than I anticipated and I've already done a decent bit of revision on it thus far and it still looks like there's a ways to go. I'd be happy to share the WIP to anyone who's curious and certainly wouldn't mind any feedback or critique.

Anywho, that's this half of the year's status update.

Remember how I said I would be taking a break last journal and said I'd be focusing on editing? Well turns out that wasn't completely true! I have been editing, a little, but I also ended up writing a story with a friend! That friend being  futurewesty and the story in question being Mountains and Moles! It's a truly goofy affair and I had a lot of fun writing it, as did West. If silliness and bigness is your thing, you ought to give it a read!

Good evening, all! As of posting the latest chapter for "Shady Impressions" I've wrapped up another arc in the story so to speak. Now seems as good a time as any to take a breather from it so to speak and tidy up the inane amount of words and chapters I've hammered out in the process. It's fucking ridiculous, in three and a half years I've filled up over 450 pages with 210,000+ words for this damn story. And still I want to keep on adding to the freaking thing. Before I do that though, time to give some love and attention to what's already there.

So, I'll be taking a bit of a break from writing and trying to edit and touch up the older Shady chapters at my leisure. I suppose I could use this as a casting call of sorts for any folks who, god forbid, would actually want to help edit such a monstrous piece of literature? Anywho, just felt like dropping word that submissions may hit a bit of a delay. I've prided myself on consistently updating "Shady Impressions" the past three and a half years without fail. Heck, I even started cramming in some short stories on the side too! I could use a lull in pace though, and just laze about for a while.

Stream announcement? Stream announcement. Planning on taking a go at it come this Thursday, oh say around 6:00 PM EST. Trying to be better and actually offer more than a day's notice in advance! Another journal will be created closer to streaming time with links and whatnot. Hope to see some of you folks there!

Also, shall be streaming more Shady. Here's a dropbox of the work in progress!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uawxysscr.....pter%2045.docx

And after a bit more writing and editing, my very first interactive Twine story with branching paths is complete! Been working on this for the past week or so and was my first real stab at using the program to write a story. Essentially all I did was craft a side story in the Shady Impressions setting, a duel of sorts between Jem and Russo. It's a short one though, wanted to keep my first crack at this realistic in size and scope after all. I haven't gotten around to creating a proper submission for this, since I'm unsure how cooperative FA will be with me submitting an HTML file. If the submissions don't play nice then I'll just default to this journal for the time being. Would feel a little silly creating a submission just for the sake of throwing a Dropbox link into the description.

Courtesy of a very helpful suggestion from  Shad0wF0x13, instead of downloading an HTML file the entire story can simply be viewed by clicking here!

https://googledrive.com/host/0B1IdU.....ng%20Duel.html


If you'd rather prefer to download the HTML file itself though, the provided Dropbox link leads to an HTML file that can be opened locally in your browser. From there, the story should load and the narrative agency will be placed squarely in your hands!

Dropbox Link

If you have any thoughts or feedback on this little endeavor/experiment, I'd love to hear them! Oh, also. Planning on whipping up some sort of document to consolidate all the handy info I've found for Twine thus far. Probably post that up or something within the next couple days.

As of late, I've been fiddling around with a neat little program called Twine. I'm operating under the impression that most of you have heard of Writing.com. Basically, this tool lets you create stories such as that, where you can choose your own path through a story, and allows you to view them locally via your browser! All without the crippling viruses or having to worry about the narrative agency being ripped out of your hands. You can even save and send out an html file to friends or whoever and they'll be able to read the story written!

The learning curve for the basic functionality is fairly low thanks to the handy tutorials laying around, and some of the stuff you can do with embedding images and music is pretty neat! Honestly I've just been screwing around with learning how to get pictures to load that blend into the background and music that autoplays and loops more than I have actually written with it. This rambling journal does have a point though, I'll get to it shortly. While I've been playing around, the entire time I've been thinking about just what kind of story lends itself well to branching paths and I have yet to really come up with my own satisfactory answer. So I figured I'd ask the handful of people who read these journals what their thoughts were. What kind of stories do you think work well with branching narratives, where the reader is free to choose the plot as opposed to having it dictated to them?

