March 8th
March has not been treating me well (my fault) but I'm definitely going to submit for the writing competition again, and I did start drafting a little.March 23rd
I hate, just a little bit, that I've broken my word about updating, and that just by scanning through January, February, and now, March, you can see my blogging thoughts deteriorating. But I guess, in real life, we don't always have time to do the things we want to do.But I understand that, in terms of writing, my priority is not to blog, but to write. And that's what I've done, a little, this past week. I've been continuing the short story, especially the past couple days. I'm ahead of typical schedule since the deadline is March 31st and I'm a couple chapters away from the end of the first draft. It's so fun! I've honestly also been plotting to get something done this year (unrealistically, I hope to publish again on August 11th or maybe even in October/December; though this will clash with a lot of activities...) I've realized that in January and February, other creative and non-creative commitments were really consuming my time and energy. Now that it's the school break, I know I will try my very best to get some quality writing done. (I also posted a reel today, so check it out if you haven't...)April 4th (script for vlog)
main ideas (transcript of sorts)---------------------------------------------------------MOTIVATIONSO, if u know me, u know i like patterns in numbers and meaningful dates. u also know that i can be quite impatient - i can't rest until something is done. this has benefitted me in writing (because i can get drafts done within a single month), but my impatience also has definitely hurt my work. the truth is that i'm not happy with many aspects of my current published works. most of all, i'm not happy with some of the overarching ideas and themes of some of my works. so much of my work- my published work- has always struck me as too flat or meaningless or surface-level. a lot of this is especially amplified horribly with my last published project, which was in december 2023. originally, i told myself i would not self-publish anything else. but how am I supposed to rest in peace when i know that the work i've been churning out is not my best? i know it's a journey, and i believe in progress. that's why i've decided not to unpublish any of my works - despite knowing that many other teen authors eventually do because of the low quality some works can be. but also, i want to publish one more thing. one more thing that encapsulates me as a person. because i'm not just someone who writes fantasy romances for the sake of having something published. whatever kind of author you may see me as a reflection of my work - lovesick, surface-level, i don't know - i'm not just that. that's why, i've been working on something i won't be embarassed to show off. i'm writing something i won't be afraid to put on my shelf for my friends to pick up. i'm writing something i can be proud of that's mine. today is april 11th. on august 11, 2019, almost five years ago, i started writing seriously for the first time. it was a project that will never see the light [awful!]. i have four months until august 11th this year. i've already been drafting since april 4th (show graph) and i reached 10k yesterday. i feel like my old self again, if i'm being honest. though my progress is much slower, my situation is different now since i have important mock and final exams this year that could determine my futurebut yeah. i wonder if i'll be able to finish this by then - and i want to make sure it's everything i want it to be. i know how fragile life is, and i don't want to be remembered for writing some questionable fantasy romance stories when i was 12 to 16.actually, one of my biggest motivators was this thing i wrote for myself (show map sketch): this project is my chance to change the last word. for my values. in case it's my last one that i self-publish (i want to move on to trad now)GOALS so yeah, here's the timeline (shows timeline)to anyone who wants to follow along - see you next episode!April 23rd
FINISHED THE FIRST DRAFT YAY! Taking a break, then I'll revise :))