Creative Adventures

Minor Creative Setbacks, Major Determination

With the temporary return to lockdown in my hometown, I have found that my creative efforts lately have been centred around making schoolwork engaging for my son.

It is surprisingly exhausting.

I have, however, managed to complete a significant amount of sewing while overseeing various Zoom meetings and school projects. I am currently making the Regency dress I mentioned in my last post. The LARP I’m making it for was unfortunately delayed due to the recent re-emergence of Covid in my area, which has brought with it a whole slew of feelings, verging from guilty relief that I have time to finish this on time without late nights, to disappointment and the dawning realisation that this relapse might not be a one-time occurrence. I mean, I knew that already. It’s just real now.

The upside is that I was in the middle of working on a project that was almost perfect for the scenario I found myself in. The downside is that I didn’t plan for lockdown and have found myself some ribbons short, as well as the general waning of motivation that comes with deadlines slipping forwards. Having said that, I can’t wait to share the creation process up on my youTube channel when it is finished – and it is so close to being done.

To keep my writing mind occupied until I can be a little less tired in the evenings, I have been reading a book called Let’s Get Digital: How to Self-Publish, And Why You Should. While it’s technically still a little early in the game (finishing my first draft would help), I have found it very useful – both for making the way forward into a little less of a scary void, and also for shaping the way I think about approaching upcoming elements, like the cover art and blurb.

I have also decided that I will try to be more involved with writing book reviews on Goodreads. If I can eloquently put into words what I liked (or disliked) about other people’s work, I can surely better put my finger onto what works for my own writing. I’m surprisingly illiterate at times for someone who is writing a series of books.

Although I haven’t come close to meeting my writing goals for this year, I am determined to keep trucking forward. Slowly and surely until I have no more book left to write.

Stay safe out there.

A Reflection on 2020

In many ways, 2020 has not been what I expected.

When I wrote my first blog post back in January, I had envisaged the course of 2020 to be much like 2019. My primary goals for the year had been to focus on my writing – catching moments after work to grow my story on paper – and, ironically, to reconnect with people in person. It goes without saying, that second goal didn’t work out so well.

I feel very lucky to be living in one of the few countries to have taken early action and “beaten” the virus. Internally, now, things are not much different from the way they were in January. However, there is an overhanging existential cloud of uncertainty for the future and the sense that things could change with an unnerving swiftness.

I feel as though months of quarantine and, as of the beginning of the month, redundancy should have given me the time to focus my energy towards my creative pursuits. At the same time, I realise that any time of upheaval or change requires a certain amount of reevaluating and settling in to a new routine. I’ve been trying to balance the feeling that I could be doing more with appreciating what I have been doing and taking a realistic outlook towards what is achievable.

I have so many plans at the moment. On the writing front, I want to get back into the routine of writing my novel a little bit more each week. I feel I almost had that down before my attention turned to the looming company restructure at work. It shouldn’t take much to renew it. I also want to try something new – a friend introduced me to the concept of writing a serial, where a new short chapter would be released to a schedule. The idea intrigues me and I would love to find a way to make it work with all my other projects.

I also have plans to finish and run an evening LARP. The initial idea was late this year, but we shall see how things work out in terms of timing. I also want to make and film the creation process of a Regency dress and a Wild West holster – both for various LARPs later this year.

It doesn’t sound like much, but somehow the months keeps slipping away. It’s funny to think it’s nearly August already.

The important thing, I feel, is to hold onto my creative goals outside of searching for the next step in my career. This is a fantastic time to renew my creative vigour.

Stay safe out there

Debut to the Blog Life

Hello!
Welcome to my blog. I suppose I should introduce myself and say a little something about what this is and why I decided to write it.

My name is Jasmine. I’m a bit of a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to creative expression. I dabble in painting, writing, playing musical instruments, sewing, making videos, photography, and leatherworking – to name a few. Something inside of me is driven to create things out of nothing and I grow restless if I am unable to do that.

My primary reason for starting this blog is to grow a place where I can express my creative endeavours. Arguably, I do a lot of that on my YouTube channel already, but I want this to be more centered around works in progress and where I see them going.
Specifically my writing. I hope to finish my book and have it published over the course of the next few years. I feel that, to pay proper homage to my writing, I should have a dedicated corner of the internet in which I can focus my pre-author (and then hopefully author) energy.

That is not to say that I intend to explore only the writing side of what I do. Ultimately, I would like to create a place to share in my excitement of all things I dabble in. As writing has been a big passion of mine ever since I accidentally stumbled into a book idea at age twelve, it’s understandable that it will be a proportionately larger part of what I write about.

So now that you know what I’ll write about, how often are you likely to hear from me? Not… much. I would estimate roughly once every two to three months. My reasoning being that I will be busy with my other projects and I might not have anything I feel is right to express here.

I look forward to writing here more.
Until then, stay safe and stay creative.