I have finally created a Wattpad account. And immediately found myself feeling overwhelmed and out of my depth. I’ll get over it I’m sure. For now the first step is done and I can be proud of my efforts. My next step was to post ‘Red on canvas’ but seeing all the other professional looking stories on Wattpad made me doubt what my short story even is. This too I have to get over. Having my short story up will be my introduction and seeing that somebody may have read it or to possibly receive feedback would be mind-blowing.
The others big steps (outside of Wattpad) include setting up on YouTube and actually recording the videos, looking in to recording my own voice or using AI and also sourcing writing done by others rather than just relying on my own. In addition to Youtube and Wattpad I am to set up on other social media and look in to podcasts but for now I just have to take it one step at a time. And actually try and get some writing done – it’s not much good setting all of these up when I don’t really have much to post to them.
The two days in work since my last update were pretty rubbish but without anything too exciting nor scandalous to report back. I’ve had my unofficial job offer from my old boss and I feel a tad underwhelmed but all the important bits are there. I have to give him a call at some point to discuss a few things and then once we’re agreed I assume an official job offer will come through with some semblance of an actual contract. He wants me to start as soon as possible but as I have mentioned before I would prefer to wait until the new year.
The other day I was saying to Penny that I vaguely remember a website where you could type out letters you want to send to somebody (including yourself) at a certain date in the future and right now I’d love to do this. I’ll have to have a look if there are any websites like this. I guess I could just write an email to be sent on a certain date. There a few reasons I would like to do this but one is to write a letter to myself to arrive in roughly a year’s time.
Maybe I’m somewhere on the spectrum between optimistic and head in the clouds but I do believe that by Christmas of next year my life will be completely different.
I don’t think I’ll be working as an electrician any more but if I am then I’m confident it will be somewhat on my terms. I’ll be going back to work for my old company which suits me better and will only leave that for something better for me. This last year has been made up of six jobs and with each one I left for one that not only offered better quality of life but also more money and hopefully this trend will continue if I do stay with electrics.
As I say ideally I won’t be working as an electrician at all. I’ll be working for myself, in a sense, from home. In addition to my main source of income I’ll have two or three supplementary means of income that I’m working to build and grow. I’m not thinking of my writing as a source of income but for sure I’ll be dedicating more time for this. I’ll have more of my writing on the blog but also across socials (from this point forward the term socials includes Wattpad and YouTube) and hopefully I’ll have something of a following with a few people enjoying what I write and looking forward to updates. By updates I mean a new chapter in a story not so much my journal updates but if they enjoy and look forward to those too I’ll be overjoyed. I’m hoping my crypto investments will have earned me a few quid by then but this will be the cherry on the cake more than anything of substance I’ve achieved through hard work.
Finally I want to address how my race to fifty blog posts is going. It turns out that when I said I had X amount of posts until fifty I was wrong. One of my blog posts was an unpublished draft that I have since deleted. It isn’t like anybody is counting but if they were I’d like them to know this is post number forty-eight and I’m certain forty-nine and fifty will be posted before we enter December. Very exciting times.
I can’t really put in to words how much better I’m feeling lately and I put a fair amount of the reason behind that the fact I’m putting effort in to posting blog updates regularly. I’m also making great progress on DuoLingo and, silly as it may be, that makes me feel good. These type of things become a positive feedback loop. I feel better for doing them and in turn feeling better causes me to do more. Rinse and repeat.
I’m hoping that I enter in to similar cycles with writing fiction and posting on socials. I feel that having these things in my personal life would very much help me get through the more difficult days at work.
I’ve found myself dedicating more time and focus to reading too. I always feel better when I read more. Stephen King’s ‘Cell’ is what I’m slowly making my way through at the moment. As I’ve mentioned previously I’m actually reading the physical book as opposed to listening to the audiobook which has been my method of consumption for the last couple of years. I have at least three more physical books to get through when this one is finished. I want to try to read for at least fifteen minutes before bed as a habit as this aids sleep and stops me from being on my phone immediately before going to sleep. Perhaps I’ll get my old Kindle out and use that going forward rather than Audible. Pet Semetary and The Book Thief are high on my list of next reads but until recently my plan was to get the audiobooks. I would also like to read that online series Worm, I’ll have to find the best way to read that on a device so it’s more like a Kindle than a phone. A tablet with the blue light filter on and brightness down or something. I’ll look in to it.
I wonder if one day people will debate whether to get the physical book, Kindle or audiobook version of something I wrote. Wouldn’t that be wild. And I imagine those of you in the future that may read this or follow my journey will feel that sense of accomplishment too; like when you would discover an artist online and enjoy their work then see them start to get some recognition, I love that feeling.