September September is a very special month for me, it is undoubtedly one of my favourite months of the year. September is a pleasant month, the warm remnants of a past summer often teasing children on their return to school with warm sunny days, and mocking them with hints of what could have been during August. The encroachment of Autumn has cooled the air enough for spectacular morning mists to shroud the near distance and later in the day, the moist evening air gives rise to some of the most spectacular sunsets too as the silent battle between a fading Summer and approaching Autumn is played out in the breeze. Trees often portray this battle as lush greens are infiltrated by tinged yellows and the first hints of the rust of October scars leaves like a burn nestled amongst the deep saturated greens and foreshadowing the arrival of Autumn, my birthday also falls in September and luckily, for the most part, one of the warmest days of September happens to fall on that day of ageing. September is also when creatively I hit my reset button by preparing for the new and clearing out the old. I start removing old sets and pieces that no longer serve the purpose the once did and start replacing them with new scenes and sets that fit both what I'm writing now and what I plan to write in the near future. Characters also get a full revisit during September, getting revised, tweaked and in some cases given the final elements to make them who they will come to be, this year is no different as Carrie, Isla, Taddy, Hans, Roxy, Paisley, Yui and Lavender receive final tweaks ready for their moment in the sun. This year also see's the arrival of a further two characters, both are currently un-named but this is quite normal during their early days, so expect to see them quite soon. I also revisit the single most important scene that I ever created in September, the accidental point of genesis where my entire journey into the realm of becoming an author began, the moment when a nameless 3D print, gained a name and gave birth to a dream so vast in scope, that I simply could never have comprehended just how powerful that moment in September 2020 would come to be. That revisit this year was however tinged with sorrow as it became clear to me that what once was and what is are no longer the same thing and with that being the case a hard decision had to be made. I always promised myself that I would never allow a single character to cease to have the same value and meaning that they once held, but as I remade the scene that started my journey, it became clear that as much as I love Evelyn, the time has come to let her be. I cannot pretend to be unaffected by this decision, it truly is devastating but I also will not allow Evelyn or any other character to become little more than a silhouette of what once was being dragged through pointless images that simply destroy what she means to me nor would I allow any character to tarnish any future works purely for the sake of keeping them live. Evelyn of course will always be my starting point of this journey as both a 3D artist, character designer and as an Author and she will always remain at the heart of my hallmark and by virtue a part of everything that I do, just now is the time to live by what I believe and set her to rest. Yet as the light from Evelyn fades into the mists, I remind myself of a simple thing, just as with Life Downside Up being released, this is not the end of a journey, just the start of a another very different and new journey, but one that I knew was coming. After all, Every dream starts with an idea.