strange new ventures

The writing isn’t doing too well at the moment. I’m still working on the WIPs, especially Project 23’s opening chapters. But the process is slow, and it’s reached a point that it’s become physically pain to work through it. Perhaps I have reached a certain burn out when writing. My day job, after all, has a lot of writing involved. So maybe I’m just sick of it. Even trying to record gameplay content for YouTube has stagnated, which was a real shame, since the latter half of last year and the first quarter of 2026 had been spectacular. But things happened.

So much things happened. And now I’m just exhausted all the time. However, two other good things happened. First, I learned one of my favorite YouTubers/streamers, who goes by the name CarlSagan42, has, due to certain diversions in his life, decided to go for game development. In one of his videos, he mentioned hoping to finish the gameplay by the end of the year and contacting artists for the art. It made me think, for a moment, hey, maybe it’s not that too late for me. I shrugged and moved on, thinking I’ll never get it into it.

Until a few weeks ago when one of my closest friends spoke to me about game development. We’ve always wanted to do one for years, since before we graduated college. It was awesome really that he hasn’t given up on the idea. We shared a few ideas and he casually threw in if it’s art I’d be struggling with, he could lend out a hand.

These was a wild coincidences because several months back I did download a game engine and an image editor and animation tool. And a couple of months before this, my kid wanted to draw and so I got Procreate for them.

Because after all of that, I finally said, sure, fine, let’s go. Let’s do it. I’m tired of seeing my ideas be executed by someone else anyway. I’ve never considered myself a smart person but I went for it. Studied programming language on my own, trying to make sense of things, pouring over online tutorials, going over discussions. And for the first time I opened the game engine I downloaded and gave it a thorough and serious look.

A few days after trying to learn, I started winging it. Every game idea I’ve had was ambitious and I’m not deluded enough I don’t have, probably will never have, the years required to build my skill up to that level. So, I’ve planned on something much simpler than I know I will enjoy for myself. A fast-paced platformer. To pull this off, I’ve decided to build small projects, each one would focus on the core gameplay ideas that I would need in that game.

After 13 hours in two hours, I pulled it off. I have a character that can move left, right, and jump. I added a dash, just because. Another seven hours, I managed to make moving platforms. Six hours, a checkpoint. Though the checkpoint is not 100% but it will do for now. I’ve added a collectible, but no counters yet. And the goalpost that says the level is completed.

Does it look good? Damn right it does. It severely lacks polish but all of it is working. And I feel confident in starting my first project and spectacularly fail at it. But before that, I learned through videos that maybe I can spend a few more time learning more things. So, this week I will try to recreate some games like Snake and Pong.

Jumping into this felt reinvigorating. Even when I sleep really late, I could get up really early as if I were back in college. It feels like I could pull several all nighters. I don’t know how long this is going to last, but in the meantime, I am very happy. And hopefully in due time, I’d be able to go back into writing with fresh insights and renewed energy.

tom yum

The wife made tom yum. A Thai soup.

It was delicious. And strangely, refreshing.

a little rain

It is raining again.

It had rained all week. The previous weekend the rain came, staying throughout the day, and the several days after. We’d have an hour or two with an overcast sky, and, if we’re lucky, get a glimpse of the sun. We’d think it’s over. The birds were chirping again and the ants have resumed their activities. Then, without warning, skies gloomed and the rain is on about once more.

Part of our ceiling is is covered in molds, and part of our walls have evidence of water slipping through. Our tiles are wet, from water leaking through the walls. While this is all bothersome on its own, I cannot help but think we still have it easier. Across towns and cities within our area, the floods have risen anywhere up to someone’s ankle or to a full-grown adult’s waist. Vehicles have been swept away across the streets, with the water high enough to swallow SUVs.

A couple of weeks ago, we had rejoiced at the completion of a particular roadwork. This route allowed us to navigate from high traffic at certain hours, but ever since the construction began, it became one of the worst places to pass through. Now that is is complete, and the rain started pouring in, it seemed the roadwork had caused more problems than fixing them. Firstly, the narrower roads leading to the inner parts of the area, were quick to flood. This was strange at first, because part of the roadwork is the repair and installation of the new canal system. Second, the road is now full of pot holes, and is worst than it was pre-construction.

