The Bookacy Family Alphabet Journal

Well, I've been healthier this week, so it's been an improvement. I've been able to work, not really feeling sick anymore, although I did have a somewhat of a runny nose for most of the week. I think only today I've been starting to be really back to normal. In any case, I've actually had quite good progress. Tuesday was vappu, so it was a day off, and since I wasn't prepared to go anywhere (Monday was my first day back to work), I did some sim stuff instead, and then some in the weekend.

I figured out how to fix my pictures (again), as it turned out Postimages had quietly changed the addresses of all images. I fixed my banners and Lakewood updates, and after that, I finished fixing the download archive, for both images and links. It's now completely hosted at Sim File Share, so I hope the links at least will stay put for once.

Now in the weekend, I finished playing the main house rotation, and at the end of it, sent Dorian to college. That alone makes it a pretty good simming week! I've also done a little bit of documenting for my TS4 legacy. I'm quite behind there, so I should do more writing yet before I dare play forward. I actually quite miss that one.

Oh! And just today, I started building a set I'm going to need for the next Bookacy update, I think it'll be a separate plotty interlude. I didn't get far, but every little bit counts.

Next week, I'm expecting guests in the weekend, so that reduces my simming time. On the other hand, there's another day off on Thursday. So we'll see, hopefully a bit of progress at least.

Well, another week is finished. It was on the busy side, I ran some errands in the evening and took care of some must-do stuff, like doing taxes. It's not nearly as involved here as I hear it is in the States, in a lot of cases it's just comparing a couple numbers between two papers, but still it's a bit of effort, and I had some extra manouvers this year.

Anyway, I did some simming-related stuff too. On Friday, I did a little bit of extracting: I extracted some gen. D sims who aren't in college yet and some of my extras. I'd prefer to hold out extracting young adults until they become adults (to avoid an extra step in Bodyshop), but I suppose the state of the corruption will eventually decide that. Fortunately, if worst comes to worst, I have pretty good backups. Actually, I'm a little bit worried because I have limited space on my backup disk: as I keep on playing and taking backups, I have to delete some of the old ones. That wouldn't be a problem otherwise, but now we're talking about a 'hood that I *know* is corrupted. So it's quite likely that I'm already at a state where I don't have an uncorrupted version of Alphabetia anymore, which scares me a little bit. It shouldn't matter, as long as I have a playable version, but I'm a little bit paranoid that it might affect the extraction. Only the looks are being extracted, so there should be no problem, but still.

</paranoia> Anyway, I also did a bit of playing just today. I played a day and a bit, in the Bookacy main house no less. That was enjoyable, and it's pretty exciting that after this round Dorian will go to college. About time! A pretty standard play session as such, nothing hugely dramatic. Nicholas did gain another gold badge, so that's good, and Desdemona had her first kiss.

I also meant to continue fixing the download archive, but didn't really have time. And also, I don't know if it's just me, but my Postimages pictures seem to be acting out now, not showing up some of the time, so I'm waiting to see if that resolves itself. Man, I really hope so, as I already did a lot of work due to migrating from Photobucket, reposting all Lakewood updates and so on, I really wouldn't want to go through that again!

So such this week, some progress was had and I hope that it continues next week.

Last week was definitely a good simming week. Already because yesterday, I finally published the Bookacy update that had been in the works for... closer to two years. It was only on Saturday that I realized how close to complete it was, so I decided to make the final push. It was a really nice feeling! I'm now again up to date with what I've played, so I think I can play the main house with a clean conscience when I want to.

I actually did a little bit more, too. I continued working on fixing the pictures and links in the download archive. All of generation B is now fixed, so that's something too. And, for the first time in a bit, I worked on the rebuild too, continued replicating Sal's lair. It still needs probably at least a couple of building sessions, but it's progressing.

I think the next step for me is to finish that house. Then I'll allow myself to play the main house, unless I get struck by the urge to play Lakewood first. If I'm feeling adventurous, I might peek at how the apocalypse and/or that update is doing. Although, that would require feeling quite adventurous.

Anyway, I'm not sure how much time I'll have this week, but I'll at least try to get a little bit of progress.

I missed weekly simming the week before last week, as towards the end of the week, I got sick. So I spent the weekend and actually most of last week doing not much more than coughing and sneezing. I did some reading, as that's something you can do while sitting in one place and drinking something hot, but I didn't have the concentration for sims stuff.

I returned to work on Thursday, only sniffling slightly. After that, it was the Easter and I was on the road. I got the slightest bit of writing done on my TS4 legacy, and today I've done a little for the Bookacies. The next chapter is on 101 slides currently, so little by little, it's happening - I still do think the plot bunnies are helping.

Actually, I was just procastrinating by browsing challenge rules, and that made me miss my apocalypse. I've been stuck on that for years, for several reasons. One of the immediate reasons is that, due to hack suffling operation, I know all my spoiled food on the roof is shot, again, just after I replaced it. Which was the initial annoyance that made me not want to play. Another thing is the extreme plottiness, which can cause writer's blocks and cause me to avoid writing it. And a third reason is the extreme complexity of the challenge, which can easily overwhelm me and cause me to fear failing.

