I post about my process and journey being a content creator and functional creative. Occasionally I post shorts from my Original Universe. Here are some things you can expect from me: insights, things that have inspired me, motivational pep talks, and more!
Hereās how I go from an unordered list of things I need to take care of, to a functional daily Agenda while prioritizing my tasks and giving myself the momentum I need to start my days off strong.
Agenda - For my understanding, an agenda is not strict like a schedule would be, but itās roughly chronological. Jumping around to keep interest engaged is fine, too, which works super great for me.
Guidance:
Make an unordered list of tasks (notate estimated length of task and priority-level)
Make a note beside some items to fill "hours in workday," picking appropriate priorities and pacing for a good day.
Rewrite your selected items in order of priority on an agenda. Iād recommend that you front-load the agenda with important tasks which will be quick to tackle, if possible, in order to build momentum. These can be part of a routine or unique tasks that don't always need doing.
Write a separate list to document things you know you wonāt get to (prioritize them but donāt need to guess timing for them). Mine is labelled āFollow upā š
Bonus:
Using highlighters to trace time-estimates is an effective and unobtrusive way to color-code task categories and draw attention to the time factor. Doing this has helped me hasten at-a-glance decisions about āwhat next?ā I use two colors, blue for work stuff, and magenta for personal stuff.
What part of the day is best for doing this process?
I prefer to do this task at the end of each workday, so that I can capture everything thatās floating around āin-progress.ā Itās a great way to settle my frantic planning-thoughts at the end of a day; and it allows me to plan things while Iām still in the āgrooveā of thinking about the project. This way I can take best advantage of productive momentum, wind down tidily for the day (to properly enjoy my downtime, and spin back up in the mornings in a way thatās relatively lossless!
Click through for a mildly-redacted photo of the agenda I'm working from right now!
Regrettably, you can now see exactly how much time has passed between composition and scheduled posting... ehehe. I didn't plan on using this agenda-page for public consumption, so I had to redact a few items, and my handwriting may not be 100% legible for everyone.
Anyway, Happy Thanksgiving. I hope your week is amazing. Whatās one thing youāre thankful for?
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Iāll start with a very candid tone: I donāt like that I missed my usual update schedule.
Time slipped away from me and last weekās update was a thing that had to be cut and moved to ālater.ā Iāve realized it is more important to me than I expected, and Iāll be bumping it up in my priorities.
On a brighter note, Iāve been trying to make new things in the kitchen, and Iāve got something Iām proud to share! Iāve been baking experimentally, and Iāve made some things that Iām really proud of. Iāve wanted to make pepperoni rolls for years, and I finally just did it (knowing Iād do it badly, and there are plenty of things that can be improved)!
Despite my failure to meet my baking standards, they were objectively delicious (and better than non-existent theoretically-perfect rolls)!
My sleep default has really been challenging me lately. It is timed like my brain is in Australia, but everyone around me with whom Iād like to socialize organizes their lives in CST. I have a lot more success being productive when I work first and play later. This past week or so has been really challenging, in the sense that I keep disappointing myself and falling short of my plans.
Some of the interruptions have been out of my control, but a good deal of them were of my own making.
Hereās a bit of a pep-talk that I gave myself. Hopefully it can be helpful for you, too:
Sometimes, emergencies get in the way of your plans, and youāve gotta be able to bounce back from the intrusion. Be kind to yourself, give yourself grace, and get back on track. Some plans will need to be sacrificed, some plans will need to be scrunched-up in the timeline, but thatās just the way of the world ā itās just one of the ways in which plans donāt survive first contact.
Iāve been exploring some alternatives to strict timetables. Iāve been hoping itāll help me stay āon targetā with my goals despite my sleep schedule being generally uncooperative. I feel like Iāve been getting minimally familiar with the merits and methods of a daily agenda and various To-Do lists. On a related note: Iāve found crossing things off and giving myself stickers to be highly motivating!
For my understanding, an agenda is not strict like a schedule would be, but itās roughly chronological (Jumping around to keep interest engaged is also fine). This happens to be incredibly useful for the way I think, and I think you might get some value from it, too! Watch this space for a brief agenda guide (or at least, how I make it work for me)
To end this update on a high note: Iāve been delighted to get back into the rhythm of recording and editing content.
Iāve done a little bit of editing with my clip-wise recordings, and another bit of editing with a project recorded in the old style. Itās really just a night-and-day difference between the two in terms of editing convenience.
