Author Journey (April 21, 2025)
I spent the last two weeks coming up with interesting ideas for something to talk about in this post, but it wasn’t until last Friday that I realised exactly what I needed to discuss. I wasn’t expecting this!
Author Journey (April 21, 2025)
What happened?
This year, I’ve been busily trying to maintain a schedule. Things haven’t always gone to plan, and I’ve changed it a couple of times already because of pressures from daily life. The last couple of weeks, I’ve seen a week’s worth of scheduled posts vanish and then been unable to keep up with the posts for last week. On top of that, I’ve been unable to do much of anything. My writing is going nowhere, I haven’t drawn anything in ages, and watching anime and reading manga has completely stalled. It feels like everything is competing to be done, but nothing gets done because of the pressure from everything demanding my focus. Then, when you add Real-Life Family Events into the mix, I don’t know which way I’m going or where I’m coming from.
For context, there have been one hundred and ten days this year, and seventy-eight have had some form of Real-Life Family Event. Basically, I need to reassess how things are going to work. So, as of today, I am going to take a little break from publishing new posts. I think it’s going to be somewhere between two to six weeks, but so that I don’t completely disappear, I’m going to continue to publish my Author Journey posts every two weeks. Hopefully, this will give me some time to organise things here and work out how I’m going to make things flow going forward. Luckily, I’m not covering seasonal anime, so nothing is particularly time sensitive. On top of that, I have 2,791 posts on this site, so it’s not like there’s nothing to read if you find that you are really missing my voice…
How is it going?
1. Health
I’ve seen an increase in my kilometres over the last two weeks, with my daily average coming in at 9.7 kilometres. To achieve this, I’ve made a conscious effort to stay out for a little longer with Gus. Instead of walking for forty-five minutes, we’re doing a full hour now. The first time we did it, he was pretty tired, but he’s very quickly adjusted. Sleep continues to be a bit of a mess, with there appearing to be no reason as to why I’m waking. I’ve tried a number of things, but none of them seem to make any sort of consistent difference. Hopefully, it’ll come as I try to sort out the general chaos of my daily life.
Goal: 3,650 km (10 kmpd), Current status: 870 km (8.0 kmpd).
2. Writing
I started listening to Story by Robert McKee again, and this time around, I’m taking in a lot more of what he’s saying and instantly applying it to my writing. The big thing that I’m going to implement first is taking my outlines and working out what the net changes are. For example, the first book in my series starts on a negative note, where my hero feels trapped and ends on a positive note, where they are finally free to explore the world. Of course, there’s much more to it than that. I have a similar process to do for each of the three arcs of the book, and then the chapters within. Each of the positive to negative or negative to positive elements builds upon one another to create contradictions and develop character. The first book ends on a positive note for the overall story, but the third arc ends on a negative note, which is the price that must be paid to move forward. I’m already excited by how much this is improving the story, and I’ve barely got started.
Goal: Publish a book, Current status: Working through the emotional beats.
3. Art
Nothing… I need to do something about this, which is a factor in my decision to take a break from posting.
Goal: Complete artwork for my book, Current status: Desperate to draw!
4. Watching
In the last two weeks, I managed to watch exactly one episode of anime. I’m hoping that changing my routine will help alleviate the pressure, allowing me to simply enjoy watching things for a while without having to put any free time I have into getting the next post ready in a hurry. I’m going to make the process fun again.
Goal: Watch more than 629 episodes of anime, Current status: 23 episodes watched
Bonus: 8 episodes of TV, 2 movies
5. Reading
For the second fortnight in a row, I managed to read three books. I know that I bought more than three books during that time, so my to-read pile just grew. I find that I work best with consistent routines and schedules, so my goal is to find one that allows me to fit things in better and still maintain exercise and sleep levels, hopefully, improving them as well.
Goal: Read more than 159 manga volumes, Current status: 44 volumes read
6. Blogging
I only ended up publishing eight out of the ten posts I had planned for this block. I hate not delivering on my promises, even if it’s just one that I made to myself. The only plus side to this is that it made me realise that there is just too much pressure at the moment, which is what made me realise that a break would be beneficial.
