Project-ception

Okay, okay, okay, so what exactly constitutes a project, and how many projects can one feasibly work on at a time? This is what I began asking myself upon finishing last week's post, primarily because I've always lamented my inability to dedicate myself to more than one type of story. If I try to split my attention between multiple, such as creating my own Pathfinder campaign vs. fleshing out the story elements I want to eventually tell from my fiancé's, one will inevitably gobble up the other.

Planning and writing a story is hard work, sure, but I should be able to bounce between two at the very least, set up perfect blocks of time where I work on one and then the other, right? You know, just like a university class schedule. Maybe an A-Day here, a B-Day there, and even as I write this, I'm thinking, 'Yeah! This time it'll work for sure!'

No, no it won't. Not yet, and here's why:

A project is not usually as small as it might at first seem.

And I'm not even talking about scope creep, where the project might start off simple but then slowly expand into multiple parts and complexity over time.

No, even the statement, "I'm going to write a story," or, "I'm going to start a website," or, "I'm going to--"

Well, you get the idea. Each project is like a unique pocket watch. The overarching project may be the timepiece itself, but to keep making progress, you've gotta wind it so that all of the itty-bitty little gears inside rotate as they should to produce the end result: the time.

All those itty-bitty little gears are the sub-projects within the bigger one, and when you have 24 watches you need to wind, I think it's easy to get bogged down by the chore of maintaining all of them.

Not that I have 24 pocket watches.

Yet.

...I'm working on it.

And this analogy is running away from me. Just like the time.

Realizing that every one of my projects contains a multiverse of smaller projects has helped me understand why it's so easy for me to burn out when I'm trying to form multiple skill-building habits. Even if you have all the time in the world, it's still only 24 hours, and I'd wager that for many it's easier to spend time than it is money.

So, knowing how limited time truly is, and how difficult it can be juggling 24 pocket watches when I really like getting my 8 hours of sleep, I think narrowing it to a scant 3 works best for me, because again, each biggun has many smalluns.

I. Little Steps to Big Gains

I won't elaborate too much right now on my rocky relationship with fitness growing up, but I do want to say that, out of the 33 years I've been alive, I've only dedicated maybe the last 7 to seriously reevaluating my health. If I do elaborate further on my history of (not) working out, it'll be in another post, because for this one I'd like to focus on the present state of the journey itself and the components that comprise the whole.

My approach to exercise is looser than my approach to creative outlets. I'm not interested in running in a 5k race or biking across the United States. I don't have any S.M.A.R.T. goals or otherwise set for losing weight even though I do have a goal weight that I'd like to reach. I also have some milestones in mind, like doing my first pull-up, but I haven't set a specific time by which I need to accomplish it, because the goal itself is to incrementally grow stronger than I was the day before. Yes, that's right. The goal is to maintain the habit of exercising. As long as I do that, I'll eventually get to my pull-up, and I'm satisfied with that.

My fitness "project" can be broken down into 3 more major segments, which can then be further dissected into individual bits:

1. Workouts

2. Nutrition

3. Meditation/Mindfulness/Permission to be Bored

Workouts

I don't have a gym membership, and I can't say that at this moment in time I'm particularly interested in acquiring one even though I would love to go swimming on a regular basis. Someday I'll invest in a complete home gym, but that's a project for another day and currently outside my budget. In the meantime, I go jogging regularly and work with what equipment I have collected or been borrowing over the past few years.

Built with Science & Jogging

September 2023, after months of hem-hawing on what workout program to try since I was growing increasingly frustrated with Blogilates, I threw down my gloves and bought into Built With Science (BWS). The careful explanations for executing each move correctly and the references to scientific research with accompanying extracts piqued my curiosity and compelled me to go ahead and give it a try. I'm not sure it'll be my "forever program," but the schedule for the Beginner Lean Program that I'm following is good enough for the present. Someday I'd like to hire a personal trainer, but that's in the box of 'future goals' alongside 'invest in a home gym.' I just needed a starting point.

The workout schedule supplies a fixed number of sets for each exercise of each workout day, and this structure has provided me with a general framework for what weights to lift when before, as a complete beginner, I was wondering, "Where the hell do I even begin???"

