1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,000 This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. You can find all my work at MJMunoz.com 2 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:14,000 Welcome to the story over everything. This is episode 43 and this time it's Grow Bug Tales chapter 11 part 4. 3 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:22,000 So this is my fourth week basically, documentation of my fourth week working on Grow Bug Tales chapter 11. 4 00:00:22,000 --> 00:00:31,000 This contains the author's log from November 4th to November 10th, however I did not record on November 4th or November 10th. 5 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:35,000 So really it's the author's log from November 5th to November 9th. 6 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:44,000 So that was five days worth of writing that I did during that one week and that brought me pretty close to ending things. 7 00:00:44,000 --> 00:00:52,000 And that's basically it. So it's been a couple weeks out that I'm actually recording this since I... 8 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:56,000 Anyway, something crazy happened but anyway, here it is. All the stuff is ready for you. 9 00:00:56,000 --> 00:01:00,000 The audio is ready so listen to the snippets of the chapters and I'll talk about it afterwards. 10 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:06,000 I failed to make time to write on November 4th, 2023. 11 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:19,000 November 5th, 2023, my 10 minute writing session. This is continuing in Grow Bug Tales chapter 11. This is part 21. 12 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:26,000 What was that? Chirp spun in place to see the Mockwing bellowing at her and Quiver. 13 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:33,000 But I heard it. Not enough! Quiver shouted and nudged her aside as the foe struck a blow between them. 14 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:37,000 Let's get her! Chirp called to Quiver. 15 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:42,000 The Mockwing swept its head towards Chirp, beak snapping. 16 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:44,000 How? Quiver asked. 17 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:48,000 It advanced, snapping at Quiver, then turning to Chirp. 18 00:01:48,000 --> 00:01:52,000 It wants you! You think? She dodged another peck. 19 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:55,000 I have an idea. Great. What? 20 00:01:55,000 --> 00:02:00,000 That was 79 words and it took me 11 minutes to write. 21 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:08,000 My 10 minute writing session for the 6th of November, 2023. This is Grow Bug Tales chapter 11, session 22. 22 00:02:08,000 --> 00:02:14,000 Be the bait. Bait? Why? For a trap. What trap? I'm working on that. 23 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:24,000 Waaah! Chirp narrowly escaped another peck. Just like that. I'm not trying to lead it. I'm trying to not die. 24 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:27,000 Good, Chirp. Just follow me. 25 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:32,000 Quiver dashed through branches and bows. Chirp followed after him and the Mockwing followed her. 26 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:36,000 They looked like a bizarre... 27 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:39,000 That took me 10 minutes and 50... 28 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:42,000 That took me 10 minutes to write and it was 59 words. 29 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:48,000 My 10 minute writing session for the 7th of November, 2023. 30 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:56,000 This is Grow Bug Tales chapter 11, part 23. And it goes like this. 31 00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:01,000 ...flying worm or something. I know what I'm going to call that thing now. It's an editor's note. 32 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:03,000 I'll just let it lie for now. 33 00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:07,000 They circled the shrub for a while until Quiver shouted to Chirp, I've got an idea! 34 00:03:07,000 --> 00:03:10,000 He dove into the foliage and emerged through the other side. 35 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:17,000 Chirp and the Mockwing followed. The Mockwing had some twigs and leaves sticking through it, but it rolled, shaking off the debris. 36 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:22,000 They ran two more circuits through the bush. Then Quiver stopped suddenly. 37 00:03:22,000 --> 00:03:28,000 Chirp almost crashed into him, but swerved past. A jet of dust shot from Quiver, covering the Mockwing. 38 00:03:28,000 --> 00:03:31,000 Okay Chirp, get ready to... 39 00:03:31,000 --> 00:03:36,000 That took me 11 minutes to write that and that was 88 words. 40 00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:45,000 My 10 minute writing session for November 8, 2023. I'm continuing in Grow Bug Tales chapter 11. This is part 24. 41 00:03:45,000 --> 00:03:47,000 Blast! 42 00:03:47,000 --> 00:03:50,000 Chirp pivoted and put the enemy in her sights. 43 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:52,000 Now! 44 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:57,000 Chirp chirped with a piercing sound that worked in concert to stop the foe. 45 00:03:57,000 --> 00:04:02,000 The Mocking... Sorry, the Mockwing froze, caught in the bushy foliage. 46 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:05,000 Chirp and Quiver dashed to meet the Mockwing and... 47 00:04:05,000 --> 00:04:11,000 That took me 10 minutes to write and it was 43 words. 