Haha, it rhymes.
Hard to believe it's already 2024. Well, okay, to be fair, it's February. Congrats on surviving the first eight months of January! I figure that now is as good a time as any to write down my thoughts on this project, honestly more for myself than whoever reads this.
I think an important first step is to reflect on what has happened since the last times I have posted. I have since graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology and am very proud of myself for the honors I received. However, even before that, I had the opportunity to study abroad this summer, exploring creative writing in Rome, Italy and Japanese culture and manga in Kyoto, Japan. There isn't enough thanks in the world I can give to the people who made this opportunity possible. And for the friends I made along the way, thanks for allowing me to be in your lives.
Oh yeah, I also got engaged. More on that later though.
Do you want a picture of a dog? Of course you do!
Anyways, Summer 2023 was extremely busy. And while I would have liked the opportunity to continue working on this project, here I am finally writing about it almost a full year later. As a writer, my worst enemy is usually either myself and/or time. Sometimes I feel as if they're working in cahoots in some major plot against me. Whether it be literally being too busy living in another country to write or being too busy doing "important" things such as dying over anime (cries in Jujutsu Kaisen Season 2), I haven't found any time to write things. Well, okay, the time is there. It's the motivation that does not exist. I thank depression and ADHD for that.
Oh, speaking of ADHD, my fiancée told me that it was painfully obvious how I had ADHD, something that I had no clue about up until about that point.
Also, I swear, I'll talk about her in a bit, calm down.
Mayhaps saying that the motivation is nonexistent is yet another misnomer. It exists, somewhere, probably. The best way I can describe it is that it's a pile of wood and kindling that is waiting for the spark to set it ablaze. It is there, and I can sense it. I just need to find that spark. It's just hard to find that spark after looking for it for so long. Especially when trying to swallow the stress of searching for a job, and even more especially (grammar police do your thing) when you're trying to find a job in the game's industry. Wooooooo. In the meantime, I am working a part-time job as a library aide. I really like the work and hope that I can continue it for as long as I can. What better place for a writer to be working than at a library. Wait, wait, I'm supposed to be working for games. Okay, later later.
I feel like I keep getting sidetracked. I am tempted at this point to select all and hit delete. However, I shall refrain. Why am I adding this in, my personal inner thoughts/dialogue? Because I think this is a good reflection of the type of person and writer I am. Okay wait I'm really getting off track.
Project: Red War. Yes. What the hell happened to Project: Red War? That's a good question. If you find out, please let me know because I too am trying to find the answer. It's not like my passion or interest in this project has waned. That is far from true. If anything, it has only grown. I dream of bringing my narrative to Twine, allowing the rest of the world to see what makes this brain tick. But that has yet to happen. First and foremost, there isn't much material to bring to Twine just yet. I have the characters, I have the setting, and I have the conflict, but I don't have the words to bring those all together yet. Ironically enough, the words are what I am struggling with the most. Oh the joys of being a writer. Or, perhaps these are the excuses I am making to myself for being too lazy to bring the words together. Whatever the case, Project: Red War is not over. I mean, it has barely even begun but nonetheless, it is not over. Maybe my next project should be transferring all of the character bios and settings and whatnot into Twine so there's more of an interactive way to explore my narrative. We will have to see.
Okay, fine. I'll get to the juicy stuff. I've said what I wanted to say about this project anyways. Well, I never had anything I wanted to say, this was just an exercise to get my brain working again. Anyways. Fiancée. Yes. That happened. We met in Rome (please stop saying "wow that's so romantic I only just started the story") as study abroad students. We shared the same creative writing class called "Writing the Eternal City". Despite how pretentious the course name sounds, we had a great time with a great professor. If you can openly tell your professor to fuck off and they say it back to you instead of getting you in trouble, you're in for a good time. The atmosphere in the classroom, well not classroom since we were outside all the time, was very accepting, inclusive, and light. It allowed for my writing style to solidify into the shit pile you have been reading. You've stuck all the way, might as well get it over with eh? Anyways, my fiancée is weird because she fell for someone as utterly stupid as me. She's also a writer but unlike me, she is actually good at what she does. We were only in Rome for five weeks so we had to speed run the whole dating process and now we're engaged. Whoops.
TL;DR,
a) I never knew there was a proper formatting for a TL;DR
b) nah, you ain't getting a TL;DR, I'm not that kind
c) Project: Red War will be coming to Twine some time this year
P.S.
While I have been writing this, my fiancée has tried to give me some writing exercises to get me into the mood and inspire me to write more. What would I do without her? Here is a prompt she mentioned that intrigued me and my response to it:
Try to write with a song that you strongly associate with your life.
I'll do one more than that. I will write about a song and the anime it is from and talk about why I strongly associate with it.
If the video does not load properly, click this link.
Song title: 幸せ (translates to happiness, pronounced shiawase)
Artist: Omoinotake
From the TV Anime: Horimiya: Piece
A quick introduction of the show, here we go. Horimiya is a romantic comedy centered on two high school students in Japan, Hori-san* and Miyamura-kun*. Miyamura-kun is a social outcast whom Hori-san falls in love with once she gets to see his true personality. The song 幸せ was created for the TV Anime Horimiya: Piece and served as its opening theme. 幸せ. The song describes how the main character feels they can never reciprocate the love they receive from their partner.
「どうして どうして
もらって ばかりいる僕を
愛しいと言うの 僕は何を
返して 返して”」
”why? why?
when I've always been on the receiving end
would you call me endearing? what is it i can do
to give back [to you]"
「そうして そうして
照らして ばかりいる君の
何になれるかな 僕の全部
捧げて 捧げて
それでも 足りないはずだから
宇宙が終わっても 君を愛すよ
どの感情も 君には勝てない
悲しみさえ 愛にするから」
"and then, then
you always shined your light on me
what can I do for you? my everything
I offer, I offer to you
but it still won't be enough
I'll keep loving you even if the universe ceases to exist
none of my emotions can match yours
cuz you turn sorrow into love"
Needless to say, these lyrics resonate with me as someone who has fallen (very hard) in love.
One more thing I want to mention. This has been a long P.S. and if you're still here you really must not have anything better to do today. Oh well.
One quote from the show really stood out to me now that I find myself in the circumstances I am in.
"All of the coincidences that had to happen to make this moment possible. If even one hadn't happened, the world might be completely different.
If that's true, maybe it was destiny that brought us together like this.
Maybe.
I bet that no matter what we'd done, we would have found each other."
To all the coincidences that brought me and my fiancée together, thank you for going our way. There's not enough thanks in the world I can give for all the little things that had to go right to make this moment possible.
*-san and -kun are honorifics in Japan such as in English how we may call someone Mr. or Mrs.
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