Hello, friends!

To be honest, this month started out rough. At the beginning of the summer (literally two months ago), I was filled with the adrenaline of starting new goals and getting things accomplished. But after a month of momentum in May, I realized just how much I was expecting of myself. And suddenly, I lost all motivation. I became too overwhelmed to research, too intimidated to write, too tired to workout, and too guilty about not doing the things I needed to do that I couldn’t bring myself to do much of anything for fun.

But by the middle of the month, I had a Turning Point and decided it was time to get myself back on track. I made a new list of goals I wanted to accomplish, and set out to do just that. Here’s what I ended up doing throughout this rocky month.

academic

As soon as June started, I knew my research was in trouble. I’d read so much last month, and I still had so much I wanted to read this month. I was also trying to reconcile how I’d read for fun while also balancing all these research books. By my Turning Point, when I kicked myself back into action, I decided to reevaluate and prioritize my research. For the rest of June, I worked on reading Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. While I don’t love Hemingway’s style (or personality, really), this book hugely defines WWI literature and was important for me to read. I liked it better than I thought I would, and got more of an understanding of soldier’s sentiments during the war, which will help me when I write my book.

activities

Nothing much here, other than working 20-25 hours a week at work. This is actually the one thing I didn’t get too unmotivated to do because I need money.

creative

So this month, my major writing goal was to start working on my novel, currently referred to as Louna. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I got really intimidated by writing. Allow me to explain. At the beginning of the month, I worked 4-5 days a week. So the days when I wasn’t working I decided would be writing days. Then when the writing days came, I realized this was my opportunity to write. And I had to write on those days. It was a lot of pressure to get as much work done as possible since I had so few days. I wanted to make the most of my time, and it was scary to figure out how to do that. It’s dumb, but here we are. I ended up not finishing Act 1, as I had hoped, but got about halfway through it.

To help with my problem of being too intimidated to write, I decided at my Turning Point to try to write every day. Even if it’s only a little bit, I’ll at least be getting something done a little bit every day. I’m not perfect and I miss days, but the idea behind it is really important. I especially find it helpful to do writing sprints. I’ll do about 20 minutes at a time, where I sit down, put on my music, and write without taking any breaks to check my phone or anything. It really gets me in the zone of the story, and a lot of the time, inspires me to keep going even past the sprint. Which I think is kind of the point.

For some reason, I’ve been having a lot of inspiration for a fantasy series I thought was dormant. It’s one I originally had the inspiration for in fifth grade, and I’ve been building on the original idea ever since. This month has me thinking about it a lot, but with Louna and my WWI novel, I won’t have the opportunity to work on it for a long while. But when I do. Get ready.

I have a new video out on YouTube called Simon vs Simon, in which I compare the book Simon vs. the Homosapiens Agenda with the film adaptation Love, Simon. This book and movie are really important to me, and I had been considering the differences in the two versions of the story for awhile. So I decided to make a video discussing why those decisions might’ve been made and how they impacted the story. If you enjoyed the Simons, you can watch my video here!

inspiration

Unfortunately, because of my guilt regarding not doing the things I needed to do, I didn’t read any books for fun this month. I’m hoping to get back into doing that the rest of the summer, but for now, I have no new books to discuss.

As I mentioned last month, I’ve been watching New Girl constantly, and I finally finished it. The last season was a little different than I expected, but I think it ended with the same heart it began with. In addition to New Girl, I’ve also recently been on a binge of Mr. Kate videos on YouTube. I love interior design, and a channel dedicated to it that’s available on YouTube instead of cable has been both a blessing and a curse. Mr. Kate has so much personality and her videos are fantastic (and usually short enough for my attention span). Would definitely recommend to anyone looking to fall down a well-decorated rabbit hole.

One of the weirdest things that’s been happening to me lately is all the cool dreams I’ve been having. I’ve had a series of really inspiring dreams that have sparked a lot of speculation for the aforementioned fantasy series. Part of what has kept those thoughts brewing has been a lot of Skyrim, my favorite source of high fantasy. Sometimes you just need to play video games well into the morning hours to think of new ideas. Watching The 100 has also helped me think about worldbuilding, even though I haven’t been bingeing as much as I could (self-control is an art).

In theaters, I saw Deadpool 2 and Incredibles 2. Deadpool was, as expected, graphic, raunchy, and hilarious. It’s definitely on the same level as the first one. Incredibles 2 was adorable and long-awaited. While I don’t think anything can match how classic the first one is, it did justice to the original story and is definitely worth the watch for fans of the first movie.

personal

The major event of this month was my girlfriend Heather visiting me in Tallahassee. She came up from Daytona and stayed with her dads, and we got to hang out for a few weeks. I ended up dedicating nearly all of my free time to hanging out with her, but we had such a blast, and it was totally worth it. She’s gone back home now, but I hope one of us will be able to visit another time this summer. It was rather fitting she had the opportunity to visit during Pride Month!

Per my struggle to motivate myself, I have had difficulty making myself exercise. Part of this has to do with time, part with exhaustion, but mostly, just disappointment. After not seeing much improvement in my body following last month, when I finally starting exercising again, I got discouraged. It felt kind of pointless to put effort into something that wasn’t working all that well. But I’ve decided I’d rather feel proud of myself for trying than disgusted with myself for not, so I’m working my way back into a regular exercise schedule.

To work on my general lack of motivation, I made a poster  (the one in the featured image of this post) to inspire me, which I hung beside my bed. It’s nice to wake up to some positive energy with important reminders that encourage me to get up in the morning, something I’m working on conquering this summer.

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That’s it for my June reflection! I hope you enjoyed having insight into my personal life and trials. I think the most important thing I learned this month is that while you may struggle every now and then, it’s imperative to recognize that struggle and do what you can to overcome it.

That’s all I got for now. Thanks for reading!