The last time I answered this prompt was almost a year ago and I think I still stand by those three wishes.
However, between then and now I watched a funny video on YouTube about trying to craft the perfect wish with no loopholes. Seriously, you should give it a watch. It might make you rethink how you word your genie wishes, just in case.
I really liked the way they handled the first wish to help determine the ramifications and loopholes that a sneaky genie might manipulate to mess with the person making the wishes.
Personally, having that kind of foreknowledge would be crucial in that exact case, but since we’re still dealing with a fictitious situation I wouldn’t worry about it. I might still go over my original three wishes with a fine tooth comb just in case there are unintended slip ups that aren’t intentional on the genie’s part.
For instance, the first wish, originally worded as such: I wish I could safely hop in and out of the stories I read so I can experience them as if I were really there.
I have a better idea of how I could wordsmith this one, especially after also having watched a TTRPG Live Play from Dropout and Dimension 20 called Never Stop Blowing Up which reminded me of the big premises of the anime Sword Art Online. Reworded, my first wish might go something like this: I wish I could safely choose to hop in and out of the stories I read, whenever I want, so I can experience them firsthand, choosing which character perspective I take, and never risking actual death due to the event of a character death because I would be safely ejected from the story so that I can choose to re-enter in the perspective of another character.
I think I’ll the other two wishes from the original post alone. Not because I think they’re perfect and have no loopholes, but because trying to work those ones out could be messy and I don’t want to spend the time trying to “Rules Lawyer” them to death.
When I think of “setbacks” I think of falling behind. Falling behind what or who? I don’t really know. The idea, though, is that there is a preconceived goal that you’re aiming for, even if you don’t consciously recognize what that goal is. Additionally, on a subtle level, there is a kind of time aspect to all of it. Keeping up or keeping pace in some kind of “race” to be good or successful. All of these things are external factors, though.
So, for myself, I stopped looking at these external factors as the hurdles for development. I’ve read it elsewhere in many places, but the thing that helped me break from these external factors is a quote from Matty Mullins that has been taken and reworded or expanded in different ways.
The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday.
Matty Mullins
Taking those words to heart, and only focusing on how I did things before, makes it easier to look at those challenges and failures as opportunities instead of setbacks. It’s not the external factors that are important measures of progress, they just exist to provide ideas and direction. It’s what I actually try to achieve that matters, and if I fail then I can just step back, dissect and analyze, and try a different way to see if I do better. That’s how I try to frame it in my mind so that I can keep moving forward.
What are some ways I can seek out feedback and constructive criticism to continue growing and improving?
At least when it comes to writing, I’ve done a few things to try and get feedback.
One is this very blog! I know I don’t exactly solicit people to leave comments for feedback and constructive criticism, but I haven’t discouraged it much either.
Another that I’ve done earlier this year was a writing contest that promised two avenues for feedback: peer feedback and judges. The peer feedback was done through a private message board where we could all read each others stories and then respond in their respective threads, while the judges were tasked with providing objective feedback on how our stories were written and the things that we should look at it for future attempts.
Something that I’ve dipped my toe into so far is joining Discord servers that are focused on writing. I haven’t started socializing in them as of yet, but I have access to them so I can start building connections and such. I’ve also started to do some reading/writing group activities for others who are writing so that I can get some experience under my belt as part of a sort “book club” as an alpha reader.
Those are all the things that come to mind at this time that I’ve been doing in this regard, and you can apply similar tactics in other areas of your life depending on what it is you’re seeking feedback on.
Now, for myself, I just need to put more effort into the “social” aspect of a lot of it.
Apologies for the lack of a post yesterday. I spent Wednesday evening through today (so far) with my dad as he was getting some surgery and I just didn’t have the mental faculties necessary for most of my usual daily habits.
So, for today’s prompt I decided to pull from the official DayOne app website where they have a post for Journal Prompts. As I was scanning through I ended up on the Inspiration section and decided to combine a couple prompts, but I wanted to focus specifically on the artistic side of inspiration.