However! Iām looking forward to releasing that old project, and I think itāll be worth the effort anyway. Itās a labor of love, you could say ā a nod to my roots! I donāt want to tease too much about it just yet. I really made my editing life difficult with the recording method I used, and it will be a beast to wrangle.
One final thought, because I feel like this portion of the update could easily take over. Iāve been finding my feet with writing again, and I feel like I have entire world-settings and plotlines pouring out of me. Iāll need to pick a few to focus on soon, but picking favorites has always been a challenge.
Anyway, Happy November. I hope your week is amazing. What was one thing you found challenging this week? A triumph? Let me hear about it in the comments/replies!
This weekās theme is a bit more writerly (and a bit more advice-filled) than previous weeks. Specifically, character creation! Every writer ends up developing their own methods for creating characters ā and you absolutely should use what works best for you, but it can be very useful to look and borrow from other peopleās approaches.
In my opinion, the best way to make a new OC doesn't end with making a character sheet. Make it minimal and then write a piece of their lore (a core event that shapes their history). Write a scene from an event concurrent with the main story. Include a few boring notes about their appearance, but the focus should be on getting to know the characters as people so you have a good handle on how they behave and their motives.
I was curious why I know certain of my OC cast better than others. Most of them have character sheets, but only half of them have prose excerpts from their pasts and present. Iām pretty sure thatās why fanfic is so much easier to write than stuff in our original universes: the cast of characters is already familiar to us. We know how they would act, weāre familiar with their tropes and the fun ways we can tweak them for increased impact.
The characters in my cast who I know the best are the ones that Iāve spent the most time getting to know. It seems little obvious to write it out, but we ought to be spending āscreen timeā with them, to really get to know and understand them. Build memories and test their strengths and weaknesses. So on, and so forth.
There are plenty of tips and tricks on the ācharacter sheetā portion of character creation (song inspirations, tarot spreads for plots and/or character archetypes, randomized prompts, getting inspired by other people/characters), but thereās really no shortcut for the āgetting to know you(r character)ā part.
On that note: Iāve been spending quite a lot of time with my own cast of characters that belong in my personal universe. Some of them may well make an appearance in my Minecraft characterās lore, but most of them will remain neatly contained in their own settings.
On the purely-an-update front, I am proud to share that I have (finally) made it through the minecraft footage from months ago. I have learned so much in the intervening time, but I have (thus far) been unable to actually benefit from those improvements. It might be a small thing, but Itās been a pretty big milestone for me, personally, so Iām going to rebelliously count it anyway.
As a final note, something I enjoyed: Writing a story just for me. Sometimes you just gotta write a story thatās only meant for yourself; self-indulgent, shmoopy, never meant for the light of the sun. I think thereās still value there, even beyond the simple entertainment calculation. You get practice translating a story through the creative process from your mind onto the page, and no pressure of āwhat if somebody sees and judges it (or me!)?ā literally nobody else is gonna see it, go for it! Itās probably a good idea to do that for creative exercises, too: donāt worry about how they look or how they read, the point is to challenge yourself with something youāre not very good at so that you can improve your craft.
Anyway, Happy November. I hope your week is amazing. Be good ā„
Getting Advice and Insight from those further ahead on this path
Gosh time flies. Also, I feel like a GitHub gremlin, lol (/lh)
It feels like I got nothing done at all this week, though I know thatās just my inner critic hyper-focusing on externally visible work. Lots of internal improvement and yet more work on channel infrastructure, much like last week!
In truth, I was fantastically productive ā it was just in quiet foundational ways. Arguably, more important. Undeniably less exciting. Itās not glamorous at all to crow about the massive GitHub migration I finalized (for all my creative work), nor is it exciting to explain how I feel Iāve found a solution to organize my to-do list. I donāt know about anyone else, but Iām incredibly picky about what features my task list managers ought to have. Iām really happy with the way I wrangled GitHub, and Iād be seriously delighted to explain at length to anyone actually interested in what that looks like for me! Please let me know if thatās you!
I spent quite a lot of time learning from those who I admire this week, too. It seemed every morning at breakfast I would sit down with a podcast, just to hear their thoughts and insights. I mostly just intended to sit with the thoughts and let them sink in, but inevitably I always ended up scrambling for a pen and notepad to scrawl out some great quote, or motivational anecdote, or inspirational perspective. Iām curious: who do you like to listen to for inspiration and advice? Iāve started to document timestamps and episode numbers so I can attribute them accordingly and go back to listen again.
