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This is where I jot down my ramblings on life & creative writing. 🙂 |
 Scribbles & Notions Welcome to my blog. This space exists mainly for me to keep myself focused and writing regularly. |
| Alright, I haven't had much time to write a new blog post in a few days, so here it is! I'm trying to keep it updated as much as possible. So, what is there to write about? Well, I'm almost done with my Advanced Data Management class at WGU, which is great. I can't wait to take a break from all that studying. In other news, I've received another review here at WdC! This time on "Lane 96"  , which is a short story that I wrote in 2011. The reviewer this time was Amethyst Snow Angel   who was kind enough to give me feedback on my writing (with suggestions on how to fix the story rambling a bit, as well as a couple of unnoticed typos) which I used to revise the story. The latest revision hopes to fix those problems, so if you have the time, go ahead and take a look at it and let me know what you think of it.Thank you Amethyst!  Speaking of learning to write better, a brand new 2025 lecture on professional writing by Brandon Sanderson appeared on my YouTube feed a few nights ago and I found myself watching it. For those of you who don't know, Sanderson is a science fiction/fantasy author with iconic works like The Stormlight Archive and Mistborn. He is known for writing epic fantasy novels set in the Cosmere fictional universe. He's also known for being really good at churning out books almost every year. He's been uploading new content to his YouTube channel recently and about a week or so ago, he uploaded a new lecture series called The Philosophy of Professional Writing. You should check it out if you're interested in being published traditionally. Link below. My own writing journey has taken a big hit lately. With all the work I've had to do on my classes and the extra stuff that's come up, I've had very little time to write anything new. As a result, my productivity is down, and I am not making as much progress as I'd like. It is what it is, and I can't beat myself up too much for not meeting deadlines that I have imposed on myself. But that's not to say that I haven't been writing at all. In fact, I recently uploaded a new short story called "The Intruder" which is a bit of a departure from the usual stories that I write. Go check it out if you're up for a tale involving a fight-or-flight choice in an otherwise mundane life moment. Something that could happen in real life to some of us, perhaps.I'm working on another short story on the side. As you can probably tell, I'm trying to get back on that horse! (the writing horse). Hoping that I don't get off it any time soon (or that it doesn't throw me off).  I've also been wanting to read more. The last book that I read was a long time ago, probably like a year or more. So I've decided to pick up Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. From what I gather, it's a science fiction novel about humans leaving Earth and going to some other planet. It already shipped from Amazon so I'm just waiting for it to arrive tomorrow. I'm really excited for that one. What have you been reading lately? Or what have you been writing, for that matter? Please let me know in the comments. That's all for now! Have a great week, everyone! |
I have to say, for being a site that was made in the year 2000, Writing.Com still somehow manages to maintain its appeal (at least to me) in terms of aesthetics and also usability. There’s something about it that I can’t quite place my finger on, but it makes me want to write more than any other site ever has. I guess I’m a sucker for minimalist user interfaces and websites. WdC just works, and it works well, even for little things like changing the site’s skin or customizing your profile. Whoever designed and coded this site did a really good job at making the simplicity of the platform its strongest point, as it looks and feels good to use. Or maybe that's just me. I’ve recently felt the urge to write again, mostly because I’m nearing the end of my second to last semester at WGU and I have time to actually consider other interests and pursuits in my spare time. Being a software engineering student can feel all encompassing at times and as such it has paralyzed me from doing other things that I love. My free time is scarce these days and whenever I attempt to launch a new project (like writing a novel) or play a new video game, it always feels like I’m cheating myself out of hours of my day that could be better spent studying or finishing classwork. I can’t enjoy my other hobbies because I’m always thinking about due dates. And let me tell you, that is a sure fire way of burning out. For that reason, I think I need an outlet to let myself just enjoy the moment and embrace being creative rather than productive. Utilitarian as I am, even I know not to put all my focus on work and school, because it’s not healthy and it will cause me more harm than good in the long run. So I'm glad that I re-discovered Writing.Com and I plan on writing more in the future, for my own sanity’s sake. I returned to WdC a few days ago because of a review that was left on one of my short stories. The review came in through my Gmail inbox and even though normally I don't click on notifications from websites I haven't used in years (as many of them are spam), I was curious as to why I was receiving a review alert from Writing.Com when I hadn't posted anything there in more than a decade. The review was from Tiggy  who had read my "Dimensional War" short story. I wasn't expecting a good rating since the story was written during a time when I was still fairly new to crafting narratives... but to my surprise, the reviewer left me some positive feedback! Here's an excerpt from the review:I’m not a sci-fi fan but the setting of this tale made it an interesting read. In fact, it was the short description that made me click on this story because I was curious what you would do with this idea. There was a lot of focus on the soldiers and their mission, especially at the beginning, which was quite detailed and seemed well researched. It was soon forgotten though when the aliens landed, but you brought it back to the soldiers and why they were there at the end. I, too, wondered if anyone would believe them when they reported what they had seen, but I assumed that this wasn’t an isolated occurrence and the aliens probably landed in other places as well. It was a good story that made me wonder how it might continue. For a bit of context, Dimensional War is a story that takes place during WW2 and involves portals opening up and strange beings emerging from them. I don't really know what made me write it at the time, but I know there were more chapters I wrote in that same setting (but those documents are now long gone, lost to time 😔). After saying my thanks for the review, I started considering why I hadn't visited Writing.Com in such a long time. Had I forgotten about it? Did I consider it at some point bween 2011 and now and just thought it to be outdated or archaic? Did I find other sites for storytelling? I really don't know. I remember that it was one of the first sites I visited in my youth that allowed people to share stories and get them reviewed by a community (long before sites like Wattpad or RoyalRoad even existed). Perhaps I hadn't consider it because my writing days were mostly behind me. So I started thinking: what if I started writing again? What if I posted new stories? Before I knew it, I was customizing my profile and uploading new pictures of myself. I began to consider whether or not to purchase the "Upgraded" membership, allowing me to create books and even have a blog. As you have probably guessed, I ended up pulling that trigger, and well, here we are. In the coming weeks, I plan to start drafting some new stories and posting them on WdC. I also want to talk about how my writing journey is going thus far. Weekly updates is what I'm aiming for, but we'll see how that goes. |
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