The Stargazing Witch & The Dungeon Planet

The Stargazing Witch & The Dungeon Planet Afterwords

Wow… it really is over. I know I have said that a few times but it still feels shocking to me.

Can you believe it? Stargazing started with a ‘screw it’ I am just going to start posting. I had been trying to write for a few months before and I made some progress, but it was slow and quality mixed. Then during the end of January of 2023 I knew if I didn’t do something I would likely drop writing in my free time.

So, screw it. Let’s try posting and see what happens. If I have a schedule I need to keep then I will do everything in my power to keep it.

Stargazing wasn’t even any of the stories I was drafting at the time. I came up with the idea and wrote the first ten chapters over a week, then just posted them all…

So… I was kind of notorious in high school about having bad grammar and spelling…. And that had followed me well after. Definitely was the math/computer kid. But those lacking skills sure showed up during those early chapters and made themselves known throughout the story.

Though I am happy to say I have improved. My brain doesn’t forget to write certain words mid-sentence nearly as often, and writing a lot does improve grammar and spelling… haha… it sure was an experience.

…

So writing is fun. I can definitely say that.

Though it goes up and down. Real life exhaustion is the biggest drag that can make me crash so hard, making me unable to write. Then there are my strange patterns of having really good writing weeks/months, then I would crash for a nearly equal amount of time.

I kept a record of my weekly word count last year for every story I wrote and wow, it goes up and down like a sine wave, but jagged, cause graph… I would’ve liked to have kept up the two chapters a week I enjoyed doing, but yeah, I just reached a point where I was unable to write more than one chapter a week. Still, I am glad I managed to never stop for too long, and Ceella’s story got to be released at a mostly consistent pace.

I think that is everything from the out of story side. So story time.

I will try not to repeat too much what I have mentioned in the previous arc afterwords, but with how much I ramble, probably will happen a bit.

Arc 5! The big final. This ended up being the longest arc at 85k but it wasn’t the longest by much, besides the first one, each of the arcs ended up being mostly close to the same size. Which was completely unintentional.

To preface, when I started the story I had a few dotpoints. I didn’t exactly stick firmly on those dotpoints but they were my guide on where I planned for the story to go, and the ending was mostly what I planned. A big conflict with Dominous Hood and battle with Espr. Now, there was a version of this where those two points would be two arcs, but nah, that would just be dragging it. Perhaps the Espr portion could’ve been a little longer, but I’m currently happy with it.

Overall, I think the arc flowed well and that I did mostly okay on the fights. Action scenes have always been the hardest part for me so the final arc being a lot of action was going to be difficult. Thankfully, I seem to have succeeded, mostly.

I’m happy with all the main characters in this arc. Obviously the family played less of a role which is why I had the side stories in the previous arc, but I got the chance to show off Nina and Lila more which I was excited about.

Of course the biggest stars were Ceella and Espr. Ceella at her most freest and Espr feeling the most lost. I am happy with the characters of both and they got the chance to shine in their own ways.

It’s weird. I feel like I could say more, but everything I would say is just the story.

A final afterword is weird to write.

Anyhow, of course I had some downs. As mentioned before, I wish I could’ve kept up the writing pace and Dominous Hood’s main villains were definitely a bit boring. I always planned for them to be simple, but having them be the main bad for 4 arcs made them drag bad. There was meant to be a separate mid-arc villain for arc 3, but that kind of exploded in the writing bay. Hypothetically if I rewrote (Not doing), I would still keep them as simple villains, but wouldn’t have made them the villain’s of one of the arcs, and tried to have some more fun faces from the group. The few named Dominous Hood enemies definitely went in the right direction, but it could’ve been better.

But yeah, I am happy with the arc. For my first conclusion of a story, I did an okay job.

So here are the most basic arc opinions!

Arc 1: I like it, but it definitely has a lot of growing pains, and few problems.

Arc 2: Good but a bit messy.

Arc 3: Very messy, and didn’t flow as I wanted to. Kind of lost until the last third.

Arc 4: A great refresher. Help me get so much joy back after feeling down after arc 3.

Arc 5: I am happy.

With that! I am done with my basic thoughts on every arc!

Though if you have any questions on my writing, characters, plots, scraped parts, etc. Feel free to ask in the comments. I will happily answer.

I guess the big one is there any future of Stargzing? Well, making a few extra chapters and after stories sound fun. But it might be a little bit before that happens. I have some ideas, and happy to hear recommendations. But yeah... will be a while before that happens. Hopefully within this year. I just need to take a step away first to process everything.

So what is the future for Bobple?

Well, I plan to keep writing.

Triiffic-Soul: Can I Be In Control? It is a story I started the same year as Stargazing, following three souls in one body. It’s been fun to write and likely will last a good while longer.

The Scorpion’s Library. This is a weird one. I basically repurposed an old draft I had that existed before stargazing, as I wanted to start writing a more pantsing story. Similar to stargazing, it got some dots points, but certainly way less than what Stargazing had. Still feels like it has some growing pains.

A big thing for me is experimentation. I have learned to write, so now I am trying to figure out what way of writing works best for me. Which is why I have been drafting up a few stories over the last two years. They vary greatly in how much detail I planned. Some I plan every moment before writing, and etc. Some are more detailed in the descriptions, others I try to keep lighter. Stories that are more action, stories that are more mystery.

Trying to discover what style fits me best.

A bunch of those stories will begin posting this year. Some will be uploaded in ‘volumes’, likely still x chapters a week, but the whole thing will be completed before posting. While some others will be weekly like what Stargazing was. Within the next week, another story should drop. So, yeah….

…

Even at the end of this afterword I still feel weird. Just a ball of many different emotions.

Still, I am happy I did this. I am happy I decided to try and write.

Thank you all for being a part of this journey.

Sincerely, Bobple.