#weekly progress update

hello! man, it's been a full month, i think. april has been... busy and so insanely hot. like always. i've been carefully managing my energy and focus so i'm not working on sunbound (nor tro) at the moment, unfortunately. this is still just sort of a passion project (what i'm really passionate about) but real world is demanding and i'm still looking for a job and working on my other skills for the job so there isn't really any time to work on any passion projects at the moment.

wish i had more news to say but there's really just nothing at the moment. i'm predicting may will be more or less the same, with things probably picking up around june depending on how things go.

i hope everyone's keeping well, especially those who live in southeast asia! the heat is unbearable around here. (obviously also wishing and hoping for the safety of those in war-affected areas!) i hope things turn around in a month or two, and i still wish this month had a few beautiful moments for everyone.

i think my next update will be end of may, i don't see the need for posting progress updates weekly when i have nothing to say yet. hoping to get in a few writing sprints this may, but that's only if the weather starts being kinder to us.

last week was my dad's birthday so it was a little busy around the weekend, which is why i wasn't able to post a progress update then. but that's okay because it's not like i magically finished chapter 1 in just that one week lol. overall, progress has been slow and steady. i've been getting blocks now and then (mostly brain fog that makes it difficult for me to think of the words to use) but i've consistently been writing a scene or half of a scene whenever i had time to write--which was like half of the mornings the past 2 weeks.

thinking of doing introductory posts soon and/or posting the prologue so people can get to know the characters, but while i have the prologue written it's so... awful at the moment that i can't really post it. i think i'd mentioned that it's a magazine article style of prologue written by a diehard but not an insider fan. i've got the pieces all written out but the state of it is awful at the moment so i need to revise it before posting. don't know when that'll be, but trying to spend as much time as i can working on this project in my free time. good news is that the new bts album and documentary is good inspirational fuel (since they are one of the biggest inspirations for sunbound).

anyway, the world's in a bit of a situation at the moment, isn't it? i hope everyone in the affected areas are doing okay, or at the very least safe. i don't really have much to say aside from it all sucks, and i hope things get better soon.

Didn’t post last week since I had nothing to update. But this week, I got a little further on writing Chapter 1 of Sunbound. Still a little wobbly overall on my progress since I’m just trying to write things without too much overthinking. I’m realizing there’s so many variables to include (all 10 characters are gender selectable after all, it’s why I took measures to make sure all characters have unisex/gender neutral names) so writing is a little tedious (looking into making this easier), and there’s a lot of non-MC POVs that will be included. Each chapter will be massive so Chapter 1 is huge too, but as I’m writing I can’t help but notice how… much there will be in Chapter 1. Just hoping it won’t look too confusing? I’m still early on in the chapter so I can’t see the bigger picture yet, but hoping it’s something easily fixed if ever it does end up feeling a little overwhelming. Two timelines and multiple POVs makes for an overall confusing pacing, so I have to make sure it all flows nicely together but I’m keeping that thought for when the draft 0 of this chapter is done. Overall a pretty productive and stable week!

So, I didn’t post last week for a reason. I had nothing much to update, just the usual. TRO is difficult, and Sunbound is in the planning stages.

This week, I’m posting an update because it’s the last week of February and that means it’s time for a decision. I don’t think this will come as a surprise to those who’d been reading my previous progress updates, but TRO will be shelved for now (this is important!) and I will write Sunbound as a stepping stone.

Forcing myself to keep writing TRO despite all the glaring issues I cannot ignore now is going to make me hate the story. I’d changed so much of it from the very first draft and I don’t regret a single thing, but with changes also come new issues. And some issues are so big that my mind freezes as I try to write for this draft. I just genuinely think I am not capable and skilled enough at the moment to tackle a project as massive as TRO.

I will be focusing on Sunbound (but it will be deprioritized once I find a steady job, unfortunately). Currently, I have all important characters’ arcs, descriptions, stories all figured out, as well as a detailed outline of the first chapter and a looser outline of the rest of the chapters. The way forward is a little clearer to me now (I was struggling with how empty it seemed at first). Once I’ve finished the draft of Episode 1, I will be posting a better introductory post for Sunbound as well as some introductory posts for the members and the romantic options. I don’t know how long Episode 1 will take (there will be 9 episodes in total) but I already have a plan for it so hopefully not too long. And since I already have the characters all fleshed out (only one name that I still want and need to change), I’ll be editing the tentative WIP post I made a few weeks ago in a while. I might also start reposting some things related to the book and the characters.

That’s all. I think I’ll have a bit more to talk about and share in the coming weeks. Quick reminder that TRO will not be dropped, but shelved in the meantime. It isn’t because I lost interest, it’s because it’s so massive and I’m not confident enough in my skills yet to write it in this form. Sunbound will be much shorter, will less complicated branching, and will be a good “practice round” for me.

