Adara VS Oct 25 ~ Reflection & Refocus
This month I’m looking back at my author activities in October 25, exploring themes of reflection and renewal.
Video Image Description: Shows a desk, with a laptop and monitor on a stand. There is an anime avatar representing Adara. Adara has purple hair and light blue bangs. In chibi mode she has white feathers covering the ears, a black collar with a heart emblem, and a dark green/blue checkered shirt with white t-shirt. In her vtube model she wears a grey and white hoodie and has white feathers. Periodically shows black cat curled up on a red blanket by a window. Intermittent generic backgrounds of libraries and books. The ending screen shows a banner advertising Drawing Red, with a link to www.adaraspence.com/books. The paperback and ebook cover of Drawing Red shows a teenage girl drawing in a notebook with a large protective red and white wolf standing protectively behind her. It's set in a moonlit forest. The hardback cover is black with a grey outline of a tree on it.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to my October roundup video. I'm Adara, author of the paranormal romance and sci-fi fusion novel Drawing Red. I'm away from my desk at the moment, so I'm in Chibi form.
October was a month of reflection and renewal for me. First, I set up a new live 2D VTuber avatar, which I debuted earlier this month, and I've been using to hold writing sprints. I love it. It's kind of ink and drawing inspired, and the rigging is fantastic. I love how expressive it is. I'll link the launch video in the cards.
In terms of writing project updates, the audio book version of Drawing Red is still ongoing. I discovered a new video transition in Da Vinci Resolve that is making things a lot smoother. It will be recorded with my previous VTuber model.
Drawing Red's sequel is drafted but on the back burner for the read through or whenever I feel like it. It is very heavy reading.
I am however actively drafting the first draft of my paranormal romantic comedy which is set on the week of Halloween. I couldn't not work on it with the time of year. It seemed right to write it. I wanted more Halloween themes in it. So, I created a list of 78 Halloween themed words and then I assigned them at a random to each of the 25 chapters to be written in somehow. It works out at about three or four per chapter and it's proving a fun challenge.
In other news, I did my first author visit to a local library where I answered a lot of questions about writing and author life. I kind of feel like I've come full circle on that one because I remember going there as a young teenager and now here I am going back as an adult and an author. That was my one non-medical trip out of the house in October.
In terms of work life balance, I attempted in October to track my time and it showed how majorly distracted I have gotten with streaming software, Vtubing software and all that sort of stuff. And arguably needed potentially, I launched a laidback channel which is Adara Unwinds. And yeah, I also set up the new VTuber model and they both distracted me a lot. I tried to set a schedule for Adara Unwinds, which by the title in itself kind of goes against what the spirit of that is about, and I couldn't maintain it due to life circumstances. Streams there will be very laidback, so games or reading quietly with sprints. VODs will be up there on YouTube. Live sessions will be on Twitch mainly because YouTube isn't letting the channel live stream yet. It is still so new and I need to create like a channel history before I can do that. I'm calling my book kind of reading sprints there Adara's reading room. It's really laidback with chimes to signal starts and ends of sprints and things. My current reading there are light novels in the villainess variety and I am loving it. It's very laidback and a way to decompress when I've been working hard and the majority of the time you will be accompanied by this chibi avatar.
I have also made a return to streaming live write-ins on YouTube and that's been fun using my new live 2D model. I also have a funky new background for that which I adore which is this time detectives animated background. I love it. I love the magnifying glass, the clocks, kind of the old timey detective noir feel which just it adds something really something about the vibe. So I'm using that as kind of a virtual workspace.
I have also, to attempt to regain focus, released a series of video timers in 15minute increments. So 15 minute, 30 minute, 45 minute or an hour. And they have options for lo-fi or silent with chimes at the start and end of the sprints. I thought that was a good way to really refocus me in my time as well.
And on that note, I have set myself a goal for November, which is to write 500 words a day. It's hardly nanorimo. I get that. But it still works out at 15,000 words, which I think is realistic and respectable. Plus, I've set myself the goal to keep the audio book in production, and I will hopefully be producing one audio book chapter a week.
I'm only going to be recording time and progress tracked on the audio book or novels. I found I was doing so much extra, which yes, it kind of goes into hosting live streams for this channel, but I'm not going to bother counting that because that's not the actual writing itself or the producing of books, which is where I really need to try to be refocusing my energies.
In terms of live streams, I am still going to be trying to maintain, which I set up last month and I've been doing for the kind of the last two weeks or so, live writing sprints on Mondays here on Author Tube with my live 2D avatar. That will be UK time in the afternoon. So, morning time for you US folks. Unfortunately, I can't really give a specific time. That changes depending on what other appointments and things come up in terms of health care and other responsibilities. But I am always going to be at least trying to signpost that the day before. And there's also the chance of pop-up sprints every now and again. You never know. But I will always try to post that on all the social medias. My style during those write-ins are 25 minute sprints. So, true Pomodoro style with Lo-fi and 5 minute breaks. I try to do at least three of those sprints to make it worthwhile. Normally, I end up at about somewhere between 800 and 1,000 words. I'm hoping the more I get back into the groove of writing and drafting that the more I can produce. If you are online at the time, even if you can't stay, do pop in. Let me know that you're there. Say hi. More than welcome.
So, how did October go for you? And do you have any plans for November? Let me know in the comments. May the tech gremlins be satiated somewhere else. And I wish you all the words and creativity in November. Bye.
Credits
Animated chibi model: vtuber_graphics on Fiverr
Ink Live 2D Model: IAmKyoki on X
Ending theme – Adara Spence
Beloved - Sakura Girl https://soundcloud.com/sakuragirl_official
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY 3.0
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/3ji1zZc
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/omTgn4GQcKA -
Soon We'll Fly by Ghostrifter
Official https://bit.ly/ghostrifter-sc
Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0
Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/35reep7
Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/q2vomZqSJuE
