Adara VS 2025: Half Year Check-In
Notes: for the very first time you can hear my videos in different languages using YouTube’s new auto-dub feature! If this interests you, click on the video through to YouTube then select the language you want to listen to in the drop down menu of the control bar on the bottom of the video.
Video Transcript
Hello and welcome to my half-year review, my check-in video if you will, for 2025 because 6 months have gone. Where have they gone? I'm not sure. If anyone's seen them please let me know.
First off, I would like to thank everyone who has subscribed to this channel. It has made such a difference. I have pretty much doubled in subscribers in these past 6 months. Thank you everyone for following along with this channel's rebrand, its journey. And I hope I can continue sharing my writing experiences and using this channel to communicate and chat with you all more often and popping into your comments sections more often.
In writing and publishing, I finished the first draft of Drawing Red's sequel, which is incredibly exciting.
In other writing news, I have started plotting and continued to plot my paranormal romantic comedy, which is looking like it might be a standalone. And what's exciting about this is I'm using a different plotting book. Normally, I use multiple plotting structures anyway, and I overlap them. So, for Drawing Red, that was a mix of Save the Cat, The Hero's Journey, and the Three-Act Structure. There's a lot of overlap, but for this one, I am using Save the Cat and Romancing the Beat. I highly recommend it if you want an overview of romance first and then all your lovely fantasy tropes second.
I also started to research audio book production. And I think I may have my setup now when the weather is cooler to start recording Drawing Red as an audio book myself. That took a lot of experimentation, a massive learning curve for audio levels, but I think it's doable as long as I don't pass out with the heat. Now, I'm heat intolerant anyways from a number of chronic conditions. And I've been hearing stories of actual professional voice artists who end up sitting with ice packs all over them to keep themselves cool and like in bathing suits and yeah, swimwear. And I can understand it. I really can. So I may be doing that on early mornings, nights. My ideal time was when the kids are off school during the 6 week summer holidays. I thought that might be a good chunk of time to do something. But at the same time, I'm still thinking it might be too hot and I may need to potentially wait until we get cooler weather. I don't know yet. I'm undecided. But I am midway through prepping the manuscript by going through highlighting different character voices. And every time I explain that a certain character needs to be voiced in a certain way, then I'm underlining that too, so I can give myself instructions kind of as I go.
I also took part earlier this year in the Authortube Writing Marathon, which was like a relay between different channels hosting sprints over the course of a few days. That was incredibly fun. I'm so glad that people reached out to me to be a part of that and it kind of relaunched my productivity sprints this year. I can't schedule my productivity sprints. I know a lot of people do. They say, "Okay, I'll be here this week or these days." And they have a schedule posted. I tried that. Unfortunately, with my health and the health of the people around me and caring responsibilities, I can't really stick to that. So, all of mine will be pop-up. Although I'm aiming to be hosting writing sprints for at least once a week, if not once every two weeks.
With the heat, the setup I have to get this character moving, it takes a lot of energy and a lot of heat. And it's not the first time that the system has crashed. And I will still be hopping into others as well. I also took part in the Authortube Writing Conference for the very first time. They asked me to apply for one of their under 500 subscriber slots. I was amazed at that, but incredibly thankful and I'm so glad that people found my talk useful. It was about marketing pre-debut, although I do think a lot of the tips can be used going forwards. So, I know for example, there was one person who mentioned that they were wanting to launch a new pen name or people who just wanted to brush up on their skills. There's always something to be learning in that sphere. Always.
And I hear music. One moment.
And I'm back. Quick explanation. You guys will have been hearing music already throughout this video. I add it after recording and I always do. I like music in the background. However, the more I do this kind of production and looking at audiobooks and things, it makes me realize I'm going to be stepping on a lot of toes because my microphones are sensitive and I live with a musician who likes to record their own stuff as well. So, it's kind of a scheduling thing going on in our house now where we have to appreciate when one person's doing something, the other person can't. There's been a bunch of times when I've not been able to record because there's been noise going on in the background where I've considered doing a silent productivity stream where I turn up, I don't talk. Maybe I can type messages on screen to people and talk primarily through text, but I don't think that's fair for accessibility reasons, or is it? If people are happy to catch up with that or keep up with it through screen readers and things, please let me know and maybe that's something I can do in future.
Yeah, I will obviously have Lofi on as I do that. But if a silent stream is something you're after, I've done it once before when I lost my voice. Yeah, we that's something we can potentially explore. Back to topic. Where was I?
