Aesthetics – Academy Project

I hope you liked my second aesthetics post, because I wanted to share another one.

This is the one I made for the Academy project:

A collage with 9 different squares over a green background.

First row, left to right:
Blurry snowdrops among the green grass bathed by the light of dawn or dusk.
A small cemetery, with a few tombstones and a mausoleum in the background.
A striking purple gladiolus flower.

Second row, left to right:
A basket full of yarn.
The central square has "ACADEMY. Sol Vera" written in an art noveau font on top of a square that's a darker shade of green than that of the background.
A close-up of a violin.

Third row, left to right:
A neat stack of old books on a wooden table.
A green lane in front of an old university building.
A whirlwind of books and notebooks, all open on some surface, like someone is in the middle of studying.

After the last Word Count Update, this became the project with the second lowest word count among those in the list, so I’m trying to find some inspiration via this aesthetics post. I’m surprised it did so good on my earlier word count posts, because it used to be a knock-off of my Alcalá project at the very beginning (over two years ago). I had an idea for a story and I’d been wondering whether it would be better to tend towards fantasy or historical romance. In the end, I said “Why not both?”.

So yes, the Academy project started as the High Fantasy Romance version, but now it has very little to do with the other project. This one has magic in it! Yes, there’s a university of magic.

I wanted to finish one of my stories for The Pact, so I started this one thinking it would be easier. It’s all fantasy, right? So it doesn’t need the enormous amount of research a Historical Romance does, I thought.

And maybe I’m right, but then things got complicated and the story ended up needing a lot of research I haven’t finished yet. Well, I guess you never really finish doing research for your book. Not even once the book is published and suddenly you find something you could have used in your book. Ah, how I long to be able to feel those regrets…

Anyway, this one is an enemies-to-lovers set in a fantasy world where there’s a university, there’s magic, and there’s they-were-roommates. I’m still struggling with some of the plot points, like deciding how evil the villain is (I think I mentioned that in one of my posts and, well, it was about this story), but making this collage I realized the villain was not that important. I had started to think like the main character, while I should have a broader perspective.

I know better now, thanks to these aesthetics posts!

Disclaimers:

I’ve made all of these collages using free stock photos (and a couple of personal photos) on Canva, so to my knowledge all of them were free to use. Please let me know if that’s not the case for any of the photos.

All of these WIPs are still in progress, so everything is tentative. Things may change as the stories and the characters develop. Also, the images I’ve chosen might not be 100% accurate, but they have some elements that might be important within the story.

Word Count – August 2021

I know it’s almost October, but I couldn’t add the word count on my last update, so I decided to make a separate post and it became one of my goals for this month.

And here we are! I’ve made some graphs to help me keep track of my word count!

Line graph on a purple background that looks like someone used a paint roller on a lilac wall. On the x-axis, 5 different dates appear: November 2020, January 2021, March 2021, June 2021 and August 2021. The number of words appears on the y-axis, which ranges from 0 to 150,000. There are 8 lines with different colors and all of them but one overlap.
Blue: It's the highest by far, since it starts from the 100,000 line and rises a little more before stabilizing.
Gray: Starts as the second highest, around 25,000 and goes up quite a bit from January to March, then stagnates, then goes up again.
Turquoise: Starts as the third line, but immediately stagnates and is overtaken by all of the rest except one.
Orange: Very stagnant. It overlaps with the turquoise at the beginning and with the green before the end, then becomes the last project according to the number of words.
Green: It overlaps with several at the beginning and with the orange one before the end, then has a steep increase and goes from the last position to the fifth position, overlapping with the yellow one once more. Yellow: It overlaps with several at the beginning, then it stagnates, but it rises a lot later on and ends up together with the yellow one.
Brown: Overlapped at the beginning. It is not known where it comes from, but it ends up in fourth position. Violet: Goes from the last position to the second position. — Made with Canva

As I mentioned on my post about Burnout, last year I decided to change my goals from writing as much as I could to writing 100 words per day to avoid feeling overwhelmed and getting stuck. And it’s been working pretty well, I think! I used to hate word counting, but being able to check how I’m doing every 2-3 months has helped me realize I’m writing more than I think.

Oracle already had a very high word count because it’s my oldest project and I’ve been adding words for over 10 years, but take a look at the others! Remember that I count all the words because research and outlines are part of writing, so the number of words is not the same as in the manuscripts, but they all count towards my goal.

