Author Journey (March 24, 2025)

For the longest time, I’ve been a champion of varying the stories you read/watch. The wider your experiences, the more resources you have to pull from. However, I noticed that I too have not been varied enough. It’s time to change that!

Author Journey (March 24, 2025)

What happened?

You’ll be pleased to know that I am still defeating the laundry. It keeps coming back like a hydra after you cut off its head, but I’m not about to give up. I also made the most of my week at home alone by getting lots of things in order around the house and also doing some work on this site. I have a week’s worth of posts already scheduled and a couple more after that. I’ve also watched more anime than I’ve been able to write about so there’s some catching up, but half the battle is done. It was definitely something that I needed for my mental health.

The second week was a return to chaos… Well, not entirely, however, my kids have a two-week-long March Break so they were home all week which meant they instantly undid a lot of the work I put into tidying and organising the house. It’s still better than it was two weeks ago so I can’t really complain. Plus we got to spend time together playing video games and generally goofing around. It did impact my ability to do my stuff, but I more than made up for that with the first week. They are back at school today, so now I need to get back to work on restoring order.

How is it going?

1. Health

Things didn’t quite go as swimmingly as I had hoped here. The first week was good because I was able to get more walks in with Gus, but I did have one day where my ankle flared up and another where I suffered from vertigo most of the day. Then, the week with the kids was hard on Gus as they don’t like to walk as far as we do, so they were much shorter walks. I need to build up their stamina so that can last a full walk without whining… Kids these days! Sleep continues to be a bit of a mess. I’ve had some good nights and some truly awful nights, waking many, many times in the night. Hopefully, adding more exercise back in will help. Plus, if I’m going to hit my goal for the year, I need to pick up the pace.

Goal: 3,650 km (10 kmpd), Current status: 639 km (7.8 kmpd).

2. Writing

I finished Character by Robert McKee and am already partway through Action – the fourth book in the series. This series of books has been fantastic and given me a lot to think about with my stories. I also feel like I’m in a position to really get back to writing. I know which story I need to write first and I am excited to finally get that up to the level that I think it deserves. One of my issues, I think, has been that I love the story and want to do the absolute best that I can, so it’s been hard to commit to writing it without being completely ready (kind of like Seiya Ryuuguuin in Cautious Hero). I don’t think I can be any more prepared so it’s time.

Goal: Publish a book, Current status: I know which story I’m going to do first!

3. Art

A lot of the work I did over the last two weeks was to get things in order so that I’m not constantly trying to catch up. I feel like I’m in a position where I am dealing with the weekly tasks. I still have some tasks from before, but it’s a much more manageable list. That should mean that I will start to see my daily life changing. Firstly, I need to get my writing going. Then, I’ll be back to drawing.

Goal: Complete artwork for my book, Current status: Desperate to draw!

4. Watching

One thing that has become apparent from listening to the Robert McKee books is that I have not been following my own advice when it comes to varying what I watch/read. Sure, I explore all genres, but that has been almost exclusively anime and manga. I need to do even more. I used to watch a lot of movies from all over the world, but now it’s all from Japan. So, I’ve decided to do something about that. Over the last two weeks, I watched fifteen episodes of anime, an eight-episode TV series, and one movie. The TV series was called Paradise and is on Disney+. I would absolutely recommend that. It’s a mix of political thriller and the apocalypse. I also watched Captain America: The First Avenger. I used to keep up with the Marvel movies as they were released. Then I fell behind and never caught up. In fact, I’ve never seen Avengers: End Game which is something I really need to fix, so I’m watching everything in order. I may write about these at some point.

Goal: Watch more than 629 episodes of anime, Current status: 19 episodes watched
Bonus: 8 episodes of TV, 1 movie

5. Reading

All of my ready for the last two weeks came in week one, but that’s fine as I managed to get through six volumes. Before I started reading How Not to Summon a Demon Lord and I’m a Behemoth, an S-Ranked Monster, but Mistaken for a Cat, I Live as an Elf Girl’s Pet I had not expected them to have so many similarities – elf girl, cat girl, overpowered demon lord/behemoth. Anyhow, I’m enjoying both so I can’t complain.

Goal: Read more than 159 manga volumes, Current status: 38 volumes read

6. Blogging

So now that I’m posting on weekdays, I am adding ten posts every two weeks. I’m not going to achieve the original goal I set at the beginning of the year, but that’s fine. It’s more about being able to keep up with the schedule and not feel rushed into posting whatever. On top of keeping up, I now have seven posts scheduled for the future, which is awesome. I just need to build on that, which should get easier and easier as I go.

Goal: Publish 365 posts, Current status: 66 posts

What are you planning?

So, I’ve just had two contrasting weeks. One with lots of time and one with limited time. Now that things are back to normal, I’m going to see what I can do about bedding in a nice schedule with time for exercise and everything I need to do to achieve my goals. I definitely want to get through the Infinity Arc of the Marvel movies and also watch more anime. I still have a massive to-watch and to-read list so it’s not like I’m going to run out of things to do. My initial goal for writing will be to do an inside-out plan for the first book in my series where I go through the scenes looking at the feelings of the characters involved. That should help dictate the dialogue and allow me to make the subtext stronger. I’m going to be more focused on getting this as good as possible rather than speeding through the draft only to have to do multiple revisions.

I’ve spent a lot of time trying to get my head into the right space to be able to write again. I think devouring the Robert McKee books has been a huge part of me rediscovering what I want to do. In fact, I’m quite certain that I’ll listen to them again and again. I also want to watch more of the movies that he talked about in them. There’s always more to learn, but now I am ready to put what I do know into action. I’m excited about writing again, which is huge. Anyhow, thanks for reading!

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