While it may or may not have been fairly obvious, I've become concerned with my productivity as of late. My recent efforts in striving for weekly streams is an attempt on my end to rectify my perceived lack of output. I even voiced these sentiments when chatting with a friend,  Alkali, some months ago. Basically, he just told me to shush and look back at my library of posts here on FA to convince myself otherwise. So I did. And want to know what I found out? In roughly the past three years, I have written a metric fuckton and good God how did this happen.



Word Count Story
192492 Shady Impressions (Side Stories Included)

+8779 Side Effects May Include...
+7682 Occupational Hazards: Crowdsourced
+14787 Slow and Steady
+2352 Growing Body of Knowledge
+5514 Dungeons Derailed
+6878 Wishing Big
+2855 Dinner and a Detour
+4034 (Some stories in Scraps I'm shy about)

+2137 Fine Print (Gift to  rokossovskiy)

=247510


Sooooo I'm inclined to say I should stop worrying so much about being productive and keep doing whatever the hell it is I've done to get to this point. Weekly streaming couldn't hurt though, so I'll be sure to keep up with that.

It's been what... only a little over two weeks since I last streamed and posted a story? Geeze. Already feeling restless and ready to write some more.

I've been writing furry stuffs long enough now that I actually feel bad when I slack off or don't write for an extended period of time. I figure the best solution for that might be to become a teensy bit more regular with my streaming! As it currently stands, I usually stream in bursts whenever I get cracking on a short story. Three to four times a week even to keep up momentum and crank stuff out. It was fun the last time I did it, but I could feel myself starting to burn out towards the end. So instead, I think I'll make a concerted effort to stream... something, once a week! Starting this week. I've been starting to scribble out a couple words here and there for my next Shady Impressions chapter, so that's what I'll be focusing on this time. My rationale is that streaming once a week will be frequent enough to push away that nagging feeling in back of my head to write, while simultaneously relaxed enough a schedule that I don't risk burning out. That and those of you who I guess I would call my regulars can feel free to poke and prod at me if I don't commit to it.

Inclined to say that I'll probably get this thing rolling and streaming come this Thursday. Thoughts, opinions, ramblings?

Welp, that didn't take long to make another journal regarding streaming. Granted, I'm not here to actually announce an upcoming one. This is more mulling out loud how I want to approach how I stream my next goofy short story.

I had a lot of fun with Side Effects May Include... due to the amount of input I got from other viewers at the stream. It wasn't a request stream nor was it it a traditional stream. I didn't write out a story using an idea or two someone threw out nor did I just write out what I had already planned and had people sit around to see what I had in store. It was more... me creating a basic skeleton for a story and then seeking out and encouraging viewers to participate and help me out with the finer details. Viewers got to make a visible mark on the story and I got to maintain control of the story. Granted, it felt like it took me forever to write the darn thing, but that's neither here nor there.

What I'm thinking is, shortly before I get around to writing up the next short story I'll post the main gist of it here in a journal. The general outline or skeleton of the story basically. From there, I'll solicit input from whoever it is that both reads these journals and attends my story streams on some of the finer details. Cosmetic stuff such as species, gender, eventual size after completely unexpected growth, etc. As well as finer plot details such as setting up stuff such as the introduction and the ending. Of course, such a story story being a potential group effort, all those who contribute would get credit where credit is due whenever I get around to posting it.

Anyway, figured I'd think out loud sooner rather than later and see what everyone thinks about such a setup! Feel free to comment or note or prod at me in whatever manner is most convenient for you if you have any feedback or input on the matter!

Since I've written up a journal that isn't related to announcing a stream. I am horribly out of practice writing these things. So... where to start? If you don't feel like reading a wall of text, then feel free to ignore all of this. For starters, these past couple weeks I was starting to feel what I would consider my first significant traces of burnout with regards to writing. That or some sort of massive writer's block. Either or, maybe both. Whenever I would look at my... I don't know how the hell to describe it now. A ridiculously goofy and stupid action fantasy with fuzzies in it? I think that starts to breach the surface of what Shady Impressions has become. Whenever I would look at it and contemplate adding more to it, any and all motivation would be sapped out of me. I'd look at what I've written thus far and then start to think about the ludicrous amount of things I still want to do. Developing characters, or trying to anyway, new and old. World building. More stupidity in general. Plot. There's still so much I want to do and even though this is just a hobby for me, it feels god damned daunting. I've been plugging away at the thing for nearly three years now and wrote a fucking book without even meaning to. And I'll probably have another one or two under my belt before this is all said and done. What I already have on my hands isn't a good book mind you, it just happens to be bookish in length. Just pushed past 175,000 words with the latest chapter.

