Happy Friday!
Alright, the first full week of doing this is officially over. We had a couple goals from Monday and I’m excited to talk about them. The week went by in a blur but we still got things done! Let’s start with the good stuff: The writing.
Writing Chapter One
Alright, so the main goal for the week was to write the first chapter of the rough draft. I am happy to say we got it done! But man, it stirred up a lot of different thoughts and emotions that I want to talk about.
First, and this may seem a little obvious, but writing is TOUGH. Every word is something I am overthinking, and hopefully that’s a habit I can break. If not, I’ll have to learn to just ignore the thoughts. I keep reminding myself that 1) I have no idea what I’m doing, so lighten up on the self criticism, and 2) rough drafts tend to be, well, not good. I like the quote “a rough draft is just you telling yourself the story for the first time.” It’s not what I’m going to put out into the world, nor is it a finished product. It’s ok for some plot points to not be perfect or for sentences to be clunky.
Overall, the rough draft is not going to be good, and that’s ok. I think the most important thing I can do is just get the story out, beginning to end. Then I can spend as much time as I want fine tuning it. BUT, I can’t do that if I don’t have a finished story. So full steam ahead.
I also want to do a better job with my description of the world/the various settings, but I’m not prioritizing that right now. If Veryn is heading to bed, I don’t need a paragraph or two describing the bedroom. Yet. I just need to get the plot out.
All in all, the first chapter ended up being 2,500 words. Not bad, but I want to add descriptions as I’ve mentioned above and get it up to 3,000-4,000. I’m also really eager to get a few chapters further in to start adding a little more excitement and a little less scene setting. In a way I’m almost relieved to have the first chapter done so that I can continue with the plot.
Practicing Drawing
I started a YouTube series for drawing with Sketchbook Pro! I have to say – I have a very, very long way to go. The video covered a lot of the different tools the program has, and there’s so much to learn. It will definitely be a while before I’m making anything even halfway decent, but it will be cool to have developed a new skill. I spent some time playing with the tools the video covered, but I almost wish I could take an in person course to learn how to use it. It reminds me of learning to use modeling software for the first time when I studied engineering.
Here’s something I made while playing around. Hopefully by posting my sloppy beginnings here, we can see how my skill develops over time!

Goals For The Weekend
I am excited to say I am going camping tomorrow night. Just for the night to try and take advantage of the nice weather while we still have it. On the other hand, it definitely affects my goal setting for this weekend. I think this goal may be a little lofty given I won’t have a lot of time, but I’d like to try and write Chapter 2 before Monday. If I can get it done, I’d really like to get into a weekly cadence of writing one chapter during the work week and another over the weekend. If I can keep that up I’ll have a rough draft before you know it. But I’m going to set a secondary goal of not getting too mad at myself if I don’t get it done. This is, after all, for fun.

I hope you guys enjoy the weekend as much as I plan to!