September 17th, 2022 – 1,452

~ Sam Shuttleworth

I sat in Falmer Bar, and I just started writing. I wrote about 1,500 words, and with that I kicked off a new story. That was 10 years ago today. And now, that story is 14 novels, with about 2k left to go. I debated speeding through to the end for that anniversary significance, but I think I’ve learned better since then. I’m really enjoying writing it, and I wanna savour it.

And now I look ahead, and I’ve made my mind up: Main Story Focus got me what I set out to do, my 14 drafts. And I think I’m ok retiring it in this iteration now. If I find a story I super wanna focus, I’ll treat it like main story, but three years of this rigid approach is enough for now I think. If I start to feel rudderless, I’ll bring it back, but I have so many stories I wanna tell, and some are short. So yeah, another way this is the end of a long chapter.

Also I learned how to break ribs today, so that was neat. The one hang up is it turns out EDS makes doing chest compressions hyper painful and like I’m gonna dislocate something. I mean, if it’s an actual life or death situation and no one else steps up I’ll do it, but yeah. Also found out you are meant to wait to have a specialist pop joints back in. Not looking forward to my first dislocation at all. I mean hopefully it won’t ever happen.

…did I seriously just write that?

Published by Sam Shuttleworth

I’m Sam, and I live to write. I spent most of the first 8 years of my adulthood trying to balance writing with a large amount of crap in my personal life, until towards the end of 2018 I threw everything out and started afresh with just my writing. I built the new me around one goal: I have to write at least 1,000 words a day. I called this goal 1K, and it changed my life. So long as I write a thousand words a day, the day is a success, and atop that I've managed over time to build the life I wanted all those years. My greatest flaws as a writer is I still use too many adjectives, adverbs, connectives as openers, accidental passive voice and I don't force my work down people's throats enough on pain of extreme and unusual torture. My greatest strength is I know my greatest flaws and I'm working on them.