selenicseas

I've been using Trackbear since the beginning of November, where I joined a leaderboard for Pillowrimo. I've only created one project, TSW outlining (basically, finish the outlines for The Sundered Worlds), but I suspect there will be many more projects in the future.

I like how I can link goals to projects. My goals for November and December were, respectively, Write 10,000 words and Write 6500 words. Both are linked to the TSW outlining project, so I can see how much I've written toward that project over the past two months.

I haven't yet tried to link a goal to two projects, though I'm sure I'll try to do it in the future – if it's even possible, that is. I haven't figured out all the functionalities of this website, yet.

It's a very simple website, but that's really all I want. All I need is something that allows me to track my progress per day, whether that be words, pages, or chapters, and Trackbear does that very well. Unless the website interface changes drastically, I can see myself using it for years on end.

Tags:

trackbear,
writing

Several of my previous novels have started out as scripts. I find that writing a fairly bare-bones script that gets expanded into a proper prose novel later on works much better for me than starting out with prose. I can mostly focus on getting words down and leave descriptions and such for later stages of revisions and editing.

But what if I don't expand a script into a novel? What if I leave the script as it is – obviously with a few rounds of revisions – and never do the prose conversion parts?

I think this is something I should seriously consider in 2026.

Tags:

writing

Unless I have a sudden burst of inspiration, I don't think I'll be done with the outline for The Sundered Worlds, part 2 by the end of the month. It's grown in scope from what I thought would be a fairly simple, faster-paced, straightforward story into something slower, mostly so I can actually explore the world I created. It's definitely for the best, even though it's added more work to my plate.

My original plan was to finish the outlines for all three parts of this story and then start writing. It was also to finish these outlines in a timely manner, which is looking less and less likely by the day. I will be surprised if I finish the last outline by the end of March.

I want to start writing sooner rather than later, I think – possibly at the beginning of the year. The only problem with this is that I'm not confident in my ability to write prose and work on an outline at the same time. I'm still easing myself back into creative work and I'm worried this might push me back into burnout.

I do have the rest of the year to think about it.

Tags:

writing

So, I assumed that each of the three parts of The Sundered Worlds would have a four-act outline. It worked just fine for part 1, so I assumed that it would work just as well for part 2.

Then I decided that since there are four libraries in part 2, each act should focus on a different library, with an introductory act that would be, well, an introduction to the story – for a total of five acts.

And now I'm thinking that I'll need to add yet another act to function as a conclusion. I don’t think I've ever done a six-act story before.

Of course, this could all change by the end of the week, so who knows how things are going to end up.

Tags:

writing

I've moved on to the outline for The Sundered Worlds, part 2. This part of the story is something I actually started thinking about back in 2014. Despite the eleven years that have passed since then, I never got too deep into the plot, setting, or characters. I actually redid the characters and setting entirely during Pillowrimo this year, so all I have to do now is focus on the plot.

I also need to come up with a title for this part. It was originally called Tenebres Library back in 2014, and while that titular library does still exist in the story, it's no longer the main focus of the story. So far, I've thought of at least five titles, and none of them are adequate.

Here's hoping I'll come up with something good by the end of the month.

Tags:

writing

Yesterday I sat down and finished the outline for The Sundered Worlds, part 1 in half an hour. I really didn't think I was going to be done with it this early into the month. In fact, I thought it would take the entire month to finish, so I didn't think about what writing project I'd move on to next.

I could start writing the actual novel now, but I think it's best to let it sit for a week or two while I think about any potential problems or important things I might have missed. I have zero idea what I'm going to work on in the meantime.

Tags:

writing

I wrote 2,329 words this past week, which was enough to put me at 10,015. I reached my goal ahead of time! I've been concentrating on outlining, and I'd say I'm maybe 2/3 of the way through at the moment. I'm going to continue writing for these next two days and see how close I can get to finishing it.

Tags:

pillowrimo,
writing

This was a pretty slow week. I wrote 2,049 words and my monthly total is now 7,686. I was hoping to reach 8k yesterday, but the words just were not coming to me.

