This is MJ, I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com.
This recording is being done for Grow Bug... or sorry, not for Grow Bug Tales, for A Story Over Everything, Episode 39.
I am... not in a crisis. I'm in the midst of doing some cleanup on my work.
So I'm actually going over my Grow Bug Tales files and documentation for Chapter 11, which will be included in the authors log here.
And I'm pretty sure I accidentally threw away like a week's worth of content that I had made.
I still have the actual writing, but the documentation of the writing and doing these cool little recording sessions
where I take you and myself through the process and share stuff with you about it.
I'm pretty sure I just deleted a bunch of that stuff the other day.
And it was in my zeal to get things... you know, in my last episode of Story Over Everything, which still has yet to release,
I talk about changing my workflow. And I definitely do feel like I need to change my workflow.
Also, I'll say this before I start processing videos, producing videos, while I'm doubling up on my time.
I'm function stacking here. I have yet to release an episode. I don't know what's going on.
I do feel like I need to figure out... and this is where I may cut out, so let's see what happens.
I do feel like I definitely need to figure out how to stack my time, how to make the most of my time,
how to make sure that I'm not wasting my time, and also how to make sure that I'm not rushing.
Because I feel... well, you know, old Benny Frank said it the best, haste makes waste.
There's a big truck coming along, so I'm just going to talk over it and be loud, and when it passes, that'll be great.
But anyway, Benjamin Franklin said, haste makes waste. And I definitely see that.
I'm rushing through things, I'm trying to get things done on a schedule, and it's hurting me.
And not only is it hurting me from a perspective of I'm, you know, accidentally chucking content that I wanted to have made,
but I was sitting on all this stuff and I had put my phone down from 85% capacity on my storage to like 95% storage capacity full.
And, you know, it's starting to cause problems. And I looked in my Power Director folder,
that's the app that I use for creating videos, and I had 90 videos in there.
And I ended up going through and uploading much of stuff, and it just, it hit me. I'm being so foolish.
Some things, well, some things, I had reasons, but they weren't very good reasons. They weren't very smart reasons.
And I was kind of procrastinating as opposed to making my stuff more useful to myself.
I was kind of procrastinating and doing things in such a way that it ultimately hurt me and was just making life more frustrating for me.
So I decided that I need to stop doing that. And I figured out a workflow based on the stuff I went over last week.
But then I realized today that it's still kind of hurting me. It's still shooting me in the foot.
Because while I do have a new workflow, which will help me, and I successfully uploaded a bunch of drawing videos with some commentary,
which is great, and then I uploaded some drawing videos that I'd never uploaded before, I accidentally, you know,
in my zeal and my rushing and my foolishness, I accidentally deleted a bunch of my writing videos.
And I'm not saying the writing videos are more important than the drawing videos, but they're not unimportant.
They're supposed to be equally important. The plan was to have them both going up in a way that made a lot of sense for me.
And that, well, I'm documenting both things. And I'm making sure that I'm producing good content from both of them.
It's tracking my writing. It's tracking my drawing. I'm not saying that the writing from one day and the drawing from that same day
correspond or connect to each other explicitly. They don't. They almost necessarily don't.
They may in the future, but I kind of hope I can write a lot faster than I draw. I don't know.
Like, they should be out of sync based on the way that writing works for me and the way that drawing works for me.
It's not like I'm illustrating my own, you know, books at the moment, or it's not like I'm illustrating a comic book
where I can spend hours and hours and hours illustrating that and, you know, document that for you.
But regardless, my point is because I'm rushing, because I'm making myself crazy with due dates
and with target release dates that are so near to me and I have not built the buffer, it's really hurting me.
And it's really like it's hurting my heart and soul a little bit. And that's not good. I don't want that.
So I'm not going to slow down. I was going to go back and try to recreate because I could go back
and recreate those episodes that I threw out that I lost for myself, but I'm not going to.
