HIVVER|W1NTER|XEIΜΏΝ

  • Daily Writing — JULY

    Heyyyy lets see how well I can keep up my sprint as the weather ping pongs between HOT and GORGEOUS.

    NEW MONTH SAME RULES LETS GET CRACKIN’:

    • 500-1000 words a day
    • weekends are skippable
    • don’t miss more than 3-5 per month
    • editing doesn’t penalise

    Having a couple Goals helped to keep on task so lets add some here…

    • Write THE FAREWELL TOUR
    • Edit DRAGON’s BREATH
    • Write NARCISSUS

    Here we gO

    JULY 2025 PROGRESS:

    • JUL 01: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 500
    • JUL 02: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 528
    • JUL 03: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 693
    • JUL 04: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 304
    • JUL 05:
    • JUL 06:
    • JUL 07: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 295
    • JUL 08: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 552
    • JUL 09: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 578
    • JUL 10: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 636
    • JUL 11: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 1175
    • JUL 12:
    • JUL 13:
    • JUL 14: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 635
    • JUL 15:
    • JUL 16: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 2948
    • JUL 17: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 513
      >>>>>>> NARCISSUS — 502
    • JUL 18: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 606
    • JUL 19: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 574
    • JUL 20: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 561
    • JUL 21: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 614
    • JUL 22: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 529
    • JUL 23: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 809
    • JUL 24: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 1364
    • JUL 25: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 1219
    • JUL 26: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 334
    • JUL 27: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 552
    • JUL 28: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 906
    • JUL 29: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 767
    • JUL 30: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 1520
    • JUL 31: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 351

    TOTAL WC: 20,565

    JULY 17

    So… so I’m…88 pages into THE FAREWELL TOUR’s script and um… starting to worry that this is gonna be a MUCH bigger GN than we anticipated….

    Because I haven’t even hit the meat & potatoes yet.

    I figured, we have a LOT going on in this GN I’m not gonna worry about page count until the end and we’ll see if we can pair down or if we’re down to write a 500 page GN LMFAO.

    JULY 30

    Oh…. fuck is it the last day of the month tomorrow?? WTF happened??

    Well… I was hoping to FINISH Farewell Tour but it seems like its taking much longer…. than i thought… rest in pieces. Hoping August/September I can wrap up so i can squeeze another story or two in before I hop back into XENIA

    THOUGHTS…

    Proud of the effort made on this dang manuscript. It sure is probably WAY too long bUT HEY.

  • Daily Writing – June

    What the fuck do you MEAN its already JUNE???
    Whatever. Here we fucking go.

    NEW MONTH SAME RULES LETS GET CRACKIN’:

    • 500-1000 words a day
    • weekends are skippable
    • don’t miss more than 3-5 per month
    • editing doesn’t penalise

    BONUS — couple goals this month. I got a nice 5hr train ride to Toronto and back next weekend lets get some shit FINISHED.

    • Write AUGUSTINE CH3
    • Edit DRAGON’s BREATH
    • Write THE FAREWELL TOUR
    • Write NARCISSUS

    Fuck off lets go~ 😉

    JUNE 2025 PROGRESS:

    • JUN 01: AUGUSTINE — 1622
    • JUN 02: AUGUSTINE — 872
    • JUN 03: AUGUSTINE — 636
    • JUN 04: AUGUSTINE — 541
    • JUN 05: AUGUSTINE — 671
    • JUN 06: BODY COUNT (title wip) — 510
    • JUN 07:
    • JUN 08:
    • JUN 09: BODY COUNT (title wip) — 735
    • JUN 10: AUGUSTINE — 539
    • JUN 11: AUGUSTINE — 645
    • JUN 12: AUGUSTINE — 591
    • JUN 13:
    • JUN 14:
    • JUN 15:
    • JUN 16: AUGUSTINE — 565
    • JUN 17: AUGUSTINE — 552
    • JUN 18: AUGUSTINE — 576
    • JUN 19: AUGUSTINE — 190
      >>>>>>> BODY COUNT — 445
    • JUN 20: AUGUSTINE — 1144
    • JUN 21: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 1574
    • JUN 22: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 1398
    • JUN 23: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 1221
    • JUN 24: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 1620
    • JUN 25: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 1131
    • JUN 26: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 1582
    • JUN 27: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 1152
    • JUN 28: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 721
    • JUN 29:
    • JUN 30: THE FAREWELL TOUR — 450

    TOTAL WORD COUNT: 21,683

    JUNE 1

    Look who finally decided to show up and actually get writing on the first of the month nearly double the WC goal lets go.