There's one week left in this month (well, 9 days, if we count today) and I have 2,314 words left to write. Since it's Thanksgiving week in the United States, I have some time off and should be able to use that to reach my goal ahead of time! Well, hopefully.

Tags:

pillowrimo,
writing

We're halfway through the month, and I'm more than halfway to my goal. I wrote 2,530 words this week and am at 5,637 total. I did slow down quite a bit compared to the first week, but I'm not concerned about it yet. I'm still ahead.

I genuinely didn't think I'd be doing so well this month. I haven't written more than 5k since July. Of course, there's still plenty of time for me to not reach my goal of 10k.

Tags:

pillowrimo,
writing

I've written 3,107 words toward my monthly goal of 10,000. I was definitely not expecting to be almost a third of the way to my goal one week in. I wrote a lot in the first few days and have since slowed down, but I'm still a few days ahead at this point.

I had documents all over the place (this is a project I've worked on-and-off for years) and they've largely been consolidated into a single Scrivener document. No longer do I have to dig through folders looking for a weirdly-named document that might have the information I need. Also, yesterday I figured out how to tie a plot thread into the main narrative, which is something I've tried and failed to do for years.

Tags:

pillowrimo,
writing

Yesterday afternoon, I decided that I'd actually be participating in a writing challenge this month: Pillowrimo, which is held on Pillowfort. I didn't have a goal at the time, but I do now: 10k words of outlining, worldbuilding, and plotting on The Sundered Worlds, which is the name of the series of stories I'm working on.

I'll be making updates on my Pillowfort account every few days (if not every day). As for Dreamwidth, I think updates will happen weekly – it's what I did in past years while participating in NaNoWriMo.

Tags:

writing

I've been doing some writing prep for a story (well, a series of stories) recently. I'm still in the very beginning stages, where I'm working out how the stories are interconnected and what the plots will be, but I'm actually working on a creative project again.

To be honest, I don't feel too positive about it. I feel like I'm still trapped in writer's block – like my brain isn't working the way it used to, or is supposed to. There's a gigantic wall I keep running into, and I have to get over it somehow before I'm back to "normal". I don't know when or if that's going to happen.

Tags:

writing

I've finally finished figuring out what to do with all my stories. The ones I've decided to keep (some were scrapped, as I mentioned before, and some were merged into other stories) all have good cleanup plans, and I can start working on any of them at any time.

Now I just need to figure out which one to work on first. Hopefully that won't take another couple of months.

Tags:

writing

I've actually spent some time figuring out what to do with my stories.

Three of them were scrapped entirely. After a few days of deliberation, I realized I had no interest in working on them. Two of those stories hadn't been touched in over ten years.

There are three novels, completed years ago, that I'm not interested in reworking or revisiting. They were written pretty early on in my writing journey and as a result aren't the best example of my writing. However, they're done and I don't see any use in deleting them. These novels will stay in the "Novels" folder. I might come back from time to time to see how much I've improved.

As for the stories I've decided to keep – well, I haven't gotten through all of them yet. I've only created cleanup plans for some of them, but it's already that some stories are going to take more time to fix up than others.

Perhaps once I'm done making plans I'll have decided which story to work on first.

Tags:

writing

Now that I've decided I want to work on my older projects, I need to think about what kind of work I am actually going to do. I don't want to try to jump back into something after years and try to start writing. I doubt I could even do it, given that there's a lot about my older projects I straight up don't remember.

Some of these older projects are completed novels/scripts, some are unfinished, and some were only in the planning stage. I think the best thing to do is make a unique plan for each of them – does the project need a full rewrite? Do I need to redo a conlang, or change the setting, or change the plot? Do I need to create new characters, or delete some? Was the story previously written as a script, and now I think it would work best as a novel?

If I'm successful with this, I'll be able to work on my older stuff and maybe even complete a story. That would be great, because I haven't actually finished writing a story for a couple of years at this point.

