Okay…

I’ll get it done.

Okay…

This is a battle with myself.

I know…

I want to master my craft.

I know…

The only opinion that matters is my own.

Okay…

I want to be successful.

Okay…

So I want to know if I’m doing it right.

I know…

My love of the art form trumps all.

I know…

Doing it, no matter how well, is what matters.

Okay…

I haven’t been doing it.

Okay…

I crave some validation.

I know…

This is a battle with myself.

I know…

I’ll get it done.

Okay.

I’ll win this battle.

Okay.

It will get done.

I started writing Chapter 4 as soon as I concluded Chapter 3. I rode the wave… straight into an info dump. So the 1200 words I wrote so far are null. Knowing my timeframe between chapters thus far, I’ve taken some time to reconsider my approach. You know what they say… can’t rush art.

My conclusion is that this story is orbiting around 2 main characters. I originally put a lot of stock in Cirrus, but found as I started writing how much I was enjoying bringing Zale to life. Chapter 3 was a testament to his development. The info dump came to be because of how excited I was to continue the plot and exploring Zale’s arc… but I realized in doing that I was neglecting Cirrus. Also, info dumps fucking suck.

My solution is to “switch perspectives” every other chapter. This will be dedicated time to explore the inner-dialogue, motivations, and viewpoint between both Cirrus and Zale. Chapter 2 already had an intense focus on Cirrus and so Chapter 4 will naturally fall into place covering her again. It’s a tool to help me avoid info dumping the major plot points that are incoming (be excited because I am) and break this… uh… minor writers block *cough*

Oh, and I bought new art. Zale in armor, Cirrus with her wings folded, and our two wolf friends interacting in a scene straight out of the next chapter. Pretty exciting stuff. If you really want to see it… note me.

Progress uhhh hasn’t been made but I promise it will be. This is a test of my willpower. I need to know I’m capable of finishing something in order to be more confident in my writing pursuits. So it’s a promise to myself… and whoever the hell might be listening. Stay tuned.

“You’re a scout in a rangers division? What exactly is the difference?”

Cirrus was watering at the mouth. She set her bowl down and hastily replied, “All rangers are men. They wear heavier armor and carry larger blades. A ranger would have kicked your ass.”

“And their purpose is the same as a scout?”

“Screw you, Zale. I’m eating.”

The wolf's eye immediately shot to the bowl. Zale jerked it away with his magic as the Volcani was just starting to dip down her golden head to feast upon it. More broth spilled on the floor. Cirrus gave a low growl and glared at him in utmost hunger-induced frustration.

Yes, I'm still writing. Yes, chapter 3 will be released this week (hopefully). Yes, I'll be posting art of Zale along with the publishing of this chapter. I hit a writers block but wrote/worked through it. I'm more confident in the direction of the story now because of it. Chapter 3 is over 4000 words long. I'm cutting a lot from that and editing a lot of things to perfect it. God knows with how much I edited Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 that revising this thing to death is worth my while. My job is really demanding right now and I prioritize that and my social life before writing... It's still critical to me and in my top 3 things I prioritize, but my other two priorities are consuming my life right now. I'm not exactly sure anybody is really even waiting sooooo I'm not overly concerned if progress is still being made.

I can say with confidence that Let Down Your Guard is still being worked on and still making progress.

This issue is that there isn’t much for me to show for it. Well, first things first, it’s constantly on my mind. There’s a land my mind travels to when daydreaming. I have a magnum opus of sorts that was always my default daydreaming home, but LDYG has taken that spot recently. Little concepts jump into my mind almost daily and I’m sure to jot them down. These are ideas regarding things that’ll happen in much later chapter or with what I’m currently writing.

Just like reworking Chapter 1, I had to rework Chapter 2. I had nearly 2k words when I paused and realized something wasn’t right. I can certainly take bits and pieces, but what I wrote is defunct now. I had to restart. I did restart to much success, my goal is Wednesday, if not sooner, for chapter 2 to be published.

