Timasomo Post #4: Reflection for Week Three of Four
Timasomo FAQ
What is Timasomo?
Timasomo is "Tildes' Make Something Month," a creative community challenge that takes place in the month of November. It was inspired by NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month.
What are the rules?
Timasomo is self-driven and its goals are self-selected. On November 1st, participants will commit to a creative project (or projects) that they plan to complete within the month of November. There is no restriction on the methods/products of creativity: writing, painting, code, food, photos, crafts, songs -- if it's creative expression for you, it works for Timasomo!
Though most will be participating individually, collaborations are welcome too!
What is the schedule?
Timasomo begins November 1st and ends November 30th. All creative output towards your goal(s) should be confined to this time. This week prior to the start of November is for planning, and there will be a few days at the beginning of December given to "finishing touches" before we have our final thread, which will be a showcase of all the completed works. The showcase date is TBD and will be decided by the participants toward the end of the month, once we have a better idea of what we'll need to do wrap up our projects.
Can I participate?
Yes! Timasomo is open to anyone on Tildes! If you would like to join, post your goal here. The greater Tildes community is also encouraged to participate in discussion threads even if you are not actively working towards a creative goal. This is meant to be an inclusive community event -- all are welcome! If you are interested in participating but do not have a Tildes login, please e-mail the invite request address here for an invite to the community.
Thread #3: Reflection for Week Three of Four
Only one week left! This is your chance to wrap things up or, if you're like me, make up for lost time!
Give a Progress Update
How's it been going? Tell us where you're currently at!
Breakdowns and Breakthroughs?
With any creative process, there'll always be unexpected flashes of brilliance or unexpected fizzles for what seemed like good ideas. Have you encountered anything that didn't go like you wanted it to, or something that up and surprised you out of nowhere?
What's Coming Up This Week?
What is this final week going to look like for you?
Discussion Topic of the Week: Meta Housekeeping
This week's discussion focus is more functional than the others, as there are two main areas I want to get everyone's thoughts on:
Finish Timeline
Officially, creative work for Timasomo should end at the end of the day on November 30th, but I want to give some time for people to put finishing touches on their work and get it ready to share. How much time do we need? Should I just keep the weekly rhythm going and make the even officially end on that next Friday, the 6th? I'm open to any and all ideas here, some of which might be influenced by what we decide on the item below:
Showcase Logistics
I'd also like to hear people's thoughts on how we can best show off our work. I have a few ideas:
- One topic, where each participant posts a top-level comment with their work.
- One topic, where I post participant-submitted blurbs for each work in the topic itself.
- Individual topics for each work (posted either by the participant or me)
I like the idea of having all the works "under one roof" in a single topic, but I also like the idea of having each work being its own topic. I even think it could be neat to coordinate a "showcase schedule" where, say, only one work gets posted per day until we go through everyone's contributions. This would space out discussions rather than flooding ~creative with everything all at once, but I don't want people at the end of the line to feel cheated from their moment in the spotlight if people get sick of seeing a new Timasomo post each and every day.
Nothing's decided yet, but let me know your thoughts!
As before: best of luck to ALL participants! Let's go MAKE SOMETHING.
Meta
Suggestions
If anyone has anything they want me to add to this post or suggestions for the next one, let me know either here or by PM!
I didn't comment on any of these Timasomo posts because I doubted that I would actually be able to do anything with the free time I had. In fact, I had an "unofficial" project that I had intended to work on, but it was a learning thing so I didn't want to commit to a timeframe on it. The irony is that I have since dropped that original project and have accidentally started working on another project that I'm already about halfway finished with.
Well, I doubt that I will finish before the deadline, but if anyone is interested I will post the results of making my reusable fabric Christmas gift bags at the end of the month with the rest of you.
So, my last update was bleak. I wish I could say that I'm fully better, but I'm still fighting illness. Nevertheless, I'm good enough to at least function, and I'm committed to making Timasomo actually happen for me rather than just bowing out, so I retooled my expectations for myself and now have a plan I can (hopefully) deliver on.
First and foremost, I changed my story completely. The one that I was working on was too big, too personal, and suffered greatly from feature creep as I started to build it. It's something I'd still love to do, but it's not going to work for Timasomo. As such, I now have a different "story" lined up. It's much more modular and much simpler. It'll have some player choice, but I don't think I'll be able to make them really direct the story in a meaningful way. Instead, the choices will be limited to individual scenes, and the effects will simply change up some of the dialogue that responds to the player, without having lasting or more memorable effects. Not ideal, but also I need to remember that this is my first project using this engine. Keep it SIMPLE, right?
