posted by Allan Haverholm on Jan 26

As you can see from recent posts, I am trying to elaborate on the basic descriptions of songs in “abstracts” that should give a more in-depth sense of the individual concepts.

Without making excuses for myself or my general pace, I’m finding it very hard to put into words what I’m working on. Currently, I am in the middle of evolving the visuals and semantics of several installments at a time; Engine City is still a little unrefined, whereas Cerebration is more or less good to go, and Passion is more or less a shambles.

When I first started developing the Astoria project, I was taking almost entirely written notes, researching and conceptualizing as much as I could beforehand, as I wanted a sound basis for the work in advance of what I considered (an consider) the actual work. Over the last six months, the bucket has turned.

Since I started drafting on Astoria in September, I have gone on to work with thumbnails and sketches alone, adding new elements more intuitively (although based on my thorough conceptual documents) and all the time stretching myself to avoid repetition or derivation.

And often I stretch out of language. And then I sit down and try to write my abstract … So forgive me if I’m slow in typing up these abstracts; I will get through the pile, but I don’t speak words much anymore. It’s an occupational hazard, and one I can fortunately (?) only afford for a brief period while I finish Astoria.