Welcome to my update article for Summer 2024. It is an overview of the work I’ve done, projects I finished, and any other interesting developments during the months of July, August and September 2024. Let’s see how it went!
Weren’t you going to take a vacation?
Yes. I’ve basically worked non-stop for 10–15 years, where exercising to combat my chronic illness is also considered work, so I was really feeling the need for a holiday at this point.
And I did! Sort of. You know me.
I felt so tired after my last sprint to finish the Saga of Life translations, all 95% finished board games, and Wildebyte books until #10. So tired, in fact, that I didn’t make it all the way. I just couldn’t, all my energy and inspiration depleted, so I decided not to push it and take a break right then and there.
This meant that, when Summer rolled around,
- Some ~4 translations and ~2 editing rounds were left “in progress” for the Saga of Life
- And Wildebyte books #9 and #10 were only “started”
- But I did manage to finish all other “open projects” completely.
The final week of June and the first few weeks of July, I “took a break”.
I focused mostly on getting exercise, going outside, getting a good night’s sleep, getting rid of some bad eating habits I’d developed. Whatever time remained, I still did stuff, just not something with a deadline or high expectations or whatever.
This time obviously coincides with the “summer break” or “holiday” of those around me. So this entire period was bit more wishy-washy, sometimes randomly going to the beach, or deleting my planning for the entire day just because the sun was shining and someone invited me to a pingpong battle.
The pace of progress was simply much slower and less “forced”, but I still did something almost every day.
Writing
After taking a break from writing—I just couldn’t stand reading more words after writing, editing and translating hundreds of thousands of them—I picked up the pace again.
That’s the thing. I know that it will return. I know that this feeling of “ugh I can’t read another WORD” is just because I’m tired and have been writing too much. If I step away for a few weeks, slowly the feeling disappears and is replaced by that other feeling of “I have a story idea! I have a story idea! Let’s write it.”
I felt comfortable not doing any writing work for several weeks, because I knew I’d return eventually and stay far ahead of the deadlines.
What did I do?
- Saga of Life: Finished translations for Cycle #2 + Finished the entire Cycle #3 ( = “new stories”) + Some planning for Cycle #4 (next year)
- Wildebyte: Books 9, 10, 11
- Contests: I participated in some small writing contests again. I’d already finished most of those stories, though, just needed to revise once and then send before the deadline. Not sure if I can count this.
- Other: some random other projects. I’d planned to release one standalone novel this year, something completely different and unrelated to my recurring short story projects. I probably won’t make that deadline, but I still itched to do something else and write about some other ideas of mine.
- As such, it’s so vague at this point that I can’t give any more details or explanation :p
- Just some ideas for fantasy or sci-fi novels, probably not a series but just a one-off idea for a single full length book.
Last season, the Saga of Life was simply in a rough spot. I was so far behind on translations (the entirety of cycle #2) that I had too much catching up to do, which is part of the reason why I took my break early. Now that we’re fully caught up, all future work on the project should be far more smooth and less stressful.
Additionally, I vowed to keep stories shorter again. I went over my maximum word limit a bit too often in this cycle, trying to do too much. Like cramming an entire novel into 15,000 words. No, the Saga should really just be self-contained fairy tales or myths, focused one one particular idea or historical event and nothing else.
Games
During my “break”, I mostly made board games. A lot of them, actually, but they were all “similar” in important ways (which means less work per project if I make them all at the same time). I also made a few of them for special occasions, such as a birthday, which always provides a nice target and helps me just “make something fun, don’t worry about quality”.
I’m so far ahead on my board games planning, though, that I scaled back my efforts here. I made a few more small ones, but I really shouldn’t be putting my time there. I’ve already finished games planned to release in 2026!
Time and time again, I learn that I’m just a very physical person (preferring board games over video games) and a social person (preferring playing with/against others in the same room over playing alone). Even though I’ll probably never make money or be successful with all that board game work, I keep coming back to it and making idea after idea. I just have such a long list of things that “should exist”, that I never seem to stop trying to execute a few of them.