    Determined to keep it up this month like crazy BUT that could also just be the caffeine talking LMAO.

    JUNE 10

    Well wouldn’t you know. I did manage to keep to my word and actually do some writing on the train to Toronto (for TCAF). Lets see if I can keep up my perfect score this month.

    BODY COUNT (title pending) is a short script-like story I’ve been puttering around with in the back of my brain and since I didn’t have my laptop with me for the trip I decided to see if I could scribble something down for it on my ipad.

    UNRELATED: but hey I did manage to get this thing to work, green days are goals met, yellow are weekends, not required, and RED (hope we don’t get any of those) are days missed/goal not met.

    JUNE 20

    I FINISHED AUGUSTINE CH 3~

    Which feels… a little bit ahead of the game but now I feel like I can rest a bit easier and work on a couple OTHER projects before we have to get back to that one!

    ThouGHTS

    Its been one hell of an insane month but holy fuck did we do it and did we really get some shit done here. Happy to have a full complete draft done this month, happy to be headlong into a story I’ve been wanting to putter around on for YEARS.

    The months only get hotter from here on out and I gave myself a cardboard cut on my index finger which, wouldnt you know… makes it a bit of a pain to actually type with LOL.

    I have to add…

    Since starting this challenge and redirecting my flighty focus towards something that just engages me a lot more really had me working a LOT on other things and returning to hobbies I’ve neglected a lot or stories and work I’ve so easily pushed under the rug after completion. I’m back to poking around on my main website and feel a lot of the urge to kinda post around there. I’m feeling a bit of the itch to start up a weekly (or monthly??) draft post or something for my drawing. Honestly I’d love to start a consistent challenge to get me out of my head for drawing and actually sketch a lot of the shit mucking around in my brain.

    IDK. We’ll figure it out. For now heh. Fuck yeah, 20k isn’t too shabby~

  • DAILY WRITING: MAY 2025

    Boy are we batting a thousand or what this month being 5 DAYS LATE BUT YOU KNOW WHAAAAT tough shit I’m tired. I’ve been working but its been busy and this is my first break day in like 3 weeks probably yaHOO

    NEW MONTH SAME RULES LETS GET CRACKING AND MAYBE START SOMETHING NEW THIS MONTH~

    • 500-1000 words a day
    • weekends are skippable
    • don’t miss more than 3-5 per month
    • editing doesn’t penalise

    I’m going to try and see if this month I can try and combo editing & chipping away at drafts while also writing something new because I have a lot of really fun new shit i wanna write buuuut I also have a lot of guys sitting in the wings in need of a look-over. We’ll see we’ll see~

    MAY 2025 PROGRESS:

    • MAY 01: ~EDITING~
    • MAY 02:
    • MAY 03:
    • MAY 04:
    • MAY 05: ~EDITING~
    • MAY 06:
    • May 07:
    • MAY 08: TAKE OUT — 845
    • MAY 09: TAKE OUT — 412
    • MAY 10: TAKE OUT — 396
    • MAY 11: ~EDITING~
    • MAY 12: TAKE OUT — 870
    • MAY 13: TAKE OUT — 810
    • MAY 14: TAKE OUT — 712
    • MAY 15: ~EDITING~
    • MAY 16: ~EDITING~
    • MAY 17:
    • MAY 18:
    • MAY 19: ~EDITING~
    • MAY 20: DRAGON’S BREATH — 477
      • AUGUSTINE CH3 — 80
    • MAY 22: AUGUSTINE CH3 — 672
    • MAY 23:
    • May 24:
    • MAY 25:
    • MAY 26:
    • May 27:
    • MAY 28: AUGUSTINE CH3 — 622
    • May 29:
    • May 30: ~EDITING~
    • MAY 31:

    TOTAL WORD COUNT: 5,896

    MAY 05

    So I’m thinking this month I’d really like to:

    • Finish TAKE OUT
    • Write AUGUSTINE CH3
    • Write NARCISSUS
    • Edit DRAGON’s BREATH

    I don’t fully know if I’ll get through all of it but those are the plans going into May~ (Picture me sweating because I know we’re already 5 days into May BUT HEY;;)

    MAY 18

    So I finished my run of TAKE OUT yesterday… heheheh…. yes it DID take a bit longer than I hoped but wow 80,353 words later and feeling really happy about it. I’m reaping the rewards today and doing some re-reading of this bad boy (and a couple more drafts of things to decide where my brain’s going next~)

    It will likely be AUGUSTINE CH3 because Work but after that I’m deciding between: Farewell Tour, Dragon’s Breath or Narcissus… hmhmhmmmm~

    May 20

    Sometimes…. you look at an older draft of something and your brain, before you’re even a few sentences in goes–nopenope nuh uh. I get what you were doing here but this is not it–

    and then you start the new draft without even finishing the reread LOL

    Anyways, we’re working on a new more horror-esque version of Dragon’s Breath that feels… idk stronger already but maybe that’s just me. Some things just feel way stronger on a second draft.. like leaps and bounds over the first.
    I’m honestly reminded of this quote.

