Weekly Update #120

I've finally done it. It's finally over. I've... I've...

Cleaned my room.

That's right. Something I first mentioned starting several months ago is finally complete. I took my day off today and finished shoving basically everything I own into plastic containers and stacking them since that's the only way I can have any space in my small room. This also means that I finally have some room for VR again. I plan on playing some H3VR for research purposes for a certain upcoming story, seeing as how that's basically the most realistic way to "research" aside from going to an actual gun range and spending hundreds of dollars playing with all sorts of fancy guns.

Other than that, I've not really been happy with my writing lately. Or rather, how do I put this...

I'm happy with the chapters. I'm happy with how the stories are going. What I'm not happy with is my growth. It's weird. Since beginning to edit TTE, I've noticed a massive difference (imo) between my quality of writing back then versus now, and I consider myself way better now. But I feel like that's in some more technical aspects rather than storytelling ability. I guess that by editing TTE, I've realized that my technical ability has increased while my storytelling ability has kind of stagnated. Though, I wouldn't say it's completely stagnated. I do think that it's improved some. I just don't think that it's improved as much as it could have or could be.

This is one of those things where I don't really think I can significantly improve it via pure brute force, either. For those who don't know, I... don't really read. I've probably read less than 5 entire books in my lifetime and I'm almost 27. I've always been a writer and I've never enjoyed reading anything other than my own writing for the most part. On a somewhat related side note, despite not liking reading, I love collecting physical copies of books.

Anyways, I believe it's possible to improve my storytelling ability while only reading my own writing, but at an extremely slow rate. I think I've reached the point where I seriously need to start reading more stories from other people if I want to actually improve my craft at a decent rate. Last week, I tried reading before writing a chapter, and I found it so much easier to write after reading for a bit. This might be a shocked pikachu moment, but I found it easier to write, felt more inspired, and had more ideas after reading. It seriously helped with the writing block I've been suffering from lately. So, starting this week, I'm going to try and force myself to read for at least one hour every day before writing a chapter. I'm going to actually try to broaden my horizons a little bit here.

Everybody has always said that you can't be a good writer without being an avid reader, saying how reading more is the only way of ever improving, etc. I've always hated that advice. Really, I just despise when anybody says that X is the only way of doing something. I've probably refused to read other stories partially out of spite for the people who can't shut up about reading more being the best way of getting good. But, I know they're right. I've managed to prove them at least a little wrong that it's required seeing as how I'm successfully living off of my writing without being a reader, but I haven't improved nearly as much as I probably could have if I was reading.

So yeah. From now on, I'm going to actually follow the most annoyingly generic writing advice that there is and "read more." Maybe I'll actually start enjoying reading others' stories. Hopefully it will give me more inspiration, ideas, and improve my skill in storytelling. Only time will tell, I suppose.

I'm also kind of inspired by the artists I work with for covers. They frequently talk about studying art, trying to improve, watching how other people do it, and so on. They're always working to improve their own art rather than just making more and more of their current quality. I need to start doing that.

For the next weekly update, I'll try to prove that I'm keeping my word by talking about what I've read during the week. If I make myself feel obligated to give an update on my reading progress, that should help motivate me to actually read.

Anyways, memes 'nd things:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCAoMPKWIy0 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVvUXlHHYWo&feature=youtu.be 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNqRDS3iSyM 

Weekly Worksheet: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1keqfn2p-iOB0RlG4-Vr-T17Zmh54Yuwh/view?usp=sharing

18 hours, only 14,726 words. Both TQH and TTE were shorter than usual this week which is responsible for why the words are lower than normal. It doesn't help that I've had some pretty long-lasting writer's block and have just been a bit mentally overwhelmed by everything lately. I'll do my best this week to make up for it! Also, didn't get any editing done since I kept on being so late with chapters while telling myself no editing until after I was done writing the required chapters. So much for that.

The True Endgame

I had a fuck ton of fun writing this latest chapter. I know I talked all about how I'm not really happy and all that with my writing quality/progress lately, but hot damn did I like this chapter. I just really love writing these kinds of sex scenes in general. People being awkward and cute during sex is the best, imo. Sure, the experienced and kinky stuff is fun and all, but awkward inexperienced sex is so much more entertaining and sometimes even hotter to me.

Also, I'm insanely excited for the upcoming TTE volumes. TTE is just further solidifying itself as my sort of flagship series in my mind. I keep on getting more ideas, more inspiration, and I'm falling in love with the story, setting, and characters even more despite having already been writing it for a few years.

The next volume will probably be mostly slice of life with a sort of focus on setting up things for future plots but, after that, I really plan on the series going in more of a plot-focused direction. There will always be slice of life stuff and the main themes won't change, so don't worry about it becoming like a different series or anything. I'm just saying, though, that ever since I first started writing TTE, I've always imagined the latter half of the series having more drama, serious conflicts, and actual plot. It's still going to be a little bit before we really get into that, but once we do... I'm excited for it. That's part of why I really want to improve my storytelling ability now, too. I need to improve and get better so that I can really do justice by TTE's future arcs.

Kadi has been getting teased since the very beginning for a reason.

Ero Dungeon Online

I feel like I'm being too much of a TTE fanboy since I can write all that about it while having basically nothing to say about the other stories right now. At least EDO gets a bit more spotlight since it shares a universe with TTE. Anyways, I'll be doing some new and fun stuff in the upcoming chapters, so I'm looking forward to that! Can't really say anything else without spoiling it, though.

The Queen's Hound

Honestly, TQH and CORE are the two most difficult stories for me to write right now, and they both seriously need me to improve my storytelling ability for them. I feel like they would easily benefit the most by me improving. And especially in TQH's regard, I need to try and read some LitRPGs before writing its chapters. I'm thinking of reading that one spider LitRPG LN before writing TQH chapters. That seems the most appropriate out of all the stories I actually own. That aside, we'll be wrapping up this little mini arc with the next chapter. Probably. No promises. But seriously, it will most likely be next chapter unless I get a huge surge of inspiration for more to do with it since all the ideas I currently have for this mini arc can be fit into the next chapter.

Lazy Dragon Queen

Speaking of wrapping up arcs, LDQ's second volume is finally getting closer and closer to ending and the next chapter will be a large leap toward that. This second volume ended up being way, way too long. It's practically twice as long as the first volume. But, I'm still happy with it, and I'm planning on having lots of fun with these last few chapters before the end of the second volume! Then we'll finally move onto the third volume and get a change in enemies, scenery, and get a new waifu in the sights.

CORE

Same as what I said with TQH for the first part of it. Other than that, this last chapter was a sort of transition one, and the next chapter will give you an idea of what's to come as far as the next major plot goes!

In Closing

Whew. I typed way more than I thought I would for this weekly update. Time to wrap this up.

Thank you for your continued support, and please look forward to this week's chapters!