This is MJ, I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
Welcome to Story Over Everything, episode 37 for October 13th. In this episode I will be sharing you with my author's log on Grow Bug Tales chapter 10 and a little bit of chapter 11, but it's mostly chapter 10.
So before I get into that, I just want to talk about my journey, because this is the chronicles of an author, artist, and analyzer. So I should probably chronicle not only my work, but also some of my thoughts on my work.
Which, by the way, these little 10 minute writing bursts, they're the right thing for me to do. I was thinking that, I don't know, I was probably 12 when I first saw Fast and the Furious, and a line from that movie stuck with me, but it's funny because it can be applied to many things.
And it was like one of the original memes, I think. It was, I live my life one quarter mile at a time. And I thought, that's super funny. I live my life one cheeseburger at a time. I live my life one video game at a time. I live my life one soda at a time. Whatever.
I'm in a position where, for me right now, it seems like the most effective way, the most focused way, the most disciplined way I can get myself to do my writing and my drawing, which I've fallen off my drawing. I've got to get back to that soon. Well, sooner rather than later.
Is to just say, I'm just going to do this for 10 minutes. I'm going to write for 10 minutes. I'm going to record it. I'm going to make some juicy content out of it. And it's going to build my book bit by bit. You know, dozens of words at a time.
Yeah, that's the only thing, that's the only thing I feel like I can do right now. And I want to do more. I aspire to do more. But until I'm at that place, I'm just going to live my life writing 10 minutes at a time.
And when I get back to drawing, then I'll be doing it then too. And I'm even doing for my podcast stuff. I'm trying to make those no longer than 10 minutes. And I failed.
Well, I have an ambition to do that. I'm just going to start training myself to do that and training people to expect that for me. So you want to be entertained for 10 minutes while I talk about something that we both enjoyed watching or reading. Great.
Come along. We'll do that. And that leaves me free. That leaves you free to do more or leaves us all free to do more with our time. I just discovered a praying mantis on a plant camouflaged into it. It's very cool. It's upside down. It's yellowish more than it is green.
And that's super satisfying. Anyway, so yeah, I, I, I don't know. I'm just finding my way and it's interesting. And I hope it's entertaining. I hope to some extent the journey is entertaining. But definitely for me, this, you know, this podcast is an accountability measure.
It helps me to stick with my program, my plan, my agenda, my schedule, I guess you could say even of getting words down, getting books written, you know, after I write, I'm gonna have to edit. Maybe, you know, will I be editing stuff 10 minutes at a time? Who knows?
That would be kind of weird, but that's also very doable to find 10 minutes and say, yeah, I'm just gonna edit now. So anyway, I, I don't know. I don't really have a concrete lesson. I'm just kind of more sharing what's going on. But at least for me for now, the, you know, doing the best I can, even if it's only 10 minutes at a time and, you know, one thing, you know, that's good enough.
But also I can suggest, well, why not find one thing you can do 10 minutes at a time, find two, three, four, five things you can do 10 minutes at a time. Even if you found six things you could do 10 minutes at a time, that's only one hour in a day.
And if you sleep eight hours, which you really should, you really, really should, it's good for your health. You have 16 hours left. If you're going to work eight to 12 hours, that means you've got eight to four hours left to do what you want to do.
That's not a lot of time, but if you can spend an hour of that doing what you want, then that means you have seven hours left to do other things that you have to do or three hours alternatively doing other things that you have to do. And I would think if, especially if you only have three hours of quote unquote free time, taking up to an hour to spend it doing what you want to do, something that's positive, something that's generative, something that's building and creative, and that will further you as a creative or just a regular person as a tinkerer.
As a welder, sculptor, artist, you know, if you go for a walk for an hour a day if you can or you know take a few 10 minute walks throughout the day, you know that stuff's going to make you feel better.
So I guess I'm saying, you know, the takeaway from this is to find the time, make the time, like to think about what you want to do and think about what gives you life like the writing and the drawing.
It gives me life. I feel so much better when I do it and I feel not great when I don't.
So even just taking the 10 minutes at a time to do either of those things really improves things for me.
