Review of the year 2023 and 2024 objectives
Written by Lou Morens
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Classified in : Interviews, Review, Objective, Publication, Salon du livre, Novels, visualnovel
First of all, I wish you a beautiful, sweet and serene year 2024 filled with beautiful artistic and non-artistic projects and moments of sharing and exchange.This past year was the first time I attended trade shows and markets. The experience was convincing and I am repeating it this year.
I recently invested in a sumup box which allows me to offer payment by credit card, even at a show and also to be able to take orders from my site or directly, without having to use a transfer or a check.
On the sales side, there are few people at literary fairs and digital works do not necessarily have their place there.
Publications
The first four volumes of the cycle of Memoirs od a Veillorz are published, as well as the first two by Lunimeran and the first by Moïja.The visual novel “Double Murder” and the game “Becoming Veillorz” are also published and available on itch.io.
Illustrations
I was able to create a lot of illustrations this year. I redid some of those from the game “Becoming Veillorz” for version 2.0. I created those for the new visual “An exhilarating job” and those for the extracts which are on the website.I also have the opportunity to do training on Unreal Engine which is a basic game engine that allows you to create 3D environments in real time. This allows me to take less time to render than in Blender. I also find the renderings to be of better quality. The other advantage is that I have access to MetaHuman which allows me to create humans in better quality than that of HumanCreator which I have been using for several years now. I will be able to recover the characters already created to use them in Unreal in addition to Blender, phew. I have a second training planned, more specialized on special effects in Unreal, as well as training in sculpture in Blender. I hope to be able to complete them by the end of the first trimester. I need sculpture to create or rework characters that are not human.
We have not yet finished the end-of-training film, made with my classmates. I haven't forgotten that I have to write a newsletter dedicated to the achievements linked to this training, I'm just waiting to have the film.
Writing
As you have noticed (at least I think?) I now write my novels and stories in neutral language. Whatever some high-ranking people think, it is important to develop a language so that it no longer makes more than half of the population invisible. As I wrote in a previous post, the masculine is masculine, it is not neutral. Keeping the rule that the masculine prevails makes women, intersex people, non-binary people, agender people, etc. invisible.To return to the writing of stories strictly speaking, I wrote a few short stories this year, including one which was selected for a call for texts for the Queerzine: Our queer worlds. I was able to read it and embellish it with some illustrations during the launch party. I also had the chance to go on the radio to present this news.
Illustrated reading of the short story (in french)
Radio show podcast (in french)
The zine page (in french)
I was finally able to have the final version of the novel "The Marquis Stockman" corrected. It is intended to be published in the form of a visual short story and in an ebook version, since the scriptwriting has fallen behind schedule (a lot).
Episodes 3 and 4 of Lunimeran, which have been written for several years already, have been reworked and are currently being reread/finally corrected.
Volumes 5 to 7 of the main series are also being rewritten/finally edited.
Episode 2 of Moïja is currently being written, I have also fallen behind on this one.
Objectives
My only validated artistic objective: to publish, during the first quarter, all the stories that have been written for a long time: volumes 5 to 7 of the main story and the two episodes of Lunimeran. I don't know yet if there will be a paper version other than the one that will be in my library. I would like to offer them in an illustrated and interactive version and with animated scenes, but for that, I need regular income. I'm going to develop my Tipeee and create a Patreon.The script for the second film is finished, depending on how much time I have during the year and whether or not I manage to find financing, it will be made or will remain in a drawer (or rather a file at the bottom of a disc hard; note to self: print a version to put in the bottom of a drawer...). The same goes for the new visual The Marquis Stockman.
The objective of the year is above all to find 3D or other contracts to make a living from my activities. I also have to update my book, mainly on Artstation.