Workload and process musings

[gs_silva]

I probably won't get to my daily comic today, because I'm working on Draft 3 of the book and I have a clear road ahead of me for a few pages, but it involves a lot of grinding, tedious touchup.

I say "a clear road ahead of me" because I want to say "my work cut out for me" but it seems like the meaning of that idiom changed while I wasn't looking. Now it seems to mean "to have extra work piled on." I want it to mean "to have a well-defined workload." Did it change over time, or am I misremembering?

There was a scene where Jon talks Maurice into coming with him to see his old team play. Jon was on the University soccer team, and he would've graduated already if he hadn't gotten injured, but several of his old teammates are still on the team. So they show up, and Jon's soccer buddies whisk him away, and Maurice ends up sitting on the bleachers with Ren where they have a philosophical discussion about sports that only two rural kids from Cow Country can have.

(Well, not really. I'd cut the dialogue way down before I removed the scene entirely.)

Now the soccer scene is gone, gone, and the scene preceding it, where Jon and Maurice are chatting, is still there, but now I'll rewrite it so instead of soccer, it leads them to writing novels.

We're still gonna write novels here! Novels about novelists is a time-honored tradition.

But I got sidelined by my mother needing help with this and that, and with my fatigue in general, which is very high today. I did a few things that wore me out. I'll need another day to recover. I don't have another day to recover.

I have some thoughts on tropes that I'd like to write out, but I should be drawing. Sometimes the tedious touchup is just the level of work I'm capable of, especially when everything else requires brainpower that I just don't have. But even at those times, it's exhausting. Only because I need to put a time limit on the amount of tedious work I do in one sitting, and I never do that.

Comments

[no_apologies]

Baseball cap young man who has played the White Falcon guitar, and the yellow and white Fender. That would be Koyuki! :) Fritz has a red and white guitar that's his most favorite one to play! He seems to hold a great deal of sentimental value towards it. This very guitar is on the art cover of our song, "Lowest of the Low."

Oh, I wish I had a Koyuki muse. I might gain one one after watching Beck again, lol. This character does have a girlfriend who is the biggest fan of the band. Maho is her name. She can sing, like popstar, but she doesn't wish to sing professionally! She's been more into filming.

[gs_silva]

Oh well, you get the muses you get! If your Koyuki muse comes along, so be it. He can hang out with Maurice and trigger Maurice's inferiority complex. :D

(I'm half kidding. My characters put a lot of work into accepting their own mediocrity. I know it's more common to imagine characters who are actually good at things, but my aliens aim to serve as inspiration for the rest of us. lol.)

I have a character guide somewhere, but I'll just quickly introduce you to the folks who chose me. They're not all on muse duty all the time, but altogether they cover a lot of human experience.

There's Christine, who grew up in a fundamentalist Christian family and was trying to fit the role of demure, godly, family-oriented wife/mother material. But she failed spectacularly. She's 6' tall and an intellectual powerhouse, and so she decided to throw caution to the wind and embrace being a pansexual AND a woman doctor!! Her family is reluctantly supportive, sometimes. Her alien friends think she's the nicest and mildest mannered among them. Christine herself is sure she's going to hell in a handbasket.

There's Ella, not as academically inclined but a self-appointed bosslady and master of sarcasm. She's Christine's girlfriend and is also ARO/ACE and as a muse she has a lot to say.

There's Ren, Christine's boyfriend and Maurice's 'brother'. Ren is 2 years younger than Maurice and 15" taller. He started as a jovial best friend archetype but he got complicated.

Jon, my jock and Ella's big brother. He's the oldest and would be in charge but he's in too much chronic pain. He was Maurice's employer in Book 1.

Cathy! Weird French girl who aspires to be an artist, but who isn't good at anything. Not even language learning. She pretends she knows what's going on, but usually she doesn't.

And Maurice, of course. The child of immigrants who, with Ren, grew up in farm country and spends most of his time in culture shock. He knows a little French, less Vietnamese, and he subsists on a stubborn inability to say no to anyone in need. He's getting used to failing at everything, but soon he'll have to get used to success too.

[no_apologies]

That's quite a cast of OC's! Christine sounds like one of your favorites, other than Maurice. :)

I think I might have muses getting revived. If I can revive one of my Final Fantasy 12 muses... Ohohohoh, he'd be an amazing performer on Suno, I think! After all, Balthier likes to refer to himself as a leading man. xD He's a pirate type of character, who has a flying airship. He's partners with a lady who has big rabbit ears; Fran.

And there's Scara (my most fave character from the game Genshin Impact). I named him that in the game, which is short for Scaramouche. He doesn't go by that old name anymore, since that is associated with really, really horrible memories. He used to be involved with horrible crimes against humanity until he realized how terribly he had been manipulated and deceived. Very tragic backstory. :( I'd have to convince my old and very interesting Scara-muse to want to have a music career of any kind, or whatever. :) Maybe he'll have a place to just vent.

[gs_silva]

Scara-muse, haha! Will he hate that too, though?

[no_apologies]

I'll wait until I approach Scara.

Balthier however is going in on this in stride, with swagger! lol. It's going to be a classy, snappy, catchy hip hop introduction song in his POV.

Lyrics snippet;

[Verse 2]
I used to wear a uniform.
They called it perfect order.
I saw the strings attached,
Crossing the world's wide borders.

As the pompous fools commanded,
I chose to cut the lanyard.
Turned my back on ruthless glory,
For a life freer and skyward

Now my pursuits are simpler.
I seek the kind of magic,
That glows bright among ruins,
Not in that palace--too tragic.

And through every close call,
Every dodge, and risky flight,
Fran, brave and bold co-pilot
Always keeps the bearing right

[Pre-Chorus]
I don't follow signs,
I write destination
Won't need a map
Running on imagination

I've got my eye on fortune--that sweet sensation
Now watch me escape this tired Ivalice station.

[Chorus]
I'm the leading man!
No, you can't deny it.
I'm the leading man!
The one who's firin' it

I'm the leading man!
No one can ground me.
I'm the leading man!
No other role I'd be.