A Year in Foresight

Hey friendos! I’m back, rested, and ready to roll. 2024 has officially started up again and I want to talk a little about my plans for this year.

How Am I Doing?

Better! I took some time to rest up and process my thoughts. I played the same game for a week straight until I saw the particle effects move even with my eyes closed. We also had friends over at our house to celebrate late new years/housewarming. (We moved in February 2023.) It was nice! December made me a bit melancholic I think, and it came with some confronting introspection. Having a casual social call and mindless hobby time is tantamount to giving those thoughts space to settle.

Mind funnel clogged by introspection. — A small, unnecessary visual demonstration of the aforementioned metaphor.

I like to think of my brain as a funnel. Casual contact, playtime, exercise, and relaxation are liquid. They easily slide through the hole. Introspection and confrontation are big chunks of dry material. You can try to mash them through by force, but at some point, the hole will get plugged. Liquid will help them pass. For me, the funnel works best if I periodically take some chunks of introspection and help it pass with a lot of liquid alone time.

OK, that sounded better in my head.

What Am I Doing?

Last year I already started planning a significant chunk of 2024. The initial planning was… ambitious. Considering I want to focus on my health and keep my working hours below a certain threshold, ambitious means unrealistic.

The Initial Plan

My intention was as follows: I write a bunch of New to Narrative articles and let that determine the pace of the planning. These articles are the foundation of my content. The subject matter. So, I wrote a bunch of articles, and that actually went super fast. The articles practically wrote themself. I started writing in October, and finished 4 of them by the end of November.

So, I set the pace at 2 articles per month. That would net me 6 articles before January, which is when I wanted to start publishing them. By May, I would have published a total of 10 articles. Then, I also wanted to record videos of those articles so I could publish them on YouTube, for people who prefer learning like that and as a potential additional income stream. I would alternate publishing articles and videos of said articles, so that’s 2 videos per month.

Well, we’re in January now and I still only have those 4 articles and a single video that’s only half finished. So, what gives?

Change of Direction

The main factor that changed my output is the full-length New to Narrative videos. They take a lot of time and effort. It’s crazy really. I understand why YouTubers hire editors now. Not only do I have to cut 30 minutes of raw footage for pacing and mistakes, I also have to create educational graphs, time on-screen text, collect relevant gameplay footage, add sound effects, and edit in jump-cuts for a laugh here and there.

While doing all that, naturally the output of my articles had also decreased. I do intend to make these videos and write these articles, and I intend to make them good. But doing 2 per month is not nearly as viable as I had hoped. So, I shifted my focus. You see, my main goal is still to get stuff out there. I want people to see the stuff I’m making. If I sit on a video for 2 months, waiting patiently for it to hatch, chances are I won’t be able to do that for very long.

Gif of a Mad Max: Fury Road's war boy shouting witness me. — Not sure if equating myself to a War Boy on a suicide mission is healthy, but here we are.

So, as some of you know, I started making more frequent, serialized content. I have a vlog now, and this newsletter of course. I’ve also started making some smaller, easier videos to get my name out there. Right now, I’m working on a series of tiny case studies of interesting narrative mechanics in a wide variety of games, for example. But how is more work going to fix my problem?

The New Plan

Well, this new, serialized content, is a lot faster to make. It allows me to spread my time over multiple projects each week, so I don’t lose interest. I also get a lot more feedback and comments from all of you, which keeps me motivated! So without further ado here are my new, more realistic plans for 2024, in order of priority.

🏕️ First and foremost, try to keep our Discord community alive.
🗼 Travel to South Korea and Japan for 6 weeks.
🗞️ Keep writing this newsletter every week, with few exceptions.
📜Publish a total of 8 New to Narrative articles this year.
📽️ Publish a total of 4 New to Narrative videos this year.
🐨 Create a Demo for Clysmoids, but not sure of the scope yet.
🤳 Publish deVlog every 2 to 4 weeks. At least once a month.
💼 Found a company and all the paperwork that entails.

That’s still a pretty ambitious list! Just as a reference, my previous planning had 10 articles and videos before May. Now I have less of those planned and spread out over the entire year. With my new schedule, I still have time to work on the bigger projects, but progress will be piecemeal. I think making 1 full-length video per season is very doable, while doing all the other stuff in the meantime.

Why Am I Doing? (this)

If I’ve learned anything, it’s to be flexible with my time, so everything here is open to change. I even lowered all the numbers a couple of times already while writing this newsletter. That being said, I think it’s nice to have a clear goal as a guiding star. I’m completely aware of the chance that I won’t be able to achieve any of this, and I’m also OK with that!

The thing is, if everything goes according to plan, I’m given the chance to do what I want for at least a year. This is a list I can look at and go: “Yeah, that’s what I want to do this year.” That’s pretty rad! I hope you have some cool stuff this year too.