A year of specifically focusing on my writing is coming to a close. Without going too much into what I have managed to acheive (that will come later after the end of the year), I thought I’d talk about my focus for this final short month of 2025.
Consistency is, of course, the major theme.
When I was chatting in the WorldCon Seattle Discord, I was invited to join a server full of writers called The Goblin City. Sot far, that has been an incredibly engaging and fun way to make sure I’m thinking about writing almost every day. I have mostly been using the goals tracking sections, but have found the weekly activities keep me in the right mindset, and the word crawl activities are fun – the latter being a themed sprint tracker where the idea is to mark off time spent writing (or wordcount) against a goal. There are two weeks and you don’t have to reach the end (but you should feel proud if you do).
Activities like these have helped prevent weeks without writing from slipping by when other things are happening in my life. I have found my brain responds well to activities I do as part of a group, even if the outcome is for my eyes alone at this point.
The writing itself is going remarkably slowly. I think that is largely due to sneaking half an hour here and fourty minutes there. Long stints writing seem almost non-existant at this point in the year. However, now that I’ve recognised that, I’m surely more able to make the time.
I know I won’t finish the first draft of this novel by the end of the year, and that’s okay as long as I keep working on it. I recognise I did write other things during the course of the year and I have a busy life.
I have been thinking about how I can better utalise the writing programs I use to keep things better organised. At the moment, book notes are all jammed at the end of a Microsoft Word file, which makes it really hard to know what my overall wordcount is (roughly 5000 words are notes). It’s also difficult to find an exact note when I go looking for it, as it’s a lot of scrolling that loads slowly, with the main distinguishing factor being that I used different fonts for different sections of notes.
I have a note book that I hand write things into as well. I doubt this would change if I started using a different writing program, as I enjoy analogue processes. Working on the screen for my day job, followed by writing on the screen gets me very tired of looking at a screen.
The two main programs I am currently looking at are Obsidian and EmberWrite.
Obsidian is highly recommended and extremely versatile. The offline application is entirely free with no subscription fees with the option of paying a subscription if I wanted synching at any point. There does seem to be some element of setup required to get it streamlined for writing, however there’s such a big writing community using it that I suspect it will be relatively straightforward to use someone’s template.
EmberWrite is new and still in beta. The full version is looking to be released in February after a very successful Kickstarter campaign. I have backed this, which gets me the license to download it onto three devices, no subscriptions required. I have downloaded the beta and the onboarding process is extremely well thought out and detailed. I already feel like I could get started on that one.
Given how tired I am by everything running on subscrptions, I don’t mind the fact that neither of these sync across devices (at the levels I would be using). I crave simplicity and the gaurentee that I won’t turn on my computer one day to find a software I use has been updated beyond recognition with features I don’t want. Running offline is a bonus as far as I see it, provided I practice good data saving principles.
I will check back in the New Year with a comparison between the two and my reasons for picking whichever one I go for (or a secret third option that I am yet to discover).
In the meantime, here is a short ~300 word piece I wrote as writing practice recently. Enjoy.
The Rain
A few light drops misted beneath the lone streetlight. Cobblestones glistened on the ground, reflecting pinpoints of coloured light from the shopfronts that lined the road. Red, green, purple. Now overwhelmingly lime green as the electric ad on the side of a bus stop abruptly changed.
Bartholomew turned a large iron key in his tea shop door. It was his life’s passion. Recently repainted, yet the dark red that lined the windows on the door was already beginning to peel and lift. A thick drop of rain landed on a nice part of the muntin where the paint held strong. Bartholemew wiped it away forcefully. Three more drops appeared to take its place, mocking him.
Gathering his coat around himself, he shuffled towards the bus stop. He really should take more care to stay out of the rain. Everyone was telling him this nowadays.
Don’t forget your mask. Always bring an umbrella.
He harumphed to himself. The rain felt perfectly fine on his skin. Besides, he was too old to worry about long-term effects.
The seat in the bus stop was cold metal, somehow seeping the warmth from his legs through several layers of fabric. The arm rests were an awful affair, twisted triangles of metal that set him sitting at an angle to avoid leaning against their lumpy frames. This was why no one could have nice things these days.
That, and the damned acid rain.
It fell from the sky in a furious roar, splashing back off pockmarked cobbles and working relentlessly to strip statues of their faces and remove any shapes deemed too adventurous. The street shrunk to a small, sheltered rectangle surrounded by smears of bright light. The ad flickered momentarily, settling on a horribly distracting orange.
Behind Bartholomew, paint lifted. Releasing its hold.
Creative Adventures 