Category Writing

The Concept

As a family, we make it a point to explore something new and intriguing wherever we go, often seeking out historical sites or unique points of interest that are off the beaten path. However, not everything captures our children’s attention equally. This inspired me to conceive a project: what if I created a story to accompany our adventures, bringing the experiences to life and sparking their imaginations? After all, much of the excitement lies in how an experience is presented. And so, our adventure stories were born, eventually evolving into a collection that we now proudly call our family adventure journal!

The Approach

Initially, I aimed to create several stories to get the kids excited about activities like nature walks or visits to places that aren’t centered around games and activities they usually gravitate toward. We crafted simple stories to highlight points of interest in a fun way, featuring talking creatures and a touch of innocent magic. These elements, familiar yet tailored to our real-world adventures, helped bridge the gap between the digital and natural worlds.

By focusing each story on an adventure, I began directing their attention to specific things, like the wonder of a natural feature or the significance of a historical event. To make these moments even more special, I included related materials. Initially, I worked in reverse, matching these materials to upcoming activities and adding Adventure Journal entries and artwork afterward. The plan is to prepare these stories in advance, creating a collection of potential adventures for them to explore as we embark on our next journeys.

Engagement and Follow Through

This project requires dedication, so I’m developing a background for the journal itself, ensuring a seamless transition from fictional characters to stories tailored to our family activities. I’m also finding ways to capture our children’s experiences in their own words as they grow, creating a cherished family keepsake that we can enjoy for years to come.

The Beginnings … 

It begins a little something like this…

• Start with a Journal that will last for some time, have space to expand and is something that you find aesthetically pleasing. Etsy has some great Handmade Journal options if you need some inspiration! Remember size does matter, smaller journals that are more for personal use may not work. Here is what we chose to use. The one shown below was purchased from reimaginedonline.

• Having already created the backstory, I can weave some of those elements into the initial pages, for this please visit our Adventure Journal Page.
• Create your first set of adventures but base them on fictional characters your children can relate to.
• Make the Journal into an Art project!

• Be sure to leave room for your kids to add their thoughts and experiences, whether this is a set of pages set aside for them, or have them write a short letter that you can insert into an envelope pasted inside the pages. (Note: if you are starting this with very young kids, you may have to complete this part until they can do it on their own, may be a fun way to capture your memories as well.)
• Share with your kids, and let them help you plan the next set of adventures that they will get to participate in.

Angel Oak Park, SC

There are places that just exude a sense of mystery and wonder, they spark the imagination. In these spaces if you have a moment to immerse yourself in the surroundings without the distractions of the modern world, anything becomes possible.

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Anne Springs Close Greenway

There are always opportunities to share the world with our children, but sometimes we find it hard to present it in a way that will get them excited to visit a place or experience something new. One way that we have been trying to get them to connect with what we are exploring is creating small stories that will drive their imagination and get them wrapped up in the adventuring mindset. Below is one such story that we have been working on for a local favorite. As we share more of these stories and adventures we will be posting them with some basic information related to the adventures we have. Enjoy!!

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November 1, 2023

The beginning has come, time to write and write and write some more! This year, I have made some goals to ensure that I am staying on track and on target. In addition to buckling down and focusing on the writing itself, I will be working to keep myself accountable to sticking to the daily milestones and targets that will lead to a successful book. The focus that we put into Preptober this year has built up some much-needed confidence to go after this target like I never have had before.

So to all of those who are participating this year in NaNoWriMo, I wish you all the best in staying focused and keeping the words flowing out onto the page. May your creativity shine and that we all reach our goals.

The last several weeks have been very hectic with work and the writing schedule, so I am condensing the previous 3 weeks into a single update as we are working to close out Preptober. As I have stated before, I am expanding most of the work that has been completed to this point, focusing on shoring up my main character and working to better define support characters so that they fully enrich the story progression.

It just goes to illustrate that even when an idea is already in progress, there is always more we can do to help improve our writing process and the details of our stories.

