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2025: The Plan
🕑 Added 2025-01-01 04:17:43 +0000 UTCHello everyone!
If you read the Christmas post then you’ll remember that I mentioned that I’d be posting again before the end of the year. If you didn’t read the Christmas post then you won’t know that, but now that you’re reading this post you are now aware of this post, meaning that you don’t have to go back to the Christmas post to be in the loop.
Nonsense aside, it’s almost 2025, so let’s get into what this post is actually about.
It’d be a total bummer if I called 2024 a complete failure… so I’m not going to go as far as that. With that being said, though, it was kind of a complete failure for me. Projects have fallen to the side, motivation has been incredibly low, and my confidence has been all over the place.
There are multiple reasons for this, ones that are both physical and real and others that are more metaphysical, or psychological, or mental, or however you want to put it. As you might know already I was quite sick earlier in the year, which lead to me taking a long break to reevaluate things, which ultimately lead to a lot of difficulty getting back into the saddle. The sickness, followed by the break, followed by the complete inability to write or even get back into the routine/schedule that I used to have when it came to working has left me feeling lost and confused, which has further exacerbated the entire issue.
Some days these past few months I’ve just felt paralyzed. I’ll sit in front of a word document with a story in my head, a story that I want to write, a story that I need to write, and yet the act of writing has often made me feel like I’m rubbing sandpaper all over my brain. So I think to myself - okay, I’ll rest, I’ll play a video game or watch a movie or read a book or go outside or do whatever, try to relax - but ultimately I cannot relax so I go back to work, only to be faced with the same feeling of a belt sander being rubbed up against my frontal lobes.
Naturally this is quite the negative feedback loop. You have one bad day, then one bad week, then suddenly the entire month is bad, and then, wow, it’s been half a year and I’m still having this problem, and I genuinely do feel awful about it. Don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly grateful that everyone is still here and my community has been nothing but patient with me, but at the same time I am deeply aware that I haven’t been fulfilling my promises nor my commitments to you all, and this leaves me feeling bad, which only adds to that feedback loop that I was talking about.
So, with that in mind, I need to break the loop somehow. I mean, it’s either that or give up entirely and call it quits, but I’m not about to do that. I’ve come too far and been supported too much to just give up, so…
Here’s the good news: a great deal of progress has already been made on breaking that chain. Over the past couple of months I’ve been working on a few projects (that I’m going to talk about shortly) that I’m excited to share with everyone, and I’ve also been developing a strategy that’s going to ensure that I go into 2025 as strong as I possibly can.
So let’s talk about that instead of focusing on the bad stuff. I’m going to break this plan down into three parts, or, if you want to be fancy… let’s call it a three-pronged attack plan, the first prong being…
Forward Planning
When I first started doing this - y’know, the whole making games and writing vorny macroy/microy porny all those years ago - I was much better organized. What do I mean by organized? Well, I mean that I would generally have stories ready to post in advance, as in… I dunno, let’s say it’s March, right? Well, I would have wrote what I was going to post in March the month before in February. Or, y’know, if it’s August then I would be posting stuff that I wrote in July…
Over the years I kinda lost this and ultimately started to just post things as they were done, mostly because I was never far ahead enough to run things like that. I’d really like to change this because it tears a lot of pressure off my back and it’s nice to just know that things are ready to go and I can promise certain things because, y’know, they’re done.
So, this month - when it hasn’t been the holidays, at least - I’ve been focusing on getting ahead, and I want to note that I’ve done pretty damn well on that. I’ve got not one, not two, not three, but four stories in the tank that are ready to be posted… well, whenever I please, really! My immediate desire upon completing them this month was to just post them because I feel guilty about the dry spell, but I bit my tongue (or my fingers?) and held myself back so that I can have a really strong January!
Not only will this be better for everyone who likes to read and play my stuff - because you’ll be getting my content more consistently - but it’ll also be better for my mental health and my work overall, because I’m not going to be racing to get things finished and then get it posted. This will lead to better writes that are posted more frequently, or at least, that’s the idea… and like I said, I have four stories ready, so the idea seems to be working so far!
Project Diversification
The second part of my plan is to diversify my projects a little bit. Diversify sounds like such a buzzword and it kind of is in some contexts, but in here the application of it is appropriate: essentially, I want to work on more varied things.
Let me clear up what I mean by ‘project’ before I go on: I mean stuff that takes several months to complete. A book or a game update or, heck, a whole game would be a project, but a short story or a commission wouldn’t be one, or at least, it wouldn’t be one in this context. What I’m about to talk about is the big stuff, like A Tiny Furry In A Huge World v1.3 or that whole A Tiny Furry On A Huge Quest game that I’m making.
Last year my big projects were three games: which were A Tiny Furry In A Huge World, the new A Tiny Furry On A Huge Quest, and Vorevival. Taking on these three projects all at the same time was a mistake. My ADHD kinda requires me to have some sort of variation… or at least, that’s what I’ve found over the years. With three games to work on - two of them brand new - I was left with three things that felt very similar… to work on, at least. I know they’re different games.
For that reason, I’m going to be giving myself three different projects to work on this year, all of which will have completely different vibes. Here’s a quick list… though I’ll be expanding on them over the course of the year. So this is really more of a tease? I dunno.
