Time does heal

Things have been moving along in the past few weeks. Although it's been only a month since that final day, I am going through a better phase now. Yesterday was exactly one month since my mom passed away, and even though this is probably the most amount of time I have ever spent in my life not talking to her face to face, I still talk to her from time to time anyway. Maybe she hears everything I have to say, maybe she doesn't, but it makes me feel better anyway. So I'll keep doing it :) 

I have made progress with the visual novel as you have all seen and I would hope that we can get Chapter 4 out before Christmas, like a present for all of you who are supporting me. Unfortunately, I can't continue putting more money into animation for the illustrations. They just cost too much. I would love to animate everything, honestly, I'd love nothing more than to animate the entire story, but I don't have the funds for that. If the Patreon support grows, I do plan on offering at least one animated illustration per chapter. Wouldn't that be cool? :) I think the story would also get a better sense. Speaking of the story, I do want to point out that once the story is completely out, it would be best to re-read it from the start. My visual novel isn't one in the traditional sense. Since it's kinetic, it reads more like a physical book so I recommend going back and enjoying it more fluently. I do hope that by that time the animation would also become a reality and that everything would look a lot better. We will have to see.

As for me personally, I am feeling better. I think that because I had a great relationship with my mom and I made it a point to talk to her about everything and not let anything go unsaid, I can go through this time a bit easier than I had expected. I do have some days where I hate the world and everything in it, but those moods aren't as prevalent as they were a month ago. Things are stabilizing for me and I am glad for that. 

I always knew that going into writing visual novels full-time isn't the greatest idea and combining that with my mom's situation, well...things are starting to push back financially. So I got a part-time job as an assistant for a photographer just to do something with my time and earn something to cover some costs. I don't want to go back to full-time work yet. I still believe I can do more in the Visual Novel world to give up so soon. A full-time job would mean not being able to focus my energy on Light My Way and future projects. I don't want to abandon that plan yet. I hope I won't even have to, but it's a sensible choice to get some sort of financial help somehow, so a part-time job should do the trick. 

You may have all seen the sticker giveaway. I had hoped that more people would participate, but at the same time, with the amount of competition out there not only from other visual novels that are "more visually stimulating", but from practically the internet itself, it must be difficult to pay attention to my tiny giveaway. It would still help me a lot if you could share it on some social media platforms. I don't have the energy now to start posting every day on Twitter or Bluesky or wherever to grow my audience. I'm better, yes. But I am not out of the woods yet. So instead of ignoring feelings and trying to jump into stressful and taxing situations, I want to take the time to properly grieve and get through all the feelings I have now, rather than later when everything might blow up in my face. 

Things are going well though. I even made progress with the end of the story. I know I said a while ago that I figured out a line I wanted to take. It has a lot of loose ends and I felt like I was stretching the narrative and making the main plot take a sideline for the fluff...I didn't like that. I don't mean to dunk on other creators, but for me, when a story starts growing considerably and repeats the beats we have already been through, I lose interest. Quantity might be cute, but if it doesn't engage me, if it doesn't offer something fresh, what's the point of it? More words for the sake of words? To write on Twitter that this or that update has x thousands of words? As if that's an indicator of quality? Anyway, I made a post-it board with everything I wanted to achieve by the end of the story. I had some pretty good ideas I would say and it should be a treat visually if we get to produce it how I imagine it, or close to that. 

I'm adding the devlog entry here in case some of you didn't see it: https://batstudios47.itch.io/lightmyway/devlog/648499/first-giveaway

Feel free to help me out by promoting it :)

I'm going to upload some new pictures in the Etsy shop soon together with everything that I have to offer. Maybe there will be growing interest in some merchandise if the novel starts getting some traction in various circles. I do hope to get more than one chapter ready per month in the future. I want to create more projects. Light My Way is just the start. 

As always thank you for your support. It means a lot to me, especially during these times when honestly...Light My Way was the one thing that kept me sane and going. And that's also because I have some people who believe enough in my story and are willing to support it. Thanks for that. I mean it.

See you in Stradia!

- Hadrian Maximus