And honestly, I'm going through a really tough time right now. It's been a lot of sleeplessness. I almost got sick like flu type thing.
It's been like two days. I've still, you know, every time I sneeze or cough, it hurts the back of my head real bad.
But I don't really mind it that much because I'm doing these things that I'm passionate about and these things that I want to do.
And honestly, it takes the sting off of the unpleasantness for me. So that's kind of wonderful.
And maybe that's something you can find for is true for yourself as well.
But you won't know until you run the experiment and try it for yourself.
So with that, I'm going to go ahead and fall silent for a bit, let the recordings play of my author's log.
There's actually seven full days worth of writing, 70 minutes of writing actually longer than that because each session was only about two sessions for 10 minutes.
The rest were, you know, somewhere between 10 and 15. So that's really cool. I did it.
I hit my goal of doing 10 minute writing 10 days a week. Didn't draw, like I said, but at least I wrote. So that's good.
Anyway, go ahead and listen in. Tell me what you want or tell me what you think of it.
By the way, if you're listening to this on the podcast only format, which I do suggest you do, you can find on mjmunoz.com.
I run my podcast through RSS.com and I have chapter titles there.
You can actually skip through the chapter titles, pass this long introduction to the actual content.
And I have it split up day by day, marked out the date, marked out by the date.
And like in the future, if you don't like these long, grambling things I do where I'm just kind of talking and reflecting
and you want to get to the content, you can do that or whatever. You have an option there.
And what else? Oh, also, I will be putting up short video versions of these reads of my writing that actually have bonus content,
which is like a little reflection that I do on what I wrote. And you might find those interesting.
Those will be on TikTok and on YouTube. Eventually, I'm going to build up a buffer of them before I release them,
because I want to make sure I have the ability to have daily content out.
And in order to do that, I'm going to take my time and not rush through.
So I'll advise you about that in future episodes as well.
But yeah, if you want to hear some of my thoughts and insights on the stuff that I'm writing, you could do that there.
And I figure if I make those comments there and they're like bonus content, you could find somewhere else.
If that's the sort of thing you're into, then you can find it there.
But if you would be irritated by those breaking up the flow of the episode, then you just need to hear me do the readings,
which is what you find presented in this audio only episode that then includes me talking at the front of it like this.
So you got to figure out what works for you. But I think this is going to work for me.
Grow Bug Tales, Chapter 10, part I'm not sure what this is the writing that I did on October 7th, 2020, 23.
Screech's tore through the mist and Tut turned to see several enemies rushing to support their comrade.
Tut shouted, now! And the waiting Grow Bug Guardians entered the battle.
Tut watched as the battlefield fragmented.
The Guardians tried to push the mock wings together where their sighs would inhibit their movement and take away their ability to attack the Grow Bugs.
The invaders fought hard, striking fiercely at each turn they could.
Shining arms were pecked and pulled.
One mist bird twisted and contorted its body so that talons sprouted from its face.
It successfully grabbed several shining arms at once, pulling a few Guardians in towards the eager beaks of its fellow mock wings.
That took me 14 minutes to write and I wrote 111 words.
This is for Chapter 10 of Grow Bug Tales, my 10 minute writing from October 8th, 2023.
Incoming! Tut shouted as he sent a barrage of rocks and sticks hurdling towards the hemmed in hostile.
Tut continued to send volley after volley as the other Guardians pressed their attacks.
One by one, mock wings took a series of well-placed strikes before fading into mist.
Four mock wings pressed tightly together, croaked and turned into a single giant bird.
Now in the form of a single bird, the mock wing rebuffed its attackers more ferociously.
The Guardians scattered to avoid its attacks.
It pushed back until it was free to maneuver and strike as it had not been before.
Shining arms strained to contain it but to no avail.
Walls, barriers, claws and tendrils were not enough to contain the furious flyer.
That took me 14 minutes to write and it was 115 words.
Grow Bug Tales Chapter 10, this is my writing from October 9th, 2023.
Tut fired his last volley to little effect.
When the solution came to him, he flew directly at the creature's head and blazed his light as brightly as he could.
The mock wing shrieked and turned its eyes away from the light.
