April 29th, 2023 – 1,676

~ Sam Shuttleworth

“Recount a tough lesson you’ve learned lately.”

That I have to scale down how much I can do in a week. In specific, I have to do less if I want to enjoy more, or I burn out super fast, and if I push myself too hard one week, it can outright delete the week or two that come afterwards. My holiday in America, while chill, annihilated the week or so that’s followed coming back, and left me on the back foot on several projects and assignments. That’s ok, 100% worth it, but I do need to get smarter in how I allocate my time, and more ruthless in what I turn down. That’s tough for me, because I hold onto guilt, and there are few things that cause me more pain than turning down offers to spend time with people. But, if I don’t, I will leave myself bedridden, and I don’t want that.

I’ve been writing Clockspinning again. I’ve not written any of the actual substance of the story, but I’m instead writing up the lore as it stands before the story begins. I think this is what Clockspinning, Horizon, and TWR all need more of to give them grounding. I need to find out if there’s any good techniques for fleshing out this kind of worldbuilding or organising it in a way that’s better than a bland wiki. Needs more research.

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.