First Drafts and a Playlist for Cyberpunk RED

Hello Choombas,

I promised I’d keep you up-to-date on my adventures; handed in the first drafts for Tales of the RED and switched gears to other projects. As soon as I did, all my typical anxieties—brain weasels, as I like to call them—took over. Damn, I thought. This is dark. This is personal. Wait... Is my math right? Should I doublecheck the style guide? Gah!

You get the picture.

Despite having written dozens of stories and games, my anxiety always kicks in at two points in the production process: right after handing in my first draft, and right after the final version goes live.

First drafts are first drafts for a reason. The point of a draft isn't perfection—no matter how lofty a goal that might be—because developmental feedback is an opportunity to improve and shape the material. Mind you, this is also my first time writing for R Talsorian Games. Every company approaches production and development differently, but as a new-to-them writer what I can do best is show up, do the work, and wait for feedback.

You know, without sending them a million brain weasels.

Fortunately, I’ve written enough first drafts there's a sliver of time between anxiety and moving on to write the next thing. For me, anxiety is good news. It's a bad, bad sign if I don’t, because that means I don’t care about my submission. Here? Writing for Cyberpunk RED? While I can’t give you details—not until Aron and Mike give me the green light—I will say that writing this set of adventures was so visceral I dreamt about my characters and the setting. This story haunted me, yo.

When I write, I don’t like to listen to music with words. They tend to distract me from deeply focusing. I do, however, love mood music that sets the tone. I spent a little time surfing YouTube!, because I am an “old school” who remembers when MTV played music videos, and discovered a new-to-me genre of music called trapanese. I can’t confidently say where this genre originated from, but I will point you to lil ricefield and their song Trapanese featuring seiki oda.

Uh, no friends. That song is not safe for work. Nope.

Anyway, I stumbled across an instrumental mix that blended traditional Japanese strings, like the shamisen, with hip hop beats. Mr Momo on YouTube! curates the playlists and offers timestamps for the artists along with links to support and find their music. Today, I'm sharing a spotlight on Exyz, but there are several other playlists available on the channel. One of my favorites was Akatsuki.

Do you have questions about Cyberpunk RED or the upcoming Tales of the RED? Thoughts about trapanese? Comment below!