This quick encounter brought back frustrating memories from a few years ago. Along our street, during a construction of a house, the contractors had accidentally destroyed the canal. Debris had blocked the already small waterways, and this resulted in flooding within our area. The ones responsible rebuilt it within the month. And still the water would not flow through. The reason, while the canal was restored, the blockage was left. It took community action for this to get fixed the right way.

Going back to the freshly rebuilt road with all the connecting roads to it, it’s easy to assume the same thing has happened here. Canals were blocked, whether intentionally or not. What do I mean intentionally? During the road construction, the canal leading to the actual sewage were walled off. The roadworks team would point out the waterworks is not part of their responsibility, and they have done their job. All the excess water from the floods and still water might have been leading contributors to rapid road degradation.

The city has seen worse, but if a small part of town is any indication, we can see how the problem starts: Mismanagement and neglect.

So far, there hasn’t been a flooding as severe as the past couple of years. The trajectory of the rain went elsewhere, focusing on other regions. But if the main cities have been hit harder, it won’t be a question if there would be public outcries or not. I continue to hope that at the end of this, we’d find a little sunshine. It may not happen in our lifetime. But it should be there, somewhere, as long as people keep looking for it.

Something, something, something…

It’s been a while, and I feel compelled to write something.

Lately, I find it exhausting to write. Excruciating and physically taxing. It is causing me physical pain. My mood has dampened because of this and I am not liking what I’m seeing in myself.

However, thankfully, I still find some comfort and joy in writing whatever I can. But it is minimal. Pain and distraught creep up on me before I even start writing, only disappearing when I find myself in the zone, and when I stop I feel that very same pain and distraught.

Perhaps it’s a combination of a lot of things. I’m still recovering from a personal ordeal from a couple of months ago, and things simply continue to pile up.

All the news about AI aren’t helping. AI and data centers, I feel, is something we, collectively, as creatives, would somehow find a way to navigate around and still succeed. It will be harder, but it won’t be impossible. But what drains my soul is all the AI witch hunts. Rising authors with lucrative book deals are being accused of using AI, which leads to publishers dropping the deal.

The use of em dashes continue to be considered red flags as AI use. And I keep hearing around even the use of semi colon, can be flagged, which is terrifying. The only ones who can get away in using them without getting accused are the established authors. It’s a real shame, I love em dashes. They serve a certain purpose that cannot be replicated by commas, and I do often use colons and semi colons when needed.

AI detectors are considered the gold standard for detecting AI in a written work, even though it’s been proven that it is not 100% reliable. Author Yaroslav Barsukov did a little experiment, where he used a detector to scan a text, twice with one change. The first scan claimed it was AI, and the second was a human. The only difference between them is the AI had an em dash, and the human was with a semi colon.

It’s starting to seem like whoever designed those AI detectors have a vendetta on em dashes. Again, they do have a specific function, and commas have another.

Then we hear about YouTube changing its policies, doubling the requirements to enter the partner program. Anyone who doesn’t have “it” will have to grind three times harder now than ever.

Everything is rough right now. And I have no idea how the future will be shaped. But I do feel that at some point in the future, once AI reaches a certain curve, it will begin to go down and stabilize, much like every other technology out there, and, best case scenario, there is still plenty of room for creatives to thrive.

cruising along

2026 snuck up on me. 

I will be fairly honest. Ever since Silksong came out, not a lot of writing has been done. No one is more frustrated about that than myself. Once again, I let myself down. However, the little light shining in this long dark tunnel, is how ever since Silksong, my YouTube channel has picked up. Somewhat. It started with a little cheese and that gained a ridiculous amount of traction that has helped propel the next couple of videos. 

So I focused on that for a while. Things seem to be going reasonably well. From Silksong, I’ve switched into Hollow Knight and am still working on that one. Things are just looking great but the grind has been exhausting. I’ve been uploading 2-3 Short videos a day. 