    “The first draft is just you telling yourself the story.”

    — Terry Pratchett

    MAY 30

    Sometimes…. um… editing is just spending the day rereading an old draft ok?

    Anyway there’s a story i wrote that might actually be 2 stories… so i’m carefully & surgically pulling them apart…

    TL;DR…. there might be 2 horny dragon/knight/royal stories in the works because I can’t make up my mind and maybe it doesn’t matter and we’re giving people both chocolate and vanilla cake all at once.

    The analogy makes sense in my brain just go with me on this.

    OVERALL THORTS

    WELL. It’s been a tough month for writing but I think thats just going to happen when you’re in the middle of editing/finishing/switching projects. Things get a little tangled. I got a bit tired this month haha. April really took it out of me this time around with the back-to-back cons so I took it a bit easier–AND i actually finished a BIG PROJECT.

    Folks. TAKE OUT wound up being 80,353 words.

    I’m so unbelievably proud of myself finishing such a big project… in what… 6-8 months? Idk feeling pretty badass about it. I’m eager to step into bigger prose/story projects next year. I’m ready to bounce back after drowning for so long.

    Cheers. Lets Kick it.

  • Daily Writing – April

    Heheh continuing the tradition of…making a new challenge post a day late–but yesterday we were doing a workshop at a school teaching kids how to make ZINES so like, I’ll take it~

    OKAY NEW MONTH SAME RULES.

    • 500-1000 words a day
    • weekends are skippable
    • don’t miss more than 3-5 days a month
    • editing doesn’t penalise

    LETS DOIT~~

    APRIL 2025 PROGRESS:

    • APR 01: –AT A WORKSHOP–
    • APR 02: TAKE OUT — 909
    • APR 03: TAKE OUT — 1,015
    • APR 04: TAKE OUT — 1,347
    • APR 05:
    • APR 06:
    • APR 07: ~EDITING~
    • APR 08: ~EDITING~
    • APR 09: TAKE OUT — 510
    • APR 10: TAKE OUT — 723
    • APR 11: TAKE OUT — 329
    • APR 12:
    • APR 13: TAKE OUT — 911
    • APR 14: TAKE OUT — 932
    • APR 15: TAKE OUT — 788
    • APR 16: ~EDITING~
    • APR 17: ~EDITING~
    • APR 18:
    • APR 19:
    • APR 20:
    • APR 21:
    • APR 22:
    • APR 23: ~EDITING~
    • APR 24:
    • APR 25:
    • APR 26:
    • APR 27:
    • APR 28:
    • APR 29:
    • APR 30:

    TOTAL WORD COUNT: 7,464

    APR 18

    ohhhhhBOYEE

    I did about as much writing as is feasibly possible with the crazy hectic month we’ve been having so… we will SEE what these next weeks bring and I’ll do what I can. I’m not planning on getting all that much done here since we’re travelling a bunch (and convention hours insist on being some wild shit like 9:30am to 7pm so that doesn’t leave MUCH time in the way of getting a good little hour to do some writing….)

    BUT YOU NEVER KNOW~

    OVERALL THOUGHTS

    So, April’s been an insane month over here and I was doubting if I’d get ANY time to squeeze in word count. I was really hoping I’d finish TAKE OUT but woof, we got close and not quite. I was honestly torn between rushing the ending and actually getting to play it out Good… and opted for the latter since this is supposed to be something Fun for Me.

    ALL IN ALL, though….

    I honestly… that word count wound up being pretty close to an average month for me and that’s still 7,000 words I wouldn’t have written otherwise so I’ll happily take it! Here’s to maybe, a wee bit more writing in May~

  • Daily Writing – January

    New year? New month? New daily writing post. I’m scribbling this up the day after the first because everyone takes the day off so why shouldn’t I?

    I was up till 4am playing board games the night before, being very responsible.

    Alright lets get this tracker started.

    RULES REMINDER:

    • 500-1000 words a day.
    • Weekends don’t count UNLESS I’m IN IT
    • Missed days do NOT need to be ‘made up’
    • But try not to miss more than 3-5 per month.

