what creative projects are you working on?
this seems like a good time to bring back this question and maybe make it more consistent and recurring since there's just been an influx of new people. i last asked this about three months ago and i'm sure there are both new people to answer this question and new ideas that people who already answered or would answer have come up with since.
for my part, i did this post just now as a short little thing. on the larger scale, i've been intending to get back into editing my personal worldbuilding wiki because there's a bunch of shit i want to do with that, but college isn't exactly leaving a lot of time for it and every time i try to start on stuff gets tedious so i've been holding off on it for a little bit. i've also been chipping away at the fun that will be one of several religious books, but i don't really know how i want to structure it yet so the verses pictured and others are liable to get shuffled around at this point.
I've been working on an addition to my home automation stack that uses trackerjacker to make a list of everyone who phone's mac address I've determined, and do the same to map out who's home in surrounding apartments.
Not sure why. I do network monitoring professionally, so I just like to play with odd means of measuring things. Plus it would be neat to measure wifi channel use over time to find the perfect one to use.
Oh! You could plop it down at different houses and use to case houses like thief simulator's schedule tracking mechanic.... I'll probably keep this one off github.
I'm writing stand up material. Gonna do it for the first time pretty soon.
Takes some balls. Good for you!
Anything that is difficult will make you better. Let us know how it goes!
Big respect for writing something like this. Stand-up comics do some great work with their storytelling, and I have respect for that as a writer.
We've got your back here. Show 'em what funny means.
The Google Analytics alternative I talked about in my last comment is still in the works, but I have another side project I've recently been working on that I actually published[1]! This project is called Andesite and it's a custom file web server that allows you to whitelist access to files and folders through OAuth2!
[1]: https://github.com/nektro/andesite
Currently finishing a worldbuilding project called 2011. It's a Harry Potter AU where magic is a little better-defined and where mages didn't get stuck in the 10th century. It has smartphone spellcasting, plastic wands, wireless money transfer via magic, and a modern Hogwarts, posing as a boarding school. The mages in the UK are also slowly integrating with the non-magical population, as per the 1961 Continuous Integration Act in cooperation with the UK government.
It's 11k words so far.
After that, people have been keen on another, original worldbuilding of mine: the Dark Side, an alternative-history world where magic came into the world in 1942. The Soviet government's decided, in the peak Stalinist paranoia, to contain all the Soviet mages in concentration camps of its own. When the truth came out a few years later, the Soviet people rebelled violently. Now, there's two Russias: one is a technological giant, another is known for its natural resources and excellent athletes. The world itself is meant as an exploration for what would happen if mages (or, really, any similarly-powered people) weren't persecuted but, instead, accepted as part of the society.
Gonna write that after 2011.
Redesigning my website (where I host all this stuff). The redesign incorporates a new navigation paradigm, which allows one to easily navigate all the long writing I'll inevitably post, as well as the rest of the website. Also making it load even quicker, in ~1 second on laptop (it's currently 730~930 ms for me).
Planning to write a short story series exploring magical realism.
Planning to rewrite another, old short story series – a modern AU of Dota 2, with reimagined characters and lore.
Coding a storytelling-centered text-based web game in a cyberpunk-esque setting, inspired by Shadowrun.
In my spare time, redesigning a few other websites. No one asked me to: I just think they could use some.
I know the feeling -- it's hard to write every day. Consistent journaling has helped me a little bit -- or at least it's kept me from feeling like a complete failure. What's your story about, if I may ask?
That sounds pretty interesting -- like she could be an unreliable narrator, not telling everything at once, maybe the story comes out in the telling? Neat!
Book of The New Sun by Gene Wolfe, has a great unreliable narrator, it's really interesting to read.
I'll have to check it out, thanks!
Cool another worldbuilder! Honestly my position sounds a lot like yours. Like you I'm also working on a wiki for my world, though it's offline only at the moment as I'm building it through dokuwiki and I'm too lazy to set up an actual server for it.
I'm also working on a map for my worlds central setting. I "finished it" a while back, but since I designed it through Wonderdraft and the software has undergone a lot of updates since then I really want to revisit it and touch things up. Then there's a few stories and legends that I'm trying to flesh out because of their importance to the overall lore and development of my world.
The world itself is kind of premised on exploring alternatives to many of the traditional Tolkien/D&D tropes and cliches. So for example: Humans are sparse instead being a blight on the older races. Elves have long outlived their golden age and are in a state of cultural disarray. Orcs are less hostile, and more nuanced. My motivations for all this stemmed from me noticing that a lot of D&D styled worlds ultimately end up feeling same-y. I wanted to create a world the seemed different, a world capable of surprising people expecting the archetypal fantasy world. Maybe that's a little pretentious, but it's been a fun thought experiment nonetheless.
