ROW80 Round 3 - 9th Update

Another fairly short update this week; I had a test for one subject yesterday, and spent most of the weekend grappling with problems I was having with my fantasy eBook prototype (some of which I've solved, some of which I haven't). Most of the progress news I have for this post relates to my illustrated children's book.



I have finally settled on a story idea. It was somewhat inspired by yet another random midnight half-asleep scrawling I found near my bed yesterday: "Bubble dragon picnic". It's completely different to the ones I was working on last week (or the week before), but I finally feel like I've found a story that I genuinely care about, instead of just writing/drawing something for the sake of filling my journal and printing a book. And after describing the story to my Illustration class and the teacher, the general response was, "Oh, that sounds so CUTE! Hurry up and write it so I can read it!" so I'd say I'm on a winner. And yes, the story is about dragons (none of you saw that coming, did you? Did you?). I also think I'm starting to see a visual style developing, though I'm going to have to experiment on it a bit more over the next few days (part of this will involve setting stuff on fire, which is always fun). Now that I've pretty much got the plot sorted out, I just have to actually write it into story form (which means getting it down to around 150 words). It is a relief to have finally chosen a story though; I had been freaking out, going, "What the hell am I going to write about?" but now I can just start writing and drawing (still need to decide on a final design for the main character).



Judgemental Dog is making sure I'm not slacking off:



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ROW80 Round 3 - 8th Update

Well, I resubmitted my ethics forms today, so I should hopefully get clearance to start user testing with my fantasy eBook prototype within two weeks. The prototype itself is coming along well, though I need to look at adapting it to a touch screen interface as opposed to a typical computer (still have to fix up a few of the interactions though, I haven't had much time to work on it this week).



Most of my focus since last check-in has been on my children's book. I'm working on developing plot ideas, but they're a completely different set of ideas to the ones I was working on last week, since I decided those ones weren't really what I wanted to do. I'm feeling the pressure as far as time goes; once I choose a story, I then have to write out the actual text and come up with the character designs, illustrations, style, and layout of the book, and still have enough time left over at the end to organise printing. With that in mind, I really need to choose a story idea by this time next week. The next few days will be spent just refining story ideas, coming up with dialogue and text and doing a few character and scene sketches. I knocked off some various coloured papers and shiny or texture cardboard from uni, so that will give me something to play with in terms of different picture style experiments and character construction (surprise, surprise; one of the main new ideas I've been kicking around involves a wolf and a dragon).



Judgemental Dog tries a new motivational tactic:



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ROW80 Round 3 - 7th Update

Since Sunday I have done a fair bit of sketching in my journal for my illustrated children's book (still haven't settled on a specific idea, but I have narrowed it down to one or two ideas that are much more detailed, and I think I'm close to settling on an illustration style for my book). I have also done a lot of writing for my children's book, not specifically the story itself, but on ideas and outlines, exploring various themes and refining different stories (and it felt more tiresome since I was handwriting it in my journal and not typing it on my computer). I still felt crappy after the weekend's migraine and I've had uni every day so far, so I haven't had the time or motivation to do much else.



I did get my literature review back today from my honours supervisor, who gave me a mark of 95/100 and said it was one of the best literature reviews she's ever read, so off I went home with a considerably swelled ego to work on my prototype a bit more, only to discover more bits that I had thought would work, actually wouldn't. I also discovered I had to redo my ethics forms, but since they're mostly minor changes, it shouldn't take me that long, and I should be able to submit the final version by the end of the week.



In my Illustration for Children's Books class today, we were lucky enough to have children's book illustrator/writer Roland Harvey come to talk to us, which was quite interesting. It was good to see the different stages of his work, showing how he took a book from the planning stage, through the illustration and composition phase to completion. And it was lovely to be able to see the full sized originals of some of his watercolour pieces, as the detail in them was amazing (and a little envy-inspiring, if I'm honest lol). However, he did also mention that there is a surprising amount of 'politics' involved in getting a children's book through to publication, as there are so many issues of political correctness and age-appropriateness involved, as well as 'creative differences' between the writer and the illustrator of the book if they're not the same person. It certainly shattered any illusions I had of producing children's books as simply being a matter of 'draw some pictures and slap in some text and off you go'.



Today I also got my first pay from uni for tutoring, which I started last week, so that was a bonus :D



I feel your pain, Judgemental Dog. Oh, how I feel your pain.



