Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Getting Serious About Writing Part 2

I am constantly learning and trying to understand new things, be it for research, writing, general interest in something I found out about, or about myself. I quite enjoy it, and I’m back to share with you.

1. At Some Point, Your Mental Health will need to be your top priority.
I suffer from anxiety and occasional bouts of depression. My anxiety is definitely the major issue with my mental health, but anxiety and depression will usually go hand in hand because that’s just how the mystery of mental health works.
At the time of writing this point, I am under large amounts of stress and my depression has reared its ugly head. I have not been sleeping well, and frankly, the world is losing its colours.
I still need and really want to get work done. I’ve come this far and still have a long way to go, but I’ve made a lot of progress and I still want to make that progress. Things will still get done, but at a slower pace for right now.
I needed to step back and take a look at my situation. My mental health will be my top priority, and I need to hold myself to that. It’s okay to push myself to get things done, but to strain myself emotionally to the point of exhaustion is not.
Because it’s winter I’ve started taking vitamin supplements to help offset my depression(vitamin D and C, as well as a multivitamin). It seems to be working okay for the past couple of days I’ve been taking them. I acknowledge that I can’t always work at a high output level, even when I don’t need to refill the well.
I know diet can play a large role in how you feel, and I know I haven’t been eating the healthiest recently, so that’s something I’m going to need to remedy as well.
If you take nothing else I ever say seriously, take this seriously. Your health, mental and physical, is worth way more than meeting a deadline, arbitrary or not. It’s worth way more than any book deal. It’s worth way more than all the money in the world. So please, take care of yourself. There is nothing wrong with taking some time for yourself if you need it.

2. It’s okay to change the goals you’ve set for yourself.
At the beginning of the year, I set a list of very advantageous goals for myself and my writing. And with everything going on this year with me moving and all, I had to change them if I was going to be realistic. I know I’m still not going to get my entire list done, but I know I’ll be better in the long run because I’m not stressing out about numbers.

3. You need a proper writing space.
For some people, they can write anywhere and everywhere. And that’s great. More power to you people. I am not one of you. And I found that out this year. For a while, I did not have a proper writing space or even space for me to have my computer or sit and eat. And I realized I took for granted my desk and the headspace it gave me. Even the dining room table where I would babysit was a great space for me. But I need something I can make into a proper workspace for myself. I knew before that this was something important for writers, but I didn’t realize just how important until it was no longer there.

4. You work much better with to-do lists and deadlines.
I’ve been trying really hard to get work done the past month when I’ve been able to find time through the move, and it has been so difficult. The other night I had started back up with lists of things I wanted to accomplish over the next couple of weeks. I have seen an almost instant improvement in my work ethic. I think it has to do with a visual of what I need to do. I know I still need to do these things, but the fact they are written down and staring at me every time I sit down at my desk is a wonderful motivator for me. I do put in deadlines for myself, but they’re more there for pacing rather than strict deadlines. Which works for me.

5. It’s easier than you think to get Beta Readers.
It really is easier than you think. Often times your mutual followers on Twitter will be more than willing to beta read for you or critique your work if you’re willing to do the same for them in return. And a quick google search will bring you to plenty of places where you can get beta readers. https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/50920-beta-reader-group is one such place. There are free and paid beta reader services divided up into different categories, so you don’t have to do a lot of guesswork if you have to pay the people to read it for you. But you can go and get some professional readers if you feel so inclined. You’re also able to volunteer to read other people’s manuscripts as you like. There are some rules for this group, so be aware. But the general consensus is don’t be an asshole.

6. It’s tough to come up with blog pots ideas.
It’s easy to talk about and go on and on about various topics and ideas at the start when you first start out blogging. But after a while, posting every week, you’ll start to run out of ideas or topics. And Google searches for ideas will leave you feeling even worse sometimes because most of the ideas that are geared towards writers to talk about are more for published authors than aspiring ones. Just try your best and hopefully people will understand this is a part of your journey and you’re just starting out.