    JANUARY 2025 PROGRESS:

    • JAN 01: 2024 — A Retrospective Blog Post — 2,710
    • JAN 02: TAKE OUT — 1,059
    • JAN 03: TAKE OUT — 897
    • JAN 04: TAKE OUT — 915
    • JAN 05: TAKE OUT — 786
    • JAN 06: TAKE OUT — 712
    • JAN 07: TAKE OUT — 517
    • JAN 08: TAKE OUT — 1,599
    • JAN 09: TAKE OUT — 229
    • JAN 10: TAKE OUT — 564
    • JAN 11: TAKE OUT — 620
    • JAN 12:
    • JAN 13: TAKE OUT — 403
      >>>>>>>> PARHELIA — 119
    • JAN 14: TAKE OUT — 674
    • JAN 15: TAKE OUT — 745
    • JAN 16: TAKE OUT — 2,533 END.
    • JAN 17:
    • JAN 18:
    • JAN 19: PARHELIA — 1,072
    • JAN 20: PARHELIA — 320 END.
    • JAN 21: ~EDITING, NO WC~
    • JAN 22: ~EDITING, NO WC~
    • JAN 23: ~EDITING, NO WC~
    • JAN 24: ~EDITING, NO WC~
    • JAN 25: THE COMIC PROCESS: AUGUSTINE — 2,921
    • JAN 26:
    • JAN 27: TAKE OUT — 1,578
    • JAN 28: TAKE OUT — 423
    • JAN 29: TAKE OUT — 753
    • JAN 30: TAKE OUT — 380
    • JAN 31: TAKE OUT — 1,342

    TOTAL WC THIS MONTH: 23,551

    JANUARY 16

    I finished a DRAFT today!! Wow!!! This is so fun and exciting! Since starting this adventure (with NaNo) I’ve finished 2 drafts and I’m starting to feel really great about it.

    I always get so weird & sentimental about finishing a draft. Especially ones I have so much fun writing. I think I struggle a bit with letting go of something that didn’t take me as long as I thought it might, to finish.

    And the trouble with that is that I tend to put off ACTUALLY finishing it until I completely forget about it and it collects dust in my hard drive somewhere.

    BUT NOT THIS TIME.

    So I’m taking a short break from it (1 week….or less idk we’ll see how long the short fiction draft takes) so that I can finish up a short fiction writing challenge I started up with friends earlier this month. And then spending the last week of January finishing it up before…

    POSTING IT HERE HAHAH.

    Yeah, no I mean it. I’ll be posting it in bits and pieces up here for folks to read. The plan is to be able to doodle things along with it before I post it on a more professional sphere I guess. We’ll see. Its a project I’m doing for fun so I’m trying to Let Go a little bit more.

    Look forward to that~

    JANUARY 19

    So I’ve gotten into a new Writing Challenge with some friends from one server: PARHELIA is part of that. I’ve decided to go with some Flash Fiction/Vignette of an OC of mine based on a photo I gave to our group as inspo to draw from~ It’ll be exciting to see how everyone interprets my prompt~

    BUT ALSO–

    I’ve started doing some quick 10 minute writing sprints with another group of writer colleagues in our agency’s discord! It’s been a really fun way to toss out the bad brain demons and just get straight to work on a wordcount. I used to do this a lot way back when and finished a lot of drafts that way just plundering through & not stressing about whether or not something works.

    We can always fix it in post~

    JANUARY 25

    I ran into my first issue with this word count sprint and its: Fuck What Do I Do About Editing?

    Because the goal here is to Finish More Stories and to use this writing challenge to encourage the finishing of said stories. I needed a little leeway when it comes to deciding I actually want to Edit and put the work into doing that too. Right now I’m editing TAKE OUT so I’m trying to chip away at 2-3 chapters per week. Thing is, once I’ve decided I’m editing for the day, its hard to switch my brain to another story and actively write that one.

    Also, like. I finished not ONE but TWO works this month so I’m giving myself a bit more flexibility this week and next~!

    Not to mention the weather’s been absolute whiplash so I’m battling more headaches than I usually do.

    TL;DR I’m still WRITING just not full-steam-ahead drafts!

    JANUARY 30

    So earlier this month I talked about potentially posting TAKE OUT up here and sure enough I DID. So far the first two episodes are up while I work on editing the third! It’s been interesting running through edits this fast but I’m glad I decided to just go for it instead of spending a bunch of time overthinking it.

