A Slow Writing Day ✒️ ☕

Good evening everyone!

Today is Saturday and I decided to spend the day working on my thesis novel, A Land of Shadow and Thorn. I’ve had a pretty okay week so far, and hopefully next week will be even better!

Now that I’m working actively on my thesis, I’m realizing how much I’ve let my writing muscles go unexercised over the last, oh, long while.

Without much of a deadline to speak of over the last few years and being really busy working on my other school work, I’ve kind of gotten lazy when it comes to sitting down and writing a lot. Also I think as I’ve gotten older my ADHD has become more prominent and thus making it harder for me to focus. But that’s okay, because I’m able to sit down now and write more than I have been in a long time. It honestly feels really good to commit words to page consistently again, and once I hit my writing stride I really felt myself getting lost in the scene.

I’ve been working for pretty much the entire day, sans time it took to get myself focused on actually doing the thing and taking a little break around 4 when the light from one of my windows hits unfavorably on my desk. I made myself some of my favorite white Christmas tea in my Kiki’s Delivery Service mug and really did my best to zone out. Like I said, it’s been hard getting my writing muscles back up to par like they used to be. We’re getting there though! and I’m feeling really good about the story itself. I think you guys are gonna like it!

Now that it’s getting dark (my usual best time to write, but like I said I’ve been up here working all day) I think its time to wrap up the work for the day. Me and Danny were gonna watch the third Hobbit movie tonight and eat the roast he made (is there anything more aesthetic?) so I probably ought to finish up and get started!

Here’s the wrap up of today’s work!

Project: A Land of Shadow and Thorn

New words written: 3,046

Present total word count: 23,571

Things accomplished in real life: . So I was looking at the bookshelf in my office I was thinking of cleaning off, and I saw this old book I never noticed before. I remember a few years ago going to a thrift shop and picking up old books but hadn't really looked at them in years.

I noticed the title Gone with the Wind and I'm like, huh, I didn't know I had a copy of it.

Uh, guys, I think I accidentally found a 1st edition? Because the publishing date is 1937? And when I googled Gone with the Wind 1st edition this cover came up? I’m kind of wilding out about it because I’ve never had anything anywhere close to a first edition of anything, and here I might have one on accident! Though lets be honest here, having something like this on accident totally sounds like something that would happen to me. Tell me what you think, if its a first edition or not. Eventually I think I’m going to visit the antique store downtown and see if they can appraise it for me and let me know once and for all if it is or isn’t a first edition. Even if its not, it’s still really cool to have a book from 1937! This makes my little bookworm heart happy ~ 💜

Things accomplished in fiction: I added a new scene to strengthen one of the minor characters and actually I kind of love it? I wasn’t sure going in because I never write out of order like this, but my (very awesome btw) critique partner suggested I add a new scene or two to give this particular character some more oomph. It was such great advice because by the time I finished the chapter I felt like the whole book so far had something extra added to it! I’m getting a better handle on one of the POV characters that has been giving me a little bit of trouble, and I think we might’ve bonded over this new chapter (lol!).

Like I said, I’m in my first thesis class now and I have to submit my first 15k of new material by the end of week 4, which isn’t this coming week but the week after. I’ve got 8,159 words of new material so far, so I’m getting there! For my updates here, I’m counting overall word count of the entire book but my teacher specifically said she only wants material that I haven’t already submitted in my other classes, of which the first 15k of this story has been. I think. Either way I’m playing it safe and just starting with what I’ve been writing for this class.

It’s great having an entire class dedicated to writing my book, and I’m feeling that old joy of writing coming back. I lost it for a few years, having burnt myself out on accident, but now I really feel good. I really internalized that one quote from Kiki’s Delivery Service that went:

And it really paid off. I feel like I used to when writing was just for fun and not something I was expressly fighting tooth and nail to turn into a job-job. Sometimes I feel like artists can get lost really easily when they’re trying to turn their passions into a career, and I’m still absolutely trying to make this my career, but I feel more secure in it now that I’m doing it for school. The knowledge that I’ll be fine if I just follow my curriculum and do what my teachers tell me is actually really freeing. I have industry professionals telling me how to navigate a world I thought I knew everything about, but turns out I knew absolutely nothing at all.

Anyway, That’s about it for my update! See you guys in the next post!