7. Just because you get beta readers, doesn’t mean they will all give you feedback.
You poor, sweet, innocent child. You always think the best of people. Just because people sign up for something doesn’t mean they’re going to follow through with it. This is just as true with people who agree to beta read for you. Maybe it’s because you aren’t experienced and you’re awkward so you don’t want to hound people. But not everyone who agrees to read for you is actually going to go through with it all. Understand this, accept this, and move on. It will be okay. Do not get hung up on this. It’s fine.

8. Reading is an important tool for your craft, not a pass time to feel guilty about.
I’ve been spending a few days recently reading, chewing through a few of the new books on my shelf in the process. The fact that in order to write well you need to learn, and the best way to do that is to read from others, is not a new one. But that idea that you’re ‘wasting’ your day away engrossed in a book that has you on the edge of your seat when you should be writing, is kinda absurd. Yeah, there is a limit. You can’t do that every day, otherwise, you’ll get nowhere. But every so often, it does not hurt to spend the day reading. It can do worlds, not only for your creativity, but it helps to make you a better author. Never feel guilty about taking a day to read, especially if you are not on deadlines.

9. Writing isn’t the only creative outlet you have, don’t think it is.

I think it’s obvious by now that I do love writing, and reading for that matter. But there are times when I want to be creative but in other ways, and I feel like I can’t be or I shouldn’t be because I really should be working on this novel or this outline or something of the sort. The other day I finished putting a cover, that I made myself, on a really old blanket that I’ve had forever and really wanted to reface for the longest time. I ended up having to use a couple of old flat sheets to cover it because the material I initially wanted to use was too small for this project.
I say this also because I’ve recently got my craft stuff set up in it’s own little corner, mostly. And I really want to get back into crafting and making my own stuff.
When I was done covering the blanket and snipping the last of the threads I felt so happy and accomplished I started thinking about other things I want to sew right then and there, I actually had to stop myself because I didn’t even know where to start or if I had enough material for it.
It can be very nice to be creative in other ways than just writing.

10.A bullet Journal is a wonderful, and extremely customizable resource.
At the start of this year, 2020, I started my own bullet journal.
I’ve been using it to track my mood, habits, my goals for the year and break them down into monthly and weekly to-do lists. During NaNoWriMo, I used it as a paper version to track my word count.
Using a bullet Journal this year has been a wonderful and extremely helpful resource to me that has helped me be more organized, and understand my habits.
I will continue to use a bullet journal in the future, tweaking things here and there as needed while I figure out everything that works the best for me, because it works so well for me in so many different aspects of my life.

This project was a long time coming. I initially started this in April-ish of 2019, and I’m only finishing it now in December of 2020.

I do think I’ve learned quite a bit about myself through out the year. I’m going to start on part 3 very soon because there is more I’ve learned and continue to learn.

Also, just for the record, I’m not putting all this information out here for people to emulate. I’m doing it more as a look back for myself. If any of what I’ve put out helps anyone, then all the better. But by no means is this a rock solid thing for everyone to abide by.

Except the mental health part. That one I do personally believe should be among the top priorities of everyone, especially considering most people in creative fields suffer from mental illness of some kind.

Alright, I think this post has gone on for long enough. I hope this was helpful in some way, or at the very least entertaining. I hope you are having a wonderful day. And if it’s not wonderful, I hope it gets better. Stay safe, and I will see you next time.

-T.R. Flynn.

2019 Wrap Up

It has been a year.

I moved. My parents opened up a restaurant. I took several long breaks, some were desperately needed, others were mandatory due to the move.

It’s been interesting. I have to give it that.

This was also the first year in which I had set actual goals for myself that I wanted to get done. Last year, 2018, I only wanted to see what I could and couldn’t do over the course of a year as I worked on my writing and building a platform.

So now, much like my usual monthly wraps, I’m wrapping up the year to see what I managed to do and see what I realistically can and can’t do for next year.

So, let’s get on with it.

Trials for the Princess Ryanne and War for the Good King are going through major overhauls right now. I’m writing this post before I’m writing the post addressing it. But needless to say, neither of those are done at this moment.