Sanctuary is my newest project and it’s already ahead of the rest. Brothers is probably the second project I started, over 6 years ago, so it’s normal to see it in third place. Alcalá has seen an increase this year because I’ve done a lot of research for that project. Feathers and Fireflies keep intertwining in a beautiful pattern, with Fireflies’ word count greatly increasing in recent months thanks to a related short story I was writing. Academy has seen a slow increase, but it’s not doing that badly. And the last one, Heroes, still has way more words than I expected before I started counting.

You can see more about my projects here.

Vertical bar graph on a purple background with flowers outlined in a darker shade of purple. On the left, one can see the names of the projects. Below, the number of words. The bars grow towards the right and have stripes with different shades of blue representing the different months.
The bars go from longest to shortest.
Oracle: Either doubles or triples the length of the others, but it is because of the first stripe, the lightest one.
Sanctuary: It has five distinct stripes and has managed to surpass 50,000 words. The first to achieve it after Oracle.
Brothers and Alcalá: usually very evenly matched, but Alcalá has a very wide third stripe, while Brothers has a fifth stripe that helps it go a little further, managing to get third place at the last moment.
Feathers: It does not have a second stripe, but it has a very visible fourth stripe because there was a month in which I only added words to this project.

Fireflies: Used to be pretty even with the Heroes Project, but has a much wider fifth stripe that makes it more even with the Feathers Project now.
Academy: Very narrow third and fifth stripes, while the fourth is nonexistent.
Heroes: has a wide first stripe, but not many more shades of blue afterwards. — Made with Canva

And, in this second graph, you can see how words got added to each project. The darker the colour, the closer to the present. But please keep into account that the lightest colour can cover several years in projects like Oracle and Brothers.

So now we all know how my writing is going, and I got to visualise how I’m writing more now that my daily goal is just 100 words. I just hope I can keep it up!

Would you like to see more Word Count updates like this one?

Aesthetics – Heroes Project

I hope you liked my first aesthetics post, because I wanted to share another one.

This is the one I made for the Heroes project:

A collage with 9 different squares.

First row, left to right:
Make-up pallettes with bright colours.
The Tower Bridge in London.
A rainbow flag made of glitter.

Second row, left to right:
A fox stretching with its tongue out.
The central square has "HEROES. Sol Vera" written in blocky letters directly on top of the royal blue background.
A black cat is hissing.

Third row, left to right:
A group of friends walking while hugging each other.
The "oso and madroño" statue in Madrid's Puerta del Sol.
A lonely man sitting down in front of the wavy sea.

I wanted to do this project next because it’s the one with the second lowest word count among those in the list, so I’m trying to think about it and write a bit more. I’m always surprised when I realize this project placed so high in the first of my word count posts, because I always had the feeling I’d barely started and would probably never finish it. The rest of the WIPs have surpassed it in the last year, but I’m still confused when I see it has more than 1000 words.

As you know, it was supposed to be a superhero short story set in Spain, but will probably end up being something longer. It’s contemporary, set mainly in Madrid, and the main characters have superpowers and use alter egos to fight crime and injustice. Depression and anxiety are very relevant to the story, maybe as much as in Fireflies or even more.

I’m very unsure about this project, since it covers very difficult subjects, but it’s supposed to be mainly fun. It’s hard to balance things out while treating the heavy subjects with the depth and seriousness they deserve. I may need more experience to make sure I don’t bungle things up. And a sensitivity reader or two.

At the beginning, this WIP was just a game. I was having fun imagining how Spanish superheroes would look like, how the stereotypes could be used or subverted, and what they would fight against. But would it make sense without a superhero that was more or less the opposite of the main character? That’s when things started to get complicated. I’m still wondering whether I should keep going forward or just revert the project to its early stages: a fun short story with lots of stereotypes that could be read as satirical by those who are familiar with the image of the American superhero.

I’ll have to think about it.

Disclaimers:

Aesthetics – Fireflies Project

I wanted to start posting something different, and the only good idea I had was to share aesthetics with some information about my WIPs. I hope you find these posts interesting!

First, a disclaimer: I’ve made all of these collages using free stock photos (and a couple of personal photos) on Canva, so to my knowledge all of them were free to use (or mine). Please let me know if that’s not the case for any of the photos (for instance, if you recognise your photo and it was uploaded illegally to Canva).

A second disclaimer: all of these WIPs are still in progress, so everything, even the titles (especially the titles), is tentative. Things may change as the stories and the characters develop. Also, the images I’ve chosen might not be 100% accurate, but they have some element that will be important within the story (if it remains there in the future).

And now that you know that, here is the aesthetic I made for the Fireflies project:

A collage with 9 different squares.

First row, left to right:
Fog lifting among green mountains in Asturias.
Two men at the beach.
A hill in Galicia, covered in green, with a narrow path.