Unfortunately this was another slow week. I'm losing my mind about TRO because no matter which approach I take, I can't seem to make it work. I've gone from doing things robotically in the morning just to write and hopefully hit a mark where it's satisfying to avoiding it some mornings and focusing on personal/irl chores so I don't grow to resent it.

With Sunbound, it's a little better. I'm fixing some things in my outline and the character backstories. I don't want to start writing it earnestly and then hit a roadblock like with TRO so I want to make sure the other details are done as much as they can be done. Of course, I'm still more of a pantser so I'm leaving some space for spontaneity but I'm trying to plan as much as I can.

I'm a little disappointed that it seems like I'm moving a little too slow too, but I think I'm also in a much healthier and happier phase in my life and that's better than the manic highs where I could do just about everything but deal with the fallout later on. I think this slow but steady pace is doing wonders for me.

Was sick half of last week so I didn't get to do much and didn't have anything to say for the weekly progress update 🙏🏻 I knew it was coming because the flu has been making its rounds around the family before that 😅

This week wasn't much better but because of the job hunting (which is going good, got a project-based freelance job), not any sicknesses. Spent my mornings job hunting and doing other personal chores so I wasn't able to work on TRO at all. For Sunbound, it was mostly a few scenes here and there and the outline I'm still trying to write. I did also write the montage part of chapter 1 and managed to figure out the finer details of how to structure the story. Since there will be scenes set in the past, scenes set in the present, documentary interview scenes, clips/fancams/past interviews/etc, and private/off-cam scenes, I had to figure out how to make them all look distinct enough that it isn't confusing for the readers.

Currently still having fun with doing things for Sunbound. Still one month left but so far, I think I'm leaning towards picking this first before TRO. It'll be a passion and practice project while I focus on my actual job, if ever. It'll take less time/energy compared to the juggernaut that is TRO and I'll be able to keep writing and practicing writing IFs.

Things can change in a month, of course. But so far this is where I'm at. Anddd that's all I have for this week. I don't know if next week will be much better, but I'm just taking it all one day at a time at this point.

This week was a bit more productive than last week! Despite it being so much colder this week, the bed much more inviting 😆

Still just slowly chipping away at TRO, haven't gotten my spark back for the WIP yet, unfortunately. I'm really stuck and even though I'm writing for it (not daily at this point, don't wanna push myself too much and risk any negative emotions towards the story, aside from insecurity and doubts at least), I'm not quite satisfied with anything I'm writing for it and I'm still trying to figure out what went wrong and how to fix it.

As for Sunbound, I finished the rough draft of the prologue which is basically a feature article on the group and its members. It would've taken less time if I had the members' backgrounds all figured out from the get go, but I still had to flesh out their backgrounds, personalities, and roles in the story as I was writing. I won't be posting prologue early like I did with TRO if I do stick to Sunbound for now because it'll be really short compared to TRO's prologue.

Still no spoilers at this point, don't want to risk it since I might change things as I'm writing Ch1, and for TRO I'm just not satisfied with anything I've written and I don't want it out there.

For next week, for TRO I'll continue to do Ch1 and hopefully figure out how to fix the problems that are stopping me. For Sunbound, I'll be trying out a more detailed outline while editing the prologue so I can also flesh out the story, how it goes, and the character arcs. My current outline has the bigger beats and ideas written down but I fear they might not be enough in the long run. I might also need to fix the timeline since I forgot to think about the big C when I was first writing it down 😅

Early update today since I might forget to queue it up again lol been waking up early consistently again to help with walking the dogs in the morning, and I get to have an early start to the days again. Not as productive as I would've liked though, since brain is still slightly mush from holidays and the cold weather, but much, much better than the past month.

TRO

Still stuck and just chipping away slowly at the writing/revisions. The most difficult thing is turning off my critiquing brain while writing because every few hundred words I see something I don't like or see something that doesn't make sense and it makes me spiral. Most of the issues are things that won't even matter until later chapters but even thinking about having to deal with those later on is stressing me out. But... at least I got to do things this week instead of rotting away, I guess.

Sunbound

Mostly trying to get the character backstories and descriptions all done because the prologue will be a feature article on the group and I need to have the members' details down to write them. A little struggle is trying to figure out how to cleanly do the timeline shifts without confusing readers too much (I have ideas and ways to implement, but I don't know how it'll look to readers, if you guys get what I mean).

Overall a better experience writing/planning Sunbound compared to TRO currently. Not TRO's fault that it's massive with important little details though.

Anyway, that's all I have for this week. No spoilers yet since I haven't progressed that much, but hoping for some next week. As usual, inbox is open for questions of any kind.