Happy (almost) New Year! I’m making this post a few days earlier than usual because I’ll be officially moving out on 31st, and too exhausted to do anything afterwards. As expected, moving preparations have kept me busy this December, but I’ve also thankfully been able to write consistently at least once a week.

The script’s word count has reached ~48 000 words, and I have now written out all the parts I reasonably can within this first draft. The missing one and half chapters are near the end of the story where I must tie up all the loose ends, and these are something I will feel more comfortable writing out in detail after having gone over my first draft at least once. These are not edits as much as they are just personal notes both in and out of the text to keep track of all the moving parts, and after having gone over the prologue chapter like this I can tell it was a good idea. Fish Hook is not a long game by visual novel standards but it’s still a lot of text and story beats to memorise, and especially the characters themselves have developed further over the course of many months.

Instead of focusing on the artistic qualities of the prose I have mostly been focusing on intent, both in terms of what I as an author am trying to communicate to the reader, and what the characters themselves are trying to convey with their lines. I also want to work on the overall structure, pacing and the actual plot points that need to be in the story. Rather than being the first round of edits proper, it’s instead a little step back to see what I have have written out so far and what I still have left.

January is going to be a big transition stage in my life as I try to get used to my life in a new place and starting preparations for the next doctoral candidate application process. I’ll probably write a lot or very little depending on how things go, but I would definitely like to launch the new Fish Hook website at the start of January, and also work on UI mock-ups. There’s also something Juri related I’ve been working on quietly for some time now, but I can’t make any promises on being able to deliver anytime soon. Just know there is Something coming at some point. …