Activity Update

[arias_hollow]

Since nano (and actually during nano, though I'm not sure if I mentioned it on here or not), I've been taking Gale courses as well as working on my writing, art (to a lesser extent), and beginning singing practice. I'm taking both Spanish and French, and I've been enjoying both (though my French class doesn't teach me grammar or how sentences work, so on top of the non-intuitive reading system that has made learning it more slow going, honestly Japanese was way easier to wrap my head around but then I also went over grammar and better drills for that back in the day), though I think I ought to start practicing writing in those languages, even if it's just to say incredibly mundane things about my day. Who knows, eventually I may even make some posts here in them! (One thing I have found helpful for French in particular is listening to the French dub of Disney songs and having French subs to force my brain to associate the sound with the written visual, at some point I should try to watch a whole film or episode of something like that as well) I'm also starting to learn how to use Microsoft Excel and how an online business is ran (I figure it's good knowledge, and I gotta get skills for the new digital job market!)

Writing wise, I have put some effort into my main novel project! But have not made a lot of progress xD. Note to self: Investigations are difficult to write when you don't know what your villains are even doing. I'm pretty sure at least half, if not more, of my writing blocks came from 'still not developing/plotting my villains enough and being incredibly resistant to the idea, therefore giving my more developed heroes very little to work with/do' lol. I at least made an orderly doc to hammer out the villain plot, but working on the 'actions taken' part is still proving to be difficult. I've been having fun messing around with my aro shoujo project instead, and especially with playing d&d and writing tidbits for my character (who, is an au of one of my aro shoujo fellas).

Otherwise, I've mostly been taking things easy with the whole Plague Situation going on, but I hope to get to more reading done and maybe some baking as well.

Comments

Writing

[stacys_musings]

I've found outlining my stories helps me to stay focused. Researching historical characters who are similar to the characters I'm creating helps me to really round out their personalities =)

- Sedgy

Re: Writing

[arias_hollow]

Outlines definitely are useful, I've been trying to make them more. Actually, in a round about way, my second draft (which is in synopsis form and drawing from multiple planning documents) is my attempt at outlining/structuring my new revised plot, but my focus is poor and never actually wants to outline even though it makes writing so much easier. xD I've never tried researching historical characters though, that sounds interesting, I'll have to try it some time!

Re: Writing

[stacys_musings]

I didn't outline for years and once I really sat down and started fleshing out characters, researching different personality types and things, a great deal of plot ideas popped up revolving around unresolved issues of my characters, including revenge. The important thing is to have fun =d

[bemused_writer]

Villains are a pain to write. XD Docs can definitely help, though!

[arias_hollow]

Docs are EVERYTHING they are a wonderful creation XD

[bemused_writer]

Agreed 100%. XD