#inkoverted thoughts

[inkovert]

I think I just came up with the dedication for my book and it hits

[inkovert]

someone left the comment: 'I adore this book. literally' on my story today and like.

the dopamine rush that will leave me with for the next several months - if not years - is unmatched.

like. we always talk about the power of a writer's words, but I don't know if readers understand the power of their words. for those who read a piece of work that they enjoy and want to express that to the author but are racking their brains to figure out how or give up trying because they're self-conscious or unsure what to say. something as simple as "this shit? I like it" could be the difference in a writer giving up on a story or seeing it to completion.

at the end of the day, we just want to know that our stories are reaching someone. and that they matter to someone other than us.

often times our stories are an extension of ourselves. and telling us that they matter, makes us feel like we matter, too. it's not just a validation of our talent and skill, but a validation of our purpose and existence. and wanting that is nothing to be ashamed of.

[inkovert]

Less songs about romance and love and heartbreak and more songs about this meaningless existence and how difficult it is to be human.

[inkovert]

2024 has not been my year, I'm anxious/jaded/apathetic/exhausted like 24/7 but at least I'm having fun writing scenes I can't stop day dreaming about of my two favs being cute and emotionally bonding

[inkovert]

You know what I really love? Those stories that just start off slow, silent and unassuming. Introducing you to two strangers who you know are going to mean something to each other as the story progresses, you know there’s going to be history built between them, but you don’t know them yet. Their existence, or lack thereof, is inconsequential. They aren’t real to you so they don’t hold meaning in your heart or space in your mind just yet. But then the storyteller does something wonderful, something unexpected. In just a few short chapters, a few short scenes or episodes, that may only be nothing but a handful of hours to you in the moment, a moment that is somehow simultaneously slow yet swift, you witness the history, the pain, the love, the hate, the joy being built and sculpted between the two over the span of years, and, completely unawares, these two people have become buried in your heart, you mirror their emotions, their joy, their sadness as if it’s your own, everything they’ve experienced in a handful of years and you only a handful of moments until you’re left wondering, guessing what that time, just a few hours ago, when these two people meant nothing to you even felt like.

[inkovert]

I wish I could write

[inkovert]

Things I want to do in 2024

I've never been the type to make resolutions and I know we tend to put more weight on them than they actually are meant to have, hence why we never follow through with them. So! I am attempting to just make a list of things I am hoping to do in 2024. very low stakes. not going to think of these as goals, just things I want to do. and hope that I follow through with some of them.

Health-related

Planning my meals and keeping a food journal: I've been on a health journey for about the past year and I want to try to get back on track with that and be more consistent with it. I've been trying to be more consistent with preparing home cooked meals rather than relying on frozen meals/eating out, eating 3 meals a day etc, and that's been going well so far, but it could be better. I think one way to help myself be more consistent is planning my meals out (not like meal-prepping just literally being like this day I'm going to eat these things so I have a more structured "menu" vs throwing things together in my head the day of). I think I also want to start keeping a food journal. I peeped that iOS added a Journal app to the new software and I might try that out to see how useful it would be for food journaling, doing things like documenting my mood around the times I eat, what I eat etc.

Find a new dentist and start flossing: When I say I've been on a health journey over the last year I really mean in every possible way you can think of lol. Dental health was one of them. I've made a lot of improvements but I'm so prone to getting cavities that I think I could make a few more. I am one of the 60% of people who do not floss every day bc I found it hard/time-consuming/unnecessary. But I started doing it a couple weeks ago and... it wasn't so bad? I was pretty consistent with it until I went home for the holidays and that fell to crap bc I couldn't find the floss I had packed. anywho. I want to continue to be consistent with that and make that a habit, in addition to finding a new dentist bc the last one I saw was a bit too...assertive and I didn't like their staff so decided never to go back there again.

Personal/things that actually make me excited

Decorate my room: lol. Can you believe I've lived in my apt for two years and I've yet to decorate my room (even the bathroom has some stuff hung up on the walls). I literally have the decorations sitting in a pile by my bedroom door collecting dust. So yeah. I wanna actually do that. Tbf what stopped me before was that I wasn't confident I'd be able to stay in this apt for long. I thought for sure after a year they would jack up the price and I would be forced to move. But, we're now going on three years and things have been fine so I should actually properly decorate the place.

✨ Get a tattoo ✨ The sparkles are because this is probably the thing I'm most excited about on this list. I have wanted a tattoo for as long as I can remember. And I finally decided last year that I was going to say fuck it and get one. But unfortunately the finances weren't financing so it got delayed. But it's happening this year!! For sure!!! Hopefully in the next few months!! I need to stop delaying it and just do it!! So yeah. I've made my best friend keep me accountable each step of the way so I can stop procrastinating. So she gave me a deadline of Friday, 1/5 to at least have a list of tattoo artists I'm considering. We're doing this!!!

Actually leave my house and spend time in places I enjoy: Since my two closest friends moved away last year I haven't had a lot of incentive to go out and do things. So I've just been spending a lot of time at home by myself. And solitude is so nice. So comfortable. So blissful. But I need to end that. Or at least cut down on it a little. There are things I actively want to do in my city but every time the weekend comes I end up staying in my house doing nothing for 2 days straight. And it's been great. But I need to push myself to actually go out and do things by myself. Go to live music concerts, hang out at bookstores or coffee shops. Just something to have a change of pace and environment. I know I will be better for it. I'm gonna challenge myself to go out by myself at least once a month. If I do more? great. But we're starting small.

Writing-related

Track my writing: I'm not going to push myself to have word count goals or anything like that because I think that would be counter productive and take the fun out of writing for me. I actually wrote a lot last year (I just calculated it - 174, 817 words according to Scrivener; kinda insane can't remember the last time I wrote that much in a year) so I don't think I have issues with word quantity or writing enough and if it ain't broke don't fix it! But I do want to track my writing a little more closely. I just think it could be fun tracking the stats behind it and looking back at it at the end of the year. and also maybe help me continue this consistency with writing that I've suddenly developed?

Write something for fun: I can't tell you how much it hurts me that I don't have any fun/silly projects that I can work on on the side that I don't care about getting perfect. I think it will be nice and freeing and challenge my writing chops a bit to write something completely out of my comfort zone, totally absurd, and purely for my enjoyment. I've just been too crippled with fear to even try and idk why. I want to do it so badly but I struggle with coming up with ideas (and with working on more than one thing at once). We'll see it if it happens. this is just a list of things I want to do who knows if I'll actually do them.

Finish the second draft of MDE: just gonna throw this one in here out of obligation. refer to the last sentence of the previous bullet point. I wrote half of it in a year, maybe it's possible to write the other half in a year?

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. gonna come back to this in 6 months and see if anything I listed here actually panned out lol

[inkovert]

how do you get to know someone irl as an adult. what do you say after hello nice to meet you. they're going to ask me what I enjoy doing and I'm supposed to respond with the truth? I enjoy being at home alone in solitude laying in my bed swiping through the same two apps on my phone when I get overwhelmed by the idea of deciding what to actually do with my day. also I hate my job, have no career prospects and don't know what I want to do with my life even though I am of age. you must come up with an elaborate lie to make yourself sound interesting in order to make friends right like there's no other way? in this economy? in our year of 2024?