Author Journey (February 14, 2022)
It’s been another busy week with the focus in all the wrong places. I have been able to work on some side projects which has been good. Sometimes, you just need to complete anything to get the ball rolling again.
February 14, 2022
Hot Topic
It feels like a lifetime has passed since this site disappeared from the internet for a couple of weeks. I bring this up now as the last of my posts about Hundred went live last week. I watched the wrote up reviews for the entire series between scraping my old posts off the cached internet. Of course, this site came back, but my other site, Ecchi Hunter, wasn’t so lucky. We’re still thinking about how best to rebuild it going forwards, so until that happens, I’ve decided to host some of my posts here.
As they often include content that isn’t safe for work, I have segmented my site which means you can only find them if you are actually searching for them. They won’t appear in the usual feed. It’s also an experiment into SEO and whether being available of WordPress Reader makes a difference. So far, I’ve republished one hundred and fifty posts with more to come. Once I’ve been able to gather some data, I’ll report back here.
What have I been watching?
Seasonal Anime
I kept up with my three seasonal shows once more. It helps that they are nicely spread out through the week, but it is also just three shows. I did manage to watch three episodes of a show I’m planning on covering in the future, so that was nice. In the Land of Leadale is a confusing show. It wants to be a slice of life, but Cayna has a dark streak and is prone to mood swings. I feel like she’s on the verge of becoming the villain, but that doesn’t seem to mesh with the vibe of the show. It’s a fine show, I’m just not sure what to make of it just yet.
And then there’s Princess Connect! Re: Dive. I love this show. These last couple of episodes have been dynamite and could have been the thrilling conclusion to an epic season. Of course, they were just episodes four and five. I can’t wait to find out what they’ve got planned for the rest of the season. Finally, Arifureta: From Commonplace to World’s Strongest highlighted one of its biggest flaws from the first season. Everything is just too easy. Hajime doesn’t have to work for anything. The answers just seem to pop up which makes it all pretty boring.
Historic Anime
This week featured my reaction to Shou Tucker from Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. I don’t swear often, but when I do, you better believe I mean it. In our discussion of Fire Force season two, we’ve been trying to guess what happens next and this week, we were quite surprised to see the outcome, and in a good way. I spent a bit of time discussing Charybdis in That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime and how I felt that it wasn’t handled quite as smoothly as it could have been.
As I mentioned earlier in this post, my season review of Hundred went live and I am happy to have finally had the chance to fully discuss a show that means a lot to me. It’s absolutely one of those guilty pleasures and that’s fine. I don’t care if no one else likes it. It certainly helped to calm me when I was looking at the possibility of having to completely rebuild my websites from scratch. This Sunday, you can expect the beginning of a new set of posts. Exciting times!
Work in Progress
It feels like forever since I had a standard boring week with no real-life events, family or otherwise. This week was no exception. My eldest managed to make himself vomit at school from eating too fast and was sent home. He had to stay home for another twenty-four hours to ensure that it wasn’t COVID related. It wasn’t, but that was a couple of days of extra distractions.
I mentioned last week how my desk is in the basement next to the playroom. This week, I decided that I needed to change something and moved the bed from the spare room into the playroom and took that room as my office for the time being. It’s a small room with just enough room for a bed, but it’s already made a difference. I have a door now.
So, what writing have I done? None. I moved my desk on Friday and have been busy with work from the day job, even on the weekend. That should be over today and then I can hope for some quiet time. I’m starting small again with a daily goal of three hundred words. If I can get a streak going again, it should be easy to bump that up.
Of course, I have spent every waking hour thinking about my story so there is that. If only there was a way to get it out of my head automatically! One day, maybe…
The Plan
This is the middle week of quarter one and so far, it’s not exactly gone the way I had hoped. There’s still time to correct things and I have every confidence that I will do so. I’m definitely going to start blogging my story and may even schedule the first few chapters now. If I set them for some point in the near future, it’ll work like a deadline for me to get the rest finished.
Quarter One
- Posts
- Author Journey – 7/13 (+1)
- Historic Anime – 39/39
- Seasonal Anime – 16/36 (+3)
- Bonus Posts – 13/17
It’s a fairly standard update, although I did start watching a series that I will be posting about in quarter 2, so I’ve begun chipping away at that target. I currently have 20/39 ready. Now that I have my office set up again, I’m hoping to rebuild a nice bank of posts.
- Writing
- Plotting – 49/58
- Writing – 43/58
- Editing – 42/58
- Artwork – 0/9
So, yeah. Still no updates here, but I did mention that I needed more time to sleep, watch, and read and I have achieved some of that. With the final season of Attack on Titan currently airing, I decided it was time for me to finish the manga. I read volume 26 back in March 2019. In the last couple of days, I reread volume 26 and blew through 27 to 33. I should finish the series this week and may need to discuss it, especially as the ending seems to be fairly polarising.
Final Thoughts
While it might not seem like it at first, I think last week was actually a pretty productive one and it may be the start of a calmer period of time. I desperately want to get back to writing MSR which I started in November 2020. Not least because I have several other stories desperate to get to the front of my thoughts. I have a lot of competing projects all vying for time and that’s great. I know I will never be without something to do, however, I need to finish one just to prove to myself that I can. Once that happens, expect the floodgates to open.
Well, I’m going to work on my novel now. Please send positive vibes my way! Anyhow, thanks for reading and stay safe.
Good luck on the novel — and everything else!
Thanks. Hoping for a period of calm. Even just for a couple of days each week.
Hope things do get calmer! I’m feeling a bit the same, my output of late has been sub-par at best XD
Thanks. I just need to get back into the habit of writing again. It’s a completely different skill to blogging, surprisingly. Going to take it slow and claw my way back in.
Yes, claws out!!
I feel the same – blogging feels somehow far less laborious, both in general and for me lately.
I feel like there are a number of aspects to it. With a blog post, you can get it done fairly quickly, schedule it, and see the results quickly too. With a novel, it takes a long time to finish so you don’t get all the positive boosts as you go. That’s one of the reasons I’m going to look at doing a web novel version. Going to trick my brain into working…
The speed of results, yeah! Compared to a novel… yep, I hear ya 😀
I had something somewhat similar with Patreon a while back and it worked for me re: tricking my brain into working, cool