In my post about my 2022 goals, I mentioned that I wanted to do more about writing on the blog again. I haven’t quite figured out a monthly feature yet, but I’ve decided to revive the “Writing Life” category. This will likely be just about random topics/updates on my progress as I work my way through projects this year instead of a really structured post. I hope you enjoy it regardless! Today, I want to talk about what I want to accomplish this year in writing specifically!
IT HAS BEEN SO LONG!?
I haven’t actively written anything (other than my secret fan fics that I will not ever share with you) for months. I’ve started a writing accountability thread on Twitter (check it out here), but knew that I had zero motivation to work on any of my unfinished scripts. I had all these ideas for stories and I want to see them come to live eventually, but couldn’t muster up the creative energy to write a single word. It was disheartening to be completely honest. I’ve always loved creating and writing, but there was just nothing in me. Whenever I opened a document, there was just this blank page and me disliking every word I tried to put on it.
So, instead, I thought I’d switch it up! I finally returned to the one and only project I ever finished – Break Up Buddy! (or BUB, as I’ll call it moving forward) If you’ve followed me for a while, you may remember me talking about it before. However, I should warn you, that I archived a lot of posts from the blog and the BUB content isn’t really available on here anymore.
WHAT IS BUB?
To sum it up, it’s a contemporary flatmate romance, but I’m going to change so much! Reading my words from back then was cringey, there’s no other way to put it. I’m very proud of having written a full story with beginning, middle and end for NaNoWriMo 2014, but the quality was abysmal. I was “only” 21 back then and experienced so much since that just has me shaking my head at what I came up with. Still, there’s a general structure there than I can and want to work with!
I don’t want to go into details about the story, because despite some previous posts I’ve written, I’ve gotten more protective of my story and don’t want to reveal too much. I hope the above aesthetic gives off some vibes you can let your imagination run wild with though.
Here are some of the major changes I’m facing:
- I’ve written the story in first person present tense and … I don’t think it works for me at all. I don’t enjoy writing in present tense in general and I’ve just learned from some friends that a lot of people actually struggle with reading first person POVs. So, the POV isn’t set in stone yet, but the present tense definitely has to go …
- I’m changing the entire setting! BUB used to take place in Portland, Oregon, but is now moving to Vancouver, Canada. This isn’t just because I know my way around Vancouver about a million times better than Portland, but also because my male lead works in film and Vancouver is a prime location for that.
- A lot of the scenarios I imagined were super over the top. Let’s face it, I just didn’t know better. This was how I imagined things to work or pan out based on Hallmark movies I had watched, but I’ve learned to appreciate some subtlety and depth in the past seven or so years and I mostly want to make this story less of a cliché.
As I’ve mentioned above, I have a thread on Twitter that I’m trying to update regularly with some of my progress. For now, it’s mostly outlining and planing the major changes. But for the first time in a long time, I’m excited to write again. I’ve missed this feeling!
CONCLUSION
Having something you actually want to work with and don’t dread doing is great. My plan for this year is simple, I want to get a majorly updated draft of BUB done. It still doesn’t have to be perfect, but it needs a lot of work and I know I can do better, so I want to invest my time and focus in this one thing.
Where to start!? Out of all the reading experiments, I think I “vibed” with Chris Evans the most. I was surprised by the amount of non-fiction on his list, and even more so by the fact that I enjoyed those same books as well. While there were some obvious thematic similarities in the sense that all his books brushed on the topic of spirituality, I did not get the feeling that he was only interested in those themes alone. Instead, I got the impression that he is a generally curious guy.
Considering his background, I really thought that Sebastian Stan and I would be more on the same wavelength, but instead he introduced me to my most-despised read as of yet. (We don’t talk about Still Life with Woodpecker here, okay?) Still, I could see a theme in his book choices. Regardless of whether it was fiction or non-fiction, he heavily drifted towards stories with a focus on parent-child-relationships, complex (borderline toxic) romances and characters/people who felt out of place or without a real home. Those are all elements I can certainly work with!
Last but not least, we have Pedro Pascal! Thinking back, I didn’t hate reading his books, I mostly felt very ambivalent about them. I was a bit frustrated that I couldn’t get my hands on (the English edition) of some of the more recent releases he mentioned and therefore had to default to a lot of classics. There’s nothing inherently wrong about classics, of course not! People love them for a reason, but I, personally, just prefer stories that weren’t published that long ago.
Publisher description: 
Life and Other Disasters 