Phase 2, which I'm on now, has a 4-day and 5-day variant. Since 5 days feels too rigid and I'd be kicking myself every time I skipped a day, I've been tracking my progress with the 4-day layout:

• Upper body 1→Lower body 1→Upper Body 2→Lower Body 2

• 2 Abs Circuits to do once a week on any day

• Walk 8k-15k steps every day, even on rest days

Another wrench is that my fiancé's work schedule alternates which days he's off each week, so having an easy-to-adjust workout calendar allows me the freedom to change which days I exercise on the fly.

For example, week 1 might look something like this:

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Rest Walk	Upper 1 Abs 1 Jog	Lower 1 Walk	Rest Walk	Upper 2 Abs 2 Jog	Lower 2 Walk	Rest Jog

And week 2 might look something like this:

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
Upper 1 Abs 1 Walk	Rest Jog	Lower 1 Walk	Upper 2 Abs 2 Walk	Rest Jog	Lower 2 Walk	Rest Jog

Since starting, I've learned that the Upper Body days aren't as intensive and don't take as much time to complete as the Lower Body days, which is unfortunate because I prefer working my upper body, but to compensate I try to do both Upper Body and Abs on the same day. Even though the program calls for doing 1 Abs Circuit a week, that's too little for my personal tastes, so I do 2. Recently, I've also been jogging on either my Upper Body days or my Rest days, too. Lower Body's intense enough as is; I don't need to kill my legs even more on those days.

Now, the program doesn't say you need to jog for your cardio, just walk between 8k-15k steps a day. However, I enjoy jogging, and it's something I've kept consistent now for years, ever since I first started using this Couch to 5k app. The only times I don't go for a jog are during the hottest summer months because I'm prone to suffering from strain migraines and during the coldest days of late winter when my warm gear doesn't quite meet my standards.

Usually, taking off those weeks/months requires me to start over on the C25K app, which I've been fine with, because it's given me an excuse to return and push myself even harder the next go around. This year, however, has been a surprising anomaly for me. Since winter ended and I began jogging again, I haven't returned to the app to track. I plan to eventually, but as of right now, I've been content with jogging 4 long laps around my neighborhood park, which nets me a little over 5 kilometers/3 miles. Because I've persisted with my BWS workouts through the whole winter, I've been able to reinstate my jogging routine near where I ended it, and that's a pretty good feeling!

When I start providing updates on my actual workout progress, I'll include the exercises and weights I'm using to show the growth over time.

Nutrition

Ah, yes, the area in which I continue to struggle, though managing it is getting easier. Again, BWS has been a good jumping-on point.

To be clear, I don't diet. Even though I went a year without eating carb-heavy foods such as pastries, breads, and pastas while I was living in Japan, I have since resumed eating all of those soul-quenching foods. The only sad part is that I think they're the cause of my eczema flairs, though I have no proof of this.

The key is moderation. Yup, good ol' moderation. As long as I'm hitting near my protein and calorie goals every day, I allot myself the occasional splurge at Olive Garden or Cold Stone. What can I say? I like sweets. I like bread. I really like food. Do these splurges set me back? They sure do! But by no more than a day or two. Again, even if my weight rises temporarily, that's fine, as long as I'm conscientious of it and continue to make overall strides toward a better lifestyle.

Now, according to the BWS program, of the 3 macronutrients (carbs, fats, and protein), protein is the most important goal to hit every day within one's daily caloric range, which is calculated in what Jeremy Ethier calls the "Built With Science Pocket Coach." Recording your weight and daily calories adjusts total number of calories and protein you want to eat in a day depending on if you're trying to lose weight, gain muscle, or maintain.

I'll be honest, I rarely reach my goal of 121 grams of protein per day. Usually I'll end the day somewhere between 70-100 grams, and the only reason I'm reaching that range now is because I've started meticulously planning out my meals. It's...a pain in the ass, to be blunt. But so was jogging when I first started that! So, maybe it'll suck less the longer I remain consistent, and it may even get to where I eventually begin enjoying the process once I'm quicker at it.

