Returning to GYWO after a year off (although I’ve changed my username again, LOL). Have new pledges been added? Or was that in 2021?
Anyway, much to my surprise for a year I was planning to “take off from writing,” I’ve started working in narrative for gamedev as my FT job. Scripts tend to be less word count heavy (but challenging in their own way), and looking at my monthly output this year, I’d guestimate I was ranging approx 7k words a month of polished, implementable scripts (and maybe up to 12k a month if one takes into account that I also write client-facing location, character, casting call, storyline overview, FMV scripts, and a variety of other narrative documents.)
So let’s call that 100k as an average for this year. EXCEPT that we recently did a team expansion, and I went from one woman doing All Things Narrative to leading a team of 3 (including me). I’m still writing a lot, but I’m not the only one (and I’m doing a lot of non-writing but still narrative-related tasks) and I’m not yet sure how that impacts me on a raw word count level.
Arg. Anyway. I feel that 75k isn’t a challenge given that just doing my job would theoretically account for that. 150k feels like it might be much, although that goes into the OTHER stuff I want to be doing this year.
2021 was really getting acquainted with this new medium and I wasn’t able to seriously delve into side projects because I’m fairly monogamous about my projects and I was tackling a lot of new skills and inputs as well. However, someday this project/contract will end and I’ve found I like doing this and so I want to write some interactive fiction samples to use as portfolio pieces for when that time comes and I’m shopping for a new studio client. Is that another 75k worth to get me to 150k? I’m not sure, but I’m nothing if not ambitious?
It all feels very light when I was usually doing the 350k pledge in the past, but that was novels. And although I don’t feel scripts are any less difficult, when you crunch the raw word count they don’t feel nearly as impressive.
tl;dr I’ll probably do 150k, but I’m having inadequate feelings about it and I’d be happy to have feedback and/or support. The habit pledges won’t work for me because 240 days is literally just showing up for my job and 350 days is unrealistic for my life.
Thinking out loud
Anyway, much to my surprise for a year I was planning to “take off from writing,” I’ve started working in narrative for gamedev as my FT job. Scripts tend to be less word count heavy (but challenging in their own way), and looking at my monthly output this year, I’d guestimate I was ranging approx 7k words a month of polished, implementable scripts (and maybe up to 12k a month if one takes into account that I also write client-facing location, character, casting call, storyline overview, FMV scripts, and a variety of other narrative documents.)
So let’s call that 100k as an average for this year. EXCEPT that we recently did a team expansion, and I went from one woman doing All Things Narrative to leading a team of 3 (including me). I’m still writing a lot, but I’m not the only one (and I’m doing a lot of non-writing but still narrative-related tasks) and I’m not yet sure how that impacts me on a raw word count level.
Arg. Anyway. I feel that 75k isn’t a challenge given that just doing my job would theoretically account for that. 150k feels like it might be much, although that goes into the OTHER stuff I want to be doing this year.
2021 was really getting acquainted with this new medium and I wasn’t able to seriously delve into side projects because I’m fairly monogamous about my projects and I was tackling a lot of new skills and inputs as well. However, someday this project/contract will end and I’ve found I like doing this and so I want to write some interactive fiction samples to use as portfolio pieces for when that time comes and I’m shopping for a new studio client. Is that another 75k worth to get me to 150k? I’m not sure, but I’m nothing if not ambitious?
It all feels very light when I was usually doing the 350k pledge in the past, but that was novels. And although I don’t feel scripts are any less difficult, when you crunch the raw word count they don’t feel nearly as impressive.
tl;dr I’ll probably do 150k, but I’m having inadequate feelings about it and I’d be happy to have feedback and/or support. The habit pledges won’t work for me because 240 days is literally just showing up for my job and 350 days is unrealistic for my life.