48 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:21,000 My 10 minute writing session for November 11, 2023 is Grow Bug Tales chapter 11, part 26 it looks like. 49 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:26,000 Is that right? Hold on. No, no, no. November 9th... That's part 25. Okay. 50 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:30,000 Dot, dot, dot. I tacked it with light arms and radiance. 51 00:04:30,000 --> 00:04:37,000 Now that the Mockwing had been stopped, the two cadets now had the time to apply their attacks for long enough to hurt it. 52 00:04:37,000 --> 00:04:44,000 As the moments ticked on, they burned away at the creature. Puffs of mist shed from the bird as they continued to attack. 53 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:50,000 The bird had been stunned by Chirp's sonic attack and Quiver's paralyzing spray, but it was too strong. 54 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:57,000 Neither of the cadets' attacks by itself would have hurt the hobnots, but together they were able to deal serious damage. 55 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:06,000 The Mockwing shrieked with rage and thrashed. It was not ready to be vanquished. It broke free and dove for the pair. 56 00:05:06,000 --> 00:05:11,000 That took me 11 minutes to write and that was 115 words. 57 00:05:13,000 --> 00:05:18,000 I came across... everything is divine providence, so it wasn't an accident. 58 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:26,000 But I came across something just the other day, I believe yesterday, and this person was talking about documenting things. 59 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:32,000 And they hear all this advice from creators or creatives. Document everything. Document everything. 60 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:40,000 And she was saying, well yeah, documentation is good, but I have a glut of information and it's all just like digital garbage. 61 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:47,000 It's like I have a digital junkyard here. And what do we need to do to make this work? We need to process our information. 62 00:05:47,000 --> 00:06:00,000 So yeah, in effect it's interesting. I am documenting and chronicling my creative process, but the purpose of it is primarily I'm documenting to keep myself moving and making the stuff. 63 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:10,000 Making the actual art, the books. And both the written art and the drawing art, the illustrated art, I guess you could say. 64 00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:19,000 I'm such a self-taught everything that I just make up terms for what I do. It's kind of strange, but anyway. 65 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:31,000 So yeah, I'm a self-taught illustrator, self-taught writer, and I am documenting my writing every day when I do it, which is the plan to do it every day. 66 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:38,000 And I'm documenting my drawing every day to do it, which again, the plan is to do it every day. And when I do do it, I do document it. 67 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:44,000 And I'm using it all, and I'm figuring out a way I can use it all even better. 68 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:53,000 So I had gotten into a place where I thought, well, I don't really need to draw anything for these Grow Bug books anymore. 69 00:06:53,000 --> 00:07:00,000 I was for a little while, and then I got away from it, and I took a long time off of doing anything creative, which was not good for me. 70 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:05,000 Not good for my soul. But when I finally got back to it, I thought, okay, well, I'm going to work on the Grow Bug book. 71 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:11,000 I'm going to keep writing that, and then I'm going to work on my superhero books by drawing stuff for them, and that'll be great. 72 00:07:11,000 --> 00:07:19,000 And they'll give me a creative outlet, and I'll be working on two different things, and it'll be a nice little break for me to go from one to the other. 73 00:07:19,000 --> 00:07:26,000 That way I'm not just all Grow Bug all the time and all superheroes all the time, especially because the way my superhero books are working out, 74 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:32,000 well, the way Grow Bug kills and my other stuff is worked out, it's taken me a long, long, long, long, long time to get them done. 75 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:41,000 I'm hoping and praying that with my new methodology of making sure I dedicate the 10 or more minutes a day to the writing and the drawing, 76 00:07:41,000 --> 00:07:49,000 that I'll actually be able to have more discipline and more focus and really create a workflow for myself so that I'm getting the job done more quickly. 77 00:07:49,000 --> 00:08:02,000 However, I also need to change the way I approach my work, and I'm thinking I need to draw and write. 78 00:08:02,000 --> 00:08:05,000 I need to draw what I'm writing about or write what I'm drawing about. 79 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:10,000 That makes sense. I need to write what I'm drawing about or draw what I'm writing about. 80 00:08:10,000 --> 00:08:22,000 Well, I have no idea what I just said. Anyway, in between the time I was working on this book, 81 00:08:22,000 --> 00:08:29,000 I went from drawing some Grow Bug tales, stuff, covers and little character sketches and things like that, 82 00:08:29,000 --> 00:08:33,000 to exclusively drawing stuff for my superhero world, which is good. 83 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:41,000 But I realized recently that the act of drawing for my superhero books gave me all these ideas for these superheroes 84 00:08:41,000 --> 00:08:47,000 and really invigorated me and made me want to write them. 85 00:08:47,000 --> 00:08:58,000 And actually, I almost stopped working on Grow Bug Tales, doing the draft to doing all the revisions for draft to and cleaning it up, 86 00:08:58,000 --> 00:09:01,000 or I guess cleaning up the first manuscript and turning it into the second manuscript. 