As for the anthology, I have the outlines fixes, most of the rough drafts written up, some of them are typed up and on my computer, most of them have titles, but I’m not really happy with the title for the book itself just yet. So, I would say I’m about seventy percent done with the first phase of this piece. As I have said before, I came up with a few more stories that I really want to put in that tie up some more loose ends, so I still have those I need to do.

I’ve abandoned the idea for a newsletter for this year. And, honestly, I think I’m going to leave that idea for now. At this moment, I don’t really feel like I make enough quality content, or am a popular enough author to warrant monthly newsletters. Perhaps in the next few years, I’ll implement one, but for right now it just doesn’t seem like a good idea for me.

As for the revamp of the site I wanted to do. Well… You can see how that turned out. It didn’t. I’m not even really sure what I was planning to do in terms of revamping the site. I think more than anything I just wasn’t super into the layout or pictures. But I can fix that eventually if I’m still so inclined. But I’m not going to worry about that right now.

About the twelve writing contests, I wanted to enter. Yeah… that didn’t happen. I even changed my goals for this to be one contest before the end of the year. That still didn’t happen. But that’s okay. I had so much going on, I’m not upset about it.

I managed to read more than twenty-five books this year. For those of you who follow me on Goodreads, you’d see that at this moment I’ve read twenty-six. I still have a couple weeks until the end of the year at the time of writing this, so I’m not sure what the actual final count is yet. But I’m happy I managed to do this. Especially when I changed this goal from twenty-five to twenty because I wasn’t sure I could do the extra five. But I did. So, I’m very happy about that.

I did manage to outline Realm of the Demon Empress. And I’m very happy with how it’s turned out so far. It took way longer than I first expected to properly outline it and add in all the detail and extra scenes I wanted. It ended up being sixty-something pages before, and about thirty-one after I typed it up and printed it out. So I’m very happy about that.

I didn’t manage to write three short stories this year, but I did manage to write one. And I’m very happy about the premise of it, less so about the way it ends. But, you know what, it doesn’t have to be perfect the first time around, it just has to exist.

I did do a blog event/challenge. The 12 days of Blogmas, which was actually a lot of fun.

I didn’t do a one year anniversary post. That time passed while I was still unpacking and trying to figure my room out after the move. So I couldn’t. But that’s okay, there’s always next year.

I haven’t finished ‘Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Getting Serious About Writing Part 2’, but I am working on it. It’s certainly getting there.

I stopped trying the weekly writing prompts. I didn’t like how it looked on the blog, and on top of that, they weren’t my personal prompts. So I felt kinda icky taking them, despite the fact I tried to give credit where it was due. So that stopped.

I’ve made a few playlists on Youtube for the various pieces I’m working on, and the tone I need them to set. But they aren’t completely done, and there are a few I still need to make up.

And I did the research I needed to, to a degree. I still have a bit more I need to do to get it as accurate as I want to though.

So, calculating it all out, marking the ones I only partially completed as a half, I got five out of fifteen done. It’s not bad. Especially when you consider the fact I realized several things weren’t going to happen, and everything that happened this year.

Overall I’m pretty happy with what happened. And I’m looking forward to getting more done next year. Or, tomorrow I guess.

What did you manage to get done this year? What did you manage to tick off your list for the new year? I’d love to hear if you’d like to share.

I hope you’re having a great new years eve, and if it’s not great I hope it gets better. We’re about to enter a new decade, meaning we have new opportunities awaiting us. And I will see you next time.

-T.R. Flynn.

What I am Most Grateful for this Christmas.

Merry Christmas to everyone reading this today. And if you’re reading this afterwards, I hope you hade a wonderful, merry Christmas. Or Hanukkah. Or Kwanzaa because that is tomorrow.

Now, I know being thankful and giving thanks for is mostly considered a Thanksgiving thing. And that’s fine if you agree. However, I do not.

I have always been of the opinion that one should give thanks for the good in their lives. And I feel this way especially around the holidays because I have so much and feel endlessly grateful for it all.