Second row, left to right:
A ginger cat looking at the camera with golden eyes.
The central square has "Fireflies. Sol Vera" written in fancy letters on top of a dark green square that contrasts with the lighter olive background.
A brown Labrador is laying on its bed and looking to the left.

Third row, left to right:
San Lorenzo beach in Gijón with the church and the green mound in the background.
A small, hidden mountain lake.
The San Pedro church that appeared in the background on the image of the beach.

I decided to start with this project because it’s the one with the lowest word count on the list, and I wanted to give it some love. I was surprised when I realized this project came last if we just focus on the word count, because it used to be among the first ones in that regard. It’s not that I haven’t written much about it, because I’ve already started the first draft, but that the rest of the WIPs have grown so much in the last two years that they left Fireflies behind.

As you know, it was supposed to be a low fantasy short story, but will probably end up being something longer. It’s contemporary, set in northern Spain, and has both animals and fantasy elements. The fantasy part is related to Spanish myths and legends, which have strong ties with Celtic mythology in the north.

There’s also an illustration made by Helen T Kord that you can see here. So now you know a lot about the main characters and their pets! At the moment, the one holding the cat is the narrator of the WIP. He has anxiety issues and is trying to recover.

At the beginning, this WIP was two separate projects: the one about anxiety and the one about mythology. But they were lacking something, and soon I realized they had to become one and the same. It just makes more sense this way!

Writing with Burnout

If you have burnout, this is not a post about what you should do, but about what I’ve been doing so far. You might find something helpful here, and that would make me the happiest person on Earth, but this post is mainly a reminder for myself because it’s hard to break the habits that caused the Burnout in the first place. At least, it’s good to know that you’re not alone in your struggle, so I hope you take that away, if nothing else.

Burnout is a syndrome that affects people with chronic stress. According to the World Health Organization, burnout is an occupational phenomenon, specifically work-related, and its symptoms are:

“feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion;
increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and
reduced professional efficacy.”

For writers, it can cause what is commonly known as writer’s block.

In fact, when I wrote my post about fighting writer’s block, you will have noticed that I linked it to my anxiety, burnout and depression. That’s because writer’s block is not a cause: it’s a symptom.

In my case, I frequently feel exhausted, I often hate my writing or think I should give up, and I sometimes can’t keep writing, no matter how hard I try (the actual block). I’m glad to let you know that I’m getting better little by little, especially the last part. But I confess that, when my burnout was at its worst, there were times in which I just wanted to throw my whole computer through the window, burn my notebooks and forget about writing.

Well, good thing I started going to therapy instead of doing that, right? Because, in order to get better, this is what I had to do:

Stopped writing or doing anything stressful that wasn’t necessary (hiatus).
Got a diagnostic from a mental health professional and started behaviour therapy with a psychologist.
Tried to change my habits once I started writing again after the long hiatus.
Stopped doing anything that could relate to my job when I’m relaxing after work.
Allowed myself to be mediocre, following Tim Wu’s opinion article.

Of course, each person has a different road to recovery, and I’m still working on my new habits with my psychologist: after the hiatus, I wrote only one day per week for a couple of years, and I’m now writing more often, but only 100 words per day and taking good care to stop and rest when I realize it’s getting worse. I try not to be a perfectionist, just writing what comes to mind. I will worry about making it sound better during revisions, but I don’t want to get stuck on one place for long. I keep changing projects, in fact, instead of trying to focus on one single project. Yes, writing will go even slower than before, but at least I’m getting somewhere now and not torturing myself too much in the process.

I’m also still looking for new hobbies I can use to relax after work. And I want them to be something I don’t monetize, I want to not care about being good or bad at them. It’s very difficult to “allow myself to be mediocre”, but I want to learn. What I took from Tim Wu’s article is that being mediocre means doing stuff for yourself just because you want to, even if you’re not good at it. My anxiety tries to make me feel guilty, and some days are worse than others, but I think I’m ready to take on a new hobby now that my good days are getting better with each passing month.

I was lucky, I guess, because I could take a 2-3 year hiatus from writing while still looking for a psychologist and working on my translations (which is the stressful thing that had to remain, as it was necessary to have a paying job). If your work is writing, it might be more difficult to achieve, but, on the other hand, the sooner you start and the more you rest, the better you’ll heal. I’m still having trouble with burnout, especially lately, and it’s probably because I never got to stop completely and rest.

So if you can stop writing for a while, I encourage you to do so. If you’re afraid you won’t go back to writing after taking a break, let me tell you now: you’ll write again.

My first writing hiatus was 10 years long. My second writing hiatus was 2-3 years long. I’ve been taking shorter breaks for the past 3 years.

