Author Journey (March 4, 2024)

2024 03 04 The Otaku Author Journey

Well, this was an oddity! There weren’t any real-life events, looking to derail my week. None! As such, I made the most of it by building on my habits from last week. It went better than I could’ve imagined. Now, to keep it going.

Author Journey (March 4, 2024)

Favourite Moment!

I was on fire last week, which makes it hard to pick out a favourite moment, especially as there are a couple I’d like to talk about… Here goes! Firstly, I managed to keep the moment going with my writing. I’ve carved out a small window each day from Monday to Friday and I was able to use them. I’m nowhere near my most productive rate, but this is how I get there. Slow and steady progress that builds the habit and gathers momentum. I’m very happy with how it’s going so far.

Second, I had a bit of a revelation about my posts… again… I’ve been watching and writing up episodic reviews for a series called Campione! I scheduled eight posts, but something wasn’t clicking with it. The show is fine, but fine isn’t enough, and it shouldn’t be, for me to commit that much time to it. The point of my episodic posts is to look at what inspires me and excites me from a story perspective. Fine is not inspiring. On top of that, I’ve been working my way through Bastard!! Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy and that series is falling a little short of fine! When you consider that I basically forced myself to finish The Kingdoms of Ruin since I had started it, I’ve fallen into a bit of a rut!

So, I did something fairly drastic. I unscheduled all eight of the posts for Campione!, wrote up a series review, and scheduled that instead. This has opened up a whole new world (although, I’ve been told to consider this in the past by several friends). I’m reserving all of my episodic posts for either shows that I love and need to talk about or seasonal shows where I can enjoy the conversations that come with watching shows with others, even if in different locations. Basically, I’ve freed myself to watch more without getting worn down by shows that don’t inspire me. That feels like a huge win.

Writing!

Finding a time that works is always important. It allows me to begin to prepare myself for that moment beforehand. So far, I’ve been able to sit down, read the last paragraph that I wrote and start writing. I’m doing about an hour’s worth each day and am currently averaging 866 words a day. That’s a slight increase on last week’s daily average and the number of days I was able to write. I’ve got a way to go before I’m back to the 2-3k words a day I used to write, but I’m very happy to be back in the game.

Anime!

Since freeing myself of writing episode reviews for everything I watch, I’ve been able to sit back and just enjoy watching shows again. I’ve already dived into two new series. Neither of them will get the episodic treatment, but I am enjoying them. They’ll probably end up with a season review and either an analysis piece or a list post, similar to what I tried back at the end of Summer 2023. I’m still tweaking the process, but it is nice to see some of my old ideas still had some merit. So, I smashed my goal for the week with eighteen episodes.

Catching up on my To-Watch List

Valentine’s Special (NSFW)

Winter 2024

Manga!

After finishing all the available volumes of My Dress-Up Darling, I was planning on starting a new series, however, a couple of books in a couple of series that had started became available at the library so I made an exception. I also ended up reading a new book I bought… I know, I need to read the ones I have first… Sometimes, I just can’t help myself. Anyhow, I read five books.

TasksGoalCompleted
Anime Watched6 Episodes18 Episodes
Manga Read3 Books5 Books
Posts Scheduled10 Posts18 Posts
Words Written5,0004,329 words
Artwork Completed1 Piece2 Sketches
Beast Tamer Episode 12 Tania Sora Runa and Kanade are ready
Beast Tamer (Episode 12) – Champion

Aspirations for the week!

I just need to keep things going. I’m excited about the change in my schedule and how that means I can catch up on some new shows and also focus on the shows that I love and feel like I could talk about. Of course, I’ve still got one more episode of Bastard!! to watch and review before I put a stop to that. I haven’t decided if I’ll continue to watch the second part and the second season, but I can’t bring myself to keep reviewing it that intensively. Had I begun publishing the posts for Campione! I think I would have forced myself to finish. It wasn’t an easy decision to delete eight posts, but I think it was the right one.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this further tweak to my schedule goes. I like that it will allow me to mix things up even more. You can expect, episode reviews, season reviews, manga reviews, seasonal episodic reviews, analysis and opinion pieces, list posts, and soon, maybe even original fiction. Exciting times! Thanks for reading.


Lynn Sheridan The Otaku Author Header

10 Comments

  1. I can feel the excitement and energy coming from you just reading this post!! I’m so glad for all your wins this week ???? It’s super freeing to let go of something that’s just not clicking with you ~ it would most likely not click with your readers, either. I hope you keep that writing momentum going! Way to go! ????

    • Thanks for the encouragement. It’s too easy to get caught up doing things you think you should rather than focusing on the things you want to do. I do feel like I’ve taken a big weight off my shoulders and it’s hopefully going to make me more productive. Thanks again.

  2. Awesomesauce! Glad you have some positivity going your way. Love your sketches! I tend to have the same issue with episodic content. That hit me hard last season. I just couldn’t finish what I started.

    • Thanks. I need to work out how to start converting them to a digital format so I can play around with the paint functions. Of course, I need to keep sketching until I can do these in my sleep.

      I’m fine with episodic reviews when they’re so good I want to talk about them, but when they fail to inspire, it’s hard to force myself to keep going. Focusing on shows that I love will hopefully keep me inspired.

  3. Great to hear you had a productive and energy-giving week!

    I think you’ll get a lot of benefit from scheduling your writing windows. Habit is a lot more powerful than I realized! So much so that most of the time, I really look forward to my writing windows.

    Bummer you didn’t like Campione! It’s an acquired taste, I think. I really enjoyed it, but if I put my writer’s hat on, I completely get where you’re coming from. There are bit of narrative rebar sticking out all over the place!

    Congratulations on 4,329 words!

    • Thanks. I feel like I’m starting have these breakthroughs more frequently. They seem to build upon one another, so hopefully, it’ll keep going.

      I’ve listened to a number of audiobooks about habits and how the advertising industry uses them to sell products. Fascinating reading. It’s amazing how the brain works.

      I didn’t say I didn’t like Campione! I just didn’t love it. It’s suffering because it was the stray that broke the camel’s back. Bastard and Kingdom of Ruin did most of the damage. Campione! was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It did have some issues, though, to be fair!

      And thanks. I just need more now!

  4. I congratulate once more for your determined will to get your goals of writing-related stuff be achieved. While I’m satisfied with mine having my five chapters (includes the prologue part) be published online in just 21 days, I think I should challenge myself to drawing a book cover someday. I don’t know since I don’t have a distinctive artstyle (that distinguished mine from other popular author’s character designs) in my mind right now. So it’s a feat that you’re able to draw original sketches with a distinctive style. I wish you once again the best in anything you need to do this week! :⁠-⁠)

    • Thanks, although I feel like I’ve been talking about doing this for way too long without actually writing. It’s nice to finally get the words out of my head.

      I definitely want to draw my own covers, however, colouring them is going to be more challenging. I think I could get them to look like an animated cell at the moment, but to make them look as flash as some book covers will require some more practice.

      And thanks again, there’s always something I need to do…

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