The most impactful thing I saw this week was a genuine and intensely vulnerable video from one of my favorite creators, A Brush with Bekah. It also turned out to be the thing which challenged my mindset the most effectively (in a genuinely positive way). I saw it a week ago and it totally set the tone for my week. A lot of things she said stuck with me and I highly recommend it for a watch, but most memorable of all was a sort of inspirational Grand Challenge.
Do it badly; do it scared; do it for fun. Don't seek perfection, just enjoy the journey. Separate yourself from the expectation of perfection or what something āshould beā; just let it be what it is.
Coincidentally this also lined up well with an old bit of advice from Mumbo Jumbo on the death of a projectās perfection the moment it exits your brain, and the subsequent encouragement he shared on the creative process:
āThe universal experience [with creativity] is doubting yourself, and struggling with it, and sitting with it, and then progressing, & getting better.ā-Mumbo JumboĀ as a guest on theĀ Imp & Skizz Podcast
I donāt know if youāre aware of who Mumbo is, but hereās the only context you need for this: he is a longtime cinematographer and content creator in the video gaming niche on YouTube. He really knows his stuff!
In the process of learning these lessons over the course of my life, it seems to me that it takes a very long time to sink in. Or these are just the sorts of lessons we must learn the hard way and not solely by othersā advice. There are a ton of quotes and inspirational anecdotes already available, highly condensed and concise for super powerful impact. Iām going to add my own genuine experiences in the hope that it resonates with someone, so that they might have less pain in the journey than otherwise.
For years I put my life on hold without realizing it because I was desperate to avoid the awkward scary thing that I was sure I was going to fail at. I'm getting better at "doing it scared" and "doing it badly" just so that "it gets done and is what it is," and it's really nice to see proof that I'm not alone ā especially from people who I admire, and who also happen to be successful at this thing Iām trying for myself. Surround yourself with people you admire and look up to; and if you canāt do it in person, think outside the box.
I want to end on a positive note with something I really enjoyed. Not to get too sappy, but I carved out some time this week to hang with my bestie ā an incidental challenge as any LDR participant knows! I think itās important to have social connections, even for us introverted types, and my bestie and I have not been diligent at all about it over the past few months. We talked and chatted the whole day away and it was the best way I could have spent that Thursday. I always feel truly creatively recharged and invigorated when I spend time with her, and it was absolutely a delight.
Anyway, Happy November. I hope your week is amazing. What was one thing you found challenging this week? A triumph? Let me hear about it in the comments/replies!
Iāve been tinkering with CSS and HTML, because I enjoy a little bit of old school challenges from time to time, and now seems like a good opportunity to show it off a bit. I spent an embarrassingly long time making a bingo card for Hermitcraft Season 11ās launch and it was a ton of fun.
It has 75 items, which is maybe excessive, but Iām also hoping it allows me to reuse it for a little while until the hermits reach mid-game. I am toying with the idea to make cards themed for each hermit, but Iāll have to wait a few weeks until I have the requisite context for the item-sets to be good. Please let me know if youāve got special requests or suggestions, creative collaboration is fun!
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When did I lose the wild spontaneous energy of a girl selling cookies? Willing to take the risk and expect people wanted to say yes? (because I had great confidence in the product, my resilience was unwavering even in the face of hundreds of ānoāsā¦ when did I lose confidence in myself?)
I started to fear public judgement and failure when I saw many people online getting ridiculed and humiliated. I wanted to avoid that embarrassment as much as possible, and so I became meek and invisible, squashing my adventurous and curious spirit. I was hesitant to try new things in case I failed, and especially publicly. I stayed anonymous as much as I could, even reluctant to comment or speak out under my penname because the ridicule would happen no matter what name I wore, even if my penname meant my RL ID was safe. So I never said anything that mattered. It meant I wouldnāt care if I got ridiculed, but it also meant I was just a ghost ā I never made a difference.
Now, Iāve been having a change of heart. Rekindling my fiery spirit. If I fail publicly, āSo what?ā Iām not going to stop trying, because when I stop trying is when Iāve lost. Until then: something that doesnāt immediately succeed is just a temporary setback. Iām just rallying for a new attempt. My storyās not over; Iām gonna keep writing.