I'm going to, as my wife tells me to do all the time, I'm going to cut my losses and I'm just going to accept that I done goofed.
And yeah, I'll be sad about it for a minute, but ultimately being sad is not going to help me.
And being upset about my mistake and my failure will profit me nothing.
I mean, the only thing that it profits me, the only thing that benefits me is that I want to avoid that pain again in the future.
And I'm pretty bummed about it. I could have just grabbed it from there. I'm pretty bummed about it.
And it's just it's frustrating. It's not that I'm sad. It's more than I'm frustrated that, oh, I wasted my effort.
But I want to take this to heart and I want to not repeat these mistakes. So here we go.
It's Tuesday and I'm I'm producing my Sunday, Monday and Tuesday.
You have the 24th. Yeah. Sunday, Monday and Tuesday bits of writing. And that's fine and dandy.
I'm producing the videos for those and I'm getting them uploaded as I record this.
And hopefully I didn't make terrible mistakes in that.
Hopefully I didn't rush anything with this. Oh, and then after I'm done, actually, after this next video is processing,
I'm going to go ahead and while I'm talking still add those into what will become SOE episode 39.
And this will probably be at the front end of SOE 39 because it's, you know, helping me to document everything that I've talked about.
So, yeah, that's interesting. Let me see. All right.
So I did make one more minor error right now.
I accidentally forgot after I produced this episode to upload it from the page that I have here that automatically kind of sets it to upload.
But I'm pretty sure if I look carefully, there is a way that I can find all my produced videos and just click on them one by one.
And yes, proceed to upload them. This interface coming back to it is not as clean as it was had I done it right from the get go.
But it's OK. It's working. It's processing. So for this week, I'm doing OK.
I'm doing better than I did for last week. And it's it's difficult to do things.
Well, it's not difficult to do things the right way. It just takes care and attention and some planning.
And you know what they say, a failure to plan is a plan to fail.
And, you know, something about writing fences. Sorry.
I really like the song Desperado. You like that one? It's a good one, I think.
Anyway, so. Yeah, while I'm frustrated, I don't need to let it forever dominate my destiny.
And. I don't know. I don't know what else to say.
I think. Yeah, I made mistakes.
I'm not a perfect person and I never meant to do these things to myself.
But here I am hurting, struggling a little bit.
But I'm smarting from the pain and I'm learning not to make these same mistakes again.
So hopefully this will be the last time where I go over this type of mistake.
I'm hoping that next by next week, I'll be making all brand new mistakes.
And that would be good, which reminds me of a line from Jeff Goldblum as Dr.
Ian Malcolm in what was that Jurassic Park 2?
Oh, no, you've you've made all brand new mistakes here.
I'm talking about the other island. And yeah, anyway, that's a fun movie.
I like those Jurassic Park movies. The first couple of them.
The books are really good, which I will talk about someday.
On story over everything, as I include more book discussion because book discussion is fun.
And it's a little easier than producing episodes talking about and documenting my writing, you could say.
And it also will help me to create the buffer, which is something I spoke about in the last episode, I believe,
using book review or book discussion episodes to create a buffer.
So I just need to adjust my approach a little, slow down, plan things out better.
And really, I think before when I had wanted to have like different segments, different episodes of story over everything do different jobs.
The bad thing about that was that some of that required me to do a lot of work that was not related to the actual work of writing.
It had me doing like workshop stuff or learning, teaching myself things.
And while that's good, I also just need to put words down and get my episodes produced.
So, you know, I wasn't wrong or dumb for trying to do that in the beginning.
I was just, I don't know, I could have done things a little bit differently.
And I think I think that would have been fine.
So anyway, I'm going to go ahead and stop here on this commentary.
This is going to be it for my commentary.
This is already going longer than I wanted it to go.
I want to keep these episodes as short as possible.
And my standard efforts for podcasting right now, I'm trying to keep down to recording no more than 10 minutes at a time.
I'm over 10 minutes, but it's fine because I was working that whole time and producing something else that whole time.
