Accomplishments.

August was a weird one for me. Towards the beginning of the month, I was full to the brim of motivation and was riding the high of completing [A]'s route. But while I finished that during the first two weeks of August, when I tried to move onto someone else's route, I quickly realized how drained I was. Really, I should've seen it coming. Usually, 50,000 words signifies the end of a chapter, but because of the circumstances of Chapter 13, it meant I was less than halfway. Knowing how much I still have ahead of me despite having done so much was daunting. Is, daunting. Honestly, it kind of put a damper on my mood.

But! There is still good news. If you've been following me for a while now, you'll know that I have a three-step routine with my chapters before I send things off to beta-testers. First, the obvious step, writing. Second, I go through two rounds of edits for grammatical errors, continuity issues, and stylistic changes. Finally, I copy and paste everything into code, then send things off so my lovely testers can check over everything my tired eyes missed. With Chapter 13, I decided to switch things up. After completing [A]'s and Blane's routes, instead of jumping into another RO's branch, I started the editing process. I figured that it would help prevent writer's block and give my brain a break from the repetition of writing, while still ensuring that I got some work done. A win-win scenario, right? Well, kind of.

As it turns out, editing is pretty tedious too. This has always been one of my least favourite stages of the writing process, and boy, was I reminded of how much I dislike it when I opened my Word document. Of course, I'm mostly exaggerating, but I still can't lie and say that I find it fun, by any means. As if staring at your old (cringe) writing isn't bad enough, I also have to decipher what the hell my gibberish is. Luckily, though, it seems to be doing the job. While it's slow-going, after a week and a half of straight editing, I felt refreshed enough to start a new route again (I chose Rylan, hehe).

So, going forward in September, I'll be doing two things at once. One, finishing editing and coding Blane's route to send to beta-testers (which, if I keep this up, I plan on doing RO by RO, just to speed up the process). And two, writing as much of Rylan's route as possible. It's a strange set of multitasking that I've never done with this project before, but because the two routes are completely different entities, I think that things will work out. Hopefully, in doing this, I can trick my brain from falling into redundant patterns and prevent writer's block before it happens. God forbid that I get one.

In other news, I'm going back to college for the fall (good luck to anyone else who is in the same boat!), so I might not have as much time to write as I did before. At least, for the first period while I settle back into the groove of doing (ew) homework. Not that the statistics really show much work, haha, but I thought I'd give you all a heads up regardless. Anyway, that's all from me. I hope you all have a wonderful September! I'll talk to you soon <3

Stats.

• Chapter Total: 55,144 words (+7705)
• Game Total: ~623,531 words