On top of this, February was a hectic and a painful month. Some things happened that we, in the family, wished never would have happened. And now many of us are in the process of learning how to cope and move on. It’s a scenario I wish I could talk more about. I did try to shape my thoughts into something comprehensible. I felt I needed that. In the end, the effort wasn’t worth it. Perhaps some day, I’ll be able to do so with great honor.

As for the writing projects, I left Project Saul at a pretty decent place. But after spending months away from it and coming back to check with fresh eyes, my thoughts about it have somewhat shifted toward something unsavory. So that’s something I’ll have to do in the future. However, and this is typical of me, I have started two new brand new-ish projects. Oh joy. 

It’s not absolutely brand new stuff. It’s just some of the oldest stuff I have in my shelf revisited. Granted, it didn’t start that way. And at some point while writing these two as a sort of getting back into writing, I realized maybe it’s best to look at some of my older stuff that I wanted to incorporate here. And so far, I like what’s shown up. These are projects TRO and 23. 

Project TRO has a number of chapters done already. It’s going to be big and chonk-y, just how I like my epic fantasies.

Project 23 has only one, so far. But most of the time I’ve spent here was more on worldbuilding. I might try working on an outline for this one as well. It’s a weird combination of old and new ideas and I’m just trying to make them work somehow.

Now, that’s the latest thing I have.

Here’s hoping 2026 would, somehow soon, become brighter.

still working on it

I did not meet my deadline in sending a complete draft to the alphas at the start of the month.

But Project Saul is moving along. Writing pace is slow going, but so far things are working. While writing this, some ideas for Saul 2 began to sizzle. So I’m in a hurry to get to that. Afterwards, I’ll move to the next big project under Empire.

As for Project Empire itself, it’s getting bigger and more stuffed than ever. I originally thought this would encompass only a few titles. But here we are. Too much ideas and too little action. I hope that changes soon.

The last couple of months had been surprisingly good for my writing. However, whatever fortune that graced me, has decided to slow down a bit. Lots of things changed. So I’m at some adjustment period. But I still consider my current position a great blessing as I get plenty of opportunities to keep writing my projects.

In any case, some story holes from Project Saul that have found resolution. New problems emerged but that’s fine for now, I suppose. The pace should speed up a little. I learned when there is something big enough to bother me while writing, there is nothing more I can do than power on and come back later. Maybe come back in little increments to patch one thing after another for a bit, until I’m ready to replace the whole roof.

Project Ash is moving, just very little. Along with this, a few new ideas began to form. These may become part of Project Empire but I don’t know. I may use these for a different story. Or it may become its own thing.

For now, I expect another 50,000 words by the end of the month for Project Saul.

good months

Not too long ago I went on a business trip to Paris.

Suffice to say it is one of my more memorable visits. Amazing city with awesome company. It felt a big call back to my earlier journalistic years when we’d travel around places with a much larger group. My first trip, back in 2012, was in Thailand, and there were over 20 journalists, and this company took us to interesting places. Alas, things change. Most companies would prefer to be with the presence of influencers, as if traditional media back in its heyday weren’t “influencers” (part of the change).

Paris, in its own big way, overwhelmed me. It is a huge place. The buildings are enormous and their personalities even bigger. We passed by the Notre Dame, the Louvre — though we did not get to explore it — we saw the Eiffel up close, joined a cruise across the Seine, and enjoyed a show of at Moulin Rouge.

I also went home with a bag full of flavored butter: Truffles, citrus, salted, and a couple more we have yet to try yet. We’ve used them to make toast and steak and the texture turned out to be quite interesting.

These past couple of months seemed to have been full of blessings. Earlier in the year, on a different business trip, I stepped into Barcelona and gawked at the Sagrada Familia, the sheer immensity of it blew my brains out. Like, wow, just incredible.

And then last year, we went Munich, though specifically we traveled a bit farther to a place called Aalen, where it was peaceful and quiet. Then on our last day we experienced Oktoberfest. Like, wow. I was not prepared.