Anyways though, I keep hitting the same wall that is tedium + college, like you. It's extremely hard for me to motivate myself to work on creative stuff (especially the tedious stuff) when all I want to do is finish my homework, relax for a bit and sleep. Honestly, I wish I had a solution for both our sake.
Aside from writing blog posts, my only creative outlet lately has been experimenting with handwriting and trying to get back into writing cursive well.
Just finished implementing two-factor authentication for remotely controlling my home PC via Signal. I plan to write up the process here on ~ today or tomorrow.
Started working on a website for organizing board game groups and deciding which games to play on game night. I’ve had an alpha version of the site in use by a couple groups for years so a proper public site is long overdue.
Planning to start working on home automation via Zigbee on a Pi. Couple early things I want are:
Edit: finished writing up the Signal / VNC stuff here: https://tild.es/alb
I would love to follow that Signal/home project!
Finished my write-up of the Signal / VNC portion of the project: https://tild.es/alb
Signal is a secure and popular end-to-end encrypted chatting software
I'm actually thinking of giving up on my writing. It feels like nobody gives a shit, and I can't seem to muster the balls-to-the-wall defiance that drove me to start writing when I was 18.
What sort of things do you write, fiction/non-fiction, short stories/novels/poetry? Do you mind sharing any of your work here?
I write science fantasy. I put most of my effort into novels, but I have a few crappy short stories as well. It's all a pastiche of media I liked when I was a young edgelord, the sort of thing we'd call fanfic if I stuck to a single established setting.
Thanks for sharing. Also, Without Bloodshed - 3.77 with 64 ratings and 24 reviews on Good Reads... I would hardly say that's "nobody gives a shit" territory! I will have to check it out once I am done with Pax Romana.
Thanks. I hope you enjoy it. As for feeling like nobody cares: I fight with depression and passive suicidal ideation on a daily basis. I know my feelings aren't reasonable or grounded in reality. I know that I'm mentally ill but still functional.
Knowing doesn't always help. All I can think of is that if I managed to write three novels and publish two while fighting demons in my head and working full-time as a developer, maybe I'd be a productivity superhero if my demons would just sit down and shut up.
I used to as well but daily Zazen meditation has really helped me deal with that. I know how especially hard it is to get/stay motivated while depressed and suffering from constant bombardment by suicidal thoughts, but you should give it a try some time, if you can. It may similarly help you. And the thing I like most about Zazen is there is no religious dogma attached to it... it's literally just sitting and counting breaths (or repeating a phrase/mantra/koans if you prefer).
Thanks for the advice. I'll look into it this weekend.
No problem. My only piece of advice would be not to fight against or linger on any of the random thoughts that enter your mind while meditating. Just acknowledge them, let them pass through your mind uneventfully and return to your breath counting. Fighting the stray thoughts just empowers them. Eventually your mind will quiet on its own without needing to force it to and you will reach the meditative state of stillness.
And I suspect that is precisely why learning to meditate helped so much with my depression and suicidal ideation... it basically teaches you how to not let your negative thoughts truly effect you anymore. :)
I'm with you. When I was 18, I wrote story after story, just 'cause it was fun.
Then I stopped for years. Wrote something new every year or so, but it went nowhere after that.
Now, I have plans for really cool stories – and yet, I'm dreading the fuck out of writing them.
It's that anxiety of perfection that all artists suffer from. It's brilliant when it's in your head: in fact, it's perfect. Dunno how about you, but my anxiety kicks in when I think of putting that story down, solidifying it in its current form. "What if it isn't as good as I imagine it?" I know my writing skill isn't at 100%, so I could mess it up by being unable to come up with the right phrase, or the right idea, yet. The technology may not be there – and I'm so goddamn afraid of failing in a field I treasure. "Writer" is the first thing I was, even when I wasn't much of a person.
There's something Craig Mod said about this:
Also, trust me: people may give a shit about your writing, but they can't until you have something to show them. I mentioned the stuff I'm working on on Reddit a couple of times – and the amount of interest I got was astonishing. I never expected anyone to care – that's why I never shared it! But, as it turns out, the bullshit I fed myself just so I needn't have shown myself to the world – to have stayed in the safety of my own perfect little fucked-up world – is just that: bullshit.
Go into the world and fucking share yourself with it. You'll be amazed.
I didn't get it into it because it was fun. I got into it because I needed a reason to live, a way to create something that was entirely my own rather than a work for hire that would make rich assholes richer.