So that's OK. Again, this is called function stacking.
It's a feature I learned from the permaculture teachings of Jack Spierko on the survival podcast.
And I didn't learn about them from Guy's Garden, the permaculture book my wife and I have,
and that we read some of. I don't know why, but something about the way Spierko communicates the idea of function stacking works so much better.
And it makes like it just makes sense to me. It feels like a like in a video game.
Like I played Yu-Gi-Oh, which is a card game, and I played RPGs.
And like I always wanted to do things with my characters to like make sure that their armor and their accessory and their item, their weapon or whatever,
all function together to increase their critical hits or to increase their defense while increasing their evasion, while increasing their accuracy or whatever.
So this makes sense. It's kind of funny that like this concept from gardening, it's really a lifestyle design concept, as Spierko would say.
And yeah, I'm trying to add these principles into my life so I can make my life better. I want to design my life so that it's better.
I'm rambling on. I'm going much farther than I want it to go. But it's just something to think about, something to bring up.
I think that's relevant. It's relevant to my journey as an author.
And because of that, I was sharing that with you and telling you about it.
So go ahead and listen to my 10 minute writing sessions, my author's log for this week.
I'm not going to say which week it is, but this will be included on Story Over Everything, episode 39.
And I hope you enjoy and I hope you come back around and check out the finished product, the finished book,
as well as all the other Grow Bug Tales, Cadets in Crisis or whatever it's going to be called, as well as all the Grow Bug Tale picture books,
because they're going to be awesome. Anyway, that's it for me for now. Until next time, folks, take care.
But just because I'm saying take care doesn't mean stop listening, because you should actually listen to all the things and then you can go on your merry way.
This is my 10 minute writing session for October 22nd, 2023. I'm in Grow Bug Tales, chapter 11.
Enemy Attacks. The Mockwings went for the rich target, hoping to overpower the Keepers as they had too many Grow Bugs to defend
too few Keepers because they were outnumbered. The Mockwings circled and swooped and attacked. The Keepers defended as best as they could.
Hum saw the danger and the opportunity and pressed her attack. If she had hesitated a moment longer, the Mockwings may have overwhelmed
the Keepers and decimated the helpless Grow Bugs. It took me 11 minutes to write and it was 75 words.
For October 23rd, 2023, my 10 minute writing session in Grow Bug Tales, chapter 11 reads thus, Hum lashed out with all six shining arms
at the same time, striking the whole lot of attackers, breaking up their feeding frenzy. They turned their attention to her and retaliated.
Three more joined the fight from out of nowhere. The shape of the conflict put Hum at a distinct advantage.
She had gone from taking on distracted foes to becoming the focus of their efforts. That took me 10 minutes to write and it was 66 words.
My 10 minute writing session for October 24th, 2023 in Grow Bug Tales, chapter 11 reads thus,
Seer Glimmer joined the Keepers and their circle of protection.
My dear young Grow Bugs, it is time for us to take a journey. The Keepers looked nervously from one to another. Glimmer noticed the hesitation.
This is an order from Watcher Hum. She told me it is time for us to flee while she has the enemy distracted.
But she, there is no time for delay, Glimmer bristled. We leave now.
The Keepers gathered the Grow Bugs together, actually these are Grow Grubs together, and ordered the cadets into formation.
Glimmer pulled Trip along to join them as she had remained in the place where Hum had left her.
That took me 11 minutes to write and it was 102 words.
My 10 minute writing session for October 25th, 2023 is taking place in Grow Bug Tales, chapter 11, and it goes like this.
Trip normally moved along. Glimmer's hold on her kept her moving in spite of the heaviness of her legs.
The squawking and screeching mixed with the sniffling and blubbering of Grow Grubs and cadets alike.
Whistle muttered to himself, something Trip couldn't quite grasp.
Grunt called out to the caravan from the front periodically with an encouraging noise to spurn the group on.