But I’m still here.

The first time, I also thought I would never write again. I didn’t even try. There was just this story I kept thinking about. The characters would always be in my mind and, one day, I opened a notebook a friend had just gifted me and decided to write everything down so I could stop thinking about it and focus on other things I needed to get done.

As you can see, it didn’t work the way I expected, but I’m very glad it went this way.

Summary

If you don’t want to read everything, just know that these are the steps I take when my burnout is getting worse and I want to write:

I just don’t write: Seriously, even if I want to. It’s hard, but if you take 2-3 days before it gets too bad, you won’t need to take 2-3 years when it’s gotten worse.
I go to see my therapist: Not everyone can afford this, I know, but please do try if you can find a way (NGOs, universities, the hospital, etc). I had to wait one year just to get an appointment because there’s a long queue for those of us who can’t afford a private doctor, but it was worth the wait.
Writing session goals: I used to hate word-counting because I always felt like a slow writer. I wanted to write 1000 words per day, and I spent 10 hours looking at a blank page instead. Now my goal is 100 words per day, and I try to make it an average and not an obligation.
Feasible monthly goals: I used to set goals that were too ambitious. Maybe they were feasible as well, but then I had to work long hours, or something came up, and I couldn’t reach my goals. That only made me feel guilty, so now I choose goals I know I’m going to reach for sure. Still, sometimes I can’t, so I swap them and try again the following month. Instead of feeling guilty, I get to feel accomplished!

These tips may not work for everyone, but they work for me, as my Word Count posts can prove. Please take into account that I’m counting everything, not just the manuscript. This is very important to me because I think worldbuilding and research also count as writing.

The Oracle project is too old, over 10 years now, so let’s look at one of the others.

Brothers is very old as well. I’ve been writing that one for… 6 years, maybe? It’s mostly just world building and research. But, until last year, I’d been focusing on writing for one project each time, 1000 words per day, trying to write even when I had to work long hours, and the result was… a disaster. In 6 years, I’d written 19000 words on the Brothers project. Do you know how many words that project has now? 43000 words in total. That’s 24000 words in eight months. And yes, that’s 100 words per day, but as I said, now I don’t focus on one project, so I haven’t been writing only that.

One of my newest projects is Sanctuary. I started it last year, and by November I had written 6000 words. Right now it has about 60000 words. That makes one think, doesn’t it?

I might need to keep adapting to the situation and taking better care of myself. Right now, my Burnout is getting worse and I need to rest more often. I also need to find the new hobbies I mentioned. I’ve been playing videogames and watching series, but I would like to do something craft-related and not too expensive. Do you have any ideas? Do you already have hobbies you only for your own enjoyment? Or do you find yourself thinking of your new hobby as something you MUST do?

If you want to talk more about burnout (or anything else) or ask anything about my experience, just let me know. I’m always willing to help if I’m able to.

If you want to read more about this topic on my blog, I also wrote a post about “Writing with Anxiety“.

There's a Halloween skeleton covered in papers and being attacked by a laptop. The skeleton is trying to push the laptop open, but the laptop is closing over the skeleton's head. The skeleton is looking towards us, making it seem like there's a look of desperation in its face. — Photo by Tara Winstead on Pexels.com

Art – More chibi characters by Helen T Kord

Remember I shared some chibi characters made by Helen T Kord a while ago? Well, I’m bringing you two more chibis to add to my commissioned art collection. This time, the characters belong to a different WIP: the Brothers project.

Two men stand below a tree in a field. On the left there's a man with long brown hair, brown eyes and a beard. He's wearing a long cape, a white shirt, a mustard yellow and dark breeches. A glimpse of a short sword can be seen against his hip. He's smiling mischievously and letting his elbow rest on the other man's shoulder.
The man on the right is shorter, younger, blond and blue-eyed. He's looking away from the other man and has a dignified look while his arms are crossed. He's wearing a short cape, a white ruff, a sword, a black doublet, mustard yellow breeches and tight stockings.

Brothers is a Historical Romance set in Madrid (Spain) during the second half of the 16th Century. This project is still in its research phase, so it could change a lot, but these are the main characters for now. One of them is Spanish, the other one is a foreigner. They are not the brothers the placeholder WIP title mentions or, to be more accurate, only one of them is, so I hope I can finish this project one day and commission a mirror image with the other brother.

You already know Helen T Kord is the person with the most impeccable taste I’ve ever met, but they’re also an amazing artist who can make chibis come to life like this. And they also make portraits and illustrations! Please do check their work and commission information in the following links:

Scrivener

I’ve shared some tips and a masterlist for prospective writers (there’s a second masterlist here) and I’ve just realized that I never explained what Scrivener is, thinking that everyone would know better than me. But I believe that having a writing blog is all about sharing how you understand and use things because every writer is unique and your way might resonate with someone out there. So here I am, about to tell you some things you should know about Scrivener.

