the turnabout cafe.

i. staying healthy and fit.

it’s no secret that many people are using this time in quarantine to get back on their fitness journey and healthy eating; i’m no different. for the past month or so since i’ve been in quarantine, i’ve committed to working out daily, and have been massively enjoying it. however, i want to also improve my eating habits due to my tendency to stress/boredom eat.

in order to do this, i will be recording what food i eat. though some may not view this as a healthy way to perceive food, i believe that my relationship with food is fairly healthy, and doing so will encourage me to stay away from unhealthy food. it’s not a strict diet, but it’s a large step up from my unhealthy eating habits.

on top of this, i want to continue committing to working out as i’ve done so for the past month. mostly, i’ll follow online videos from channels like chloe ting or blogilates, though i occasionally do untimed workouts, like the 11 ab workout from zoenotzoey.

<hr>

ii. committing to writing.

one of my biggest passions is writing, and with this amount of free time, i’ll be able to commit to my new wip, ‘the academy’, which i hope to finish writing by the time summer rolls around. in addition to this, i want to continue working on releasing oneshots on my ao3 account. recently, i’ve been really into haikyuu!!, so most of my fanfictions will center around them.

<hr>

iii. study, study, study.

next, i want to stay on top of my studies, even if we’re being taught online now. i want to keep up with my work and the assignments given to me. undeniably, the work is easier now, and i want to take full advantage of this in order to maximise my marks for this quarter. 

under the realm of studying, i also want to focus on time management. in order to do this, i’ve been really focused on calendar blocking recently with the standard calendar app on my laptop, and it’s been helping me a lot with controlling my own free time. working off of a schedule benefits me best, and i’ve been using that to my advantage this quarantine.

<hr>

iv. sleeping and waking up on time.

all my friends know that i’m the worst at waking up on time for school, and i have served many detentions for my inability to wake up on time. because of this, i’ve been focused on waking up earlier as if i actually had school, and learning how to be disciplined enough to sleep on time. recently, i’ve been sleeping at 10:30 and waking up at 6:00 pretty consistently.

honestly, i still need to work on actually getting out of bed at 6:00 because most of the time i still laze around until 6:30 reading iwaoi fanfics. i’ll work hard to fix that habit!

<hr>

v. reading more.

recently, i’ve been exclusively reading fanfiction, which in itself is amazing, but i need to pick up my pace on real books. recently, i’ve been really into the charlotte holmes series by brittany cavallaro. it’s genuinely so good and i love it so much, but i’ve only gotten up to the second book out of four. i hope to finish the rest of the books within april so i can get started on some other books i’ve been meaning to read!

for my full ‘to read’ list, check out my good reads account :3

<hr>

so that’s all for my list of quarantine resolutions! i hope that i’ll be able to stick to these throughout this time so that i can come out a better person than i was during quarantine.

i’ll also be updating daily on this, so check my blog if you’re interested in that :)

“just practice” — how?

set daily goals, weekly goals, or monthly goals | for example, when i began to publish by works online, i set a weekly goal of 2 chapters per week, or about 2,000 words a week in total. by the end of each week, i made sure to make 2 chapters for that week, even if it meant i crammed everything on sunday. which kind of goal would suit you better?

daily goals are better if you’re a consistent person and stay on top of things you need to do. start off with a very small daily goal, like 100 words or 200 words, and begin building up once you’re more comfortable with writing.

weekly goals are for people who cannot be consistent. weekly goals give you the opportunity to just cram everything on the last day of the week, so it’s (to some extent) more flexible. a weekly goal can be anywhere from 500 words to 2,000 words when you first start off.

monthly goals are for people who are a mix of both.

remember: goals can also include doing a writing activity for 10 minutes (like outlining or researching). it isn’t only limited to reaching a specific word count everyday.

track your progress, and you’ll never be unmotivated ever again.

for nanowrimo (i did the challenge in june, not november because november is exam month), i tracked my progress in my bullet journal. i drew out 50 boxes (each corresponding to 1,000 words) and each time i wrote a thousand words, i coloured in one box. trust me, it’s really therapeutic and rewarding to colour the boxes in.

track your writing progress on social media!! this is so helpful it’s ridiculous. post it on tumblr, or on your instagram story; it really helps.

quality vs. quantity?

for a first draft, quantity always. just write all those words, no one really cares how good it is because it’s a first draft for a reason. just keep writing and edit everything later.

productivity

pomodoro timers will save your life and being.

write for 25 minutes, rest for 5, and repeat.

every 4 cycles, take a longer 20 minute break — you deserve it!

i personally use tide to track my productivity. it’s an amazing app all around.

