Gearing up for April

So! After my previous entry about being unmotivated and uninspired, I rediscovered my inspiration. 😂 I started writing a little here and there about for my other stories, moved away from thinking what I should be working on and stressing myself out about it. I started reading more, playing more games (and you know how RPGs have storylines that can inspire thinking). Soon, I found myself inspired again, enough to write some morning pages and snippets for various WIPs, including the Untitled Dragon Project and my long-procrastinated sequel to The Rapihi Chronicles.

I guess I just needed to focus on my other hobbies first.

I’ve recently finished reading this Advanced Reader Copy (ARC) of a lovely book about found family featuring monsters called Tower Full. Not my usual genre, and I picked it up mainly to support a fellow indie writer I occasionally interact with on Twitter, but once I started, I got really invested in the lives of all the characters. I finished it in a week or so (it took so long because I had a week-long regional conference to deal with alongside the reading and other hobbies) and reading it really helped me get my inspiration back. 😎 Not to mention, the themes in the book are those that really speak to me at the moment.

Something else that ended up inspiring me (surprisingly) was the regional conference I was neck-deep in the whole of last week. 😳 There’s something to be said about being surrounded by like-minded people who work in the same position (or similar). I’m the only one in my branch of the company who is in my department — meaning, usually nobody except me knows what exactly I do. I like my colleagues a lot, can talk to them, commiserate with them about work and bosses… but nobody truly understands the problems and irritations that I face, working in what I do. Except for these colleagues in the regional team who are doing the same work.

And it feels so good! To be able to talk to them, trade solutions to the problems we all face, talk about the system I use and have them immediately understand what I mean. 😌 I loved the regional conference. Even if I was stressed about the presentation I had to give. 😅 I also got to see some really creative work the regional colleagues produced, which helped inspire and motivate me. I just wish I could work closely with them more often. Being around them makes me feel like I’m a part of something bigger, that what I do actually matters. That people actually see and appreciate the work I do, that they understand it and give feedback, so that I can learn and improve as well.

😩 Sigh. It’s been a week, and I can feel the positive effects and energy I garnered from the regional conference already ebbing away. Now work is once again… just work. I get there, spend the next one-third of a day trying to check off the items on my never-ending to-do list, then go home and try to make what I do in my free time matter more.

Still, I’ve been more motivated with my writing this week. I’ve started

  • working on character sheets for Something Better
  • discarded everything I ever wrote for Something Better and started over from scratch!
  • wrote a little bit of the opening scenes for both Something Better and Untitled Dragon Project

The only project I haven’t touched is Auld Lang Syne. I mean, I did start on Chapter 16 at the beginning of the month, but I honestly haven’t even looked at it yet. One of my friends asked to read some of my writing and I looked through the beginning of Chapter 1 and cringed so hard at my own writing that I feel like, if I ever manage to finish this draft, I will definitely scrap everything and work on a new version of the story. Because I like the characters (I know, even though they’re so unlikeable 🤣) and I like the story I want to tell with them. It’s just that so much time has passed in between starting the story and now that I feel there are so many things I want to change. Which is also a bit of the problem I have with continuing to write the story.

But I’ve received a review for the previous chapter, which makes me realise someone is still reading it, so I will persevere. Otherwise, I might just scrap the whole thing and do a full re-write right now. 😅 Not that I need to start on yet another re-write… ugh.

 This is becoming a bad habit.

I have to say, though, that I will almost definitely one day tackle re-writing Fades In The Summer. It was the first story I wrote that actually moved me to tears while writing it, and now, armed with more knowledge about death and grief, I want to revise it. Someday.

Right, what else? 🤔 Oh — the mood boards I was working on for Something Better! They’re all finally done now, even though I left out some other side characters. So here they are: the last two.

And, fun as they are, I’m done with mood boards for now. 😅 I need to get back to writing. And I’m rather excited to see where I can go with these new characters.

I hope I haven’t forgotten anything.

Now, on to April! Camp NaNoWriMo is in April, so guess what I’ll be doing? 😆 Well, I have a bad habit of joining Camp NaNo in April and July and ending up just… dropping out. But this year, I’ll try harder. I haven’t fully decided on my project for Camp yet (even if I have already set up a goal for Something Better, but that might change anytime), so I have a couple more hours to decide. I’m torn between 1) going with my original goal and starting with the brand new draft of Something Better, 2) using this opportunity to get Chapter 16 of  Auld Lang Syne done or 3) take things slow and work on something completely new, like the sequel to The Rapihi Chronicles instead of the usual suspects.

I’m not sure. All three have their advantages. 🙃 I might do some trial-and-error; start on one and if it doesn’t feel right or excite me enough, I’ll switch to another. We’ll see. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish achieve something (even if it’s something small like finishing a chapter) in April! 🤞

All writings, stories, and illustrations – unless otherwise stated – copyright © 2021 Kassie N (dear-llama). All rights reserved.

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