A Tiny Furry In A Huge World
This will be the project that I am tackling first and foremost, which is finishing up v1.3 of A Tiny Furry In A Huge World. This, all in all, will take about two or three months I think… give or take a week or two.
Naturally this isn’t going to be an all year project, but I do have another project plan for A Tiny Furry In A Huge World after v1.3 is finished. No, it won’t be v1.4. It will be something different but also something familiar. I’ll talk more about this one when v1.3 is actually done: which will be my immediate priority going into the new year. Cheers!
A New Book Project
I will be writing a new book in 2025! It will be a sequel to 2023’s Dead Or Alive … or a follow-up… or whatever you want to call it. The current name for the story is Wildcat, but it will probably be changed to something else.
I will be releasing this book in segments over the course of the year: probably two or three chapters at a time. Will it have macro/micro in it? Yes! Will it have vore in it? Absolutely. Will it be the usual kind of awful vore that I’ve put in my previous longer works where bad things happen? Yes, sorry not sorry, it will indeed.
A Tiny Furry On A Huge Quest
I spoke about this one last month, so… go check that post out if you aren’t familiar with it! It will be my biggest project yet and will take a lot of work. I would like to get a playable version out next year: indeed, that’s my big objective that I am striving toward… slowly but surely.
So you might be thinking: well, that’s two games and a book, that’s not that varied, and that’s where you’re right but also wrong, because as soon as that v1.3 of Tiny Furry World is done I’ll be moving onto another project, which is game-related but… distinctly different. You’ll see when v1.3 is done in a month or two. Yes, a month or two! I’ll be focusing on getting that done (and thus, my last responsibilities in the Quest game engine) all tied up.
Of course, I will also be working on the usual array of commissions and short stories and other smaller things. Did I mention I have four of those wrote and ready to go? Yeah, I did… back there and again now…
Anyway! More project variation = good. It’s also not going to be anything as overwhelming as make two brand new games and also make the biggest update ever for your biggest game.
Better Communication
The third prong of my plan is the simplest of all: communicate. Over the past few months I’ve been bad at that: at communicating with you fine people I mean. It’s hard to give you all bad news, like… hey, there won’t be any content this month, or… I’m really sick and I need some time… or there’s bugs in my apartment and it’s driving me crazy…
… but keeping everyone in the loop is something that I want to do. I feel guilty if I don’t, which just throws oil onto that negative feedback loop fire thing that I was talking about earlier. I don’t want to keep you all in the dark, so… if there’s a problem in future, or if there’s going to be a delay, or if I’m just feeling funky… I’m going to say something rather than bottling it up and making myself feel worse.
This doesn’t just apply to bad news, though: it applies to everything. I want to go back to doing my regular beginning of the month posts, like, on the first of every month, which means, yes, there will be one tomorrow. And on the first of February… and March… so on and so forth. The fact that I am able to forward plan for most of the year (or that is the idea) will make creating these posts more exciting because I can actually promise things and not break those promises, thereby meaning that the beginning of the month post (and communication in general) will be much less stressful, meaning that I, myself, am much less stressed. Hooray!
I think that this plan (the organization especially) is going to do wonders for me. It has been already. I’m not quite back to writing at full speed but I am writing at at least three quarters speed and that’s better than being stuck at… no speed.
My promise to you all is, no matter what happens, is that I will now - and always - be doing my best to get myself back onto my feet. Making content for all of you is exactly what I want to do with my life. It provides so much meaning and need and purpose to my existence and even if it doing this is scary it feels right. It’s what I want to do and I am going to pull myself out of this rut, out of this jam, out of hell if I have to because… like I say, this is just what I want to do. It’s my dream and I don’t want to wake up, so…
In summary? I’m going to be taking better care of myself. I’m going to be planning better so that I can post more content and take more breaks when I need to. I’m going to be working on a wide array of exciting projects that I can’t wait to show you all. And I’m going to be doing my damn best to tell you about everything that’s happening every step of the way, good or bad.
It’s almost 2025 here… or almost the end of 2024… so I’m going to leave this post here. This is my plan for 2025. I’m going to my damn best to make sure it comes into fruition.
Even if my 2024 was a bit of a stinker, I hope you all had a lovely year… and even if I seem down on 2024, I’m not. I failed a lot, yes, but failure is how you learn about yourself. Failure is the only way to learn how to succeed. Failure is… scary, but a natural part of life, of existence, of learning, of creating the things that I want to create, that you want me to create. Not everything can be a victory, and that’s okay.
My final words for 2024 are this: if you’ve ever failed at something, don’t give up. Make a plan. Get yourself back up. And if that fails, then make another plan. Keep getting up. Keep trying. Keep doing the thing that you want to do, the thing that you want to be successful at, and trust me - as someone who’s failed a lot over the years - you will succeed eventually. Don’t give up, don’t give in, and, whatever you can do tomorrow, do today instead… unless you’re really tired, then you can take a nap I guess.
I’ll see you all tomorrow with a beginning of the month post: one where I will be talking about stories and, yes, I know I’ve said this, but truly really - because I’ve been working on it hard this month because of that whole ‘forward planning’ thing - an update for A Tiny Furry In A Huge World.
Until then… happy reading this ramble!
Comments
TJTaff
A full fledged game focused primarily on playing as the macro would be awesome. Possibly a little more focus on that in TFHQ or an entirely separate game.