Aside from a story called "Thirteen Cuts" that I wrote last September, I haven't finished anything since 2015.
Speak for yourself. It's not brilliant in my head. It's not brilliant when I first write it down. It's shit. It's nothing but shit, but if I revise it enough I can polish my turds into chocolate diamonds. My problem is that the work no longer seems worth it. I'm Sisyphus standing at the base of the mountain with my boulder and wondering why I should bother pushing that damned rock to the top again.
Been there. Done that. Hell, I did it twice. I wasn't amazed. But thanks for sharing your perspective.
Then what the fuck are you still doing on Tildes? There are people specifically qualified to deal with deep depression. You wanna trade "fuck you"s with an Internet stranger, or do you wanna check if the worth is still there, and you're just blinded?
Unlike most of the therapists in my area, Tildes won't charge my crappy health insurance hundreds of dollars an hour just to tell me I need Jesus while writing a prescription for pills that will leave me limp-dicked without actually fixing my mood.
I have an appointment with a new one in two weeks. Maybe this one will be worth a damn.
I've been trying to get back into writing nearly every day and posting them on my personal site. I'm thinking it'll keep me accountable, though I am just a little worried about the publishing aspect (I can't get these published in a magazine if they're online already).
Case, just checked out your site.
Looks really neat. Love your unique combination of passions. I am working on a site that will help quell your worries about magazine publication after online publication. Would love to chat about it.
lustig@knophy.com if you’re interested.
Also, just moved to New Orleans if your Twitter bio is accurate.
Thanks for the kind words!
Hey, I like your poetry! Do try to get them published in magazines, I haven't yet ben able to find any good English language ones to follow, but sure they'd get some attention.
I have read in a few places that some of the better authors of the world write every day, like a job. E.g. Saramago, I did not go to the article to check, but IIRC he says he writes every day. Personally, I just write stuff when I feel a "spark", and that's probably why I fail writing longer stuff.
Hey thank you! That really means a lot -- I want to submit to places (I actually had a Duotrope account for a year to find markets), but I get in my own way about it. But given your comment, I think that this week's project will be to revise some of my older posts and submit them to magazines!
Thank you for reading and appreciating :)
You're welcome! Wish you luck with it!
Not exactly creative, but I built a python script to scrape Instagram data in order to practice web scraping.
I tried to get a developer account, but since that didn't work out I built a script which didn't require the developer credentials. Now it's very rough and not the most efficient piece of code (still requires some manual input), but I am still happy with the outcome.
Still working on the Magical Girl Webcomic about the absolute trashfire of a cadet who is washing out of magical college after her first week and decides to train a girl who is destined to bring about the end of days. Wondering though how I should distribute the comic though, was thinking a Webtoon format, but my artist isn't really interested in the format.
My options as far as I can figure are put in submissions to publishers and see where that takes us, produce on Amazon or another All You Can Read service and be locked to their ecosystem, or roll our own ecosystem with a website, Patreon, and storefront, and play it by ear getting a dead tree version. Does anyone have any experience with any of these avenues?
Is self-publishing – either digitally or physically – an option for you? Digital is easier on the wallet, and you can the geekier population to donate to you on Patreon.
Yeah, was thinking about it, might be the way I want to go. I guess the issue is that a whole lot more things are now very complex when you self publish, more hats to wear, more things to be lost in, and I already have a hard enough time working on the comic when I don't have comic adjecent projects to lose myself to.
There's something Henry Rollins once said about doing everything "management" himself (he has lots of help, but they all take good care in ensuring the quality of their work). He called it "being an artist-warrior, an artist-engineer", which really stuck with me. It's about handling all the things about your art your way, so that things are done ethically, to the right degree of quality, and in desired conditions.
It's not easy, but at the end of the day, you're in complete control of how your craft is doing – at least on your side of things. No one is dragging you around, nudging or forcing you to do the type of thing you now loathe because the "target audience" wants more. No one commands over your finances, or your creative expression. You do you, in the fullest sense of the phrase you can feasibly achieve.
It's not easy. If you want to join a collective or a company and operate out of their pocket, that's your choice, and it's entirely okay to do so if that's what you feel like. In the growing avalanche of entrepreneurship – of which I'm a part – it's easy to forget that not everybody's built that way. Some people work better when the rest of the responsibilities are taken care of by others. On my part as an Internet stranger and a fellow artist, I just want you to make an informed choice that resonates with you.
That said, if you need help with hosting and/or site development, feel free to hit me up. I have a few years' experience in web dev and design, and I'd like to help artists.
