Getting organized.

It's been brought to my attention that I am incredibly disorganized! So I've been getting intentional about making lists and flow charts to make sure, as the game starts to come together into one long strand, that everything is accounted for. So I started a new document where I laid down the entire story, highlighted by themes and subplots, to make sure the colors were well-spaced, well-represented, and resolved.

I say the game is "story-based," and I would like to think I am correct. After doing this particular activity, part of me worries that I'm trying to cram too many subplots into a 4-hour package. Then again, some of them are optional or possibly subtle enough for some of the first beats to fly under the radar. I don't see a ton of replayability in Rorasuketo for the casual player; the explorer type might want to have another go or two to try other friend or story options. So I think it will be good to intertwine a variety of threads! I'm happy to say that the color-coding does indeed look satisfactory to me.

When I draw comics, I tend to have a story arc and a variety of ideas floating around in my head. At least several scenes can play out with the detail of a movie, but I don't completely script or storyboard the entire thing before jumping into the final form. There's some improvisation. My latest comic, which reached a staggering (for me) 80-some pages, had plenty of inspired moments and surprises that I didn't originally plan. "Hey, maybe if I did the lighting this way, that would be cool," or "I could throw in a line of dialogue here" or "Why don't I do something weird with this next layout" or "Her usual outfit actually doesn't make sense here, so I am going to come up with a new one in five minutes." These are things that could have been planned out, and might actually be better planned out, but I do enjoy the process of exploring as I go. It also forces me to not toil, agonize, or overanalyze - my usual M.O. It's similar to how I like to travel: Knowing I'm taking a plane to a specific city, and being aware of a few of the interesting neighborhoods that are around, but letting my feet take me to different places day-to-day instead of following an itinerary. I find this process exciting and exhilarating. In my art, it keeps the joy of creation flowing between the drudgery of struggling to make my mediocre hand recreate the wonderful things I see in my head.

(In the episode of Hacking the Grepson that I visited, we talked about "the grind" and how some of us enjoy it, and others don't. I am not a person who is focused on the mechanical act of doing - "the grind." I live for the lightbulb moments and flurries of inspiration, and the rest is usually the means to an end.)

I'll be back soon with more art!