And at the same time, the crazy challenge tempts me, and the crazy plot calls me to continue. Not to mention, since I've started, the plot is sort of tied to the Bookacies too. If all else fails, I could theoretically cheat and just shoot and write, pretending to go on with the challenge if I were to fail and not want to re-start. I mean, finish the story even if I were to fail the challenge. But well, this is all just speculation, I haven't failed yet, nor have I even touched the challenge again yet. I'm just thinking about it. We'll see, in any case I'll try to finish the current Bookacy chapter before even considering it for real.

This week, I have some errands to run in the evenings, but hopefully I'll also have some time to do sims stuff. Fingers crossed.

This week was surprisingly productive, I'm quite happy with the progress I  made.

During the week, I managed to post the next Lakewood update, which has been in the works quite a long time. In the weekend, I also re-posted four old Lakewood updates in order to fix the pictures that Photobucket broke. Now there's only two updates left with broken pictures, so that one's getting there. There are other broken pictures, like the ones in the Bookacy download archive, at some point I'll need to do something about that too.

On top of all that, I did some writing in the weekend: the next Bookacy update is now on 90 slides. It's been moving forward much better since I started to have the plot bunnies again. I've written a little bit of an outline for the next couple of chapters, and I feel like I have a better direction again. I'm starting to feel more and more strongly that the Bookacies just need a little bit plot to keep moving ahead. In some ways, it might make things slower, but on the other hand, writing them feels easier with plot.

I also realized I'd sort of goofed: I thought I was all done with the Greek House pictures, but actually, the ones I'd used only covered one semester, while I'd actually played two. So there's still some ways to go. But, I try to leave out material that doesn't really align with the plot, so that it wouldn't become too much of the boring "and then Dirk studied some more" kind. We'll see how well I succeed with that. So I think with the second semester and a slight bit of Komei we'll have ourselves a full chapter.

Well, this one was a successful week for simming. Here's hoping for more of the same!

Well, this week there has been progress, which is nice. I did a little bit of writing during the week, and in the weekend I was on the road, so I traveled with my chapters. I essentially finished the Lakewood update, I just need to check a couple things for the text and do the posting. It's too late to start on it today, but hopefully during one of the evenings next week.

I even managed to do some writing for the next Bookacy chapter, which is now on 73 slides, so kind of getting there. I'm now debating whether I should yet play the next season in the main household and try to include that, because there's not many pictures left from the Greek House. On the other hand, I could add a little Komei plot and perhaps not have the chapter not humongously long for once. I need to do the Komei plot thing during the college years anyway. Well, I guess I'll figure that out, I don't yet have a fully clear idea of how and in what order I'll do stuff in the next few chapters.

I think the plot bunnies have done some good for me when it comes to the Bookacies. I've been itching to get on with them, but it's been lacking something. Now I have a feeling that it may yet come together. Hopefully progress continues next week.

Last week was not a great simming week, to be honest. I tried to write the Lakewood update in the weekend, but after a few captions, I got distracted and lost concentration. I suppose it has partially to do with the winter (again, damn kaamos), although the worst should be over already. And also work is somewhat stressful at the moment, I guess that might also have to do with it. (But, it speaks in favor of my current employer that they actually do something and seem to care when you complain about your workload. Haven't had many of those in the past.)

On my worst days, I actually think about not bothering with any of my challenges/stories. Concentration is a limited resource these days, and with my responsibilities and speed of playing/writing, it's unlikely that I would be able to update regularly no matter what I do. Which has already taken its inevitable toll on my readership over the years. I tell myself that it doesn't matter, that maybe a couple people will still enjoy it, and that you don't necessarily have to do your hobbies constantly or even regularly for them to still be nice hobbies. Only on the worst days, I'm not really sure how much I believe myself.

Sorry, didn't mean to sound that whiny. I don't intend to give up on simming, but I've been in a kind of a sucky mood or at least distracted as of late, hence the lack of progress. No promises, but I hope the coming week(s) will be better.

As I suspected, last week was pretty busy. I did play a little bit of TS4 in the beginning of the week, but that was basically it. I meant to write on my weekend trip, I took the material with me as I often do, but didn't end up opening the laptop at all. Instead, I spent the time on the bus (and then some) reading, read two books during the weekend. That was nice, that kind of immersion is a pretty rare treat, whatever I'm doing.

I'll have some stuff to do this week too, but hopefully I can sneak in some simming too. Fingers crossed.

The TS4 project that I've been mentioning here is finally complete! MTS just approved my shiny new Sims 4 Random Sim Generator last night, so now you can go check it out! It's essentially the same tool as my old TS2 randomizer, but you know, for TS4. You run it in a web browser and tick some boxes, then you press a button and it tells you what kind of sims to make. Handier than rolling a dice 1,000,000 times. ;)

It feels so good to have something finished! (Now I'll be able to play my TS4 legacy and grow up my heiress too.)

Still decent progress in the second week of the year. I've been playing at the TS4 project, and it's getting pretty far, and that's nice to see. In the weekend I again played the Fortunatos. They have like a day and a half left in the rotation, so not that long at all. Then there's of course the catching up with the writing, but hey, it happens.

This week, I suppose roughly more of the same is to be expected. Real life shouldn't be super busy, but you never know. We'll see.