Shush drifted up and down the line, soothing the distraught as best as she could.
That took me 10 minutes to write and that was 77 words.
My 10 minute writing session for October 26th, 2023 is taking place in Grow Bug Tales, chapter 11, and it goes like this.
As the remains of the Grow Bug camp fled and Hum fought alone against the attacking Hobnots, Quiver wondered what to do.
Hum had told him to stay put, but did she want him to be left behind with her?
How had the older Grow Bugs forgotten about him?
Did they think he was already lost to the Mock Wings?
If they did, he didn't blame them for getting away as quickly as possible.
But something didn't feel right.
Why should Hum face the danger alone when he could help her?
But could he? Of course he could, though she had told him to stay in the nest, to stay hidden.
Still, Quiver felt the stirring like never before to get out there and face the invaders on his own.
Another part was concerned with dying himself while helping watch Hum.
But still, should he leave her be? Could he?
Then Quiver did something he would never have expected himself to do.
He did what Sherp would do.
That took me 10 minutes to write and it was 165 words.
My 10 minute writing session for October 27, 2013 is in Grow Bug Tales Chapter 11.
I think we're getting towards the end, and this is how it reads.
Five enemies fought with Hum. Quiver had to shake himself to action as he marveled at what Hum was doing.
She had always seemed so soft and gentle.
She moved slowly, spoke slowly, and treated every cadet with kindness, even when they were at their worst.
This Hum was like a different being.
She dashed, twirled, dove, and dodged mockwing attacks.
She turned her foes' numbers against them and landed mighty attack after mighty attack.
Now that he thought about it, Quiver had never seen Hum tired or in need of rest.
She had always just seemed less vibrant, less active than the other older Grow Bugs.
That was clearly a misunderstanding of the truth that was Hum.
She may not have been a guardian before she ascended to the rank of Watcher,
but Chirp was at least half right when she had assumed Hum had been a guardian.
Did Chirp see something in Hum that he couldn't?
He dismissed this notion, then clung to it.
Could he be more than he could see?
Did Chirp see something in him that he didn't know was there?
Did she know he was meant to be a guardian?
If I survive this, I'll have to ask her.
Okay, Quiver, time to get a move on. Time to help watch your Hum. Let's go.
That took 11 minutes to write, and it was a 12... there's 219 words.
So I'm happy to say that in this reflection section I can say I am pleased with what I did this week.
The workflow that I have is good. It makes a lot of sense.
When I go back, or rather, I was doing the screen capture recording of the videos
as I was making them for my 10 minute writing sessions, and then I would stop them.
I'd go back, I'd boot up my audio recorder, and I would have to open my app up again,
maybe hours later, a day later, something like that, and then I would proceed to make a recording
and then have to import that recording. And then today, it hit me.
I can just let myself record and log how much time it took to write and how many words I wrote,
and then I can go back, keep the recording going, and just read it right then and there.
And then after I'm done reading it, I can just comment on it.
And then that changes my process in a very nice way because it really streamlines things
so that I can just take what I... it eliminates steps.
And then when I go back into the recording, which I think I did that just for the last one, for the 27th,
when I go back into the recording, I can... or when I go to edit the recording to make the video
with the thumbnail and all that stuff, I can very easily modify the speed.
Of course, I'll find the place where I cut and read it back to myself first.
I'll find that first. Then I'll go ahead and warp the speed, you know, speed it up by a factor of 8,
and then I can go back to my reading and my commentary.
And there's an ability on my video app that I can pull something from the video track
and have it shrunk down to the audio track, but I just realized I can speed up the writing time
and I can parse out my reading and then move that section down into the audio and leave the recording on track at the end.
And then there will be a little bit easier to manipulate the rest of my travel today.
I didn't struggle, but it took a little bit of work to do what I thought should have been really simple,
so I just came up with another way to streamline the process.
I'm sure to find something else that you'll enjoy as well.
This has been a story over everything production.