Goal: Publish 365 posts, Current status: 84 posts
What are you planning?
My goal over the coming weeks will be to work out a manageable schedule that will allow me to do everything that I need to do. Before today, I wasn’t able to do anything other than attempt to keep up with my posting schedule. I couldn’t read anything or watch anything that didn’t aid me with my schedule. And, since I had barely enough time to keep up with that, you can see why I couldn’t find time for anything else. Removing that pressure should allow me to make better use of the time I do have. Of course, I will be attempting to write some posts for the future when I am back to a full schedule once more, but I’m going to make sure that I take enough of a break that I’m not going to instantly fall back into the same situation.
So, I’m aiming for a two-to-six-week break from posting. I am going to keep posting my Author Journeys as I think that will help me keep my thoughts straight, and the idea of just ignoring this site for any period of time is unthinkable. I have every intention of returning to a regular schedule, so don’t worry. I will be back! Thanks for reading.
Just do what you can. Sometimes, if people can’t sleep or if their sleep is cut short, it might be because of factors like emotional, psycological, or physical (just to name a few). It’s best to consult a specialist to get on the bottom of things. I remember years ago when I would wake up in the middle of the night screaming with the intense fear of dying (and going to that place even a fireman can’t put out). I never got to have a closure on that, even to this point, although it has drastically toned down compared to those early years.
Thanks. Luckily, when I wake it’s not traumatic. It just breaks my sleep and sadly, that’s happening a lot more than I’d like. I’ve signed up for a sleep study so that might show something. I’m going to try increasing my exercise in the hopes that tiring myself out will make it impossible for my body to randomly wake.
I’m sorry to hear you have to to throttle back on your posting. That’s got to be tough — I know you took great pride in the quality and quantity of your posts. But it sounds like it’s the right choice.
Glad you plan to continue the Author Journey posts!
I think you answered this before, but have you gone through a sleep study? I had one a few year back, and I think it might have saved my life.
I hope the break revitalizes your blogging! I still blog because RLFEs don’t give me a 2 hour block I need for novel writing every day. When I only have a few minutes here and there, that’s when I can jump into a blog post. I don’t know if an approach like that would work for you or not.
I wanted to say thanks for talking about Robert McKee. I’m going through Story right now. I’m not hearing anything I didn’t know before, but the way he places everything in context reveals meanings and implications I had missed. It’s clarifying how I think about writing!
Thanks. I’ve been trying to keep something going since December and it’s just been a little too hard. I don’t want to start writing shorter posts or skimming over things that I think are important, so I made the hard decision to step back and try to get everything in order first. Hopefully, it will allow me to come back stronger.
Yeah, I had to keep something going, plus I like the chance to organise my thoughts. They are as much for me as those that read them. It’s like a record of my time.
I’ve been referred for another sleep study so we’ll see how that goes.
Most of my time comes in the late evenings, but things aren’t going so well with the RLFEs tiring me out and making it hard to find time. I’ve tried working on my phone before but it’s not as efficient.
McKee is amazing. I loved all of his books and will be listening through them all again, probably several times. A lot of things resonated with me and while some of it might seem like too much effort, my goal is to write the absolute best story I can. This one has been in my head too long for me to go the minimum viable product route. His stuff about subtext is invaluable, such as how no one actually says what they mean. There are so many lessons to take from them. The best series of writing books I’ve gone through and I’ve gone through a lot.
Hope the break helps!
Sounds like scaling back and narrowing focus is the way to go – I’ve done similar things in the past, and it usually helped (though I always resented the need to do so, lol).
Thanks. I hope so too.
I hate scaling back, because there’s so much more I want to try to fit in. At the moment, it’s about weathering the storm, which is definitely forcing me to reconsider a few things. Thanks again.
I wish you the best on your break. Looking forward to your return and the good content you always provide.
Thanks, I hope I can live up to your expectations once everything is under control again.