Tut gave a battle cry and the Guardians surrounded their foe, each shining their light.
It thrashed wildly, batting at various Grow Bugs as it sought to escape from the light that burned it away bit by bit.
As it did, the whole party moved toward the...
That took me 13 minutes to write and it was 89 words.
10 minute writing for October 10, 2023. I'm still in Chapter 10 of Grow Bug Tales.
Invader and Tut yelled, CACOON!
The shining arms split into fine streams of light that crashed, spun and wove into each other and around the mock wing.
Soon it was completely encased in a radiant cocoon.
It thrashed violently against its prison, ever smaller shadows darkening the golden form as it did.
Tut let go of his shining arms and formed another which swallowed the cocoon and squeezed it into a smooth sphere.
The other Grow Bug Guardians released their holds, tendrils and watched as the sphere...
Tut?
That took me 11 minutes to write and I wrote 86 words.
For October 11, 2023, this is my 10 minute reading session and it is in Grow Bug Tales Chapter 10.
Grow Bug...
Shrunk moment by moment.
Tut shot out more shining arms so that he hung suspended by five streams of light roughly in the middle of the hollow.
He added a second layer to the sphere and tightened, crushing the cocoon and the mock wing within into nothingness.
When he finally released his grasp, fine mist seeped out from the cracks and it vanished as the lightest breezed...
Breeze.
Victory! the Grow Bug Guardians shouted.
They congratulated each other and celebrated the defeat of the invading enemy.
Humph! spoke up, indicating Tut as he did.
That, my good guardians, is what a true victory looks like.
That took me 12 minutes to write and that was 102 words.
For October 12, 2023, this is my 10 minute writing session and of course my word document got me all out of whack so I gotta vamp for a few seconds before I find it.
Okay, here we go.
Thank you all for fighting with such good courage. We couldn't have protected the camp had we not worked together. Tut cheered the Grow Bug Guardians around him.
Watcher? Humph! asked. What is our next course of action?
Standard procedure, Guardian. I want you and Hya to do a perimeter sweep and I will tend to any injuries there may be.
Hya and Humph! dashed off in opposite directions and surveyed the battlefield for any other enemies or noteworthy items.
The mist had entirely dissipated in the course of the fight.
The pair searched high and low through the branches and leaves before returning to the group.
Present yourselves, Guardians, Tut called and he attended to each of them in turn.
It took me 11 minutes to read, or rather to write and it was 120 words.
I don't know if I found the balance between making these Grow Bug Guardians, these Grow Bugs in general, these Guardian Angel type things which have a military type structure to their existence and how they operate and stuff.
I don't know if I found the balance between that and just making a cool adventure story, a magical adventure story.
This feels very militaristic but it's also like glossing over things and doing them quickly as opposed to focusing on them too much.
I hope you enjoyed that. Go to MJMunyos.com to leave any questions, comments or other feedback you might have.
There you can find all of my analysis, art and fiction.
I cover books, tokusatsu, comic books, anime and more.
Look around, you're sure to find something else that you'll enjoy as well.
This has been a Story Over Everything production.
For Grow Bug Tales Chapter 11, this is actually the first time I'm writing in Chapter 11.
This is my 10 minute writing session and it goes like this.
Hey, Chirp whispered loudly. Quiver didn't answer.
Hey, Chip whispered louder. Chirp, not Chip.
Quiver didn't answer. He looked at Hum, then at Chirp, then back to Hum.
Hey! Chirp huffed.
Cadets, there is no need for such rabble.
Quiver, Chirp wishes to speak with you.
But watch her. We're supposed to be quiet, aren't we?
Indeed. It seems like Cadet Chirp needs you to help her to be quiet.
What do you think of that?
Quiver hesitated.
I took 10 minutes to write that and that was 74 words.
I hope you enjoyed that.
Go to MJMunoz.com to leave any questions, comments, or other feedback you might have.
There you can find all of my analysis, art, and fiction.
I cover books, tokusatsu, comic books, anime, and more.
Look around, you're sure to find something else that you'll enjoy as well.
This has been a Story Over Everything production.