Of course, the fact that I have all these systems set up, and board games need far less work and moving parts than video games, also makes this “quicker”.
So, what about video games?
I’m still restricted in what I can do, technically speaking. I’ll talk about the details of this more in-depth at the end.
So I made a few tiny web games, just to get some ideas out there and to keep that “video game development” muscle strong. When this update releases, I’ll probably have released the first one or two on my Pandaqi website. Because they’re so small, I don’t give them individual pages or marketing. I decided to just have a single “web games” page with a clear grid/overview where you can pick the one that looks fun.
Some were made in one evening. Some in a week, or over the course of several evenings. Some don’t even have a menu. But all of them are ideas I thought were simple to create and should be fun for at least a few minutes.
If some of them turn out really good, I can always improve them later. For example, add a global highscore table (instead of only comparing highscores against yourself), add a proper level selection, etcetera. But as I just said: I consider that “aaalll the extra work around the actual game”, so if it’s just a tiny web game, I have no motivation to add loads of “niceties” around it.
At some point in the future, when I’ve caught up with my other ideas and have the technology/situation for it, I have a few really big and strong video game ideas that will receive the full treatment and hopefully sell for like 20 dollars.
Music
I’ve said several times that I am really a musician, first and foremost. But health issues make it hard to play an instrument or sing consistently in general. And now, for years, my parents have been renovating the house. This means no place, no privacy, noise everywhere, etcetera.
I basically wrote off recording any music any time soon. My last attempt, recording 4 or 5 EPs in half a year, was two years ago now. And I haven’t set up a microphone or attempted anything since.
I’m a bit older now, though, and gained more experience and insight. I’ve lost the idea of wanting to become a musician by trade. To earn my income from it, play live concerts, etcetera.
It’s just never going to happen with my health issues, that’s the reality of it. It’s also just never going to vibe with my general hyperactive, hypercreative mindset. I can barely sit still behind a piano long enough to finish a few songs!
Similarly, my general style is more aimed at acoustic songs, singer-songwriter stuff. With those EPs, I increasingly tried to make them band songs. To add a full arrangement, to make them bigger or fuller or whatever. Listening back to them now, two years later, I feel both good and bad about it.
- Good because everything I put out sounds fine. Not amazing, but also not as terrible as I thought it was at the time.
- Bad because it was just a waste of time approaching my songs in that way, and I actively made things worse by going against my natural voice, style, workflow, etcetera.
Instead, I did what I should have done at the start.
Just place a microphone in a somewhat silent room, record a few takes, go on with my day.
At some point, there will be a great take. There will be enough great takes that I can combine them into something that sounds good and communicates the song idea I had. Then I can put that out into the world.
I’ve learned a lot from trying to record, edit and mix over 50 songs now. I know what kind of background noise actually matters, and what kind is fine. I know when to use many layers or voices, or when to just keep it simple. I know no amount of editing will fix a vocal take that was lackluster to start with. I know that my voice, my way of playing guitar, everything was perfected over 20 years of playing live music—I get way better takes if I just do the full song live a few times, than if I record with headphones on, or record stuff piece-by-piece.
So that’s what I did. I have a backlog of nearly 500 song ideas, of which I’d call 50% actually really good (or at least promising). This way, I can actually release those songs to the world and get them finished, without taking too much time or stressing me out.
No deadlines or promises here. Music will appear, at some point, in some shape or form.
“Okay,” you might think now, “what IS supposed to be your income then?”
I’ve basically put it all on writing. It was on video games first, because it had made me the most money so far. But after not being able to make one for years, of course, that has dried up. It’s now being surpassed by my writing, as I slowly but surely sell some books once in a while. With loads more books coming out, and hopefully more recognition or more avenues through which people can stumble upon me, I hope this goes up and up until it’s a stable income.
Yes, I earn a few cents in advertisments or donations, I earn a few cents from streams of my music, etcetera. It’s not even enough to let the tax agency know about it, so I’m not expecting anything from that.
