Happy end of the month! I've got quite a bit of news to share so let's get into it.
I finished my project for the Werewolf Jam and I'm pretty pleased with how May The Hunt Be Everlasting and May Nature Guide You Home turned out. I think I did something neat within the time frame of the jam and I got a chance to jump back into Twine development after many years away. I also used public domain art and some creative edits in GIMP to make the cover art for the game. I didn't have quite enough time to draw or paint an image like I wanted to, so I felt like this was a good compromise. If you're interested in playing the game yourself, it's available for free and runs in your browser over at: https://nenekiri.itch.io/may-the-hunt-be-everlasting-and-may-nature-guide-you-home
The voting period for the Werewolf jam runs until May 6th, so if you have the time I'd appreciate a review and what you thought about the game!
I was lucky enough to have a poem of mine featured on the Voice of Dog this month for National Poetry Month and it turned out really good! This piece of writing is a really personal one to me and I'm glad that Rob let me read it for the podcast this month. If you'd like to listen to it you can do so here: https://thevoice.dog/episode/forest-by-nenekiri-bookwyrm
There's going to be a few more of my poems planned to be read out on the podcast at a later date, so I made a poem section for the website. If you'd like to get a sneak peek of what could be featured you can read my poetry in my collection I have on my SoFurry page: https://www.sofurry.com/browse/folder/stories?by=520851&folder=66067
I've sent in my author bio for the Post-Self short story anthology titled Clade and gotten word that Madison is targeting a summer time release. So get excited for that later in the year! I wrote my bio in-universe and I really like how it turned out. Since the story focuses on more human characters rather than the usual furry animals, I opted to use my human name. Don't cast any binding spells on me with that deep knowledge! It's also a bit of an experiment to see how using that name works out. If I end up writing more fiction that deals with humans primarily over animals, I may end up using that name for those kinds of stories in the future. Would be an easy way to let potential readers who are familiar with my work engage with the kinds of stories they're looking for.
I've started working on a new big project! Until I hear back about the short story anthology with dragons, I'm kind of at an impasse with working on that for the time being. So I'm switching gears for a while and I'm going to try and write a story featuring butterflies. I was very much into butterflies as a kid, but haven't found a good angle to write a story about them now that I've fallen into furry writing. This project is an attempt to do that. The basic premise is that I'll be following a group of butterflies as they perform their annual migration from one side of the world to the other. This migration can take a very long time, depending on the butterflies you're looking at, it can anywhere from 3-6 generations to make that trip. I think this is the angle I've been looking for. What would it be like to be a butterfly on this journey knowing that you will never see the destination that you're traveling towards? How do they get through their day to day? What hardships do they face in their travels? All of these questions excite me terribly and I'm itching to get started writing.
But before I fully commit, I want to do some preliminary research. This is going to be a lot bigger of a project than I'm used to. Depending on how I end up tackling it, it could very well end up being novel length. And if not that, at least the length of a novella. Which means I should get a decent baseline of information on butterflies before I get too far into the weeds in writing a bunch of characters for the story.
Thankfully, my local library had a ton of books on the subject and I'm working on reading through a bunch and taking copious notes. One of the books, The Language of Butterflies has had a very interesting first couple chapters. There seems to be a concerning amount of butterfly researchers who had some sort of experience when they were growing up that led to them spending their lives studying them. In an obsessive fashion. The author makes references to this phenomenon as a kind of “Butterfly Madness” (I am paraphrasing, she doesn’t actually call it that) and I’ll be honest that it gave me pause as I was reading through the first few chapters, lest I fall into this pattern myself. I was enamored with them a lot when I was a kid, so maybe I’m immune? Or was it a long dormant madness waiting to re-emerge at the correctly precise trigger? This is the closest I have come to actually experiencing the unease that is supposed to be common in cosmic horror. Perhaps, I too, will become an acolyte of Prodryas before long.
Speaking of the library, they had a big book sale this weekend and I picked up a good few books that I'm excited to dig into at some point. The Dragon's Luck book is probably the one I'll dig into first, but the animal anatomy and painting with acrylic book are going to be invaluable for me to practice painting more.
Work has unfortunately been very busy as they shift my job duties around. I don't see it slowing down any time soon unfortunately, so I'm hoping to stave off burnout for the time being with being able to work on my personal projects in my free time.
On a brighter note to end out this update post, the weather has been good enough to take walks again and I've really missed being able to do that.
That's about everything I have for this month. Hoping that the next month treats you well!