and, i listen to music while i write.

people recommend listening to music with no lyrics so you don’t mess up what you write, but i listen to k-pop, so it doesn’t really matter because for the most part, i can’t translate the lyrics into english without seeing the actual lyrics in front of me.

also, you can check out my playlists here!

gaming osts work pretty well to some extent because they have different osts for all kinds of moods. i listen to ace attorney osts, because they have the best osts on earth.

writing applications and programs

don’t invest first — see if you actually like to write.

i’ve been writing for 4-5 years now, and i’ve only ever used free applications because sometimes, paying more isn’t worth it.

i personally use google drive (& docs) for my manuscripts, and microsoft onenote for outlining. 

i’ll do a post on how i outline novels in the future!

a lot of people use scrivener, but if you’re new, please don’t spend that much money yet. google docs will last you a long time, i promise.

starting off: no inspiration?

fanfiction fanfiction fanfiction fanfiction.

this is literally the only advice i give to my friends who ask how to start writing.

chances are, you’re in a fandom and you’re absolutely in love with all the characters. write fanfiction about them, and you’ll never get bored.

writing prompts.

tumblr is a godsend for writing prompts. just type ‘writing prompt’ in the search bar. it’s a literal gold mine.

if you’re writing a ship or romance fic, search up ‘imagine your otp’ on google. the prompts are always so hilariously good it’s amazing.

Using the Printable

The printable is divided into two sections: a to-do list on the top and a timetable on the bottom. First, let’s start dissecting the to-do list, or the upper portion of the printable.

As most of you have probably guessed, the (    /    ) portion of the upper portion (next to the days of the week) is where you should be writing the day and the month in which you are using the printable in. However, the more puzzling aspect of the printable is the ‘D-Day’ section. Essentially, this area is used to put in the amount of days until a certain event, like a due date, the end of school, or the day of a test. Sometimes, I just leave it blank.

Moving on to the actual to-do list, the ‘S’ in the column next to the to-do list is used to indicate the subject/category that the task falls in. For example, if the task in my to-do list is doing a literary analysis, the subject I would write in the ‘S’ column would be ‘Eng.’ (for English) or ‘Lit.’ (for literature). This makes the to-do list a tad bit more organized. Many students also color code the subjects. The significance of this will become evident when we move on to the next section: the timetable.

The timetable clearly isn’t ordinary, however, it is easy enough to understand. The horizontal row represents the 60 minutes in an hour, and the vertical column represents hours in a day, ranging from 5 am to 12 pm. The timetable can be used in two ways: either to track time, or to plan your day. To do so, remember the highlighters you used to color code the subjects? For the amount of time you spent on the subject’s tasks, highlight the boxes accordingly. For example, if you did that literary analysis from 5 am to 6 am, you would highlight the boxes from the first box (which represents the beginning of 5 am) to the sixth box (which represents the end of 5 am, or in other words, 6 am.

Still don’t understand? Just take a look at how I highlighted and coordinated my timetable in the above picture!

Acquiring the Printable

You can download the printable here and print it for your own use. Of course, the printable is available in a variety of colors: white, light brown, dark brown, burgundy (for Miles Edgeworth) and blue (for Phoenix Wright). If you have any suggestions for other colors I could try to represent other characters of Ace Attorney, simply message me! I hope this printable will help organise your life this upcoming school year, and I sincerely hope you liked it!

...

Always have an Outline

This piece of advice saved this whole challenge, and allowed me to write at a faster pace than I usually do. During the month of May, I spent about 2 weeks plotting my novel. I first made an extremely general plot of about 1,000 words, and throughout the two weeks, I created more specific and detailed plots. My final plot outline ended up being 12,000 words long.

It’s so important to plot everything beforehand because it prevents you from getting writer’s block during the challenge, and it allows you to write with more speed because you’ve planned everything out beforehand. Before the start of the challenge, create an incredibly detailed outline, and you’ll see how life changing it can be.

Being Consistent

Of course, being consistent is key to this challenge, but how do you go about doing that? The most important thing is to find time every day to sit down and write your daily 1,667 words. To keep myself in check, I set an alarm at a specified time every day to remind me to write.

It is much better to just do that 1,667 words each day instead of doing writing marathons every few days to catch up with your lost work, as it will not only keep the story going, it allows the story to progress, even if you’re not typing 5,000 words everyday.

However, another important thing is to never write more than the daily 1,667 words if you truly don’t feel like writing. Never force yourself to write more than you need to, but if you’re in the mood to write, go ahead and write more!

