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I've always looked down on WIP threads, because I thought they seemed kind of self-promoting and narcissistic. Personally, I almost never look at other people's WIP threads, because I usually don't care enough about other people's stories unless I've already read some of their work before and was so enamored with it I just had to read more. But then when I really stopped to think about it, I realized that the point of a WIP thread isn't necessarily to advertise my unfinished game, but rather to give myself some accountablility to ensure that I finish.

I take forever to finish things. It's hard for me to create a consistent writing schedule and stick with it, which usually leads to a lot of unfinished projects. To put it simply, I'm getting sick of it, hence the reason for this thread's existence. I'm setting myself a goal of just 3,000 words a week, or 1,000 words a day three days out of the week. The only reason I'm not saying 6,000 or 7,000 is because I have another big, linear project I'd rather not put on the backburner for the sake of this one. Once I get into a good routine I might up my goal, or I might not.  Every Sunday until I finish, I will post an update with a short summary of what I wrote, how many words I wrote that week, and my new total word count. All this is to provide a little extra motivation to finish. Having all two of the people who will probably even notice this thread bearing witness to my failure is too terrible a fate to bear.

I think I'm going to devote the rest of this thread to a little synopsis of the story itself. The idea behind it is simple. You and a friend are bored one Saturday, so you decide to take a bike ride. Little do you know that the trails in your town are fraught with danger. Depending on your choices, you may encounter all manner of strange and frightening things, including hostile homeless people (on drugs), teenage biker gangs (also probably on drugs), and local drug cartels (run by people who are most definitly on drugs). There's basically a whole hidden society of misfits and rebels, all connected to one another somehow or other. Now's probably a good time to mention the fact that the entire system of trails was inspired by my hometown. Sure I've exaggerated some things, but even still, the root of it all was the same.

At the time of this writing, my current word count is 13,134 and my page count is 31. Out of the four main branches I've planned, one is finished and three I have yet to start. 

Yeah, what with starting a new job and school being a week away, a daily word goal just isn't realistic. It's a lot harder to find the motivation to write after an 8 hour shift than on a day off.

I think not planning ahead is actually part of the reason a lot of people give up on story ideas within a few weeks of starting. Sure, some people have a knack for writing by the seat of their pants, but I'd say most don't. It's really easy to get stuck when you start writing before the idea is even fully formed.

I'm pretty certian staying focused won't be a problem for me. A few years ago it might have been, but it's not anymore. I've already been working on this project for about a month and a half, and I've been plugging away at that other project I mentioned for nearly a year now. I just have a problem with consistently working on things, which is really what this thread is about. It'll force me to make steady progress instead of only getting a few thousand words in here or there, thus ensuring I actually finish within a reasonable timeframe.

I actually did find doing a WIP thread really useful for the Book of Vanishing tales. It forced me to really think about how I would break down what was going to be a large game in maneagable chunks, and it was motivating to see the progress. I wish I'd done one for my first storygame. Plus getting feedback is motivating, and something about posting it in public with updates did make it seem more like something I needed to prioritize and not push off.
 

It's good to know that this sort of thing does help some people, and that this whole thing isn't necessarily a complete waste of time for me.

The story varies quite a bit depending on your choices.  Some branches just have you exploring and finding interesting things along the way, others lead to encounters with gangs, drug cartels, and homeless tribes. Like I said in the OP, everything is connected in some way or another, and you have to read every branch in order to understand the full scope of it. As for character development, that once again depends on your choices. Most possible storylines take place over the course of a single day, so there probably won't be any earth shattering realizations or epiphenies, but there is still a little development scattered throughout. I'm still trying my best to make the character personalities interesting though, even without major changes.

No, just a suspiciously organized tribe of feral humans living by the river.

I've completed my goal for week one, clocking in at a solid 3,090 words for the last seven days. That brings me up to a grand total of 16,224. It feels good to have completed so much in a week, and I think I'll try and keep this up. That said, school starts up Monday, and I've got to pull a few seven hour shifts this week on Monday and Wednesday. On top of that, I've got a class for church I'm starting soon, which kicks off with a two day event Friday through Saturday. That means I basically have to complete all my assignments for the week on Tuesday, which I have off, and Thursday, when I only have a four hour shift. All that to say, I won't have much time for writing next week. I'm sure I'll manage to squeeze a little in here or there, but I don't really expect to be able to do another 3,000 words. I'd be happy with 1,500, or even just 1,000. 

Anyways, this week I started on my second main branch, which focuses on a tribe of homeless people who live in the woods. I covered the player's first encounter with them and started a path that basically has them getting kidnapped. I'm really liking where it's headed, and am really excited to do more on it when I actually have the time. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch some Netflix instead of going to bed at a decent hour because I'm an adult and can do what I want.