When it comes to painting miniatures I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from several mini painters that I’ve discovered on Instagram over the last few years. I see the different styles and techniques that they showcase, thinking about how easy they make it look, and I feel like I want to give them a try myself. Obviously, those styles and techniques of theirs have been honed over years of practice, but that doesn’t mean I can’t try them out to see where I might shine or need more practice. I’ve been good about not being discouraged when I don’t “instantly master” what I’m trying to imitate because I remind myself of these facts, but it also spurs me on to watch them again and again, to repeatedly dissect what I’m watching in different ways to see what I can glean.
In recent months I’ve taken to more general creative hobby crafting through the YouTube channel Nerdforge and the mind blowing things that they create. I find it not just inspirational but also refreshing when a wild new video is uploaded to their channel and it turns out to be something incredible like the full sized Warhammer “mini” they made. The ideas that get pulled together from different sources to create the final result is absolutely amazing and stretches the way my mind thinks about how to approach different situations with techniques that may not have been originally intended for the scale they were working on.
That’s where I’ve been getting a lot of my artistic inspiration these days, and as long as I keep watching these amazing people work, I believe I’ll always be able to find inspiration.
What are some activities or habits that drain my energy or motivation?
Not to be confused with Energy Vampires, those people that suck the energy and motivation out of you, but Energy Suckers are just about everything else. Unfortunately, there can be some overlap depending on how you go about handling different activities and habits.
For example, one of my favorite activities is playing Magic: The Gathering with friends. Usually this is a fun time, but every so often you just get into a bad round where nothing seems to be going right or you’re just not getting the cards you need to actually feel like you’re playing. You’re watching the person across from you draw card after card after card and just popping off on their turns while you’re stuck doing pretty much nothing. That’s one of those times where it just sucks the energy (and fun) out of you and you would rather just start a new hand or call it a night altogether. What can make it worse, in the “overlaps with Energy Vampires” area, is when you’re playing with someone else that happens to in a bad mood because THEY are in that unfortunate situation of not being able to do anything except sit on their hands, or this other person just happens to be a snarky asshole who likes to rub it in. I’ve actually stopped playing with some friends as often because they like to invite specific people that I just don’t vibe with anymore after too many nights of less-than-subtle jabs and taunts.
Similarly, this can happen with online gaming. Playing a specific game with people and when things just aren’t going quite right despite the normal challenges, it wears on you mentally. This is one of those things for why I never really played a lot of online multiplayer games back when I streamed a lot, and also something that baffles me as to why/how some people can slog through 8+ hours of their day playing a game that isn’t going to be fun. (Which is, sadly, what a lot of people do because they think it’s what they need to do if they want make it big in the streaming space.) What makes this more difficult is if you’re playing with random strangers and you again end up with, you guessed it, snarky assholes. (It’s one thing if they’re throwing shade at comedic times and also making themselves out to be the butt of jokes, but when they’re just full on harping on you alone and have absolutely zero positive attitude? That just sucks, period.)
Looking at other activities and habits, you can see the same things happen with them, and I’m sure I could go on and on about them but I won’t, or else I’ll just go on forever and seem stupidly nit picky. In the end, though, suffice to say, when something just isn’t going right and you’re struggling? That just sucks.
What is one thing you can do to step outside of your comfort zone today/this week/month/year?
I don’t know about today specifically, but I could tell you that there are a few things I can do to step out of my comfort zone in the future that are highly likely to actually happen, or did already.
Tomorrow (rather than today): go to the gym during a busier time of the day instead of the later part of evenings when there aren’t other people around.
This week: I could go to a local game store event for a card game I play. It’s a public event, and I always feel out of place going to these kinds of events by myself to play against strangers.
This month: I don’t know if I’ll have something good for this one. It’s October and we’re already 2/3rds through the month.
This year: I’ll be flying by myself to an unfamiliar state to meet online friends for the first time in person! I’m actually excited for this one, so even though it’s outside of my comfort zone in multiple ways, it shouldn’t be too difficult.
I’m sure there are other things I could come up with, and maybe I will after I post this, but I’ll keep those for future writing.
What goals did you set for yourself this year? What goals do you have for the next few years and beyond?
Today’s prompt is another amalgamation I created from ones I saw on Sage and Bloom from their post on personal growth and self-improvement.