Week 2:

Week 2 has come to a close…

Closing out Week 2, I am considering what my ideal November writing experience would look like, this step is very important. Just with training for world-class athletes, visualizing how the process should flow and what to do when things are not in that ideal state helps you to find ways to overcome challenges and reach your Goals.

As for me, I have seen that the end of the year is hectic, work, kids’ events, and family obligations are always demanding time, so when would I write? In the past, I have tried to do this in the evenings, but the lack of motivation and the desire to stop making decisions does not make that time well spent. Moving it to first thing in the morning has some merit and may be part of the answer.

It essentially boils down to the ability to focus for a set amount of time. In short, I will be leveraging the Pomodoro technique and using some time during the day to nail out as much detail into the story as I can, using the off hours as a planning period or buffer if I am trying to complete an idea.

Week 3:

Wrapping up Week 3, Some Thoughts

The end of Week 3, brings a lot of focus to your main characters. You have to have quite a bit of interest in your characters for them to develop well on the page, you must care about them in some way and essentially form a relationship with your invisible friend that no one else can imagine until you share your work.

With that said, part of what draws me to my main characters, is that I found myself curious to see how their pairing would evolve, the interactions, the dialogue. Strong personalities, I am very used to working with them, but putting those same patterns into the story form makes for an interesting writing experience, which I am hoping will translate well to the reader at the end.

Having such a duty-focused MC who is challenged constantly by his companion, helps them both to evolve their world perspectives. It forces me to consider many more aspects of the dynamic than is shown in the writing and has such a varied effect on how they make decisions and interact with those around them. To say I am fascinated would be quite an understatement.

Week 4:

Do you feel ready, well, do ya?

As we draw near to the end of Preptober activities, I am left with the question, Am I Ready for this? I already know that I am not, though I do feel like I have a plan and a reasonable chance for success to close out this NaNoWriMo experience. What I have experienced in the past is the many varied ways that life can get in the way, not an excuse by any means. Its reality, there is always something that will need attention, and since this is not my only focus, there will be other demands on my very limited time.

I have put years into considering the aspects of my story world, how the different groups, ecosystems, and patterns will interact, and surprisingly that is not what concerns me about my story world. My concern lies in that I feel many authors rely on the external factors of the environment to push the story with a focus on many of the esoteric aspects of their creation. It is effective in many situations, however, I want my story to be able to stand alone without the need for those components, that they add flavor but are not the meat of the experience for my readers.

While I have planned and visualized different ways to ensure success, I know there will be challenges for me to agonize over, but at the same time… Why would I let that stop me?

Don’t be a stranger!

Hopefully, you are ready for your NaNoWriMo experience, please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences as well!

Something a little different:

This year my Preptober will take a different path than it has in previous years. I am not starting a new project during this period which feels a little off to me, though finishing an in-flight one is just as essential. Some of the normal milestones that I would typically be working through are already set, which alleviates part of the prep work, and with the time that is freed up, I will repurpose to expand and enhance the current project.

With this week’s activities completed we will be moving more into the prep phase for the activity that is coming up in November, training if you will on how to handle the low motivation and writer’s block events that are sure to happen. Stay tuned!

Goals are now set, we are getting ready to kick this year off in style and it is time to start working towards those first set of milestone targets. Ringing in the new year is always fun and I for one can say I don’t always make it to midnight. Still, the changing of the year is a time to celebrate both what has passed and what opportunities lay ahead.

Measuring Change

As a Developer, I have developed a fondness for data in all of its forms, from tracking the changes made, to tracking how far we have come on any and all aspects of a project. As an artist, I tend to leave that all by the wayside and try to take a “devil may care” attitude to my creative endeavors. This year I am changing that for two reasons:

1. I want to actually make measurable progress and show visible improvement in my creative pursuits.
2. I want to stop letting life and other things consume all of the free time I have that can be used to further number 1.

When I was defining the set of Goals that I wanted to work towards this year, I paid particular attention to how to measure the progress and what the end state of that goal would look like for 2023. As a byproduct of that focus, the goals that I have set are more concrete in definition and criteria for success, two things that have been very vague in the past, and I have worked to bring them closer to specifics.