Writing is the one thing that people still pay for, generally. (It feels idiotic to say this, but that’s just how the world works at this point in time. People devalue art, to the point they’re mad if they have to pay anything to get it, especially if it’s something digital like a video game.) Writing is the thing I can always do, no matter how bad my chronic health issues get, no matter how slow my computer is. Writing also simply helps me think, so even on a terrible non-working day I’m probably writing a thousand words in a diary or a developer log.
Also, remember what I said in a previous article. Running your own business will become a lot harder and more expensive in a few years (in the Netherlands). I have basically planned everything around that deadline, making sure I finish whatever I have started (such as the entire Wildebyte series). If I’ve put out 50 books and still can’t earn a living wage from anything related to it, well, then it’s just time to move on and do something else.
The current situation
So, my parents are renovating the house.
They have been doing so for years now. Why? Because my parents refuse to tell the builders to actually do their job or keep their promises. You can guess my opinion on the matter, but that’s irrelevant, as it’s not my home, nor my money, nor my project. Long story short: we have no clue when they arrive, if they will even do anything, and lots of things are simply not done according to plan. It might be another year (or 5) until they finish, and all that time I live in uncertainty, in a situation similar to camping.
I am regularly moved to a different space, if you can call it “space” at all. My stuff is similarly moved around or just kicked aside, always at risk of damage. I often sleep badly because I am woken up by the noise, or dust falling on my head from the ceiling.
(And no, I can’t go to bed earlier, because as I said: the builders do whatever the fuck they please, so sometimes they keep drilling until 11 o’clock at night. My parents know everyone wants them to speak up and take control, but they refuse. Arguments include the fear that this would make the builders angry and lead to “worse quality of work”. Sure, they just installed all the electrical sockets in the wrong locations, their quality of work is great at the moment!)
At the start of this year, for example, it was so bad that I almost did not sleep for two months. Until I was finally allowed to sleep in a different room and the builders moved to a different part of the process. Unsurprisingly, I was sick for months afterward, despite basically not being ill for almost ten years.
Sometimes builders suddenly break stuff or drill into metal pipes near me, giving me a jump scare and forcing me to immediately walk away or risk hearing damage.
This is not conducive to health or productivity, of course.
At the same time, I have been working my ass off for years. I’m actually not that tired mentally—thanks, hyperactive brain—but I am in a worse and worse state physically. Slowly but surely, all my options for exercise, fresh air, natural light in my room have vanished. The consequence, of course, is that I can’t keep my chronic illness at bay and I get fat and weak.
And I’ve been reluctant to move against this or find alternatives (again, and again). Because I was busy working all day, occupied by that, and any alternative I organized would be made undone in two weeks. (You have no idea how many different objects I bought for exercise or changes I made to my daily routine, time and time again, to try and get back to my previous level of health. Only for the renovation to render it obsolete, or my mother to simply forbid or block it.)
That’s another reason why I took the break or “semi-holiday”. I needed to reevaluate all my habits and my approach to, well, daily life.
- I’ve been productive enough. Instead of starting each day by jumping into my most important work task, start each day by exercising.
- I’ve mostly been exercising my legs and entire body the past years (not by choice, by circumstance). But my chronic injury is actually in my back and shoulders, making it hard for me to even lift a glass of water without training my arm muscles. So, I created better habits and routines to actually train my upper body (mostly).
- Let it go, let it go :p As mentioned several times in this article, I’ve just moved to less important projects for the time being. Casually do a few things every day. Don’t expect to be able to do anything, or to deliver good work, or to have a silent room for recording. I’m so far ahead of schedule that I can manage a few months, maybe even half a year, of the bare minimum.
Once this is all over, I can take new steps. Buy a good computer and place it in a permanent space (that will not be destroyed by builders or risk other damage). Hopefully earn enough income then to move out of the house. Manage to install more tools for regular exercise and training again.
