Another small week in terms of actual news but stuff been getting done... peep further if interested
I've been able to roughly maintain my cadence of doing 1/2 chapter a day for most of the week! Since last week, I've added on 3 chapters to the work (5, 6 and 7) and have gotten some work done on the 8th chapter.
As it currently stands, I am roughly 1/4 of the way done with writing the longfic! Obviously there's still far more to be done, but this is the first semi-big milestone I am proud to celebrate. I'm still projected to be on pace to get this done before my pseudo-deadline of August 17th, as long as I keep this pace of 1/2 chapter a day going.
On the writing side, I've definitely noticed there's been a little more friction between me and writing this story in particular. While I am still absolutely in love with this project and how it's came out so far, there's a couple of reasons I've noticed that have slowly shown the signs of being a bit of a problem.
1. The schedule I was on for the first weeks of writing has definitely been thrown out of wack ever since I got back from Schaumburg. I find myself sleeping in more, going to sleep later in the night, all that sort of thing. I had a much more controlled schedule before, which I think was good for my writing ability.
2. I've gotten hopelessly addicted to Geometry Dash again, an activity I accidentally dropped like, 5 hours on it yesterday after re-downloading. I fear for my productivity quite hard, as I'm pretty prone to clocking in disgusting amounts of daily hours on these types of games, at least for a couple of weeks.
3. It's gotten much easier to just scroll the internet rather than sit down and do stuff. I attribute some of this partly to the fact the internet is crazy good at making you do that (happened as I was writing this update, infact!), and partly to the fact that I like procrastination a little too much. It's a bit harder to just sit down and write compared to earlier in the production of the longfic. I think this is because I've gotten a little too into thinking about how this will turn out once it's done.
There's still an obvious level of consistency I'm maintaining right now, but I am trying to not fall into the combo of missing a day -> going on a break -> never writing it again like I have found myself prone to many times before.
I still want to get this done, but there's definitely some things I should try and start implementing now so later down the line it's easier for me to work on this. I haven't actually done any writing outside of this fic for almost a month, and so I'll be trying to add in some extra, non-longfic writing into my schedule to tide me over (including an OC piece for Pride Month, stay tuned for that). Once I can make sitting down to write a habit easy as breathing, it'll hopefully make it feel less committal to get my daily writing in.
I'll also be trying to course-correct my sleep schedule! I'd rather not be writing at 8-10pm again when I could be waking up early instead. And hopefully, this Geometry Dash addiction fades out into a hobby instead, so I don't cut into my writing/drawing/whatever time.
That's all for this update. The plan is to get at least 3 more chapters done before next update, and perhaps speed it up once I get more into the groove. Thanks for reading!!
What up bug fablers we just had our first ever bug fables book club SHOW AND TELL!!! We actually ended up having quite the turnout and now we have our backlog for the next 8 meetings setup! I am super happy that this worked out because I was admittedly a little worried that nobody would submit anything, but the amount of people who showed up (either to just gander or submit) was super sick. Thanks everyone for joining once again!!
If you're interested, we host these meetings every Sunday at 12pm MST in the Bug Fables Discord! It's a good time, we read a cool fanfiction, and then we draw.
Our work for this upcoming week is Breaking Point by funleaflingfincg! I'm a big fan of this one it's so kino... also W pride month W transgender people. See you there!!
smaller report overall but we still got shit #Doneeee read below if intrigued and immersed
I ended up taking most of this week off as I was busy being at COMBO BREAKER! I finished an extra chapter last Wednesday, and then from Thursday-Monday I was essentially just out of commission. Post convention exhaustion HITS so hard x_x
But, I woke up at a fairly reasonable time today (9am, soon to be 7am hopefully) and I'm ready to get back to work! I did a little bit of writing yesterday (about 1/3 of Chapter 5) and I plan to finish the rest of the chapter today after I post this update and go on a walk.
The speed is another thing I've been thinking about: last update, I mentioned how I was still thinking about how much time I should be dedicating to this story on a daily basis. I am still thinking about it: I feel as if doing ~1 chapter a day would give me the quickest ETA of completion, which would then make the process of editing start much quicker (I've been looking at past chapters fairly little, as I'm saving the more intensive looks for after the entire thing is done).
On the other hand, I think it'd be foolish to try and rush something like this because like, c'mon. I think I'm incredibly capable of making the above schedule work, but I also don't want to make this feel bad to write if I'm just unable to write on a given day. I have enough planning, it's just pacing it out to avoid burnout.
Either way, this is probably a question for next week once I've gotten back into my usual routine. I think it'll be easier to justify dedicating so much time once I'm back in the groove writing-wise. That's all for this week, see you next update.
big week 2day... also new title for these progress reports for accuracy. although it was probably obvious before LMFAO
Well, we're at the 10th progress report, 70 days in, and I am proud to say that A Mind I Knew's finally on its feet! Since last Thursday, I've been slowly but surely beginning the process of writing this absolute behemoth of a work.
It's already been both an incredibly fun process to work on this, and also one that I am attempting to remain vigilant about being consistent for. It's easy to maintain a schedule for a week, but a month and beyond is where things start getting tricky! The fact that I'll be going on a vacation starting tomorrow afternoon also throws a bit of a wrench into my plans. I am considering putting some hours into writing, but I feel like going on a once-in-a-decade trip just to be on my laptop all day feels like a waste of an opportunity. (If anyone reading is going to be in Schaumburg, Illinois from the 22nd to the 25th, please let me know!!!)
It's also fun to see how much I deviate from the written outline as I write. While no major plot points have been re-made so far, it's about the little details: things like where Vi goes in a given chapter, how they end up talking with someone, stuff like that is cool to notice and see add up over time.
While I will save the most important snippets for when it's actually released, consider enjoying this bit from the third chapter:
And to perhaps give some tiding-over for those who are interested, I've gone out of my way to make a cool spreadsheet which tracks my progress!
It's nothing too complex, but I am tracking these metrics for two reasons: one, it's fun. And two, I think it'd be cool to have a graph of these sorts of things for when I finish the work! Perhaps these aren't the most important things to keep track of, but seeing a number go up (that I'm responsible for!) feels really nice progress wise.
So far, I've managed to maintain a cadence of 1/2 of a chapter done per-day, give or take. Assuming the rest of the chapters fall into that range of ~3000 words or so, this gives me a ~completion time of some time in mid July, not counting things like being sick, or doing other stuff, or whatever else. Given the time I have available to me (summer), I might end up trying to speed the creative process up: however, it's no rush to get this done ASAP, given my schedule.
Other than that, my week's been mostly creative work-focused. I've been trying to figure out a consistent schedule to get everything done, and fitting in all the things I want to do (gaming, sleep, exercise, eating, drawing, animating, writing) is an exercise in time management that'll most definitely be difficult to navigate.
When I first got started plotting out this work, I always envisioned myself BEING here, but the feeling is still a bit surreal. Most of my recent writing has been one-offs for fun, short stories that start and end like that. To take on my first large-scale writing project in multiple years, with as much forethought and planning that has gone into it, is exciting and also just a little bit anxiety-inducing.
Either way, I hope to keep on working. Thank you again for reading, and here's to another week of progress!
Shorter meeting than normal but we've finally finished the old backlog of works! Please do not mention Green Neolith. Overall was another fun meeting.
As a reminder, next week is another break week (for Combo Breaker), followed by next week's meeting being Show And Tell! If you're interested in making or sharing a work for Show And Tell, please read the guidelines here! Thanks for reading!
janainaart
stormborns
germansingergirl
jbbartram-illu
kianamaiart
izzy806
snowghoul