Oh yes, my topic for the Authortube Writing Conference was massive. And I pitched this myself. I have no one to blame but me, which was marketing pre-debut. And when you have 40 minutes to explain something, you need to pack a lot as much as you can in there. And I know for a fact there are still things that I have missed. Things like SEO and Amazon keywords, but I thought they would be covered anyway during other people's kind of videos. And I'm happy to say they were. So, at the end of my kind of talk, which is still on YouTube, if anyone wants to see it, I'll put a link up in the cards and I'll try to link it down in the description alongside the other playlist, the big playlist, where I signpost people to topics which might relate to other aspects of marketing or where they are or may suit what they're looking for anyway, maybe a bit better. As expected, I think that's now currently the best long-form video on my channel. And I don't take that lightly to say thank you for that invitation. And I hope I hadn't freaked people out when they came to my channel and just saw, hey, what's that strange model talking to me? Eh, what's this doing here? I expected a person just chatting in real time to a camera. Instead, I get a pre-recorded presentation from this thing behind a desk. What's going on?
Yeah, there was a lot of impostor syndrome involved in this, but um I gave it my best shot. I had to have-
Oh, and there's a cat in here. I can feel it under the desk. Nice. It's not an Adara video or stream without cat interruptions.
What was I going to say? And here's the brain fog. Oh, yes. the brain fog plus the heat plus it being summer in the northern hemisphere with very unusual UK heatwaves. During the conference to stream my video, I had to have two fans running on my desk at the same time. So, I had one pointing to underneath my laptop, which is on a raised platform to keep that cool, and another one pointing towards the mobile phone I use as a webcam to get this model moving so it didn't overheat. So, there was a lot of heat going on.
And there's a cat walking across the desk again. Oh, hello. It's always the same one. Always the same one. I can show you exactly who it is. Let's have a look. There we go. It's this one. This is Thelonius. And back to where I was.
Please don't walk on the desk or knock over that phone or anything else you want to do. Yeah. And you're blocking the the model now. And this is ongoing dialogue I have with him every single time I'm at my desk. He always knows. Always knows. And there we are. If I keep disappearing, it's because there is a tail in front of the webcam. That is why. Or if I look juttery from this point out, it's because he's trying to currently sit on my lap between me and the desk. Oh man. Which what it it happens frequently. I still haven't found a way around this. Oh yeah, I know there's stuff going on. Okay. You camera camera. Ah, camera. Come on. Come on. Come on. Out the way. There we go. See? Tangible. Tangible evidence that there is something there. How very philosophical. Is there something there? What are we not seeing? That just brings me back to my first year of the philosophy degree. And we're off topic. Bringing it back.
I am also in the middle of doing a sensitivity read. This book is full of cliffhers and plot twists and turns and so is the entire series. So, without giving anyone any spoilers, I do highly recommend people check out Joey Paul's very 'disabled friendly', and diverse cast of characters in the Invisible series.
And last but not least, it hit the 30th of June, very last day, last day of the Authortube Writers Conference where everyone enjoyed Manic Monday where prizes were given. And I started my day by telling people that, okay, well, yeah, I had a lot of imposter syndrome, blah blah blah. And as soon as I'd finished having those conversations and closing those chats, I was immediately faced with my name in big letters on an Instagram post with four copies stacked of Drawing Red, my debut novel, advertising the fact that I'm going to be speaking to a YA readers group in person, which I rarely leave the house, maybe four or five times a year total for something non-medical related. I'm basically housebound with my illnesses. And the imposter syndrome came back full force. And then I hopped back in the in the messages and I'm like, um, okay. Does anyone have tips for this or how to deal with this? If anyone in the comment section has tips for going and speaking to readers in person, then please do tell. I am all ears. The one thing I've never thought about was merch.
Oh, yes. So, you you've now spotted my face. It's quite cool. The cat has now spotted my faces moving on the webcam type phone type software and he's tracking it. Nope. Nope. Lost interest. Okay.
I had never considered merch beyond actual formats of my novel, but here I am. I've designed a bookmark. I hope they turn up in good quality. I really do.
And oh, and he's lying on the desk. That's new. Okay, it's a good thing I'm not typing much in this video. My keyboard has been literally physically shunted out of the way. No. Huh? That that that's a cable tie. We do not chew cable ties. Okay. No. Uh-uh. Come on. You've already given me enough vets bills between you and your brother this year. Come on. The sooner we get this finished without interruptions, the sooner I can turn the fans back on for sound issues. Okay, where was I? Oh my god, this... this heat. What is this heat? I'm going to put a fan on anyway just for me. You may or may not hear it. I don't know. But at this point, I needed to not faint at my desk, even with my feet up in this heat because heat rises. This writing area is upstairs in a house.
