This week has been productive but not in a way that will show in my targets because it’s mostly been about getting things done on paper. I’ve been making progress with the Mid-way May Writing Goals I put forward and have finally reached the conclusion for The Doll. It will now be transferred to the ‘Edit Me’ pile where I already have works waiting for me to pay attention to them.

Though I’ve been slowly wading through the bath of goals I have, I feel like my creativity is starting to wane and I think I’m going to arrive at a dry period soon. Hopefully not. I might just need to go and do something else for a little bit. I do have another cosplay prop project that I want to work on so it might be a good idea to make that the focus of May (along with my goals) and take some of the pressure off of writing and reduce the targets.

This week I have been sorting out my works, categorising them and marking them for improvement or for tossing at the end of the month. I’ve also been looking up more on publishing opportunities and am trying to really kick myself into gear about developing myself professionally. I graduate at the end of the year (hopefully) and I really to be thinking about my career goals. I’m not going to get anywhere if I don’t start properly putting in the effort to be more mindful of my industry and how it works. I need to read more, I need to know publishers, I need to think about agents etc. Even if I don’t end up using it, I should be a lot more familiar with it.

Currently, my targets for the week are at:

• 4,717 / 10,000 for “Personal Writing”
• 2,869 / 5,000 for “Professional Writing”

The Doll has finally been finished (the first draft that is) and now I have no more open focus projects that are staying up way past their deadline. The next work I will be doing in June (or at least I’m still planning on doing it) is The Pirate and the Clumsy Mage, a short story I created the outline of a while ago. It will follow an inept mage named Fioré Malestine and the Captain of the Roaring Talons Lura Blush as they tackle society’s misconceptions about each other and the rampant corruption leading the country to doom. It starts with Lura kidnapping Fioré.

There’s something refreshing and scary about sharing details of my work online. I think it’s refreshing because it feels like I’m telling someone when I normally don’t have anyone to talk about it but scary because it’s so easy for people to take things from others in the digital world. It’s not quite that I think I have anything worth stealing, but it’s value to me is not the same as it’s value to a publisher. Priceless.

I’m going to continue working at the pace I am because I think it’s what’s right for me right now. The days are just blowing past and I need to face forward and get ahead of them. If I’m struggling to get those extra reps in, then I might just need to lower the number of reps I’m doing.

Happy and healthy writing in these trying times!

That’s my Writing Reflection for the week starting the 11th May 2020.