If it's how I can get my fiancéto finally make those chicken doner kebabs I've been craving, then I think I can manage. *Grins.*

Meditation/Mindfulness/Permission to be Bored

I'm...bad at this. Really bad at it. Even when I'm too tired to work out or exhausted because I just got home from a lengthy walk or simply unable to concentrate through the brain fog on the work that needs to be done, I'm thinking about what I can do to satisfy my productivity addiction. Sitting and "doing nothing" when there's so much to get done? Heresy.

Somewhere along this road called life, it became ingrained within me that "doing nothing = lazy." The good news is that as a result of this ideology, I'm intrinsically motivated to accomplish my goals. The bad news is when someone calls me "lazy," I froth at the mouth, regardless if they're joking or not. Income determines "success," and "working hard" equates to "becoming successful." Alright then! Forget the benefits of deigning to be bored, I could be transcribing or writing or sorting notes or--etc etc...

Ugh. Excuse me for a moment while I step out of this hustle culture long enough to go productively nourish myself with some avocado toast.

The thing is, just like how athletes and people who train regularly need to let their body rest to maximize muscle gain and prevent injury, so, too, do the thinkers and creatives need to let their minds rest to let ideas percolate and prevent burnout. There's no need to be working all the time.

Say it with me: "Mod-er-a-tion."

So, I'm trying to give myself permission to be bored, truly bored, incrementally throughout each day. No phone, no music, no distractions except for maybe the cats--they're an acceptable distraction. Slotting in a dedicated meditation time will be the next step. It's a work in progress.

II. Skies Over Aefala

Ohoho, okay, hold on. Let me just crack my knuckles to refresh my type-y fingers, because this has been my passion project for the last three years and is probably the clearest example I can give of project-ception.

"Skies Over Aefala," is my fiancé's Pathfinder campaign. I said it in the previous post, but to reiterate, Pathfinder is one of many tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs), the most famous of which, at least in the United States, is D&D. Call of Cthulu is pretty popular in Japan, too, if I understood one of my Japanese friends correctly.

Pathfinder 2nd Edition, or Pathfinder 2e, is traditionally set in Golarion, but that's not where our campaign takes place. "Aefala" is the name of our world. At the beginning of our campaign, I asked the members of our group if they would be opposed to me recording the audio for each session to transcribe for reference when needed. Blessed with their permission, I began doing just that.

Project 1: Transcribe each session and individual side scenes.

Oh, my sweet summer self.

For those who may not know, it's very easy and highly likely that a single session of friends playing adult pretend will last 3-4 hours, sometimes more. Groups that are lucky meet every week. For the overly enthusiastic and ambitious, sometimes side scenes with an individual or two will be scheduled if the group has, say, downtime in a city where the main player characters (PCs) are preparing for their next adventure. If you're really crazy like I am, you request that your fiancé Game Master (GM) role-play through every day of said downtime slice-of-life style so you can experience the slow burn of character development through your social butterfly.

Let's exclude those side scenes momentarily though and focus on the main campaign. Our group is naturally role-play heavy, so we might not even encounter a combat for a couple of sessions, meaning that on any given week I have 3.5 to 4 hours' worth of content to transcribe, maybe upwards of 6 or more if I've done any side scenes.

I'm a fast typist. I can reach a peak of ~111 WPM on a good day, though my average is probably closer to the 90-100 range. It still takes me roughly 8-9 hours total to transcribe a session even with a dedicated foot pedal. As of this post, we've had 83 sessions, which equates to ~330 hours, give or take. Add at least a couple hundred more for the side scenes, though I think I'm severely underestimating that number, and you have ~530 hours transcribed in a 3-year time frame. I'd wager it's probably more akin to somewhere between 7-800, but who knows? I might tally up the total hours someday, but that'd be another project.

Not to gloat, but as the transcriptionist, I am probably our group's # 1 notetaker as well. (GM just confirmed this by saying, "When even the GM consults you for specific notes, it means you're the best notetaker.") The only problem is, I recently discovered this really nifty tool called, "The Goblin's Notebook," thanks to said GM. It has the exact organizational setup I've been yearning for in an app for years.

Project 2: Porting 83+ sessions' worth of notes over into TGN

What makes this just a hair more difficult is that I have notes in both Evernote and Scrivener, which I was in the process of consolidating before I was introduced to TGN. Now it's all a scattered mess.