So, in not so many words because I’m sure we all have things we’d rather be doing than readings the ramblings of some woman on the internet, I would like to express gratitude to all the things in my life that I am thankful for.

Starting with, my family. I have endless support and unconditional love. Especially when I’m snappy, and moody, and really don’t want to socialize with anyone. I could not be who I am, I could not be happy if I did not have the wonderful people in my life who I get to share a name with. And, if any of you are reading this, thank you. So, so much. I don’t express it, but it really does mean the world to me.

I am grateful for my ability to do this. To put myself out there, in a safe, introvert-friendly way. I am grateful to share my thoughts and ideas, my progress. And sometimes even just random things that really have nothing to do with a writing blog, but I find lots of fun.

And because I want to keep this list short, I’ll end with this.

I am grateful for you. Yes, you. The person reading this blog. Whether you leave a like, or comment, or follow, or not. I am grateful that you are here. I am grateful you take the time to acknowledge my existence and my scattershot thoughts even if they didn’t register as anything more than ramblings. I am grateful for every last one of you seventy people(at the time of posting this) who are following me. Yes, even the spam/bot accounts. And I’m fine with that because it means my words are reaching at least seventy different places, and I know in comparison to some that is so small, but that’s a lot to me. So, thank you. Thank you for caring enough to give me some time and prove in my darkest hour that this will be worth it. I appreciate you more than words on a screen can convey.

And I will leave it at that before I beat the dead horse and start to sound redundant.

So, no matter what you celebrate, I hope you have a wonderful day. And if it isn’t wonderful right now, I hope it gets better. Because I honestly hope for the best for you all. And I will see you next time.

-T.R. Flynn.

Best Christmas Movies to Watch

Ah, movies. The perfect thing to curl up with the people you care about and enjoy in your downtime.

They’re mindless entertainment or thought-provoking pieces of art to be enjoyed for generations to come.

So, what are some of the best movies to curl up with this Christmas eve with your loved ones and enjoy?

Well, if you don’t mind my completely biased opinion, I can give you some pretty good suggestions.

The Polar Express
The age-old tale of being young and believing in magic. Do we grow to a point where we stop believing, or are we forced into not believing because that’s what expected of us when we get older? This a beautiful movie full of magic, joy, excitement, and wonder. It’s the perfect thing to bring out the kid in all of us and have us hoping to hear the bells and hoofbeats of the reindeer, and maybe even a characteristic ‘Hohoho’ of the big man himself.

A Christmas Carol
This is probably a classic for everyone around this holiday. Finding your Christmas spirit beyond your scroogish ways is a heartwarming story of love, family, and the true embodiment of what the Christmas spirit is. Whether you read the book or watch any of the many renditions of this in movie form, it’s still a beautiful message and a wonderous story for people of all ages.

Home Alone 
I am referring to the first, original, Home Alone. The spirit of the season is rampant in this movie. And the added comedy and adventure of a young kid running around to thwart thieves is a perfect contract to the innocence of the main character. In my own opinion, this is the best of the entire Home Alone franchise. Beyond this, it all feels very samey and rather bland. But opinions are as they are.

How The Grinch Stole Christmas
While there are many renditions of this classic, my personal preference is the animated movie from 1966. I love the art style of it as it’s very similar to the style of cartoons I grew up watching, back when everything was hand-drawn, and I really like the music for it as well. But whether you’re watching this one, an older one, the live-action one with Jim Carey, or any other variation I might have missed, this is a wonderful, heartwarming tale that, I feel, really cuts to the heart of what Christmas actually is. It’s not about the gifts and feasts, it’s about togetherness and love.

So, that’s all I have for you today. Happy Christmas Eve if I haven’t said that yet.

There is still one more post that will be coming out tomorrow, so I guess technically this is the 13 days of Blogmas instead of the 12, but I digress.

To those of you who celebrate Christmas, what is your favourite movie to snuggle up with loved ones on Christmas eve? And what are some of your favourite snacks for the night too? I’d love to know if you’d like to share.