First, you should know I use Scrivener for Windows, so I’ve been a Scrivener 1 user for years, and I’ve recently upgraded to Scrivener 3. Good news, everyone: if you own a license for Scrivener 1 or Scrivener 2 (only available for Mac), you’ll get an awesome discount for Scrivener 3. You just need to download the free trial and then click on “Upgrade from an older version” when this window pops up:

Screenshot of the Scrivener pop-up window where they prompt you to Enter your License, buy a new license or continue with the trial version.

Anyway, for those of you who don’t know Scrivener: yes, you can download a trial version here. The trial is the actual program, no limitations until the trial period ends. Moreover, the trial period is 30 days, but they don’t have to be consecutive, so you might be able to enjoy it for 30 weeks if you just use it once per week. If you want to see whether Scrivener would be good for you, I encourage you to use the trial version, because it’s very difficult to know unless you’ve familiarized yourself with the program and used it for a while. I’ve been a user for years and have just decided to take advantage of some advanced features I’d been ignoring until now, so you can definitely do that too.

Scrivener can be a bit overwhelming at first, but they have a very nice tutorial, and you can choose whether you want to learn only the basics. I’ve completed the whole tutorial at least three times because I keep forgetting stuff, but it’s not necessary. Scrivener is very user-friendly, so you can just choose a template for your new project and start writing. For me, the best approach would be to try different things and find out what you want to keep, make a template (I’m working on that at the moment), and use it on all of your projects from that point on.

But why do I use Scrivener? Well, I first bought it because I needed a program that would save automatically, create backups, and allow me to have everything (research, images, writing) related to one project (my thesis) in one place. Basically, I use it because I’m forgetful and scatterbrained. It’s also incredibly easy to compare information with the split screen, and you can now have over 5 files open at the same time if you use the new Copyholder and Quick Reference functions:

A screenshot of five files open on the same Scrivener project by splitting the editing window in two, using copyholders for both files, then a Quick Reference on a floating window.

Now that I’m using Scrivener for my personal projects, I find myself appreciating its organizing features more and more: the corkboard, the labels, the targets, the metadata… And these have improved in the new Scrivener 3, where now there’s a freeform corkboard, a label thread, section types, a revision mode, bookmarks, a daily target calculator (useful when you have a deadline), etc. Scrivener 3 even has themes and a name generator! But, even before I started using any of those features, I liked Scrivener because it was very easy to organize the project into different folders and documents, so I could have a folder for the Manuscript, one for the Characters, one for the Settings and another for the Research. The text could be split into different documents for each chapter or scene, and they could be compared or swapped around easily.

A screenshot of the Scrivener Tutorial, showing the different folders and documents on the left sidebar.

All in all, Scrivener is a very versatile tool, and not expensive at all if you take into account that you’re buying a license. I’ve been using my first license for almost 10 years on 8 different computers bought in 3 different countries, customer support has been super fast the only time I’ve needed them, and they don’t force you to upgrade if you don’t want to. But I still encourage you to try it out before you buy it, because it’s not a tool for everyone. By the way, November is a good month to try it out because sometimes they have special offers during NaNoWriMo.

I don’t want to make this unnecessarily long, because you already have the tutorial and the official website explaining all the different features, but now you can use the comments section if you need anything. Please let me know if you have any questions and I’ll try to answer them to the best of my ability.

Art – Character design II by RoyalSea Art

As promised last week, I come bearing more art! This time, it’s the other main character from the Sanctuary Project:

A skinny creature with purple skin, big white eyes and elongated limbs is holding a blue bioluminiscent butterfly. The light reflects on his very big eyes. The hair is long, and black and white.

As I said in the previous Sanctuary post, this WIP was going to be a High Fantasy short story full of atmospheric vibes and aesthetics, but it will be a bit longer than I expected. I think I mentioned it is set underground, so there are characters who don’t look like your regular human. Such is the case of this (literal) cave dweller who is trying to follow his dreams… even if his friends and family don’t understand him. There are many places he wants to visit and views he wants to see and, among his people, that might be a bit peculiar.

The artwork was done by RoyalSea Art, who is amazing at character design, as you can see. Please do check their work and commission information in the following links:

By the way, they were kind enough to make a spoilerific version of this character so we could all see how he’ll look like.
You can see it below if you don’t mind spoilers.

The character looks exactly the same as the one above, but the hair is completely white.