    (which is ironic bc this particular main character has a habit of Overthinking hehehe)

    JANUARY 31

    AND THAT’S A WRAP! At least for the first month of the year! I’ve started adding my BIG TOTAL at the end of my big progress tracker at the top and hitting 23,000 WORDS feels like a huge win in my books (considering this ISN’T NANO and I’ve spent a good chunk of the month in editing limbo) It’s incredible how much I’ve gotten done.

    Yeah it was spread across various projects. There are a couple things I also didn’t even count up in there because it felt extra.

    But it’s incredible to see how a small goal snowballs into making MORE of something even EASIER.

    We’ll have to see if I can keep this up.
    And…. if there isn’t some way for me to translate a daily goal like this into some more personal drawing/sketching. Maybe I need a daily sketch goal this year…. hmm…

    Much to think about! ONWARD!

  • Daily Writing – December

    So here I am, sitting with half-eaten drafts and feeling almost dejected that NaNo is over and how (too) easy it was for me to stop writing the second I didn’t have…

    …Accountability.

    So I’m starting this thing now…

    instead of January because starting is always difficult and there’s enough pressure come January… the habit is already sitting in my brain as is, fresh from NaNo, so why not?

    I’m sitting on Many Many drafts and no accountability for finishing them. It’s not because I’m necessarily lazy or displeased with those drafts. I think my brain struggles to keep On Task with a project when it feels like the yield for it is just too far away. So I’m hoping that by chipping away at these things a little bit every day I can get a few of these Drafts, officially completed.

    Maybe I’ll make an official page for those who want to keep up with my Saga as I go. The goal was to do this for (at least) a year but I would like to be able to keep this habit indefinitely.

    Parameters, The Goal, Yadda Yadda

    I’ve been writing for years now so I think I have a pretty good grasp of what should be feasible for me.

    So lets get into it:

    • 500-1000 words a day.
    • Weekends don’t count UNLESS I’m IN IT
    • Missed days do NOT need to be ‘made up’
    • But try not to miss more than 3-5 per month.

    Pretty simple. The idea is that there’s no Penalty for missed days. I think I beat myself up over this sort of thing Too Much & discourage myself otherwise & give up halfway. This is about longevity & encouraging progress. Every little bit counts and every little bit is a step towards completing something.

    ANYWAY– here’s December 2024’s progress so far.

    • DEC 11: TAKE OUT — 868
    • DEC 12: TAKE OUT — 515
    • DEC 13: TAKE OUT — 746
    • DEC 14: MYTH RETOLD BLOG POST — 1,480
    • DEC 15:
    • DEC 16: TAKE OUT — 813
    • DEC 17: TAKE OUT — 609
    • DEC 18: TAKE OUT — 530
    • DEC 19: TAKE OUT — 557
    • DEC 20: TAKE OUT — 571
    • DEC 21:
    • DEC 22:
    • DEC 23: TAKE OUT — 553
    • DEC 24: X-M — 291
      >>>>>>>>TAKE OUT — 782
    • DEC 25:
    • DEC 26:
    • DEC 27: TAKE OUT — 527
    • DEC 28: TAKE OUT — 585
    • DEC 29: TAKE OUT — 640
    • DEC 30: TAKE OUT — 575
    • DEC 31: TAKE OUT — 625

    MONTH RECAP

    Wowee, first month of the dang thing and we’re off to a great start. I’m already breaking my ‘take a break on weekends’ rule but I think that’s just because my current draft has me by the freakin throat. I’m just about finished that one, though. Weirdly enough I might just even jump straight into editing it when the draft is done. I know where I’d like to add a few scenes and tighten up others. It’ll be nice to reread it over now that I’ve got my big sprint in and see if my prose has suffered from my dire need to finish the thing before it escapes my brain.

    IDK why im like this I just am.

    Anyway, this first month was good. It wasn’t the FULL month but it might as well have been considering I’ve been writing straight through the holidays.

    I’m realising that maybe 500-1000 words is a pretty good sweet spot to be writing in. 500 ensures I get a good chunk of some scenes done. I’m surprised I’m playing conservative and hovering on the 500 words end these days, but I think weirdly enough that just comes with writing a script instead of strictly prose or walls of text. I know you cram in more WC with the number of times you repeat someone’s name for Dialogue but the scenes develop faster than they might with prose so I feel like I’m almost writing too fast, if that makes any sense?

    Anyway.

    I’m excited to keep this habit going. They say if you can hold onto a habit for 30 days, it really does stick so I’m hoping that’s the case.

    We’ll find out how I fare in the next few months, though those are the quieter ones, the habit shouldn’t be too hard to keep up!

    I’ll have to start thinking about what my next draft is going to be… hmmMM.

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