Author Journey (January 15, 2024)

2024 01 15 The Otaku Author Journey

I had a crazy week thanks to the day job and family life, but I still managed to get several things done here, plus I started on a mammoth task that I’d been putting off for too long.

Author Journey (January 15, 2024)

Favourite Moment!

Last week I mentioned that Indigo had a big sale on manga and that I got all my preorders in for the series that I am following. Well, I also bought some books that were already out. Recently, I came to the conclusion that as much as I love streaming services, they often don’t have the thing I’m looking for. I recently experienced this with the anime for Monster Musume. It wasn’t available on any service in Canada. I ended up buying it on Blu Ray so now I can watch it whenever I want. That realisation has made me more keen to collect the series that I love. One of those series is Akame ga Kill, and I am now the proud owner of all fifteen volumes (and I only had to order one from overseas). Anyhow, I got more books and that makes me happy.

Akame ga Kill Volume 1 Cover
Akame ga Kill

Writing!

After three weeks of “vacation”, I was keen to get things rolling with my writing. Of course, my day job had other ideas. I knew it was year-end reporting and that things would get hairy, but I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so ridiculous. Everything got delayed and since I’m at the end of the chain, my turnaround time became unworkable. I ended up doing an all-nighter on Saturday to catch up… Anyhow, this week, things should be better and I’m itching to get back to writing.

Anime!

I managed to watch five episodes this week, which is one short of my goal, but it’s fine. With the way the day job took over, getting through this many was an achievement on its own. I’m slowly getting a better idea of how my time can be used to get the most out of my weeks.

Catching up on my To-Watch List

Winter 2024

Manga!

I read two volumes last week, one from two of the three series I have on the go at the moment. Originally, I was planning on bouncing around the different series that live on my bookshelf, but after reading the first episode of Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs and My Dress-Up Darling, I’ve decided to work through all of them and then start another series. It will mean I’m focused on fewer titles at once, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

TasksGoalCompleted
Anime Watched6 Episodes5 Episodes
Manga Read3 Books2 Books
Posts Scheduled10 Posts9 Posts
Words Written5,0000
Artwork Completed1 Piece0 Pieces
Solo Leveling Episode 1 Jinwoo Sung and Joohee Lee terrified
Solo Leveling (Episode 1) – I’m Used to It

Aspirations for the week!

So, another fun thing that I’ve started is I’m doing a huge cleanup of the Otaku Author. When I switched hosts, I transferred my old site across. I didn’t republish all my old posts and as such there are lots of unused images sitting in the background. I also have to clean up all my posts for social media after I dropped one of my plugins. So far, I’ve cleaned up one-hundred and sixty posts and have only two-thousand and sixty-two to go… It’s going to be a long-term project and it’s something that I can do little bits here and there. So, I have that to keep me occupied when I have nothing else to do…

I’ve also been listening to some interviews with Dean Wesley Smith and I can’t help but find myself agreeing with almost everything he says. As a result, I’m going to try to implement Heinlein’s Rules which are;

  1. You must write.
  2. You must finish what you start.
  3. You must refrain from rewriting except to editorial order.
  4. You must put it on the market.
  5. You must keep it on the market until sold.

So, I guess I better get writing. I can’t start the week by breaking the first rule, can I? Anyhow, thanks for reading.


Lynn Sheridan The Otaku Author Header

2 Comments

  1. “I’ve also been listening to some interviews with Dean Wesley Smith ”

    You and me both!

    Dean Wesley Smith gives me a different inspiration every time I listen to him. Have you ever read his book Killing the Top Ten Sacred Cows of Publishing? It’s from 2013, but it reads like it was written yesterday. It completely changed how I see agents and the publishing industry as a whole.

    Sorry to hear about your work situation. Being the last one in the chain sounds like all kinds of pain.

    • I listened to one interview where he talked about the so-called rules of writing and how everything was a scam. Then, at the last second he said something about editors and it was like a mic-drop. He’s a fascinating guy. I will definitely check out that book.

      Yeah, it’s a pain because every delay that anyone else has just eats into my production time. I can’t delay anything because I have directors waiting for it with non-negotiable deadlines. Makes me more determined to make writing work, though.

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