It's funny, I had to drag myself kicking and screaming to the writing desk today.  I was kinda freaking out about how I was going to get everything I need to get done next week done, and debating whether it was even worth it.  I eventually just told myself to just do it for five minutes and see how I felt, and that if I was still having a hard time at that point, I could stop. Two hours later, I had 1300 words written, and hit my goal for the week.

Now that I think about it, that five minute trick works almost every time for me.  Maybe I'll make it a personal writing rule.

Well, I'm already two days past my self imposed deadline for updating this thread, but better late than never I guess. No, I haven't given up, I just had a really busy week, like I predicted. I still got something done though. My current total is 16,960 words, which means I wrote a grand total of...736 words. A little less than half of my already conservative 1500 word goal. So that kinda sucks. This week won't be much better either, though seeing as I don't have two full days taken up by my church this week, I should have a little more time. Still have to deal with school and work though. 

In any case, it'd be really cool to break 20,000 this week, but I'm not going to put too much pressure on myself because I really don't need another thing to stress about. I've got the day off work today, so hopefully I'll at least get something done in between homework and whatnot. Guess we'll see where I'm at in a week.

I finally broke 20,000! Took a whole week longer than I intended it to, but it still feels good. I finished a good portion of my second main branch too, putting me that much closer to the finish line. Anyways, I don't think the weekly updates system is working out that well, so I think I'll change things up. From now on, I'm going to post whenever I hit certain milestones, which will probably be about every 5,000 words until I decide otherwise. So the next post will be for 25,000 words. Hopefully I'll make it there within the next two weeks. I just quit my part-time job and applied for another position that should leave me more spare time. (The old job was supposed to be 26 hours a week, which is already a lot what with having to deal with school and whatnot, but they jacked my hours up to 36 for next week. When I went to talk to them about it, they basically told me to deal with it or quit. I chose the latter, because I'd already had some problems with them in the past, and was sick of being pushed around and treated like a piece of company property when I'd already made it clear I couldn't work more than 26 hours). All that to say, I've got a lot of spare time now, at least until I find a new job.

Current word count is 20,443, page count is about 42. 

The 36 hours was only going to be a one time thing, but I'm already falling behind with school as it is, so that would have cause some major damage. Besides that, it was kind of a matter of principle for me. The way I see it, I agreed to give them 26 hours a week of my time, give or take a little. Whether they pay me or not, they don't have the right to take more than I've given them. It'd be like if I was having a yard sale and someone walked into my house and took something of mine that wasn't for sale. Even if they left money for it on the counter or whatever, it'd still be wrong because I never agreed to sell the thing. 

This also wasn't the only problem I'd been having there. There was another instance when I first started when they made me work on what was supposed to be my day off. (This was my first job, so that was before I knew I had the right to say no to that sort of thing). It's also just really terribly managed. The best example of this I can think of is the utter nightmare that is truck day. Apparently, the truck has to be unloaded by a certain time or else they have to pay extra, so they decided it was a good idea to have someone there to yell at us to unload faster the whole time, essentially making our lives a living hell. Apparently, it's one of the main reasons newbies quit, because they feel like they're being bullied. I almost walked out on the spot myself once or twice because of it. The stupidest part of the whole thing is that the truck is almost never unloaded on time anyways, and one of the main reasons for it is that is because so many people quit. Almost all the other employees there hate it too, creating a ridiculous turnover rate. I'm pretty sure we lost four or five people in the month I worked there. I could go on about this for hours, but the long and short of it is that it was such a stressful place to work and I just couldn't take it any longer.  I figured since I'm still living with my parents there was no point in putting up with it anymore, even if they want me to pay rent now that I'm a grown adult. (I've actually graduated high school now, by the way).

But yeah, it still kinda bugged me to walk out like that without putting in a two weeks notice or finding another job first, and I'll admit it probably wasn't exactly a smart decision. I think it's all going to work out okay though. I had more than enough money from my last check to pay for next month's rent as well as this month's, which gives me plenty of time to find a new job. I actually applied for a position back at my old middle school as a noon duty assistant which I'm pretty confident I'll get what with my experience as a middle school youth leader. Even if I don't get that, I know I'll be able to find a new job soon enough now that I know how. 

Anyways, that's enough complaining about my old job. On the writing side of things, my tentative guess is that this story should turn out to be somewhere around 50-60k by the end. That said, this second branch is probably going to turn out a bit longer than the the first, so we'll just have to wait and see. I'll know I'm at the halfway mark when I finish this branch. The goal is to be done with it by the end of the year, or even sooner if possible, but knowing me there's no telling if that'll happen. It took me four months to get this far, but that was before I started putting all my focus towards it. Hopefully my new organizational methods of making to-do lists in Google docs will pay off and help me make that happen.