#bookish bootcamp

[blueowl2ivy]

Adjusting Goals and Habits: Week 4

Weekends are my decompress and catch up days. They're also my only evening off, so if I want to go out or spend time with friends, it has to be Saturday or Sunday.

It makes it difficult to do all this *and* daily habits for the bookish bootcamp challenge. So I'm adjusting. Reading, meditating, writing 100 word flash fiction, and exercising are moved to weekday goals for the rest of the challenge. (three more weeks!)

I also shifted the project I'm working on. This one is much more character driven, which is always more fun and motivating for me to write. The plot's pretty disorganized but I'm excited to work on it. I just need character names and a placeholder title.

This weekend is a birthday staycation/diy writing retreat. What do I want to do? Write up to 20k words, relax, swim in the pool, paint, take a bath, eat yummy food, and lounge without having to be "on." No kid. No spouse. Just me and my art. Did I imagine spending my 40th that way? No, but I'm so so excited.

[blueowl2ivy]

Different Kinds of Tired

So last weekend reminded me unfortunately I exist in a body, and not a brain jar. Feeling better now but it was rough getting everything done. Twelve days until my birthday DIY writing retreat! Am I excited? Yes. Do I have so much stuff to do beforehand? Also yes. Is the house always messy? Also yes.

I shifted to watching shorter experimental films for my weekly watch/inspiration stuff (Jan Svankmajer and Maya Deren) but I do plan to watch Lost Highway and Sinners later this week.

Daily meditation has been tricky. I'm almost too exhausted after work and my executive function is in the toilet. I might try on my dinner break, but then I don't get to use my little setup at home that I'm very proud of.

But this has taught me that even though I'm not at 100% of my challenge goals, I'm getting more done than if I hadn't set those goals.

Especially if they're in the spheres I tend to neglect like creativity and self-care (and the type of self care that's more drag yourself to the shower even if you don't feel like it but you'll feel better once you're done)

[blueowl2ivy]

Wrapping up Week 2

Tomorrow's the last day of week two for PaWriCo's Bookish Bootcamp challenge. How is it going?

Eh.

So I knew this week I wouldn't be as productive as last week. It's still disappointing. Parts of it were stuff I couldn't control (family illness and solo parenting.) while other parts I could have worked on (spending far too much time messing around on phone, low energy, fatigue) I think things are getting to me more than I'd like to admit, and I need to find better coping skills other than dissociating/distracting self with phone. I don't feel like I've really been present for anyone this week. I need to get better about setting intentional breaks vs procrastination.

But I have tomorrow. Gonna get some good writing time and watch Lost Highway.

Then on to Week 3!

[blueowl2ivy]

blueowl sings the blues and thinks about horror

It's been a day. I'm tired. Work is aggravating. I'm just feeling defeated and don't want to do anything. There's always some home admin task I suck at to do, and I'm always behind on everything.

But I finished Episode 13! It was really good. But it's led me to reflect on how we talk about horror media.

I'm always suspicious, and this time was no exception, when a work is compared to House of Leaves. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE that book but it's a distinct reading experience and so often I see horror novels marketed as "House of Leaves"-like or "House of Leaves meets …." and I end up disappointed. House of Leaves seems code for "unsettling and going to play with perception and time". Which leads me to....

Pet peeve of mine is critiquing a work of horror by saying it's not scary. Okay? Define scary. Horror can be unsettling, uncomfortable, disgusting, unnerving, shocking, etc. It can be quiet or loud. Obviously, it's fine to dislike something for any reason. But saying "it's not scary" always seems to close the conversation. It's also aimed a lot at quieter horror, which I adore. Maybe I'm being unfair. Maybe I'm being old lady yelling at clouds.

Going to finish reading Education in Malice this week. Excited for that.

[blueowl2ivy]

Writing Reflections Day 4

So far it's going! The daily 100 word flash fiction challenge is tricky and I'm not very good at it. But it really feels like a worthwhile exercise. It's teaching me to be more concise and aware of my word choices. It also helps me get over the "meh, everything I write is garbage" feelings I often feel. Yes, this is garbage. The goal is 100 words flash fiction, not necessarily good flash fiction. Afterwards, I feel more open to writing in other projects.

Witch Bones is going going well and I'm enjoying it. Posting this here so when I'm complaining about it next week I can remind myself I did actually enjoy it not so long ago.

It's a limited third person perspective, with at least four POV characters. (And it's likely going to stay close to four. Might have a flashback or outlier) Similar to Song of Ice and Fire's structure. There's disadvantages from a reader's perspective (what if one character's disliked more than the others and their chapters are skipped?) but since my primary goal is to just finish a novel length project, I'm not going to worry too much about hypothetical readers.

Three of the four characters I feel like I have a solid understanding of their motivations, story arc, etc. Ahti's is giving me more of a challenge. I have some of the pieces but unsure how to weave them together. It doesn't help he's my least human POV, and it's been tricky balancing that with figuring out what his wants and internal motivations are. Right now they feel very external. (He's reacting to situations vs being proactive.)

[blueowl2ivy]

And it's day one of PaWriCo's Bookish Bootcamp Challenge!

1. I've been doing this already but want to continue. Currently reading Episode 13 and An Education in Malice. Both are so so good.

2. LeGuin's writing workbook Steering the Craft is gorgeous and I read it years ago but want to go back to it.

3. Actually posting to my socials? Shocking.

4. I've noticed in my prose that I'm a bit too wordy (see that) so challenging myself to write more flash fiction.

5. By inspiration adventure, I mean leave the house that isn't work or grocery shopping. And reflect/write about it.

6. I've been loving the hybrid calisthenics workouts.

7. Finding time to watch a movie might be the trickiest one. Going to go for films and albums that are either new to me or haven't listened to/watched in over ten years.

8. Been meditating a bit.

9. The PaWriCo discord group is great for this. There's also local groups, maybe? This is Florida in the summer. No one leaves their house.

10. My current project is a dark folklore fantasy. The working title is Witch Bones and Cemetery Dirt. I work better with weekly word count goals vs daily so aiming for 7k a week.

This is all doable for me. It's going to be hard but not impossible.

Also heads up, while I won't be talking about my kid a ton, balancing parenting with making art is a huge part of my journey so I will be talking about it some.

[blueowl2ivy]

Tomorrow's the solstice. Summer's always a weird time of year for me. (Although living in Florida, it's more like midsummer/early hurricane season. Not "spring" summer, or "fall"/serious hurricane season) I feel sad and cranky more than usual. It's a drag to leave the apartment. Can you get seasonal depression for the summer?

It doesn't help that summer's an aggravating season at work as well (coworkers inventing problems cause they're bored while my department is busy with behind the scenes stuff)

The job hunt is on pause while I reflect and decide if I need to persist on my current path despite lack of non-traveling positions, or career pivot yet again. Pivot. Pivot. Cringing just writing the word.

There's also family stress, money stress, and state of the world stress...

The Pathfinders Writing Collective discord has been a fun writing community and NanoWriMo alternative. They have a six week Bookish Bootcamp challenge starting tomorrow. Gonna try and implement ten habits. (Will write more about them tomorrow) Looking forward to it and I need the excuse to do something other than sit on the couch and doomscroll.