87 00:09:01,000 --> 00:09:05,000 I almost stopped that to write a short story about a superhero, partly for money, 88 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:14,000 because I found a cool group of people and the opportunity to get involved with anthologies, contribute to anthologies, 89 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:19,000 which I will discuss at some later point. 90 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:26,000 And partly because I was just so taken with the idea. I was sketching out this superhero guy and it seemed, well, it just it felt fun. 91 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:34,000 It felt new. And I've said this before, but I've never I haven't thought about it in the context of actually writing recently, 92 00:09:34,000 --> 00:09:40,000 that when I draw, I come up with story ideas, drawing actually. 93 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:46,000 And I don't do it purposely. I can just start drawing. Oh, I want to draw a lady with a skull sword. 94 00:09:46,000 --> 00:09:50,000 OK, I started drawing a lady with a skull sword. Why does this lady have a skull sword? Where is she from? 95 00:09:50,000 --> 00:09:56,000 Whose skull is this? Do we know is somebody dear to her? Is it an ancient skull sword? 96 00:09:56,000 --> 00:10:02,000 Whatever. As I'm making the drawings and manifesting this image from my head, 97 00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:09,000 something happens and there are story ideas that emanate as well, along with the actual drawing. 98 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:13,000 This I believe this even works with characters who I've drawn before. 99 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:16,000 If I draw them again, I start thinking about them in a different way. 100 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:25,000 And it just kind of opens up this channel. So I actually after I finished the book entirely, 101 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:30,000 I sketched out the grow bugs again. I tried to make them look a certain way. 102 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:35,000 I tried to make them look like Digimon because that's one of my influences. And I love I love Digimon so much. 103 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:41,000 At least the first four seasons. Yeah, four, including Frontier Frontier School. Anyway, so 104 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:46,000 I was trying to draw on that and I just something fell off. 105 00:10:46,000 --> 00:10:50,000 I couldn't make the bugs cute enough. And I thought, well, maybe I don't want them to look like Digimon. 106 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:54,000 Digimon, maybe I want them to be like Digimon, but look like real insects. 107 00:10:54,000 --> 00:10:59,000 And I toyed around with that idea for a while. But as I was developing the book, I thought, 108 00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:03,000 how do these guys do anything? I just have this vague. They shine a light power. 109 00:11:03,000 --> 00:11:06,000 Does the light come off their wings? Does it come off their bodies? Does it come off their antennae? 110 00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:15,000 I really don't know. The mechanical issues stayed foggy for me because I didn't give myself the opportunity. 111 00:11:15,000 --> 00:11:19,000 When I'm only writing 10 minutes a day, I don't want to document, oh, what should I do? 112 00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:24,000 And I did do that along the way. Some of my documentation of my writing, some of my 10 minute writing sessions were 113 00:11:24,000 --> 00:11:29,000 me writing down notes and outlining, asking a bunch of questions. Oh, should I do this? Should I do that? 114 00:11:29,000 --> 00:11:37,000 What about this idea? And that's OK. But it's not. That's OK. 115 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:44,000 But I think it's more efficient for me to in the future think about my story and think about my characters 116 00:11:44,000 --> 00:11:49,000 and how they work by drawing them and saying, OK, well, what's going to look like physically? 117 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:54,000 How big is this thing? You know, what are the details of its texture? What are the details of its body? 118 00:11:54,000 --> 00:12:00,000 And I ended up doing these sketches that I really enjoy. I did a bunch of them. 119 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:03,000 I mean, I just drew bug after bug after bug or pro bug after pro bug after pro bug. 120 00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:08,000 And it really helped open my mind up to how these things work. 121 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:15,000 And I had eventually come up with this idea of, oh, they have these light arms, which you heard mentioned in the book. 122 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:19,000 You know, the reading of this. They have these light arms that they can do things with. They can manipulate. 123 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:24,000 They're literally like tentacles or tendrils of light that come out of their bodies somehow. 