Writing in Intervals

Writing in intervals has been one of the most life changing things for me because taking breaks recharges me for the next writing session. Writing in smaller chunks is much more manageable than writing for hours on end, because not only will your quality of writing remain the same, you’ll feel better after writing.

Set a timer and don’t stop writing until it beeps. Then, take a break. I usually watch a gameplay video of an Ace Attorney case for 20-30 minutes after each hour of writing.

Post it on Social Media

Tell people about your project! It’s astounding how supportive people can be if you tell them about your projects, and it’s really motivational to get support from your friends. Each time I finished writing for the day, I posted an Instagram story to record my progress. It’s really nice to have people support you, and each time you feel unmotivated, you can always go back to those old supportive messages and feel more motivated.

Not only does it keep you accountable, it makes you feel all around more motivated.

Changing Up Where you Write

Throughout the month, I changed where I wrote numerous times. Try different places around your house, and changing locations can make you more motivated! I usually write either on the dinner table, in my study room, on the carpet or on the sofa. It’s really nice to change where you write every few days, and it keeps you more motivated (I’m not sure why, but it really does).

...

1. Legal Partners by Miggy (stayed up until 11 pm), in which Edgeworth and Gavin compete to see who can show the most appreciation to their favorite defense attorney.

The concept of Legal Partners is honestly gold, and allowed me to get a grasp of all the characters in the series because before reading it, I didn’t know any of them (blame the fact that I haven’t upgraded my DSi since I got it in 2010). I feel like it portrays the style of the characters pretty well, and it’s an iconic fanfic that every fan should read.

Also, Ema Skye is in this? I loved her in Rise from the Ashes, and I’m glad we get to see her again.

2. How to Court a Fool in Under 3 Months by Snowyrunes (stayed up until 3 am), in which Edgeworth has 3 months to ask Wright out before Trucy sets up Wright with someone for the new year.

Oh god. This fanfiction was freaking golden. I literally stayed up all night to finish it, and the writing is absolutely beautiful. It has nearly 90,000 words of pure goodness, and Franziska’s character in the book is absolutely to die for. I finished all 90,000 words in one sitting, which took me way longer than it should have. It’s probably one of my favorites. Though the plot twists were kind of expected, the writing is absolute beauty.

3. Coffee Versus Tea by Phangee (didn’t really stay up), in which Wright and Edgeworth are under scrutiny for allegedly dating.

I scoured AO3 for this, and it was so worth it.

If you only have 30 minutes to read a fanfiction, this is definitely the one I would recommend. The writing is absolutely golden, and manages to convey the realistic outcomes of a defense attorney and prosecutor dating. Literally had the best freaking ending ever, I couldn’t stop wheezing after I read it.

4. The Greatest Magic Trick of All Time by Unsungillumination (read this at 12 am), in which Edgeworth babysits 8 year old Trucy, and they talk about Wright.

This was honestly all around soft, and I liked the perspective it was written in (Trucy). Though Edgeworth babysitting Trucy is a bit odd, I enjoyed every bit of it. Also, the masterlist I found this work from said it wasn’t Wrightworth, but it’s so heavily implied throughout the oneshot I died reading it.

5. Dementia by So Wright So Wrong (stayed up until 4 am), in which Edgeworth gets Alzheimer's, and Wright has to see him slowly forget him.

Think about the most painful thing you’ve experienced. It won’t be more painful than reading this work, I swear to you. I’ve always found the concept of a sick main character interesting, and an exploration on how it limits the victim of the disease, like how in Five Feet Apart (the movie), the characters can’t be within 6 feet of each other. Never did I think this fanfic would make me cry, but all you need to know is that there were big fat tears at 4 am in the morning because I couldn’t sleep that night, I’m not really sure why.

The writing seems so simple, but the usage of the fast forwarding truly made the impact of the story much better. Towards the end when the dementia became more advanced, I started crying because of how Edgeworth reacted to some things, but that’s for you to read.

6. A Kiss on the Forehead Means go to Sleep by Spoiler Cat (stayed up until 1 am), in which kid!Miles and kid!Phoenix have a sleepover.

Literally pure fluff. Read this after reading Dementia and all your sorrows will be healed forever. It’s so short but so cute, and I like that their friendship is focused more rather than their romantic connection because sometimes their friendship truly is more worthwhile to explore than any romantic connections.

Before anyone asks why my rec list is so short, it’s because I don’t have all the time in the world to read, because I study and write my own works too. However, this is just part one, and part two will be uploaded in the future once I read more of the amazing works published by the Ace Attorney fandom!

I hope you enjoyed these recommendations, and that you’ll check some of them out!

Love always,