Tags:

writing

Lately, I've been going through my creative work folder. There's stuff there going all the way back to 2008 – novels, short stories, scripts, and comics. Some of them are complete works, but most of them aren't. In fact, some of those projects were only a few lines in a word document, just barely describing ideas that either: (1) aren't enough to make a story on their own, or (2) it's been so long that I've completely forgotten what my original intentions were.

Those projects got deleted. Any good ideas went into my word document that contains all the scraps of stories I might use one day. I do actually pull ideas from this document from time to time; it's not something I say I'm going to refer back to and then never do.

This has actually reignited by desire to work on some of my older projects. It's not ideal as I do want to focus on the stuff I've been working on this year, but I've been so creatively devoid in the past month that I think it might be best to indulge in whatever inspiration I have at the moment.

Tags:

writing

I've fallen behind on my writing this month! I finished the Selegesine's Shadow outline and pretty much stopped writing. I mean, I did write a review for Horizon Forbidden West and draft a few blog posts, but I haven't exactly done any substantial writing since the first week of May.

At the time of writing this post, I'm about three thousand words behind my goal for the month. Not that great, given that I started the month off really well.

I haven't yet decided on what my next major writing project is going to be. If it's a new project (like the story I've been thinking about for the past month and a half), then it won't be enough for me to hit my minimum every day. Even a new project, plus working on the new conlang, plus blogging, won't be enough.

I guess it's a good thing I've got a three-day weekend coming up! That will give me plenty of time to think about what to do next.

Tags:

writing

We've barely had a week of temperatures around 100F (38C) and it's already put me into a slump. I've barely written since I finished the Selegesine's Shadow outline last week. I'm tired all day and have very little energy, thought that could have a little (or a lot) to do with the stress I'm feeling from the ongoing pest issue in my house.

I've decided that the next things I'm going to focus on will be reviews for the last six episodes of Andor Season 2 (which I have not yet found the time to watch) and Horizon Forbidden West (which I finally finished after 3.5 months). Those reviews will be posted sometime this month. In fact, the Horizon Forbidden West review might be posted this Friday, or the following Monday.

After that's done, I have no idea what I'm going to move on to. Maybe I'll finish up the short stories I started last year.

Tags:

writing

I'm finally done with the outline for Selegesine's Shadow…four months behind schedule. Better late than never, I guess.

Like I said before, I won't be jumping into writing right away. There are still plenty of things from earlier versions of the story that I need to fix in the notes and outline. I'll be working on that and a couple of other writing projects (which are still to be determined) until the fall.

Tags:

writing

I was doing very well with my increased writing goal and reading after work until I ran into a pest issue that I've now been dealing with for over a week. You can check the "adventures in homeownership" tag on my Pillowfort account if you want more details. The issue – or, at least, the majority of it – should be dealt with this weekend, but the problem of being behind on reading and writing remains.

I've learned over the years that I can really only concentrate on one or two problems at a time. And when an issue like this comes up – one that seriously affects my own living space, and especially one that requires a lot of prep work – it ends up consuming 90% of my spare thoughts and free time until it's fixed.

Now that I've done a lot of that prep work – close to 90% of it, in fact! – I can go back to committing my brain power to the much more inconsequential things that are my hobbies. It's a little too late in the month to get as far ahead on my writing as I was before this issue arose, but I still should be able to exceed my word goal for the month.

Tags:

writing

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Page generated Jan. 6th, 2026 04:15 am

Entries tagged with writing

Some thoughts on using Trackbear

What if I just leave it as a script?

To start writing, or to wait

Increasing the length of the outline, because why not

What I've worked on this week

Well, that was fast

Pillowrimo update #4

Pillowrimo update #3

Pillowrimo update #2

Pillowrimo update #1

I'm doing something this month after all

Back to writing prep

Done with story cleanup!

Some progress on the story cleanup

A potential plan

Reworking older stuff, maybe

I am once again behind on my writing

Summer burnout already

Outline complete

When your plans run into unforeseen consequences

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January 2026

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