Several of the Metrics I have settled on are:

• Number of Occurrences during a set time period
• Completion of a project during a set duration
• Specific quantitative targets each quarter

Now, I know that seems vague and it can be when looking at it out of Context, which is why I am setting up a Goal Tracking page to help me keep track of each of the targets on my 2023 List.

Tracking Goals Progress

As referenced above, progress will be posted on the Goal Tracking page and updated weekly or monthly as time allows. I have already set up a reminder to complete this task along with my regular review routines.

Why spend all of this effort to manage your goals?

I believe that for progress to be made, you need to know where you stand. Having a way to see where each of your efforts is at a given moment is extremely helpful in this regard. When I am unsure of where I need to prioritize my efforts, time, and energy I can look back here and see what needs to be addressed next.

Why am I putting it out on a public site?

One word, Accountability. While I am confident in my ability to make progress, adding the external layer of people that can be watching as well as positive pressure on the process makes it all more real to me.

Using Instagram and Etsy to get more content and products out there is already in the works so what is the harm in sharing more?

What success looks like…

It is easy to say that seeing all of my goals completed would be a measure of success, however, that seems too simplistic of a solution. I would consider myself successful in 2023 if I have made measurable progress toward my goals and see the requisite progress in my abilities and skills. I would expect that means that a significant number of the goals that are laid out would be completed, but that I would also be adjusting the list throughout the year to add more and adjust the vectors of the ones in flight to be conducive to my long-term plans.

The best place for me to be in a year is in a better position than I currently am. What am I willing to do and sacrifice to get there will be the deciding factor on where this leg of my journey will end up.

Each and every year, I sit down to do a final review of what happened and determine how I want to improve in the year to come. While I use this time to frame out some general goals, I do not hold any stock in New Year’s Resolutions, they are notoriously unreliable. This is a time of reflection, a chance to center yourself back onto the path you have been traveling, and should be taken with the seriousness that should entail. After all, we are all striving for something, moving from point A to B and figuring out all of the steps in between.

Previous Years:

• 2021 New Years Goals
• 2022 New Years Goals – (Missing Due to Baby Arrival planning)

What a Year, Let’s Review

This year has been very impactful for me, with the birth of our second child, significant changes in the professional arena, and also some remarkable strides in the development of my art. They say that one of the only constants in this world is change, and I have never heard anyone able to disprove that, so we must take that variability in life and circumstance into account for everything we do. The thought that anyone could ever become so complacent as to be comfortable is hard for me even to fathom.

The environment that we live in is too complex and dynamic with all of the different content sources and technologies working to grab and keep your attention it forces even the most stagnant of people to realize that change is constant all around us.

While I am sure you could choose to ignore it, which seems detrimental to your personal growth, the choice to lean into the changes and see what opportunities await is by far the more desirable choice. So it comes down to this, What are you going to choose to do?

Goal Time

Personally, I am focusing my efforts in several different directions so as to take many small steps towards improvement in as a well-rounded approach as I can.

Starting with skill improvements, I am going to continue to develop my writing practices and abilities, improve my digital art skills and of course, use this as a medium to share my progress in all of those arenas.

Personal growth areas, finding new ways to connect with people is a goal of mine in the upcoming year, finding a way to deepen connections and work to further my cherished relationships.

I think almost everyone these days is looking to establish additional financial income streams and I am no different in that, so spending some additional time working on items/services to utilize will be a large focus item for me.

Shameless Plug: Check out the Etsy Store!

Faith has been a very important part of my life and deepening my understanding and keeping myself on the path will also get more focus in the upcoming year.

While I am sure there will be many more goals, large and small that organically develop throughout the upcoming year I will be working on these four main ones as a roadmap for my improvement activities.

Observations and Positive Intent

Most of the challenges this year have been external, though I can be sure that not all have started that way. Home repairs and maintenance are expected, the amount that we have had to do this year was excessive. We were fortunate enough to line up the work and get it all done, or at least all of the major items, and are now lined up for the next set of projects in the new year.