The reason it didn’t come out this week is for 2 reasons. The first is that I took time aside to work on character sheets. I’m excited by this. These character sheets are a culmination of my study into writing and hours of analysis of my characters personalities, motivations, and backstories. I especially put focus into their motivations for the sake of the plot. If you recall in a previous journal, I mentioned that the plot should be centered around my characters. It is now. I can write with an enhanced focus and insight into the arcs of both Zale and Cirrus. Chapter 1 was reworked with these character sheets in mind. To get an idea of how extensive they are, minus the question prompts, the total word count in these sheets is 3k each. I imagine the antagonist will be getting one of these sheets when I get closer to introducing him.

The other reason is that I paid a pretty penny to get both Cirrus and Zale drawn. I originally told myself I wouldn’t do this until I completed 5 chapters. I realized putting some money into this and bringing life to my characters would make them more enticing to me and an audience. Both pieces are completed in full and have been beautifully drawn, colored, and shaded.

Switch-up side tangent… I want an audience. I need to complete this story for my sake. I’ve said this ad nauseam. I need to hold myself accountable to following through on something if I am truly committed to my freelance writing, even if it’s a short novel on FurAffinity. However, having an audience brings many benefits. I can receive criticism. I can see what works and what doesn’t. It motivates me to write when people are invested in what I’m doing. Clearly I don’t need these things to write… I mean… Look at how far I’ve come without those things. Despite that, it’s good practice to try appeal to and find an audience.

Right now I’m writing as if I have an audience, but I don’t have one. Adhering to a release schedule, writing these reflective journals, and submitting everything to my gallery are all things that helped me set goals and motivate myself to write. So I don’t need one, but honestly, I’d like one.

So what does this have to do with the art or the release of Chapter 2? I’m strategically planning on releasing the art with the release of Chapter 2. I should have done this yesterday evening when traffic on FA would be busiest, because I was hoping any additional traffic my profile brings in with the art could be redirected toward reading my story. Any intrigue created by physical representations of my character might entice people to read about them. I also have art in the works for a Kenji avatar and reference sheet. I wanted to release all of these things at once to really try and boost myself. Any eyes on my profile are potential readers for my story.

Even if I get one fucking reader. Writers want to tell their stories. If Myself/Me/I was the only person I wanted to tell my stories to, I wouldn’t write them down, I’d let them continue swimming around in my brain juices.

The goal I’m trying to have the discipline to achieve doesn’t need an audience until the novel is finished. Even if I don’t get a reader posting to FA, I’m going to try my damn hardest once it’s completely finished to push it… whether that’s the Furry Writers Guild or otherwise. At least then I’ll have a finished product. For now, I’m just trying to find little ways to continue motivating myself to get there.

In summary… I’m still working on the story. I’ve completed 2 extensive character sheets. I’ve gotten art of both Cirrus and Zale that I want to use for help draw in more readers. I’ve made progress on Chapter 2, and it’s taken so long because I had to rework that chapter and Chapter 1. Expect it soon. My ultimate goal is to complete the story, but a side interest of mine is trying to draw an audience in while it’s still in development. I need an audience at some point, why not start early.

If anyone’s out there, I’m doing good with LDYG. I have big things planned. Stay tuned.

So my profile is a bit dead. I don’t believe I’ve had any readers (if I have, they haven’t made me aware) and my interactions outside of here have been minimal. I mentioned this before that it’s understandable this early. I’m remaining patient and holding onto hope that “if you build it, they will come.” I anticipate some art rolling in soon that depicts both Kenji and the characters I’m building. Hopefully the submission of these pieces to my gallery will draw potential readers to my profile.

My writing project and change of persona are for my own benefit above anybody else’s. While it does great things for my self-confidence to trudge forward without the approval of others, it has some bearing on my motivation to write. This is the lesson in life I’ve been attempting to learn as of late. The greatest supporter and driver of my passions, dreams, and pursuits should be… above all else… myself. So motivation isn’t non-existent. I still have goals I want to meet, and I’ll reach them whether people support me or not. Progress continues to be made even in small increments.