After I read a couple of similar prompts around goals, I did a little introspection and looking back over the year to see what I’ve accomplished versus what I had planned for. A couple of my goals I won’t reveal specifics but I will give an idea of progress.
Starting a year ago, on about October 15th, I had put up a couple of goals for myself with a target completion date of my 36th birthday in late March. One goal was focused on physical fitness (and I failed spectacularly) while the other was on writing. On the physical fitness side, I was planning to do one of two things at least 4 times a week: go to the gym to work out, or do body weight/resistance bands at home. I think the total count targeted was supposed to be around 120 and I made it maybe a quarter of the time. The writing goal was a little more straightforward. Write every day and hit something like 160 posts for the blog. (If you’ve been following along for the last year, you know that I absolutely CRUSHED that goal!)
Tracking those two goals was easy. I have a small whiteboard in my room where I marked out a grid space for the calendar month and a space above it for reminders and tracking totals. In the grid space I would use a red mark to indicate the fitness activity for the day (just a simple check mark to say I did it) and green for the writing. Then, at the end of each month (or beginning of the new month if I forgot to do it before bed) I would tally up the marks and add them to the running total in the reminder space above. Easy stuff! It felt good to add the marks, but the writing goal was so much easier to manage because I was literally able to do that anywhere at any time because I was using my cellphone and posting from work during breaks or downtime between meetings.
Anyways, those two goals were meant to be short term ones that would help me build a habit and routine. The writing one has worked out great! I went from aiming for less than six months to just keeping up that momentum for over a year now. (I’ll have to go back to the drawing board and do some reflecting on that fitness goal.)
I did have a couple of other writing goals that I put together earlier in the year, and even made a checklist on my phone as a reminder of some “six month strategy” goals but I haven’t made as much progress on them as I would like. One was just a reminder of doing my daily writing prompts, the other two were other writing projects which, although I HAVE worked on, I’m still just in planning and world building. Technically speaking, I still have time in my “six months” but not a lot at this point. Those will likely roll over into the new year.
So, current goals from the past year? Daily writing: crushed. Fitness, writing projects: needs a lot of work.
Goals for the future? Well, I’ve mentioned before in various ways that I struggle with setting goals and sticking with them when they’re focused on myself and I’m only accountable to myself. So, while I might have goals I’d LIKE to achieve in the next 2-5 or 5-10 years, actually getting them across the finish line is a different story. A simple list of those goals is getting some novels written and published, owning my own home, being debt free (outside of the house, most likely) and being self-sustained financially on my writing. Will all that happen? Well, only time will tell.
Looking back at the year so far (we still have about two and a half months to go) I’d say I stand a fair chance at actually accomplishing what I want. I just need to make some changes.
Yet another day where I have to come up with my own writing prompt because I’ve already answered the one provided! That’s okay, though, because that means I have to challenge myself with a little extra thinking about what I want to talk about.
As I was googling for writing prompts I stumbled on an image list with examples that gave me an idea. There were two in particular, not next to each other in the list but still related, that I thought might be fun to combine.
“What are five things you would like to do before you are 20 years old?” combined with “What do you think your life will be like when you are 30 years old?“
I’ve answered similar prompts before but I think I’ll twist it up a bit.
Did you get to do the things you wanted to do by the time you were 20? 25? 30? Etc.
The simple answer is no. There are tons of things that I wished I had done by various points in my life, but also so many of those things I feel like I learned about at the wrong time.
By the time I was 20 I was hoping to have moved out and started what used to be the stereotypical “college experience” of living on campus, meeting people and making friends that might become roommates when you’re no longer living in the dorms. Things like that.
I was still living and working at home (on the farm) until I was about 24. I moved out that year, living with friends for about five or six months, but was still working at home briefly until I finally landed an office job through my brothers. Ultimately, this period of my life, up through 25, felt like I was behind to a certain degree. I watched friends from college doing, more or less, the things I had hoped to be doing. Living in an apartment, working, doing fun things once in a while like occasionally going to the bars (drinking out is expensive, so not too often) or traveling for a short vacation. I did one thing, sort of, before 26, that was something I had hoped to do and that was go back to my home state (Colorado) of my own accord and on my own dollar. It was a short weekend vacation that I took to visit a friend (who moved there from South Dakota, where I met them and we went to college together) for their birthday. So, not all was “lost” in that regard.