Personal creative efforts have been up and down this year. Sheer personal motivational challenges are where the fault lies here, I know that it is completely within my control to manage that part of the endeavor. All I can say to that is that I failed this year in this regard. I am going to strive to do better this upcoming year and am actively planning on how to improve my efforts in this regard, so I am marking where I am currently at this year and seeing what progressive milestones I can set for myself on a monthly basis.

Professionally, it seems that I have been slowly burning out with all that had been asked of me, so this recent change in role is going to be a time to reflect and improve on situations that I struggled with before. I feel the drive to be better and do better, which has not been this strong in years and I am excited for the new challenges ahead, even the political ones. No, I am really serious about that part.

I am typically an optimist at heart and lately I feel as if I have a cynical filter on the world. To that I am going to make a concerted effort to assume “positive intent” on the actions that I don’t have evidence of to the contrary, this is to not only lighten my personal outlook on the world, but hopefully also temper my responses that result.

Onward to 2023!

Making this another transformative year and working towards the goals I am setting for myself, leveraging the data and metrics to validate the progress as the year moved forward is what I am committing to, Time to Get Creative!

30 days …. What could you possibly do in thirty days? Quite a lot, it would seem. We have a goal of at least 50,000 words, which is about 1,667 words a day. It will take effort, it will take dedication and it will take resolve. The resolve to complete the task before you is what will carry you through. You have set your goals and prepared as best you can. Now it falls to each of you to go out and create the most amazing creative work that you can and have been dreaming about for some time.

Motivational, no? I am spending the last of my Preptober time getting ready to go after this goal of mine and I am constantly trying to ensure that I have the drive to follow it through. I have completed some of these in the past and know that I could have done better. This year I want to end it with no regrets, that I have put forth the effort that I know I am able to bring to the project. There are challenges, since there are other very large projects that are taking up some of my attention, the daily goals alone seem quite daunting. That is all the more reason that I have to do this, to strive under the pressure to do more, be more. 

I challenge all of you to do the same, whether it is writing or some other creative pursuit, try to plan out behavior that you want to be more routine in your life and work on it consistently every day to make it better, to ingrain it into your routine. Strive to make it so effortless that you don’t even have to think about doing it. At that point, you have established a building block to create the long-lasting changes that you want to see in yourself.

Here we are, kicking off the month, I am starting off with quite a bit of prep work done and I still feel like it is not quite enough to be ready to continue writing all the way to the end goal, so there will be some additional leg work in between that will need to be addressed. I just hope that after this first week of November gets past and all of the stress of the other projects that I am beholden to will start to die down as we head toward the holiday season, and I will be able to keep more focus on the details of my story and hit my targets consistently. 

With all of that Let Us BEGIN!!! As I complete sections I will start posting excerpts on the project pages.

Here we are coming to the close of Preptober and the final week is almost complete. Hopefully, by this point you have some high-level details of your story laid out, some sketches of your characters, their potential development path, and some outline of the overall storyline. You are about to get into the meat of the work coming up next week and while you may still feel unprepared, you have a least a modicum of direction that you can start to pursue. You have a rough or detailed research plan depending on your personality type and have started your exploration into these supporting details for your efforts.

With all of the planning and prep that you have completed comes the final phase of your Preptober journey, developing the resolve to carry through the month of grueling word-smithing that lies ahead of you. Hitting your goals is meant to help you develop a writing routine and habit, after all, consistency is key to establishing any habit. That will not help you stay on task however and you may find that you are in a creative desert with no direction to go. This is where your determination to complete this challenge will come into play.

You are now closer to writing that story, helping you to provide more structure to the skeleton of your tale, while also giving you a taste of where you can take some risks and the rewards that may result. Be honest with yourself about the good and bad of your story, because you can’t fix what you aren’t aware of, or if you are ignoring it.

For more information make sure to check out our other Preptober and Nanowrimo posts, and as always the Nanowrimo site has some incredible resources!

So buckle-up buttercup and let’s get to writing this thing…..