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ROW80 Round 3 - 6th Update

*sorry for late check-in, folks. Had this ready to post last night, but came home from work with a migraine and spent the next 12 hours being sick every 20 minutes and generally feeling sorry for myself. But at least I had Judgemental Dog to keep me company*



Short post this week, since I'm too busy freaking out over my academic workload to write much. I've still just been trying to get my fantasy eBook prototype finished (not going anywhere near as smoothly as I'd hoped). I tutored (well, co-tutored) my first class on Thursday, which was fun (though weird, since some of the students were friends from other classes I've done as a student lol). At the moment, I'm brainstorming story concept ideas for my illustrated children's book. So far I've come up with four or five ideas, though there are two in particular that I'm leaning towards. However, I'll have to play around with a few illustration styles first, to find a balance between getting them done quickly and making them look nice. Once I've chosen a style I can then decide which story it might suit better (or vice versa).



While I was in a lecture on Tuesday night, I decided to attempt a sketch of Rex (a.k.a. Judgemental Dog) from memory. Didn't come out perfect - his chest should have been broader - but it isn't too bad:



On that note, I shall leave you with this week's Judgemental Dog photo, taken by my friend, Carly, and edited on her iPhone:



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ROW80 Round 3 - 5th Update

Well, I've made a fair bit of progress on my fantasy eBook prototype over the last few days. I'm hoping to have it finished by the end of this week. I'm just finishing off the more detailed map for the story, and after that it's just a few more interactive bits I have to get working (which is proving to be more difficult than expected). I've decided to leave chapter alone for now, since I don't really have time to rewrite it anymore. I'll go back to it properly at the end of the year, but for now it will be used in the prototype as is.

Also, for anyone who's interested, I uploaded my interactive steampunk story I made for Multimedia Narratives at uni last semester. If you want to read/play it, you can do so here.

This will probably be my busiest semester ever. As well as working on my thesis and doing a 4th year Education subject and a 5th year IT subect as a student, I'll also be tutoring a 2nd and a 3rd year subject. I think the tutoring will be a good experience though (also; more money :D). Because of this, I'm probably going to have to take my writing off the table for ROW80, at least for Dark and Silent Waters; I will still be writing and illustrating my children's book, so at least I still get to exercise some creativity.

I just hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew.

*commence mental breakdown in 3... 2... 1...*

Judgemental Dog is watching you. ALL of you.

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ROW80 Round 3 - 4th Update

Not much to report on my ROW80 goals this week; I've pretty much just continued to fiddle with my fantasy eBook prototype, trying to get the damn thing working. Technically I can't start testing it for at least two weeks (have to wait for it to be approved by the ethics committee), but I'd like to get it mostly ready as soon as possible, a) so I can spend some time fine tuning it and b) to give me more time to work on other assignments.

I started back at uni yesterday, so the assignments will no doubt begin piling up soon. The class I had last night - User Interface Design and Usability - seems like it will cover similar content to other subjects I've done, but at least it's stuff I'm semi-interested in and will probably come in handy for whatever job I end up in, so it shouldn't be too painful. Today's class - Designing and Producing Illustrated Children's Books - looks like it will be both a lot of fun and a lot of work. Basically over the semester, we get to write, illustrate, edit and produce (including printing/binding etc) our own children's book. So I have to come up with a story idea, pick a target age group, choose an illustration style and probably lots of other stuff before I can actually start writing it, but it should definitely be one of the more fun subjects I've ever done.

I did get a little bit of writing done yesterday. On Monday, I discovered a post-it note on my desk, with the enigmatic phrase "sunshine death butterflies" scrawled on it (I don't remember writing it, but I DO know that it is my writing because I can hardly read it). After spending a day scratching my head over what the hell I could have possibly meant, the answer came to me while I was on a V/chocolate bender, and I ended up being able to write a fairly disturbing scene for a later chapter of Dark and Silent Waters.

A photo from the vault; even as a puppy, Judgemental Dog knew about the important things in life.

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ROW80 Round 3 - 3rd Update

Since last Wednesday, I've tinkered with my first chapter in a half-arsed manner, trying to get it presentable for use in my fantasy eBook prototype. Haven't really added any words, though; in fact, I've probably cut my word count. Though it won't be perfect by the time it goes into my eBook, I will hopefully be able to get it to a reasonable standard to make it a bit more interesting for my test participants.

I've finally completed the ethics form paperwork for my user testing, as well as the explanatory statement, interview questions and survey. I've also more or less finished the design, interface graphics and illustrations for my eBook.

But the programming... Oh, the programming. Kill me now. Everything that can go wrong is going wrong, and stuff that shouldn't go wrong is going pear-shaped as well. I'm honestly concerned that it won't be done in time. Add this to the fact I've had a crappy few days and a monstrous migraine to go with it, and my optimism for the project is pretty shaky. Mental... Breakdown... Imminent...

Judgemental Dog does not approve of sunny days.

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