I'm working on some writing, just a fun story that I enjoy with no thoughts of publication lol. I hadn't written since I worked at my old job and even when I started my new one I only JUST started writing again early February so I almost went a year without writing lol. Sorry lots of useless back story to that.
But I'm also working on creating my own crochet pattern, making character reference sheets for a tops secret project. Less long term, I am currently working on crocheting a baby blanket. So nothing super exciting but a lot of my projects are part of my new years goal and I hope I can get through them! I'm a trying!
I've been getting into 3d art - started with the idea of wanting to make a 3-dimensional game and doing up some simple little objects for it (a bucket, a plant, etc). I am actually not really much of an artist, at least traditionally, but I find 3d a lot more intuitive than trying to put things down on paper. I enjoy my time with it.
My life is pretty full at the moment so hobby time is a bit slow-going, unfortunately.
working on a new personal project today, which is basically just a personal reskin of bauke's dracula theme for tildes. it looks like this right now, and i'm still in the middle of hashing out how i want it to look, but i like it so far,
Neat! How are you developing it?
literally just taking the theme .css and applying new color values to it, lol. my expertise is definitely not with writing code! but i can plug and place pretty well and i sorta know how to mesh colors together well in a way that appeals at least to me.
Hey, it's design too!
If you ever want to learn CSS and need some guidance, feel free to message me. I have 5 or 6 years' worth of web design experience. My designs are mostly minimal, which reflects in my CSS.
Out of interest: which color format are you using?
if it speaks to how much i know about coding, i have no idea what this means in this context
also, i finished tinkering with it in between comments so this is the finished prototype because i'm too lazy to fine tune the rest of it.
Color format is how you write down the color you want the browser/computer to show. Hexidecimal, or hex (
#A313FF), and RGB (rgb(255, 0, 0)) are the two most commonly-used in CSS. There's a handful of others, but I'm gonna wager a guess that you don't know about those as of yet.that's what i figured. i just use hexcodes.
I believe that @ThatFanficGuy is asking about this:
There are various ways of specifying color values, and the above table describes some examples. Each method would change text with a
<p>tag to be red.what the hell rgb can be percentaged
Evidently. Though I don't think I've ever seen it in the wild. There's also HSL.
If following the example from the table above:
or with alpha:
I could definitely use some help designing knophy.com, which aims to be similar in functionality with a twist to Reddit or Tildes.
Please shoot me an email at lustig@knophy.com if that offer is global.
Let me make one thing clear: do you need assistance designing the website, or do you want me to design it? I'll do both, both one of those comes with a pricetag.
I’m just beginning the process for shopping around for designers.
Budget is tight as I am approaching this similar to how Tildes is, but I’ve got a different idea for monetization that still doesn’t require ads or paywalls.
If you’re interested in a chat, please send me an email at lustig@knophy.com
I’m kind of teaching myself electronics and micro controllers, since I started working with Arduinos in my free time. But it didn’t feel right for me, or at least too “high level”. So as of right now I’ve moldered my arduino nanos (first time moldering :D) and build a little isp programmer, so I can flash my microchips.
Now I’m kind of lost in creating a microphone circuit and learning the basics of electronics, analog and digital signals etc.
Wish I would have had that interest when I studied IT...
I have been messing with Powershell and making Rube Goldberg Scripts of common tasks because, well, my other creative hobby is stalled. I have been trying to find the motivation to write again. I was on a roll for almost a year, really making progress on a series of books set in the same universe. My motivation drained out of me after I watched some YT vids about writing. I started doubting myself and second guessing my choices when it came to the world-building and some plot mechanics. Now I can't even look at my project in scrivener without picking it apart. And this is after I have already put 180,000 words to the screen. Not sure how to get started again.
I'm working on the VFX and colour grade for a friends short film right now. It's inspired by old Samurai movies so it's cliche as all hell, but it's been a lot of fun to work on. Not to say it hasn't had me and my friend at each others throats at times but it'll be worth it once it's done.
I learning how to create Doom WADs for a project I'm doing with my brother. I'm going to have it set in Roswell, New Mexico in the 50's. You're going to be a grey alien who crash lands on Earth. Upon leaving the wreckage of your ship, you get attacked by government agents, so you go on a murder spree in Roswell, or something like that. My brother's making some custom assets and is weapon spriting currently.
I am slowly working on a virtual snail simulation project, originally written in PHP and now in Go.
Quite a few. A video game with an indie team, and a few character designs for future stories.
I've been working full time since last April, so my creative time has dwindled a bit. However, I find that if I take a little time to create each day, then it makes my productivity at work and in my personal life much better. The key is to just get started on something, and let the Muse take you.