Hello. C J here. I’ve taken most of three days off this week so I’m probably good to resume product design until Friday. My product projects for the next while are as follows.
Impossible Skyline
I’ve been told by a number of people at this year’s Kingston Pride that I need to finish editing and sell this book at next year’s Kingston Pride. The book is almost 200,000 words so that might take a while. I hope to have it proofread one more time by Winter and then I can start printing and hand binding them for sale next year.
Starter Set
The core cards that come bundled with my card game Quantum need to be finished. This includes the other eight main character images, the images of items including food and the borders and graphic design for the final cards. The Starter Set is set in South District Ascala and while I’m working on it I’m also going to do other content set in South District Ascala.
Heart of Glass
Chief among these Ascala projects is my current light romance novel Heart of Glass. This will be what I’m writing while I plan out the much more labour intensive Impossible Skyline II. This series of light romance novels will be ongoing and will follow the themes and locations brought up in Quantum the same year.
The first one is set mostly in South District and follows our protagonist, the introvert, gay and incredibly not dominant pale canine folk Blue. Blue has three months off his very important job as an ambassador for his home nation and he needs to find a way of spending that time.
This is based on real life in a way that might not be obvious. I took about ten years to do the book work and to learn all the software I need for this project, including enough code to make Dragon Engine. This was boring, so I got inventive.
Now my job is more creative but equally intermittent and really still not very exciting. Books take a long time to type no matter what. These tools and activities are still what I spend most of my time doing. I thought I’d summarize them here.
Music
Music is my number one source of entertainment. I’m up to date on all of the new releases and artists in a number of EDM genres, some classic rock and a few other genres. I buy a lot of CDs and I have endless playlists on YouTube that go with different moods.
I spend a good half of most days sitting down, listening to new or interesting music and writing down story ideas. This is a core part of my job and now that I have more freedom to be creative it is a deeply essential and required one. I still haven’t listened to even all the CDs I have on my desk here. That might take a year.
Tea
Now, learning to make a good cup of tea is a deep and treacherous journey. I stick solely to the simpler brands like Tetley and Lipton. I have had too many upset stomachs from fancy herbal concoctions and rare Asian delicacies to risk anything too new in terms of the tea leaves.
I make really good tea. Black, green, herbal, all three, iced, all of it. This is what I spend an hour or two most afternoons doing. It takes time and that’s the point. It’s a useful skill, especially at parties.
Coffee
This may sound redundant, but when I have a free afternoon I normally reach for a coffee. To clarify, I go somewhere for one. There are a number of good, reliable coffee shops with good food and nice staff near where I live.
It’s a whole day activity to go into the city centre, walk the parkland there, have a coffee with a croissant and take in the city. This is where 90% of my story ideas come from so I’m known to prioritize it even over typing work.
Magic
I sell a card game. The card game is designed to include elements of real life spiritual practices. The art is designed to be a bit hypnotic, meaning that the card’s effects are things a person can learn from them. Trying new hypnosis art to see what it does has been a large part of my job and the art style is built around that goal, not the other way around.
When I’m in need of something to do I just look at art and wonder what it would be like to be in the image. Often by drawing it and giving it game stats I can find out. This will be easier to explain when more of the cards are out for the Starter Set.
Parkland
Ascala in the stories has a large number of several kilometre square parks. Blue finds himself somewhere part way through his narrative in one of these quite by accident. This turns into a regular hobby as he tries to learn the many paths and hidden features these parks have. The city here in real life is a lot like that.
Heart and Fur Modern
The Starter Set and South District are also my inspiration for the more generic Heart and Fur Modern book. This discusses running romance and social life stories in modern environments including a number of unique new mechanics and uses for existing mechanics. I have part of it written and I’ll have free samples when I get a whole chapter done. The taking a vacation system will be in it as well.
Dragon Engine
I’m finally ready to start actually making my main video game and the first thing I’m working on is making a full level map of South District Ascala along with the characters who live there. I’m currently picking out the best phone software to make the character models in.
Lands of Creation
After this batch of content is done I’m working on the first Expansion. The first Expansion Lands of Creation has several goals.
Food of the World
I’m laying the foundations of doing fusion cuisine for many of the setting’s cultures. These recipes will all be on cards in the ongoing Food of the World series. This series will be packaged along with each Expansion as I invent recipes.
The goal for the first Expansion is to establish the five or ten most essential recipes for a number of real life cuisine and make simple, easy to work with versions of them. I already have Spanish-Mexican food done and the card text is available in the Downloads section. These recipes, like the entire set of cards, are themed after climates to show what grows in each of them.
Regency
One of the other goals of Lands of Creation is ten 20 card generic fantasy NPC decks for use with the entire game line. These will also be climate themed and will mostly be anthro versions of species that live in those climates.
Heart and Fur Climate
I’m doing a series of Heart and Fur books about each climate with narrative and generic characters for each one. These are planned as ten full books but we’ll see how long they end up being.
Spells
The last thing I need for Lands of Creation is one set of generic spells for each of the ten main gem types, like amethyst, quartz, or topaz. These will depict the most common uses of magic for these magic styles and are designed for use with the card sets that come later.
This is my list so far and the order they’re being done in. Expect some new barbecue recipes soon and maybe a dessert.
C J Mcpherson
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