The short stories I belted out every now and then helped, made me forget how intimidated by my own work I was becoming. I like the short stories because they're short, self-contained, and stand on their own. There are no plans on revisiting any of them, and I like it that way. Toss something out there and promptly forget about it. Shady Impressions was supposed to be a short story. Heh, look how that turned out. If you want to see anything more done with stuff along the lines of 'Dungeons Derailed' or 'Side Effects May Include...' feel free to take up the mantle for yourself. I'm done with them, have at it if that's your thing. I don't mind.

For a while, I fretted and worried about my simultaneous lack of motivation and intimidation. When I set out to write my first, and Lord do I cringe when I look back at it now, story I did so with the intent of finishing what I started. I read a fair bit of stories on here and at Macrophile and would always get bummed when an engaging story would just abruptly come to a halt and quit updating. That always irked me. If I start something then I am going to freaking finish it. But with that massive burnout the idea that I had fresh run out of fucks to give and calling it quits started becoming a remotely palatable idea. Then I started mulling and beating myself up over the fact that, oh shit, I've become that person that abandons something halfway through. So I decided to force the next chapter out, lack of motivation and burnout be damned, and pondered some more on it. Eventually, I realized that it hasn't been some sense of inertia that carried me this far. Otherwise I would have ended Shady Impressions ages ago. It may not be anything special, but I like the characters and the world I've created and want to keep on building upon them.

And... that was quite the ramble. Also, no this doesn't mean I'm putting a halt on short stories. Those'll keep coming, just intermittently. Oh, one last thing. Those of you who've stuck around long enough to see me pigeonhole myself into writing Macro themed stories with a primarily humorous focus, I appreciate it. Glad to have you all along for the ride.

Welp, this is a bummer. My PS3 crapped out on me and can't read discs anymore. The whole process of mailing it in for repairs, from the time I send it out to when I get it back is going to take somewhere around two weeks. Which means all that time normally spent playing game has suddenly opened up! Any suggestions as to what I should do with my freed up afternoons/evenings since I'm not going to have some video games to fill them up with for a while?

So, earlier this week  Rokossovskiy and I got to chatting and we settled upon the idea that her giant fuzzy business dude, Sun Keyang, was pretty darn awesome! So we decided to work together and write up a silly story about him. Said silly story can be found here (there's a link hidden within that 'here.' Go ahead and click on it!) and both of us would appreciate it if any interested parties would take a gander!

For the past few months I've found myself falling into the rhythm of going back and forth between belting out a couple chapters of Shady Impressions and then knocking out a short story, "Slow and Steady" and "Dungeons Derailed" being the most recent examples. I'm kind of curious though, with regards to what regular readers I do have, what do you all think of shorter stuff versus the continued updates to my already lengthy story? I know that some of the appeal of a short story is that it's a single self-contained piece and you don't have to come in with any prior knowledge. Whereas "Shady Impressions" can be pretty imposing in terms of its volume, which I'm sure scares some people away, but it also allows me that much more freedom to pack away so much into character development and plot and whatever the hell I want in general.

I suppose you could look at this as me gauging how people feel about the quality of both kinds of stories, basically.

Okay, so last time I announced plans to stream, FA crashed about half an hour later. Well shit, let's tempt fate again. The rest of today and the weekend ahead are pretty free for me, so I might as well take the opportunity and stream a little! Any preferences from those of you who stop by as to when I should stream? I haven't set a date or time in stone yet.

Sooooo... it's been a while since I did a public stream. And it's also been a while since I've written up another chapter of Shady Impressions. My perception of streams thus far is that they have a positive and beneficial impact on my writing. Mainly due to the fact that it's hard to goof off and wander around the internet with strangers watching. Taking all of that into account, I'm going to take a crack at writing another chapter of Shady while streaming on Wednesday, oh say around 7:00 PM EST.

Feel free to stop on by and here's hoping I'm not full of it when I say I'll try and turn this into a weekly thing.