A few days after that, Japan, though this time, it was a personal trip with the family. We roamed Tokyo, ate at smaller places where the food was incredible — it’s like, no matter where you go, be it featured in social media or not, you can do no wrong here — got to see a bit of Mt. Fuji, toured at Nara, took the Shinkansen to Osaka and had a picture taken with the Glico Man.

… I miss the trains in Japan…

Earlier last year, we went to Shanghai. Though it was not my first visit there, this was the first where we got around the city a bit. Our generous host took us to excellent places to dine at.

So yes, it’s been a good couple of months. I can hardly complain about anything at all.

I think it’s been really good for all my writing as well. Project Saul is making strides. A couple of plot issues got in a way but once resolved the gears have started pumping again with speed. Though not as fast when I first felt that momentum. Project Ash as well, I think, has found some kind of better footing. But compared to Saul, this book has fallen a few steps behind. I do still anticipate completing the both of them with a small gap. Meaning, I suppose, I have intentions of publishing two books as my debut, if things go as planned, which rarely happens, if at all.

And as things are getting good, here’s to having a good couple of months ahead, good years, and good years.

Hope you guys have good ones too.

some progress

Progress! More or less.

Project Saul is going strong. There were times when I had to stop writing for days. More often because of some new game I have with me. First there was Khazan, and now, of course, what else? No, not Doom. Clair Obscur. Wonderful game.  

But yes, Project Saul is, in what I like to think, is on the right path. I did stagger because a major plotline is not working. Now I think I’ve come with something with a just enough reason. I keep telling myself, Project Saul is a very character-driven book, so any reason to just keep the ball moving, is as good as any reason. Maybe that works. Maybe it doesn’t. 

Being written alongside Project Saul is Project Ash. I’ve had this story since 2011. I started from scratch, then I found the original draft, thought that was better, worked on that, later I thought that was a bad draft, so I went back to the scratch draft, then I felt that was bad as well, and so I started another new draft, and now I’m stuck with an amalgamation of all drafts combined into one. I think this is bad as well. I’m still figuring it out. I have all my versions of the beginning, leading up to the middle and the end I’ve envisioned since 2011. So that much hasn’t changed at least.  

Working on these two side-by-side is an interesting experience. Both are so different from each other. If I had to spend too much time on one, I’dlose my mind. It’s what happened with Project Ghostsword. Although, the main problem with Ghostsword is how its magic system, a system I came up with since 2008, has something very similar to an incredibly popular book series by an incredibly popular author. If I change the whole magic system, I’d probably be changing about 30% of the entire series, so not a big loss. But still a big pain to through. Only if I’ve written this in 2008 and finished it in 2009 or early 2010.  

I mean, I’ve read a popular indie author, who got compared to Sanderson for using “Mistborn” mechanics. Then there’s another indie author, who got compared endlessly with Sanderson for using the word “light” and having a seemingly evil organization working in the shadows. And Ghostsword uses a lot of “light.” So, yeah, I’m not going to put myself through that. I might as well just dismantle the entire magic system if I were to keep on writing Ghostsword today.  

But alas, my heart belongs to both Saul and Ash. These books are projected to be 120,000 to 150,000 words each. They’re making good progress. Ash is a dark fantasy story. Saul on the other hand, while also dark, is somewhat lighter at the very least. And it helps that I jump between the two to always keep myself refreshed.  

This week, I’ll focus on Saul. Most of its chapters are around 5,000 to 9,000 words long. That’s too much. I’ve spent some time trimming them down, but there’s more work to be done.

Saul was a project where I kind of just went all out with writing, which I think is the reason of the large word count per chapter. What’s funny, upon checking them just now, those 5,000 to 9,000 words are actually per scene. So, you’ve got a chapter with the length of a short novella.  

So, yeah. That’s not going to do. Word count is going down. Hopefully somewhere 3,000 to 4,000.  

Ash’s word count per chapter is around 3,000.  

At this rate, I am planning to release these two books at the same time. At the very least, maybe a few months apart. Then, I’ll decide which of them would be my contender for the next SPFBO.  

Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Got to finish these two first. 

refresh

For the past month and much of April, most of my energy has been spent on YouTube.

