Christmas Update · 12:26am Dec 27th, 2020
Hello all, just a Christmas season update and stuff. Merry Christmas, happy Hearth's Warming, happy generic holidays, etc.
So, anybody remember how I gave myself a tentative goal of having the next chapter of Chrysalis: Saviour of Time up by the end of August? That clearly didn't happen. I am clearly absolutely terrible at keeping to any kind of schedule or goal in regards to my writing. There is some good news, in part because the next chapter is a Hearth's Warming chapter, and in part because I recently received my physical copy of Five Score Divided by Four (one of my all time favourite fanfictions on this site) and reading it gave a bit of a kick start to my motivation, I did a flurry of writing over the 25th and 26th and have actually completed writing the next chapter. I still need to type it up, and do proofreading/editing, but I am determined to get this thing out while it's still the holiday season, so look forward to seeing that posted within this very December.
That's the important announcement made, moving onto self reflection and such.
I used to write a lot more frequently, that is no secret. I have reflected on this and asked myself: why? I don't believe I've lost interest in ponies as a medium for my artistic endeavours. Perhaps my passion for MLP isn't as strong as when I first began writing here and was relatively fresh to the fandom, but I still love it. I definitely still enjoy writing and when I actually get around to doing the writing I feel great about it, a sense of accomplishment even, and posting a new chapter is one still exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. Seeing people comment on how much they love my writing is one of the best feelings around. No, I don't think any of those are the true problem here. The true problem is time management and energy.
I work a full time job now, one that involves waking at 5am to start work at 6am. While in most ways this is a clear upgrade from working in a certain restaurant, at that old job I had taken one of its greatest flaws and used it to my advantage when it came to writing. You see, they had something called a split shift. I would go to work for two or three hours, get sent away for one to three hours (rare occasions more or less) and come back for another three or so hours of work. It meant really long days where I start work in the morning, finish later in the evening like ten hours later, and yet only get maybe five or six hours of pay because of that long break. I would get these split shifts two or three times a week for a long time, and I realized that I could bring my notebook, head over to the mall and then just sit down and write fanfiction during those in between hours. The more split shifts I had, the more writing I got done. Hell, I was for awhile juggling like three different stories at once I had so much time for writing (though most of those stories have not been released for public viewing, some never will, some might, and at least one almost surely will one day in one form or another).
As time went on, I started getting fewer of these split shifts, and so ended up with less of my traditional writing time. Eventually, I was effectively working a completely different schedule at the restaurant where I never had split shifts unless they were desperate to cover for somebody that was sick, and so my writing grinded to a near halt. I am nothing if not a creature of habit, and few of my attempts to get back into the groove of writing ever recaptured the writing I could get accomplished on those split shifts.
Well, I have a completely different job now after spending the first third of this year without one (and not being eligible for employment insurance, not fun times), and those split shifts will never come back barring some incredibly unlikely scenarios. Back in August I had managed to almost get back into a new schedule for writing, setting aside time on Saturdays after waking up to write, and felt confident enough to give myself that goal of posting the next chapter at the end of August. This new fledgling habit went out the window when I had several Saturdays that I volunteered to work for financial reasons over the course of a few months.
I want to get C:SoT finished, I don't want it to take five years longer for me to complete. Looking at it, it'll be five years since I posted the first chapter this upcoming summer. More than that, I want to write other stories too. I can't do that if I don't set aside more time for writing and force myself back into a habit of writing frequently. I have come up with a resolution, not quite a New Year's resolution though it is close enough to that time of year by mere coincidence. I am going to try and force myself into writing a little bit after work every day, even if I am tired. I almost certainly won't write stories every time I do, some will surely just be diary entries complaining about my day or how tired I am or something, but even that can help as long as I can develop the habit of writing every day after work. I've even set myself the ambitious, and very unlikely to be met, goal of finishing C:SoT within the year of 2021, or at least publishing enough chapters that I can feel satisfied that I tried to. My most prolific year for this story was 6 chapters, one of which was a prologue. Let's see if I can at least match that.
Odds are, I won't succeed in these goals. This attempted solution doesn't help with the lack of energy I often have, and I'll surely falter at some point, maybe even right at the start. But if I can even half succeed at this, I will consider it a victory.
Merry Christmas once again. Don't really have any major comments to make, so I will just say this. Stay safe and have a nice day.
Well I hope you can find your grove and time to do what you love, also can't wait for the next chapter, Good Luck on the story
Take your time an stay safe out there.