Weekly Dev Log #5, July 10th 2023

Hello everyone! I hope you have had a great week and weekend. I spent my weekend being an absolute gremlin, rearranging rooms and obsessively cleaning and then dancing my ass off in a forest to some really loud music- just overstimulating my brain in the best kinds of ways! 😌 It really helped me reset in a big way, which my neurodivergent brain sorely needed after the sort of stalemate I got in last week. I’ll tell you a bit more about it- and I hope you are ready to hear about every facet of this journey, because I don’t want these weeklies to only be all flowers and sunshine; writing is hard work for me, sometimes, and I am still learning what works best in terms of making it a full time endeavor. :>

On Monday I started strong and added zealot and psion battle scenes! I love them- I have come to really enjoy writing action scenes, which is a huge, but welcomed, surprise. You'll see some extended sneak peeks soon! >:3
Tuesday, however... After those battle scenes my words started dwindling in both quantity and quality until it came to a complete halt. I think it's because of a couple of reasons. Firstly, the slow writing always happens when I get to this part of writing a chapter- once I have the exact sequence of events and some scattered good bits that define the scenes- fun dialogues, action and emotions- I'm left with a lot of the actual body of the chapter, which is just agonizing to write for an underwriter like me.  Secondly, this rough part compounded together with me just generally reaching the bottom of my inspiration-well, and feeling the growing pains of becoming a Creator Online (which is so hard in it's own right.).

So I stepped away from writing entirely! It is as terrifying to do as an author as I'm sure it is hearing about as a reader who is eagerly awaiting the next update. But, I have gotten really good at identifying my limits, and now I just need to actually listen to them and find a new balance that serves me better. I spent the rest of the week being as introverted as I wanted, read so many books, just inhaling every bit of inspiration I could get my hands on.  
And what books LMAO. Both Serious Literature and some wild erotica about a tree that caught a girl in its branches. That one was truly something. Here's a list of what I read (I read a lot when I go into reading mode skdksdjks) if it interests. All links lead to Goodreads:

Villains & Virtues series by A.K Caggiano  (I love over the top villains and Damien is a new fav character in that aspect. This was so sweet and funny.)

Not Another Vampire Book by Cassandra Gannon (Literally same as above but in a more modern setting. I sure knew what flavor romance I was after lol.)

The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gornichec (Heartbreaking)

The Morning Wood Tree by Siggy Shade (Aforementioned wild erotica- take heed to ALL content warnings if you read it, it is absolutely insane and wonderful)

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville (THE WORLDBUILDING. I am continuing the series this week, but it has me in a chokehold)

A lot of reading! And I still managed a total of about 4k words throughout the week, so all in all not too bad, right? :> I do suspect the slow pace will continue this week, but I am at least facing it with more energy and a better attitude. 

I hope you have a great week too, and I'll see you on Wednesday! :D