Kassie N (dear-llama) - Writer's Page

Wow, do the months whiz past. 🤭

February flew past while I was working on my (semi-secret) music project — the one I mentioned working on in the last entry. And I’m done with it!

So here it is: a DIY music box! 🎶

I chronicled the process here and there through pictures and little bits of videos as I was testing various ways to put the music box together, so now that I’m done with the box (and have given it away — it was always meant to be a gift 😆) I cobbled the pictures and videos into an Instagram Reel as a memento of the project.

My original plan was to find a wooden box in which I could place the mechanism to make it look like a real music box, but that was too tough. 😅 I might have to pick up more skills to do that. So I settled for putting it into the box the kit came in, which turned out to be the perfect size, and stuck some little hand-drawn icons on it as decoration. It may look a little juvenile (as do most of my crafts, haha), but I’m still proud of it! ☺️ It’s been incredibly fun to branch out and try something new.

Speaking of trying new things, I’m still dabbling in making mood boards for the upcoming draft of Something Better. I’ve done two more for Kjell and Tatiana — two supporting characters who play big roles in the story:

I have plans for two more supporting characters, so there will be more coming. After that, I’ll do up the character sheets before I start writing the new draft. ✍️ I already have some scenes in mind, which I’ve jotted down and left around on my desk… which is such a chaotic way of writing that I am loving it. 🤣 I used to write out of chronological order, but stopped doing that in recent years, and I’m finding that I’ve been missing it. Maybe this will help inspire me more — working on the Untitled Dragon Project last month that way has been fun, and I want to have fun writing Something Better again, since it’s been feeling more like a chore lately.

I’ve been so caught up with working on the music box project that I haven’t really had time to write anything. But now that I’m done with the music box, this is going to change! I’ve decided to work on a new chapter for Auld Lang Syne every other month, which means March will be time to work on Chapter 16.

In other news, my reading plans have been curtailed because I keep listening to the same BBC dramatisations of Agatha Christie’s books. 😅 I’ve been trying to read some writing craft books, in particular Letters To A Young Writer by Colum McCann (which I just finished today) and Story by Robert McKee (which I just started today 😆). But I also miss reading my usual crime novels, so I’d like to get back to reading some this month.

My new work hours (ending at 7pm every day) are really getting in the way of… well, everything. 🙃 Because I end work later, get home later, have dinner later (which also gives me a bit of gastric pains), everything is pushed back and I end up with less time to work on my creative projects or read or play games to destress. It’s been annoying me quite a bit and I’m hoping this won’t be for the long term, because I don’t want to continue like this indefinitely. As a result, though, I find that I only have time to work on one thing every day — if I choose to write a blog post tonight, for instance, I don’t get the time to do anything else. 😬

Oh, well. I guess that’s life, isn’t it? We always feel like we need more time to do all the things we’d like to do. 😅