Age 26 through 30 went much better, all things considered. I hadn’t expected to start this period of my life needing a major surgery and not having health insurance, followed by losing my job because the company didn’t renew our contracts, but that all happened, and helped spring me towards the direction of accomplishing some of those earlier things out of order.
Somewhere between 24 and 25 I had moved into my own apartment, by myself, but because of the cost of the surgery and insurance complications I had soon opted to move in with a friend from college that I had reconnected with the prior year. So, surgical debt, lost a job and started new one shortly after, which led to moving in with friends to help cut costs all around. Some of this happened only five years out of order from expectations, but hey, it happened eventually!
More things happened in that time before 30 that were closer to when I had hoped to experience them. Temporary gig work which helped get me into my current job, which is stable and has been a very good place to be long term. Making enough money to fund hobbies and enjoy new things, make new friends (which gets harder the older you get) and take brief staycations to play games or spend time with family. Still, all that aside, I didn’t meet anyone that I vibed with enough to start a solid romantic relationship with and explore the idea of starting a family. Another missed target.
From 31 until now, since I’m not sure what “accomplishments or experiences” I should be cutting off at 35, I have had some nice things happen. Still working the same job, still living with the same friend, learning new skills, making plenty of money for those hobbies AND I actually took a real vacation. Unfortunately, still no romantic prospects for me, but glad I’ve been able to watch other friends grow closer together and get married or start families.
So, while I’m not living the original stereotypical “American Dream”, I’m still slowly experiencing things that I hope for, just not always in the expected order. Looking at things from that angle, and then comparing my life to others, I am seeing the same thing for many others and accepting that my lived experience will be my own and shouldn’t be held to the same standards as others.
Since it seems like today’s daily writing prompt is another repeat, I’ll go into something else I was thinking about recently.
Today should be, I believe, the 362nd day in a row that I’ll have posted something to the blog. Given that I’m closing in on a 1-year streak, I decided to look into some stats. How many words have I written? How many posts? How does it compare to writing a full length novel in the same time frame?
Well, WordPress collects some of these things, but not in the way that I needed. So I decided to do some extra leg work today and check the word counts of all of my posts since October 16th, 2023 when I first started down this path of trying to write every single day. I’ll also be incorporating some numbers for last November’s NaNoWriMo, as proof of effort.
According to my calculations (I used Excel to help track all of this):
371 individual posts written
111,245 words just for the blog
151,143 words when including NaNoWriMo 2023
299.85 average words per post
2,925 words in the longest post (although admittedly that was copying what I wrote for a writing contest)
1,230 words in the longest post that DIDN’T include the writing contest results
That’s all I think I’m going to share, which is basically everything I was concerned with at this time (although, I totally did consider making some graphs.)
The key takeaway I want to point out, for myself as well as others who might be thinking of writing a full length novel (or two or three) is that even if you can only get down 300 words per day during some spare time, if you write every single day then you can definitely make it in a year and have the potential wiggle room for editing to bring total word count down to a reasonable level. Aim for that 100,000 word mark at just a few hundred words per day and you’re golden.
I do at least a little bit of walking every day (oh hey, post title!)
I’m still sort of waking up as I write this post but to be honest I don’t need to be fully awake to answer a simple question like this.
If there is one thing I could do to help myself be healthier it would actually be to walk more and add jogging/running to my routine. When I worked at a “Big Red Circles” big box store on the overnight shift, I was walking 20,000+ steps every night. I think at one point I was even hitting 32,000+ steps fairly regularly. I walked so much, jogged a little bit, lifted and “threw” truck so often that I actually was in the best shape of my life for about a year. It was great being able to earn my paycheck and get in shape all at once, and it made a nice balance to my very sedentary hobbies. (If I could make the money I am today, or even more, and work out simultaneously, I probably would go back to that.)
Running is not something I do very often at all anymore, though, and I’ve never found joy in running for the sake of running. If it’s part of another activity, like a sport, then I don’t mind it!
Well, not a very thought provoking prompt and response, but that is all I can muster this morning.
The Dragon's Grove 