I had a pull-up bar for years, which I used daily and was great for my back strength. Until it was removed, of course, for the renovation. And not allowed to be placed back because now “the new door frames need to stay pretty”.
There are always very simple things you can add to your environment to greatly aid your mental and physical health. No need for expensive stuff, no need for big changes, just small good habits. Unfortunately, the current situation made all of those impossible. If it was just a few months, fine. But it’s been years now and I am getting fat and slow :p
An update within an update
I wrote most of this update during the summer (as I actually did these things), and “finished” it a few weeks before the actual end of the summer. Because I expected all of it to still be true and that I’d just slowly take a break and finish the final projects.
Everything in this update article is still true, that’s not the problem.
Buuuut nothing is as surprising as my brain, apparently, with my complete disregard for anything close to structure or planning.
What did I do? The final weeks of summer, without planning for it or having it on the schedule in any way, I …
- Participated in 7 game jams. (Those are “contests” where you have to make a video game around a theme or restriction, usually within just 2 or 3 days.) Yes, this means I made 8 tiny video games in a very short timespan. Learned a lot, a bit stressful, some of them turned out quite good.
- Wrote that standalone novel. It wasn’t actually the novel I’d planned to write. It was another idea that just kind of happened, and, as always, grew longer than anticipated, until it was solid enough for an entire novel and proper release. You’ll see this released around November, probably.
- Created an entire extra series of board games. I just had a really, really good idea for a core mechanic. Which means it could be used in many different ways, spawning 7 unique games (within the same “collection”, so to speak). I decided to just make them all. After all this time, my Pandaqi system for generating the material is really solid and easy to use, and I feel that after 50+ games I can rely on experience to get to a working game quickly.
- Recording music still isn’t really working. I set the bar low; it still couldn’t be met during the messy renovations. Too much noise, too little space, I don’t even have enough space to place a chair let alone place a mic and hold a guitar. Nor do I have a door. Fine, fine, the time will come.
Yes, this also means I didn’t fully meet some of the other deadlines. But I’m so far ahead of schedule that I can just move stuff back by a month, or two, or six, and it’s fine.
I also think this was some of the best work I ever did. So that’s a general sign that it’s good to just follow your flow/gut/“what motivates me today” sometimes, even if it flies in the face of general wisdom about what’s good planning, structure or productivity practice.
I realized a few more things about how I want to approach my (video) games in the future. As I hinted at during that section, I’ve basically conceded that I’m not a typical developer or gamer. I will probably never be able to earn an income from making video games, because the types of games I’d want to make are hard to sell and have a small market in general. And trying to force the issue only made all my games worse and made me demotivated to even work on them anymore.
There’s a good chance I’ll make a lot more tiny video games. But they’ll be tiny, local multiplayer fun for parties or families, probably free, and never intended to be anything else.
Conclusion
As expected, Summer is the slowest period of all. I took a little break, I reevaluated my habits and daily routines, and I slowly did some things.
I guess my main goals were 1) to rest and recharge; 2) to actually do something different than writing and making a print-n-play board game. To diversify my habits and workload, at least for a few months of summer break.
I mostly succeeded there. It’s hard to break habits and form new ones, especially in my current circumstances. It’s hard not to fall back on “oh but I need to be productive, and doing a few random takes of a song is not going to earn me income!!”, so you jump into writing again, even though you’re sick of writing another 5,000 words.
I guess that’s the very positive way to look at all this: my circumstances force me to be flexible and change all the time. It’s easier to break habits and try new routines if you literally have to break your routine and move around to new rooms every few weeks. Other writers usually have their favorite spot, favorite time of day, favorite software, favorite sitting position, etcetera. I can’t even fix one variable, let alone all of them, which makes it easier to jump around and try different tasks.
Hopefully, we can now get back to regular programming. In a more healthy, well-rested way. (This probably means already starting on the next cycle of Saga, the next 5 Wildebyte books, and some standalone diverse projects.)
Until the next update,
Tiamo