To make my life easier in the future for Project # 3, I'd like to have all my notes in one place, and TGN is the best tool for the job. I'll gush about the options in a future post, but having 5 different columns dedicated to different sections of notes such as places, organizations, characters, quests, belongings, or whatever meets your fancy and where you create objects that can connect to other objects spanning across those different columns is everything my neurotic mind could have ever hoped to find.

I just have to actually, you know, siphon the facts from the transcript to fill out the notes, and that's not including leaping headlong into the rabbit hole of learning basic markdown to make said notes even more visually appealing.

Why go through the trouble of transferring all notes into one place instead of just making the session I began using the notebook the starting point?

Well, my friends, that's where Project # 3 and 3.5 come in.

Project 3: Turn the campaign into a full-fledged story

&

Project 3.5: Write a journal entry for every in-game day

I'm already writing the journals. The problem is, they're written more for an audience that's 100% aware of what's happening and aren't conducive to an actual story without some serious reworking. So, I'm going to have to rewrite them if I want to display them for public consumption. Plus, they're not the only idea I'm toying with for telling the story.

I mentioned previously that my character is a spellcasting social butterfly. Once I acquired the Rank 3 spell Dream Message, there's hardly been an in-game day where I haven't contacted someone, so there's the additional idea of telling the story piecemeal through both the journals and correspondence.

To complicate the medium even further, my character also likes to plan and put on performances for other people. In fact when I was doing individual side scenes with the GM for the month of downtime we spent in Shipton, the performance my character put on for their closest friend at the end of that month personally took me 9 months to write, edit, and collect the appropriate music. It took an hour and a half to perform, but man was it fulfilling.

I want to capture that same feeling when sharing this story, but in order to do so I need to solidify the how. Not every "chapter" can be like that performance, because I think it would detract from the overall narrative. No, performances like that need to be reserved for those climactic moments.

I did, however, conceive the possibility just this week of telling the story of the main campaign through the eyes of a bard singing of these "heroes" after they've reached infamy. I've put a pin in that idea for now, since I would need to brush off the rust on my music composition skills first, and as you can see, my plate is already piled high.

That didn't stop me from making this site or typing up this blog post! Though, to tell you the truth, my fiancé was under the weather this past week, and so we had to cancel our session, which freed up the extra time I needed to write this monster.

III. Fear No More

Posts this lengthy on top of what I mentioned above won't be sustainable in the future if I want to remain consistent with my weekly deadline, so I have to keep that in mind as I continue to flesh out the final mega-project that is this site. Overall, aside from unexpected problems that'll inevitably arise, the process for improving and properly organizing "Fear No More" seems relatively straightforward, if not time consuming.

• Maintain consistency by posting about my progress each week, no matter how much or how little

• Flesh out the site itself:

  • Create relevant pages:

    • WIP/"Behind the Scenes"/Concepts page? Since that's a major theme

  • Fill out different sections (eg: "About")

  • Learn enough basic web design to create a more cohesive style that looks professional

    • Collect inspiration from other sites

    • Keep a list of words handy that describe the aesthetic I want

  • Decide on an official pen name

  • Create a logo

  • Determine a theme for & schedule a photo shoot (I already have ideas)

  • Work on the mobile version of the site

  • Learn how to add small details like a "Table of Contents" for blog posts that have multiple parts like this one

  • Create an organized archive of posts and WIPs by project for those interested in following the journey of a specific project (though I suppose this could be done via tags?)

  • Eventually record myself reading the blog posts

• Build a following:

  • Familiarize self with Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

  • Branch out to other relevant platforms (eg: Instagram)

  • Actually complete projects to showcase

• Eventually monetize:

  • Patreon?

  • Physical products?

  • Offering services/commissions?

I haven't explored the possibilities for the last two major bullet points too much because my primary focus is just wrangling the physical presentation of the site itself alongside posting weekly. As I complete other obligations and improve my speed in the skills I'm actively developing, I can then shift my attention to the later stages, but to do so now would just be overwhelming.

Again, just because you have 24 pocket watches doesn't mean you should wind them all every day.

This week's obligatory cat post: Qiri