On this note, I'm axing graphics entirely. I did gather together some backgrounds that I was planning on using, but I found out to properly use them I had to resize them, which then led me to playing around with filters to try to make the assets from different sources have a more uniform look, which then led me to trying to edit and crop some of them to better fit my story, which led me to realize that all of this was unnecessary feature creep that wasn't helping me write anything in the slightest. So, backgrounds are gone. It'll be plain text on a black screen -- not much more than what Twine offers -- but it'll at least still "feel" more gamey than the stuff I've made with Twine.
I mapped out my plans this week and intend to dive in for real to the actual story writing when I get home from work tomorrow. I'll have this weekend and the downtime surrounding Thanksgiving to work on it. Sunday the 30th is fully open on my schedule, so that'll be my sprint to the finish line to get it all done.
A positive update this time!
I completed one and a half of the four total scenes comprising my "story." The first scene features some very rudimentary choices, and I'm hoping to expand on the depth of them in the second scene. This was the first time in a long while that I was able to enter a creative "flow" state, which was something I didn't realize I'd been missing. The little work on my Timasomo project thus far had been mostly exploring and familiarizing myself with the new engine which was a lot of learning but that doesn't lend itself well to flow. Now that I know how the tools work, I'm able to just get in and write, which feels great. I do it all the time for Tildes, but it's different when you're constructing a fictional narrative rather than simply writing out your own thoughts or commentary.
I have no illusions that what I produce will be great or anything, but I'll be happy with a completed project of any sort, especially because for a good long while it looked like I wasn't going to be able to submit anything at the end of this.
REFLECTIONS
I just came to the realization that I only have 8 days left and I am nowhere near where I want to be.
PROGRESS
BREAK DOWN OR THROUGH
I was able to create the Grudge enemy in an evening by tweaking the Blop enemy. It went much faster than the Blop did.
WHAT'S NEXT
META HOUSEKEEPING
Finish Timeline
I think that having the 6th as the presentation day is fine. This gives people time to determine the best course of displaying their creations if they choose to, as some may require more work than others to bring to a presentable state.
Showcase Logistics
I like the idea of having a dedicated post for each creation spread out on a daily basis, as long as the numbers can be coordinated. If there's 30 entries, let's not take 30 days to showcase everything. Cut it in half or in thirds, thus posting two or three over the course of a day.
REMINDER: Find your balance.
LINKS
Website
Twitter
Instagram
Discord
Progress
Progress was so so. Still a lot of deadlines and virtual truck driving to get done, but I think I've wrapped up research and have written out a chunk of what I wanted from the first article. At this point it's just about sitting down and writing things even if I don't want to or don't think I've researched enough. At the end of the day what I'm looking at isn't even that long.
Breakdowns and Breakthroughs
This isn't so much of what has happened but what I'm worried about. My last few deadlines for my semester are all writing, and my remaining part of my project is writing as well, so I'm a bit worried that I will be burnt out on writing. Also concerned that my family will want me to not hide in my room and work on the project I promised to the internet during Thanksgiving, but that comes with the territory I suppose.
Coming up
Buckle down and write, then hopefully polish it into something people will want to read.
Meta Housekeeping
Finish Timeline
For my project it shouldn't be too hard to get ready, but I don't want to rush anyone so I'm fine with having that extra time to prepare our presentation. We could also use that week to schedule what gets presented when.
Showcase Logistics
I like the idea of having a daily post with 2-3 things to discuss. One per day would be boring, all at once would be overwhelming, so I think it's a nice middle ground. Maybe if things grow next year 🤞 we can reevaluate that.
I think you and @xstresedg are right on the money with this one. Great idea.
Give a Progress Update
I didn't write a lot this week due to mental health stuff, and then went to the coffeeshop yesterday and wrote four poems in a couple hours. I said previously that I wanted to work at eliciting emotion, and I find that challenging. Part of this is my issues with emotional awareness due to my mental health issues, part of this is my inexperience as a poet. I've had some success with readers identifying with my work, so I'll reflect on that as a way of eliciting emotion.
Breakdowns and Breakthroughs?
That emotion thing is hard to do deliberately. It's hard for me to be comfortable putting my emotions on the page, it's hard for me to come up with words for them. And that's okay. That said, I did some experiments with rhythm and meter yesterday and had a good amount of success; I'll be posting those poems soon. There's another one that I'm particularly happy with that I'll be posting soon.
What's Coming Up This Week?
More writing, more reading. I'm borrowing poetry books from the library and reading them, getting a sense for what I like and getting a sense for what I don't like, learning what works and what doesn't work for me.
Discussion Topic of the Week: Meta Housekeeping
Showcase Logistics
I have something of a different perspective here, because I'm writing short-form works that I'm posting here. I'm happy with making individual posts of my work and then maybe collecting them after the event to make it easier for people to find them. I've been making posts as I've been writing poems, so that works for me. If folks think it would be better for me to do something in a different way, please let me know! What I would like is feedback on my work. I'm not looking to get published, but improving would be great.