I will no longer be meek. Neither will I be rude. I will be present and authentic and let people choose for themselves whether they like the genuine article. To give them that agency, Iāve gotta be my real self.
Iāve been learning a lot of hard lessons this week about time and relative effort spent on Front Stage work vs Back Stage work. There is so much to do and so little time! Things like Channel Infrastructure and social outreach and all that, making sure everything is in place and set up correctly - yāall, I had NO IDEA there was so much effort going into these silent parts of other creatorsā work and passion projects.
Maybe a lot of them āalready had them set up from before,ā or maybe they just gathered them one-by-one as they expanded; maybe Iām doing things out of order. I wonāt know until I give it a try. Maybe someday Iāll have to stop due to time inefficiencies. Weāll cross that bridge when we come to it.
To borrow the format from another kind of after-action-report, Iāll go through and talk a bit about a thing I didnāt like, something Iām proud of, something that challenged me, something I learned, and a thing I enjoyed.
Let me start with something I didnāt like: This week I spent a lot of time getting my social ducks in a row. Some of them are perfectly obedient, some of them are still a little ugly, but Iāve decided that I donāt need everything to be fully functional right from the start. I donāt even know what Iād post on some of those platforms, so Iām perfectly happy to just let them wallow and get forgotten. (/lh) If you wanna find me elsewhere online to see what I'm getting up to, I have a linktr.ee thatās set up all nice and pretty!
On a lighter note, Iām especially proud of the color palette I picked out! I built it using coolor.co (the free version was sufficient for my purposes) and had a lot of fun with the color-blindness simulator mode. It was generally a very engaging time and was a welcome creative outlet - especially since I had fewer creative outlets this week. I think it came out quite nice and I should be able to use it everywhere for ābrand cohesionā or whatever the marketing peeps call it.
Something that challenged me: I streamed for the first time! I was so nervous. It wasnāt the first time Iād planned to stream and Iād put it off for a few weeks already (for semi-genuine reasons). Honestly, I almost bailed again based only on nerves. A few weeks ago I made myself a motivational āposterā with a few phrases on it - āTry it and see,ā and āDonāt fear failure to succeed, fear failure to try,ā along with my favorite āThe worst thing you can do is Nothing At All.ā
That last phrase was especially effective in that moment, when the stream settings had been dialed in and the metadata had been input as best I knew how, when my fear almost won: I challenged my limits and went live anyway. I learned a LOT in those two hours: some cinematography-type stuff, some platform-knowledge stuff, and some crowd-work stuff (namely: it is really hard to gain and retain an audience).
A good lesson learned, hmm. It may seem exceedingly obvious in hindsight, but I had to learn the hard way, so I think itās worth mentioning. The type of content you intend to make should affect the style and manner in which you record footage. I started my āhistoryā years ago making silly ASMR videos in minecraft; very few cuts, longplay, chill out and just let events proceed organically by chance.
Iāve kept that method this whole time while Iāve been semi-seriously (and now quite seriously) returning to content creation. Unfortunately, that method leaves me with 3 hours of video and a ton of editing-work to extract the funny and relevant clips to make a cohesive episode. It's exhausting work.
Luckily for me, Iām really confident when it comes to drafting outlines and scenes, so I think I can probably pivot to recording clips fairly easily, but it is a drastic shift. I think itāll vastly improve my workflow. The only (minor) downside is that I still have to sit through editing the rest of my longform-style footage down into narrative-type or spectacle-type episodes.
This is the sort of cringe my previous post was talking about, by the way: the knowledge that youāll dislike a thing you did before once you get better. But improvement is in the doing, we can talk and talk but thatās not where experience comes from.
And finally, something that I really liked: Itās a little thing, but it made me laugh a lot. I was editing footage for episode 3 of my All the Forge 10 series, and I rediscovered myself having trouble with a crow. As soon as I saw the crow I started to remember a bit about our little rivalry, but itās been a while and Iād forgotten most of the details. It wasnāt long before I was cackling and giggling over this exchange, and I changed my discord status for a while to āCorvid War? This crow is a nightmare Y_Yā and āThis crow is driving me bonkers!ā Iām not finished editing that footage yet, so I donāt yet know how that arc is going to resolve, but I hope it ends with more delight.
Anyway, Happy November. I hope your week is amazing. What was one thing you found challenging this week? A triumph? Let me hear about it in the comments/replies!