So, I've created a bookmark. On the reverse side of that are my contact details. So, it kind of acts like a bookmark/ business card. I costed up separate business cards. I'm just like, I don't think I'd have any need for them. But, if any readers do want to contact me, then they can feel free. If any other authors or anyone who ever picks up my book or interacts with it in some sort of a real life capacity, I can hand them out. Maybe I can take them with me as adverts. Hey, you want to know about my book? Here. And hand it out. That's all cuz I've got the handle of all my socials, which I've been trying now to get blanket across all of my platforms as the same thing. So, the name will be AdaraSpenceAuthor with the handle of AdaraWrites. I think it works. Originally, I had multiple things. I was trying multiple things out, which I think for the first year on social media isn't that bad. But now, I've finally decided on something. I can stick with it and I'm happy. So, yay.
I upgraded my static PNGtuber type model to this live 2D model. The static PNGtuber model uses software called Veadotube. And this model, I use lots of different things to get this running, but the software in particular, I use something called iFacialMoCap on a mobile phone, which links to software on a PC called VBridger, which then links to Vtube Studio, which then links to Open Broadcasting Software, which is how I control my streams to you. I've had a lot of questions about that. You can get your models from all over the place if you want any, including but not limited to places like Etsy. Some people use Fiverr and some people use a website called VGEN. Some of this software is free, some of it's not. I would always recommend starting from free and then doing little things to boost your presence in the VTuber space if you want to continue that. I don't class myself as a full VTuber with a character and law. Technically, I am a pen name anyway, but people know what I look like. It's even on the banner on my channel, and I've shown myself in a bunch of videos now for years. This model is mainly for video purposes because still to this day, I find it uncomfortable to be on camera. Um, I've also had people reach out to me about the whole VTuber thing and how it works. I hope that my messages to them on places like Instagram have been helpful, too. There are a ton of videos out there that you can research for how to run a setup with the equipment that you already have and where to find models. And I would encourage people to research it if this is something that interests them, because of this model. It- it tends to lead people down the anime track, and we did start talking about anime plot lines and the differences between how to write anime plot lines and how to change some of how you advertise what they are in the terminology for wider readership which was a nice little discussion at the end in my speech.
My goals for the second half of the year: I want to record the audiobook of Drawing Red. That may take a long time with a lot of editing and a lot of re-records. I don't know. We'll see how long it takes. The rest of it, I think it's ambitious for me in particular to say I want to write a complete draft after finishing plotting a novel and I want to start revisions on something. So instead, I'm going to say I'm going to start writing the first draft of a novel and I would like to start writing revisions. This is my first time really jumping into multiple projects at once. At one point, I tried to revise Drawing Red while plotting book two at the same time. That didn't work. And I wonder if it's because it's a different series. If I do something in a different genre, will it be different enough that I can balance the two? I hope so.
But yeah, paranormal romantic comedy. That idea of this book has gotten me through so many different difficult moments in time from now all the way through to this time last year. It has been a very pu- tough time with health, health related things happening in the household and outside of the household and especially when parts then of Drawing Red's sequel hit a bit too close to home and got a bit dark in some places. They always say book two is the hardest and I would agree. Book three I'm having a whale of a time and it seems to be going so much faster with the plotting. I need still need to wrap my head more around the specifics of how certain things play out. I don't know how much to plot of that one and how much to leave to circumstance and just imagination as I go. So I have plotted the main beats for both the Romancing the Beat and the Save the Cat.
Okay, this brain fog is really really bad today. But this happens the day after it's been a warm night. It's always the worst in terms of POTS. Always. I just can't concentrate. And this is one of the reasons I like having this avatar to talk for me because me in real life now is a mess with the POTS. And the the one thing you would never see on this channel is things like me putting on makeup or things like just pouring out tea or coffee or things. I don't have the energy for those things. I have bottled water because it's saves me from having to walk or use my wheelchair to get to and from a tap. Um, I really have limited energy. And for anyone else who has brain fog, I highly recommend you check out Brett's channel, who is The Foggy Author. He is doing fantastically well with this channel, and I've been enjoying his live streams and his little video updates every week. And he always has consideration for how to live life with this brain fog. So, it's good to know there are other authors out there with it.
So, that has been my half-year check-in. I will see you at New Year to see what I have done and where I will be going from here. And that's all for me. Bye.
Credits - Art:
Static PNGtube model: Picrew avatar by Faelions on X
Chibi PNGtuber model: Created by vtuber_graphics on Fiverr
Vtube model: @hayukiiii on X
Images: Adara Spence or canva.com
Credits - Music:
Lo-fi Playlist: various artists from chillhop.com
Ending theme – Adara Spence
