Writing Sprint!

Hello, and welcome to the start of my next block of posts! I hesitate to call it the next set of 13-weeks, since:

1. I'm not yet finished with the daily pages of my current 13-week journal,

2. this is more of a sprint to the end of December than any organized journey covering the milestone achievements of multiple goals,

3. I'll probably take another week break after this sprint and before beginning my next real 13-week journal,

4. and I'm in an experimental period of trying to blog on Wednesdays so I can reserve Fridays purely for writing, the reason for which I explain here.

Number 4 is why no one saw a post from me this past Friday the 22nd, and though I debated posting early on the 20th to establish my expectations for this next month-ish, I instead decided to wait until this week to blog for no other reason than because I could. I was on a writing roll and didn't want to interrupt the flow!

Between the 19th, which is when I really got the ball rolling, and yesterday the 26th, I managed to write/rewrite and edit Cael's journals from the 3rd of Nudon through the 5th. I finished editing their journal for the 2nd on the 11th, and I've just finished writing the 6th but have not yet managed to edit it. Whether or not you've been following my progress through all of these blogs thus far, that number is rather substantial for me, considering I completed the bulk of them in a week. As a matter of fact, until our most recent session on Sunday, I was in the single digits for what journals remained. Unfortunately, that's returned to double digits, but progress is still progress! The average word total across all 6 journals was 1,314.

The behind-the-scenes reason for the uptick in production of journal entries boils down to two conscious decisions I made during this off-period: writing in a physical journal and writing in ink. The physical act of writing slowed my otherwise racing mind, and writing in ink kept me from erasing words or whole passages of text. Yes, I could simply cross them out instead, and I've done that in the past, but all in all via this method I'm less inclined to let my editor wrest control before I've copied the draft onto a word processor, where it's far easier to slash unwanted descriptions and let other passages breathe across the page.

Since my primary goal, which I describe more here, is to be caught up with Cael's journals before the new year, the next few blogs will likely focus on the overall progress without narrowing in on the nitty-gritty details. Hopefully, however, I'll have made enough of a note behind each work day's writing session to be able to slide my work ethic under the microscope at the end of December and be able to describe how the holidays and whatever else arises has influenced my creativity and moods.

If that sounds dreadfully boring to you, that's fine. Perhaps when the new year begins, I'll be able to finally expand my vision beyond, "work out, transcribe, write, wawfuls." Believe me, I'm ready for that, too.

Until then, however, sprint away with words I shall!

Other Notable Accomplishments:

• I finally sent my friend her package! I took the first few days of my week+ off from blogging to draw and color a picture for her, which was fun. It was nice flexing those particular creative muscles after such a long dormancy. I forgot how much of a pain it is to fill out customs forms.

• I did 1 workout from Phase 1 of my Built With Science routine, since it's been dreary, and I really wanted to lift weights. While my muscles hadn't deteriorated all that much, thankfully, boy howdy were they sore the next couple of days following the workout. I felt it in my quads most of all.

• My pace for Week 6 Day 1 for C25K was 6'05"/km, which is my best time since 5'40" back in, you guessed it, 2021.

• Transcribed all of Session 96 on Monday the 25th.

• I began reading and have finished up through chapter 5 of Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics"

• I also finished the 2nd page for Draw a Box's "Superimposed Lines" exercise and the "Ghosted Lines" exercise.

Questions for Contemplation & Discussion:

• In the United States, it's the day before Thanksgiving (perfect timing for a blog post, I know). Even if you're not from the United States, for what and whom do you feel grateful? Think about both your positive experiences and your struggles, remembering that you wouldn't be who you are without either. How have these experiences shaped you?

• Many people know about the 30-day challenges Inktober and NaNoWriMo. Isolating the event from the drama, Inktober at its core is a 30-day challenge for artists to draw every single day in October, primarily in ink though some artists opt to use other mediums. NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, is a month-long challenge for writers to write a 50k word novel throughout the month of November, averaging about 1,667 words/day. While unsustainable for a long-term marathon, these sprints are a great challenge to really push one's mental capacity and discipline to their limits. What 30-day sprint could you inact for the next month? It doesn't have to be as crazy as the aforementioned, but it should challenge you all the same.

  • If you attempt this, by what parameters did you measure yourself?

    • For example, I'm doing a writing sprint, but I'm not trying to write 50k words in a month; I'm just trying to get caught up with these journals, 10 in total.

  • Did you succeed in your goals or did you fail?

  • If you failed, what did you learn about yourself during the challenge, keeping in mind that failure is just a synonym for discovering a method that didn't work?

This Week's Obligatory Cat Pic: All

(It's difficult to tell who loves the kotatsu more: the cats or me.)