The second chapter of LDYG started being written as soon as the first was concluded. It was plotted out long before the prewriting work I’m doing now. I paused a day or so after to start plotting out the rest of the story. It’s a slippery slope to plan too much so I kept it to bulleted points and a barebones guide to follow. 10 chapters and 1 epilogue. By doing this I was able to expand my ideas. I created a plot structure with intrigue beyond the romance of Zale and Cirrus. Now there’s politics, war, an antagonist, and character arcs to spice up this concept into a small novel. The only hurdle now is writing it. So far I have written 2000+ words for the second chapter, with a total of over 5000 for the story thus far.

But word count means nothing if it’s dead air. Every piece of action, introspection, and dialogue must have an intricate purpose in a grand design now. This can be intimidating, especially as I try to expand my expertise on the craft in conjunction with mastery of my story. Some evenings I’ve stumbled into a writers block where I’ve produced little work. It’s typically caused by a conflict of whether I should write forward or if I should pause and meticulously plan my steps, look back, and start changing things… making what I’m writing in the moment irrelevant.

To avoid being dead in the water I’ve taken the time I dedicated to writing to study it when I’ve been blocked. I’ve listened to some lectures and taken notes on writing style. I found an excellent dialogue from Kurt Vonnegut on writing via a book I picked up at my local Barnes and Noble. My profession also has me constantly has me writing or reading, keeping me in practice. This is both a blessing and a curse. Some days I come home and I’m simply burnt out.

Another issue I’ve encountered is that by doing this I only increase my will to go back and change things. Suddenly the red hawk opening of Chapter 1 feels unnecessary when I could be using those words to establish character motivations rather than a setting I know my audience is already familiar with. How many fantasy stories have a woodland forest? Who hasn’t strolled through the woods? Why waste so much time through convoluted means to establish something this basic, when there’s nothing particularly special about this setting? But is there? Should there be? Now, my nonexistent reader, I hope you understand the messy process writing something of this magnitude truly is. At first I thought the hawk opening could serve as an allegory of sorts, but at this point, I don’t even know what the hell the allegory was supposed to be.

I feel an urge to redact cornerstones which makes the entire bridge I’ve built so far between chapter 1 and 2, as well as the sum of their parts, feel unstable. A lot of my focus is on character. My inspirations reaffirm that plot should be built around my characters. So to answer all my questions above, I should give life to my setting through my characters interaction and connections with it if I’m truly committed to character over setting. Yet, that’ll result in some major changes. This is much more daunting to consider and fix over continuing forward with the story I so desperately wish to tell.

I’ll continue to trudge forward. I have a long weekend ahead that I hope is restful and allows me dedicated time, without the stress of my profession, to focus on my passions. I know that if I take the time to map out my characters, and fit my critical first chapters to consider this, that’ll pay off for myself and my readers in the long run. Progress may be slow. Any progress is good. Excluding my weekends, I haven’t had a day where I haven’t dedicated time to this project. Even during my days off I’m brainstorming. My dream is to tell my stories. There’ll be bumps in the road, however. No matter what, they’ll be told in time, and in a matter I see fitting.

When you came to my page, I hope you’ve read my user profile. I spent an evening putting that together and making it look nice. I believe it’s a decent job.

Anyway, in the first section I noted that you may be fortunate enough to see me write something on this profile. So far, I stayed true to that and wrote an essay in my last journal. I found a lot of enjoyment in that. It was a vent piece, sure, but it was satisfying to work on a little writing project of sorts. I’m somewhat relieved that nobody has really read it yet, because I was continuously making minor edits while it was live. I’m the type that writes first and edits later. While my grammar was on point, I felt the need to read over it a million times to perfect my prose. It was satisfying nonetheless to get a product I was confident in being published and on full display via my user page.

