Writing Journey #24- The Plan for 2021

I HAVE A LOT OF PLANS for 2021. It’s been a rough start to the year, and I’ve been dealing with mental health issues. Primarily depression and social anxiety. It’s getting harder to deal with people and society, just on a general basis. And that’s without the state of the world and everything that is going on. I’m just done dealing with selfish, inconsiderate jerks on a daily basis. People, dude. Sigh. I mean, that’s a whole other topic, but I’ve been trying to preoccupy my time with creating.

However, there was a month where I just shut down creatively and socially. I had to. I’m so tired. Exhausted. I took some time away from social media and closed myself off. It’s getting harder to pull myself out of these funks, but I’m doing my best. Despite the fact, I’m planning to get some serious work out into the world this year.

SELF PUBLISHING is on the horizon. Firstly, I am underway with getting the first book polished and ready to publish! I am using AutoCrit and Grammerly to edit the manuscript. I purchased the Pro version of each, and they have a lot more editing power than the free version, of course.

They’re catching issues that I missed when I went through the whole book the first time around. It’s taking a little longer than I hoped because there’s a lot of things I need to fix, but it’ll be worth it in the end. It’s going well so far, and I’m excited about how the whole thing is turning out!

I’VE OUTLINED ALL THE BOOKS in the series. I have five books in the Hand of Rel plan, and they all have a definitive direction. The hope is that I will be able to bust them out a lot faster, especially with AutoCrit and Grammerly to back me up as editing software. My biggest issue with writing is always whether or not what I wrote is clear enough to understand? That and typos. This helps with that.

I bought a pretty nifty Bluetooth keyboard that allows me to write effortlessly on my phone. I’m using the Pages app, and it’s working well so far. I ordered a new, stronger PC at the beginning of the year, but unfortunately, it was never delivered. I was upset, aside from sinking hundreds of dollars into it, because it was supposed to be a way to up my creative game. But oh well, I have to work with what I’ve got.

I HAVE TWO AUDIO EPISODES READY. Heidi Tabing has reprised her role as Rel Rel, which is cool! I’m working on Chapters 1 & 2 of Hand of Rel: Social Panic. It isn’t anything fancy. I plan to have it narrated with character voices. I also want the words to pop up on the screen as the story is being told. I might have it all set to a Speed Drawing of the scene? Maybe. The audio is finished, I just have to edit a few more things, and it’ll be ready to go!

https://www.instagram.com/p/CNU5JK9DLOy/

I’M DESIGNING T-SHIRTS AND STICKERS. Every time I draw Rel Rel, I usually have her in a shirt with some cute design: dragons, game-related stuff, monsters, animals. You know. So my initial idea was to draw these designs so I could slap them onto the drawings and save time!

But as I was designing the creatures, I was like, “Hey! This would make a cool T-shirt. Maybe a sticker? Why not!” So I will be turning the designs into T-shirts and stickers on my Design by Humans shop. More designs are coming soon!

I CREATED MY OWN FONT! I wanted to use a font for my T-shirts, but I didn’t want to pay or possibly be sued by someone? I saw this video on Tiktok about how you can create custom fonts on Calligrapher.com. So, I tried it out, and bam! I made Hand of Rel Basic. It’s my own font. Mine! It’s so freaking cool!

I ALSO WANT TO DO MORE VIDEO GAME CONTENT. I love video games. They are a huge source of inspiration! And I feel like everyone should play games and be inspired by what they bring to the imagination.

So, I started playing games with my daughter and uploading them to Youtube. I stopped uploading for a month for the reasons stated above, but soon, I will start getting into the groove. I want to concentrate on Roblox, Don’t Starve Together, Genshin Impact, and Oculus Quest 2 content. I’ll eventually branch out into other games, but I think this will keep me occupied for a while. It’s something fun to do while I finish writing.

I REPLACED LINKTREE. I’ll still keep Linktree up since I have many older posts linked to it. But, I created my version of Linktree here on the website! So now, whenever anyone searches for my links, they’ll be directed to handofrel.com. I’m happy with how it turned out.

THANK YOU SO MUCH for reading! I’ll be back with another entry next time. Stay creative and make something! Tell the world your story in the way that only you can. Please take care, and God bless. Stay safe. Cheers!