I was thinking about something I want to share with my readers. After several hours of frustrating, finely-detailed work on the third date, I was thinking, 'Yes, the readers appreciate all of this work, and they notice the little details. They always say that they know how much work must have gone into making this. But do they really? Can they really know how much time I put into this project? I wonder. How can I make them know? I'm so greedy--it's not enough that they love my work, I need them to know how much work it really is so they can have a deeper appreciation, and so that when I do something a certain way they don't think "Well, I could have done it better" or they won't wonder why it takes me so long to post everything.' But I thought--no, there's no possible way for them to know how much work it is. I couldn't put it in words.
Today, though, I am working on the second date to post and I thought--no, maybe I can't put it in words, but how about a few numbers? That's when I realised that I didn't even know how much time I put into this. I started taking screenshots for the second date on 11 May. That's a month ago! I took most of them starting on 13 May. Based on the times they were taken, I spent about 17 1/2 hours on 7 different days over the span of almost a month, setting up those shots and playing the file. That's not, of course, counting loading times or any time spent saving or getting everything ready. For this, I made Sims, I changed Sims, I used poses, I kept track of everyone's everything, I used a lot of MoveObjects on and switching from Live Mode to Build/Buy to Create a Sim. And that's just the screenshots. Since I shot out of sequence, I have to put everything in order, then upload the screenshots, type up the story, add the screenshots, send it to the sponsors, make any changes they request, add the Confession Cams, find the screenshots for the Confession Cams, triple-check for mistakes (although as you've noticed, I still miss some) and post. And that's Part I. Then it starts over from 'type up the story' for each following part.
I don't know how many of you will actually read this big block of text. I do feel better though, now that I've in a way pointed out how very much work this is. Fingers crossed that it gets easier at some point! In the meantime, thank you to those of you who read it all. You are the reason I do this, and the reason it is all worthwhile.