I initially said any writing here would be mainly journal dumps, but today is your lucky day. The writing bug bit me and I have a story concept I’m brewing up to be published in the gallery of this profile despite my original intentions.

My new internet persona has been off to a slow start. I’ve been wandering about Furaffinity/Telegram/Discord with nothing much to do nor anybody to talk to. That’s perfectly fine, I figured this would happen- however, it’s very boring. With my new career I haven’t much to do with my weekday evenings. It’d be irresponsible to go out with my friends as I typically prefer to do on weekends, so I’ve been mainly lounging around miserably scrolling through social media. I found that writing in my journal section alleviated that boredom, so I’ve come to the natural conclusion that writing is both a productive and lucrative way I can be spending my mundane Monday-Thursday nights. I realized it would not only be a way to practice my writing but also explore my new pursuits in the furry community. Maybe if I get interested readers, I can make some new friends along the way. Anyhow, I’m sure you want to know where my mind is going in terms of what this story will be about.

I came up with an in-depth fantasy concept some time back about a dichotomy between winged wolves (similar to elves) and more ground based ones (similar to dwarves… but a lot larger). While each species played an important role in maintaining the setting of the story, they were interlocked in territory disputes for almost the entirety of existence. The idea was that it was a ying and yang situation with one unavoidable constant; war. In this universe, peacemakers and diplomats were seen as idealistic idiots because constant war between the races was something that had been an integral part of life in this setting for a millennia (see any parallels to anything hint hint). I really try to push myself to be original, and this might come off as the complete opposite, but it was fun to daydream and pre-write about regardless. They say a writers ideas never die but instead get recycled. So I recycled this to come up with this new idea I hope to actually write.

Getting caught up in world building is a slippery slope and that was what held the original concept from getting off the ground. The ironic thing is that I’d much rather build characters than worlds, and in reality, I’m probably much better at the latter too!

I already have the outlines of characters plotted out and the interactions they’ll have mapped. A similar world to what I originally created, with a dichotomy between the races of the two main characters that ends up creating tension in their budding romantic relationship. A mischievous and aloof female versus a stubborn and stoic male. The female is a low ranking scout for her people while the male is the sole guardian of his. Caught treading on his territory and scoping out his peaceful village, the male catches the female scout. In the subsequent scuffle, he breaks her wing, making escape back to her mountain home nearly impossible. The male is forced to detain her in his own home on the outskirts of the village. Her wit and seduction start to crack his cold outer shell, slowly converting a scenario of guard and prisoner to a relationship of mutual romantic interest. How will the female recover her lost freedom while still retaining her new found love? How will the male navigate falling for the enemy while still staying loyal to his people and true to his honor?

( TL;DR the story I’m writing is going to be about star-crossed lovers, a winged wolf (comparable to an elf, female) and ground based warrior wolf (imagine a larger dwarf, male), initially coming to blows, but eventually falling for one another after one takes the other prisoner. They have hot feral sex and make adorable lil’ hybrid puppies. Pretty cool. Don’t know if I’m doing myself or the story much justice by describing it in this way, but hey, it’s the shortest and sweetest way to describe it. )

Again, not the most original, because I’m sure it’s sounding like your typical star-crossed lover scenario. However, Brandon Sanderson, New York Times Bestseller fantasy writer (maybe you’ve seen his lectures on creative writing on YouTube), claims that a good story always prevails over an original one. We’re all just telling the same stories mixed up anyway, right? There’s no actual true originality? My goal here is to carry things with the complexity of my characters, not so much the plot or circumstances. I’m doing this for fun, so being a perfect narrative isn’t my goal anyway… that fear is a feature of my writing subconscious and insecurity more than it is something I should seriously consider in my pursuit of producing this piece.

Look at that, I’m rambling again! I did say I like writing these. I really do hope this story gets somewhere and I can have a chapter in the next week, but this isn’t the first time I came up with a concept and didn’t follow it through. I guess if things don’t pan out… This journal will exist to remind and haunt me over my inaction.