Literary Club Activity Report ~ December 2003

Thank God you're here.

Tanabata has come and gone, so it's long past time for me to publish my annual blog post. I'm terribly sorry to have kept the two of you who read this website waiting — it's been a huge struggle, trying to find the right time to publish this. Now, without further ado, let's start from the beginning.

The Expression of Yuki Nagato

After all, the beginning is the best place to start.

You'd be forgiven for thinking you'd heard the last of this last year. The Expression's release was a huge milestone for me, being the biggest project I've ever completed as well as the longest (thinly-veiled) infodump I've ever given, but truth be told, I was never completely satisfied with it. The biggest problem was its poor quality — for some reason, something about it just felt wrong. I published a minor revision in 2024 November to fix the orthographic convention for Yuki's stutter (she tends to prolong/block rather than repeat), but over time, it became clear that a larger revision was necessary.

The single biggest problem with the story was, surprisingly, Yuki's character voice. This was partially due to my inexperience with writing (the last two parts were already in much better shape than the first two), but largely due to my insecurity. Somehow, almost all of the issues in the original version stemmed from me trying to differentiate her from my own voice. It turns out there may be a reason I want people to know about her so badly.

The result of this is a new revision of The Expression of Yuki Nagato, now available on a Stories page near you. If you were disappointed with the first edition, I'd greatly appreciate it if you could give it another shot. I can't promise it'll be good, but hopefully, it should at least be passable this time.

The Understanding of Yuki Nagato

Book two of Expression Project is well underway... to an extent.

At the time of writing, The Understanding weighs in at approximately 53,655 words. Most scenes have at least been started, and a lot of what's still missing is the connective tissue between them.

Still, given the fact that it's been a year and four months since The Expression was published, this is strikingly lackluster (though perhaps not surprising). I feel like I should at least have a rough draft by now, but I've been struggling an awful lot during the writing process. The biggest issue is that I feel like I've fallen into a rut — even when I'm not suffering from writer's block, the writing quality in the current version of The Understanding feels almost mechanical (and not in a way that's becoming of a Yuki), severely lacking in all the pop and charm of the original series (or even that which I think is evident in The Expression). Because of this, even the thought of revising what I have feels like an uphill battle. I've repeatedly considered throwing away most of what I have and rewriting everything from scratch, but that seems far to dire of an option to consider (and I'd probably end up recycling most of what I've written, anyway).

Still, no amount of work is too much for Yuki.

Ironically, the structure of The Understanding was mostly planned out from the beginning, so from a theoretical standpoint, I really shouldn't be having this much trouble with it. Fortunately, a recent rewatch of the entire Haruhi series seems to have reawakened something within me, so maybe I'll be able to figure something out.

Still, though it may seem like it, it's not like I've been sitting around, doing nothing all the time.

The Apprehension of Yuki Nagato

Work on book three of Expression Project has begun...?

Sometimes, when working on The Understanding felt untenable, I tried sketching out what future scenes might look like. This has become a bigger success than I anticipated, and before I knew it, I had the start of a few scattered scenes for book three down. Since The Apprehension doesn't quite have the same quality baggage as The Understanding, I've noticed that I've felt a bit freer in when writing for it. Perhaps another sign that The Understanding needs a major overhaul...

I only have a couple thousand words written at most, so this isn't really a huge head start, but it's definitely nice to see the plot of the series taking shape.

Speaking of which...

Expression Project, Book 4

Work on book four of Expression Project has begun...!?

Just as with The Apprehension, I've occasionally been chipping away at scenes in book four whenever I've found myself stuck on The Understanding. Somehow, I'm quite a bit further along here than in book three, with a total of 4155 words. I can't really share much because it's classified information major spoilers, but I think I've managed to set the right tone for this book. The first part might be a little awkward, but I'm hoping it'll go over alright.

Devil's Emergence

is cancelled.

Development on it was de facto terminated in 2023 with the release of The Pilot of Yuki Nagato due to the sheer workload of writing a series of novels, but I long hoped that I may revive the project one day. Unfortunately, though, writing turned out to be far, far more fulfilling that making games ever was, especially given the way Yuki tends to monopolize my attention. That, on top of ZUN's use of generative AI in Touhou 20, was the final nail in the coffin for Devil's Emergence. I'm terribly sorry to everyone who was eagerly awaiting the trial version. I'm not entirely against the idea of continuing the project in the future, but compared to writing about a girl who happens to resemble me in nearly every aspect, designing challenging yet fun danmaku seems like an absolute nightmare.

At some point, I do want to release a "final version" of the one-stage demo with all of the improvements I'd made to the game since the original demo's release, but that probably won't happen for a while. I need to dig myself out of The Understanding first.

Conclusion

It may seem like it's been a busy year, but it really hasn't been. I still feel like there's so much more I should be doing, so much more I should be writing. Regardless, the fact that you've stuck around thus far means that I've at least done something right. I hope to write more in the future, and the fact that you're here is what gives me the courage to continue.

... So thank you.