124 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:28,000 And it's just a part of their nature. And they can use them to manipulate things. 125 00:12:28,000 --> 00:12:33,000 They have gross motor skills when they're younger. They get better as they go on. They become fine motor skills. 126 00:12:33,000 --> 00:12:39,000 They get additional arms. They start off with two and then eventually they get I think six is what they have in the developed stage. 127 00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:41,000 And they don't I don't think they get any more than that. 128 00:12:41,000 --> 00:12:52,000 They make it so the artisans have as many as many arms, as many tentacles, as many stellar beams as what they're called now, I think, or astral beams as they need to have. 129 00:12:52,000 --> 00:13:02,000 And yeah, I think I think that's something I should do. Anyway, so. 130 00:13:02,000 --> 00:13:10,000 It's really interesting. It was it was kind of humbling to go back and look at my to one look at my revisions over the last week or two. 131 00:13:10,000 --> 00:13:12,000 Over the last week, I've been looking at my revisions. 132 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:25,000 But then last night I made time to turn all of these documentation recordings, which are, you know, 10 to 15 minutes long, 10 to 12 minutes long, and shrink them down and then actually read what I had written and then make commentary on it, which you don't hear in this. 133 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:31,000 You'll find that somewhere else exclusively on the individual video video by video basis. 134 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:37,000 It's like shorts. Anyway, they're short shorter videos, a couple of minutes long, though, on YouTube or TikTok, whatever. 135 00:13:37,000 --> 00:13:41,000 And you can find them linked where you can just find them. So anyway. 136 00:13:41,000 --> 00:13:52,000 But yeah, so I. Really stumbled and really faulted because I didn't understand the physiology and how the bodies worked and certain details about the characters. 137 00:13:52,000 --> 00:14:00,000 And I feel like had I started drawing them with an idea of I need a guardian angel bug who can do all these different things. 138 00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:10,000 How can I do that? What will that look like? And I just started doing the drawing process that in that process, I would have had a much more rapid development. 139 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:17,000 I would have been able to figure things out much more quickly and it would have been a lot more concrete and it wouldn't have led to me. 140 00:14:17,000 --> 00:14:25,000 I like the fact that I was able to fudge it and do this thing where I leave things in square brackets so I can come back to it later and fix it. 141 00:14:25,000 --> 00:14:32,000 But I dislike how shaky the ground was on my word count was really low throughout this week. 142 00:14:32,000 --> 00:14:42,000 These five days of writing, it was like I like 58. I had 70 something I had, you know, one that was like 120 maybe like 109 really low word counts. 143 00:14:42,000 --> 00:14:51,000 My target would be to like if I could write at how fast I want, I would want to do 250 words a minute so I could do 5000 words an hour or something like I think it works out something like that. 144 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:59,000 I would love that to be my pace in order to write that quickly. I can't be developing things on the fly. 145 00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:15,000 I need to do more planning and more outlining. And I thought I'd done a good enough job when I started grow like tails going from a blurb to expanding a blurb into an outline and then expanding that outline a little bit is not enough. 146 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:23,000 That's what I did. That was my method for this. It could work for I mean this is a short story. It's less than it's a of around 18000 words. 147 00:15:23,000 --> 00:15:32,000 So it definitely it's doable but it's taken me a long time both because I think the method of me writing only 10 minutes a day and having the lack of outline. 148 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:44,000 So it makes more sense while I'm itchy while I want to get to writing already. I think it makes more sense to just put myself through the paces, draw every character, draw all the monsters, draw all the different aspects of the world. 149 00:15:44,000 --> 00:15:53,000 Before I start writing and it's OK to start with the idea. OK. What's the idea. There are guardian angel bugs that protect children from monsters in the night. OK. 150 00:15:53,000 --> 00:16:05,000 What are those guardian angel bugs look like. What are those monsters look like. If I were to assign myself the task of sketching those things out first it would help me work through all the practical implications and help me develop everything. 151 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:15,000 And it would help me to say OK well I know all these things about these characters. I have a you know a Bible I have a guide to them a field guide if you will to the world of the grow bugs. 152 00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:27,000 And I have these things that I can work off of. And now that I have all these ideas stored up now I can be creative and just flow and write and work and not worry about making up as I go along. 153 00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:39,000 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. 154 00:16:39,000 --> 00:17:01,000 I cover books Tokusatsu comic books anime and more. Look around. You're sure to find something else that you'll enjoy as well. 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