The first week of me uploading stuff had been a frenzy. I just uploaded one or two on the same day and just let things go. I had been getting a lot of views on some videos, mainly the tech stuff from the Mobile World Congress at Barcelona, so, I supposed that helped add fire to my motivation to restart my YouTube channel.

I also received a notification from YouTube that my channel is seven years old. Wild. I wish I’d been active all those time. (Also weirdly, today is the 10th anniversary of my favorite — everyone’s favorite — Mario content creator, Ryukahr.)

It’s been a blast so far. Now that things have started to stabilize a bit, I’ll be uploading at a more reasonable pace: Two or three videos a week. It is mostly gameplay for Super Mario Maker 2 with some random stuff in between. I’m not expecting a lot of growth since general interest for Mario Maker 2 has waned. But that’s something I suppose will change with Mario Maker 3 and that would be a time to make the most out of it.

Ugh. Mario Maker 3. Nintendo Switch 2. What the hell. Look, I can get behind the price up for the Switch 2. On paper, if I recall, it’s as powerful as a PS4, and if you count for inflation, well, sure, I guess, whatever. But the increase of price for the games? That’s a big ouch. If Nintendo throws in free DLCs — and by DLCs, I mean nice big stuff — along the way, then maybe just maybe their price increase may be justified. But it sucks so bad that when you buy a game physically, all you’re getting are game codes. It sucks. It sucks so bad. Then the price increase? Come on.

I have played that Khazan game and it is whooping my ass. Really fun game though. I have nothing much to add besides that.

Also, have you guys watched the Devil May Cry series yet? I have mixed feelings but the general feeling from everywhere else seems… troubled.

Also, I had a tooth extraction! Ouch!

So yes, I should say, for the entirety of March and half of April, it’s been a big refresh for me. I had worried that I might lost some edge. It’s happened in the past, where I don’t write some time, I come back feeling really dumb and unsure how to proceed. Thankfully, that wasn’t the case this time as I came back writing at full speed. In fact, the time spent away with Project Saul seems to have been a very good thing as solutions to certain plot hurdles have been discovered. They are not great solutions but passable enough. I’ll come up with something better during edits.

For now, I’ll continue dancing between writing and uploading stuff.

a wild charge

The writing 

The current WIP codenamed Saul, the first phase of Project Empire, has gone much smoother than expected. 

I’ve recently hit over 40,000 words. These are words where I am very happy with. Of course, this is still the pre-draft, where I am only exploring the story and see how to shape it. I can see this project hitting a word count around 100,000 to 120,000. But it could go over 140,000 words.  

I’m looking at Fonda Lee’s Green Bone Saga, China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station, and NK Jemisin’s Broken Earth as inspirations.  

Saul is a looking to be a big book. But I don’t want it to be chonky. I’m aiming for the book to be fast-paced but still rich in details and story.  

I think I’m failing in that regard.  

The Channel 

I think I’ll be firing up my YouTube channel again. I’ve been thinking long and hard if the effort is worth it. Then I ordered a new capture card and I guess I am doing this.  

I’m sad by the state on how I left the channel years ago. The algorithm had shifted to my favor days when I stopped posting. One of my videos hit 150,000 views and some of my uploads were getting anywhere between 1,000 to 8,000 views. But few of it were translated to subscriptions. However, I do have to be thankful though, from a mere 60+ I’ve jumped to 264. Now it’s just 255. Maybe I should have kept on going. Four years later, who knows how that could have changed. Oh well.  

Big trip next week 

Next week I have a business trip. I’m not very fond of traveling these days. It’s not like I’m going for fun. It’s going to be a heck of a week with lots of things to do, or else I get thrown out in the cold with no means to pay for a roof.  

I’ll probably write about this trip someday, if I’m inspired enough.  

Books 

I have intended to at least try to write a book review once a month. February is already coming to an end and I still got nothing. My 2024 reading completion is abysmal. I’ve only got Wind and Truth, so I might lean in to that. Currently, I’m reading The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennet.  

Back to writing 

Now that’s enough warm up. Back to writing Saul.