On the writing front #
I’ve ordered my first paper copy of L’Enfant des Esprits! Holding it in my hands will help me spot any final details to fix, but I’m almost there! You’ll definitely have it by Christmas!
Having nearly completed this big project has allowed me to seriously get back to writing Le Voeu de Yoko. I already had some key ideas for the sequel to the first volume and even a bit of text written, but I was stuck on the middle and the ending. I’ve started revisiting the outline, and my ideas are slowly starting to flow again.
This time, I’ve decided to try the “Snowflake Method” by Randy Ingermanson. It’s an iterative development method that’s fairly close to what I already do intuitively, so I think the additional structure it provides will help me move forward and restart this novel on solid ground.
On the web front #
Lately, I’ve been in the mood for ambitious writing, so I’d like to tell you about a recent little project: Oklisa by @NemuLumeN. It’s a Mastodon bot that connects authors and readers.
The concept is simple: you send the private message “manage” to the automated account @oklisa@oklisa.fabrilivre.com, and the bot replies with a temporary link that lets you access a book search filtered by your preferences, such as genre and word count. These books are submitted by Fediverse authors who’ve registered them through the same service. The idea is to discover writers outside the most well-known platforms.
The catalog is still a bit empty, but I like the concept, so I hope more authors will contribute to filling it up.
In the garden #
With the successive heatwaves keeping us indoors for most of the day, I admit I’m struggling to stay motivated to tend to my vegetable garden this year. However, there’s one thing I can share this week.
Remember, I had my thuja hedge removed this winter and replaced it with a new hedge of local species. This hedge includes four wild trees that my parents collected from the forest and three trees from a nursery. While the nursery trees are larger, they also look a bit sadder. The wild ones may not look as impressive in their early years, but you can already sense their resilience and ability to stay lush and green.
On the culture front #
Right now, I’m playing Astro Bot on PS5. This platformer is a love letter to the entire PlayStation universe. After a monster attacks their spaceship, your little robot’s mission is to repair it and rescue the scattered crew across the galaxies. Among the robots you’ll need to find are the Tomb Raider robot, Crash Bandicoot, and even Spyro the Dragon.
I don’t often play platformers, but this one is absolutely worth it. The execution is simply perfect: the controls and level readability are flawless, the difficulty scales perfectly with progression and level type, and the art direction is cohesive and incredibly fun (special shoutout to the LocoRoco-inspired level and the The Last Guardian robot, which “sometimes does what you ask it to”). It’s top-tier stuff.
For what it’s worth #
In these heatwave times, I’m reminded of the existence of water intoxication. It’s important to stay hydrated throughout the day, but don’t chug liters and liters of water all at once like an elephant: you’ll quite literally die.