I hope, regardless of what you celebrate, you are having a wonderful Christmas eve. If it is not as wonderful and magical as it should be, I do hope it gets there for you. You deserve to be happy and to relax. Thank you so much for reading, and I will see you tomorrow for the last day of Blogmas.

-T.R. Flynn.

Christmas Ask

On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a Christmas Ask!

I love these sorts of things, so we’re doing this again. Let’s go!

1. Favourite kind of Christmas cookies?
Chocolate chip is probably my favourite. But I also really like ginger snaps. We don’t have those every year, but I love them when we do.

2. Do you have tinsel on your Christmas tree?
Nope. We’ve never had tinsel on our trees. We’ve always had animals and my parents didn’t want them eating it and getting sick, so we’ve never had tinsel. Generally, we’ll put ribbon on our trees, but that’s about it.

3. Do you open gifts on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day?
Usually, we’ll do it on Christmas day. In the most recent years because of my dad’s work schedule and my siblings in other places we do it on whatever day everyone is around for. My Nana was German, so when we were young and would go over to her house for Christmas, we would do that on Christmas eve, and then have our Christmas the next day.

4. Do you have a special Christmas morning breakfast?
No, not generally. We’ll snack on things leftover from our Christmas party, but we generally hold off until Christmas ‘dinner'(we eat at like 1).

5. Favourite flavour of hot chocolate?
Peppermint.

6. How do you help those less fortunate during the holidays?
Buying nonperishables to donate to the foodbank is one of my favourites. If we have a bit of extra cash there are a couple of stores around us that have an angel on the tree program. So you select an angel off the tree they have, and all it has on it is their gender and their age range. And you buy a present for the child and the staff at the store wraps it and sends it off for Christmas to the family. I always feel really good after doing that.

7. When do you decorate for Christmas?
I try not to do it before December first. This year we did it shortly after November eleventh, but we were also decorating the restaurant too so I can’t be too upset about that.

8. Best Christmas memory?
I think my favourite has to be just sitting around the living room with my family after we opened gifts and watching Christmas cartoons on the tv. No one was complaining about them, and we were just sitting together enjoying one another’s company.

9. Favourite holiday candle scent?
I really like crisp scents for Christmas. I don’t really care for the overly sweet ones. But I love the crips ones. Like fresh snow, winter sleigh ride, first snowfall, etc. I don’t like pine though. I feel like that’s always a very fake scent and way too overpowering.

10. What do you typically get in your stocking?
My siblings and I all usually get about the same things. Little toiletries like shampoo and body wash, as well as chocolate. Sometimes there might be things like socks or lottery tickets, or some other small things. Nothing exciting, unfortunately.

11. What’s at the top of your Christmas list this year?
I don’t really have a list this year. Something I would really like to do is go and see lights again with my family. That would be nice.

12. Does it snow where you live?
Yes, but also, no. It does snow. I live in Canada. But It’s not the kind of snow that either lasts, is packing snow, or when we get it it’s not until after Christmas which sucks.

13. Do you leave cookies and milk for Santa?
I used to. Not anymore.

14. Do you have a themed Christmas tree or do you have miscellaneous ornaments and decorations? If it’s themed, what is the theme?
I wish we had a themed tree. But no. Generally, it’s just miscellaneous ornaments. Mom’s made it a habit in recent years of bringing out ornaments that we made when we were little and putting them on the tree. Those are always a fun walk down memory lane.

15. Do you have an advent or Christmas countdown calendar?
Every year my mom makes sure we all do. So I have one of those chocolate countdown calendars.

I took this from Tumblr user acozytimeofyear. If you would like to check out this original ask or the user themself.

That’s all I have for you today. Before I go I’d like to tag anyone who’d like to do this. If you decide to do this, please tweet me a link @TRFlynn2. I would love to read if you would like to share.

I hope you’re having a great day, and if it’s not great, I hope it gets better. And I will see you tomorrow.

-T.R. Flynn.