I haven't been posting any updates on my blog for weeks because I have been busy devoting time to a meaningful endeavor. A year after being affected by this ongoing lockdown, and after lengthy evening conversations with my friend Beth, I am finally taking a big leap.

I finally started a writing project after setting the plan aside for more than a year.  

While I have only started this endeavor around a month ago, doing this project has taught me several things. I remember telling Beth just days back, how this has gotten me involved. Despite having an unfinished assignment of the same kind around 15 years back, this is the first time that I took it seriously, applying a piece of practical advice I learned from a webinar that I attended last year: Write one chapter a day. 

I know you may think, writing a chapter is tough, what more is doing it every single day. Of course, I still take breaks every now and then. But the best part of religiously trying to follow that advice is getting a particular sense of accomplishment whenever I get to complete one.

This project drove me to use my mind creatively. Despite being unable to leave the house to do the things I usually do such as traveling to places and going to the beach for some dose of vitamin sea, it is through the power of imagination I got to write about a particular event properly. On a rather funnier note, it seemed that the power of creative imagining is teaching me well to describe events and people vividly. From how it is to be brought home drunk and wasted (when I don't drink to oblivion in real life), to describing a good-looking guy on the beach topless and with abs! (when I don't even care about it even if I've seen a lot of those in Korean dramas!). 

But of course, I also do some research like when a particular scene in one chapter happened in a foreign land, Google Earth became helpful for me to aptly describe a particular landmark as I draft the "potential scene" that will happen there. While there are some element of personal (as in real life) experiences in the assignment that I am currently working on, there still some scenes or events that I am not sure how to write about or do in writing so in this case, the notes I read in Beth's website as well as how-to pointers on Youtube became a good reference just to provide some idea. 

Another thing I enjoyed while doing this project is I learned to plot how the chapters and the whole story will go. It's challenging and sometimes, exhausting but of a good kind -- enough to let me sleep well at night. It has also allowed me to find inspiration even in simple, even old things. From old photographs, daily tasks, even conversations. The third one especially is what I loved most because, in this writing project, I use some of the conversations I had with real people to breathe life into the characters in a story. In a way, it shouts the reality in what I recently read: We write to tell the truths we wish we could say out loud. As I learned to befriend the characters, it feels as if I am finally getting to have that conversation I have always wanted to have with someone and telling that person the kind of truth that I have always wanted to say

It's only been a month since I began and I have hit the 15,000-word mark that I originally set for myself to accomplish. The work is progressing well and my beta-reading group is giving me the help and feedback that I need. While I don't have concrete plans yet on what to do next (as my plan, for now, is to finish the said assignment and give it an interesting, satisfying outcome), who knows, one day that will just appear on one platform. Possibilities are endless after all.