#thought this after reading the reference to “musical archaeology” in the new music video description and thought

[girlinthebrightbluejeans]

So when does the new Rutles single drop?

[sssoto]

Creator’s update #2

Hey guys! I’m back with another update to keep y’all posted on what I’ve been up to (= I’m getting this up a week later than I wanted to, but hey, what can ya do. It’s still very much up to date, I just didn’t have the time to get this typed up last week, buuuut making up for that now!

Mood: Juuuuuust chillin’~

Music I’ve been digging recently:

This is basically just gonna be a looooong list of Selena Gomez, because dammit I’m into her music right now. The girl is gorgeous and I’ve always liked her music, but I used to be more into her old stuff, and now I’m just living for all the songs I didn’t listen to as much from the time she released her Stars Dance album and onwards. These are just a select few of the songs I’ve been listening to on repeat for the past week or so lol.

Selena Gomez - Fetish (ft Gucci Mane)

Selena Gomez - The Heart Wants What It Wants

Selena Gomez - Do It

Selena Gomez - Me & the Rhythm

Selena Gomez - Me & My Girls

Selena Gomez - Nobody

Selena Gomez - Save the Day

Selena Gomez - Like a Champion

Writing

So I DID ACTUALLY DO SOME WRITING THESE PAST FEW WEEKS OMG.

I finished editing an entire scene I’d been struggling with for the looooongest time (and now I’m having trouble with the next scene, sigh you just can’t win). For that scene, I had to rearrange three different scenes and combine them into one in a way which made sense, and geez it wasn’t fun. The real struggle is finding out what to keep and what to cut, right? I dunno ‘bout you guys, but I’m very reluctant to cut anything until I’m sure I don’t wanna use any of the prose somewhere else.

The light came to me late one night (as it usually does) when this random line popped in my head as I was mulling over what to name my second chapter. Okay, backtrack, I title my chapters, and ever since I started revisions and essentially condensed the first four chapters down to three, I couldn’t figure out what to name the second chapter. The other two chapters could easily just take on the titles they had previously, but the structure and overall focal point of the second chapter had changed so much that I needed to rethink the title (at least if I wanted it to be a good title lol). So chapter 2 was untitled until just recently, when this line came to me and finally made me decide on a name: The Find. A find in this sense refers to an archaeological discovery (my main characters study and work in the archaeological field), and you might see how it plays into the chapter in my excerpt later this post. But yeah, this line came to me, and along with that came the realisation that I could move a whole paragraph from the scene I was revising in chapter 3 to chapter 2, since that paragraph was oriented in a pretty similar fashion to what I was going for with that new line. Does any of this make sense? My thought process is a little strange lmao.

Anyway, so knowing what I needed to do with chapter 2 gave me the push I needed to move on with that scene I struggled with in chapter 3, and I finally managed to restructure all the bits and pieces of those scenes I had to combine. It became much easier because I’d moved an entire paragraph that didn’t really fit in that scene anyway to a place where it was much better suited lol. Since the new dialogue was already written out, it was pretty straightforward to draft new narrative to go with it after I had reassembled the pieces (though I’m sure it’s all veeeeery rough cuz I’ve not given it a proper read through yet).

It all worked out in the end, and I’m so happy I made that progress wee! And I think I know what to do with the next scene, so it’s just about kicking my ass into gear lol (special thanks to @coffeeandcalligraphy who helped me brainstorm for this scene, ugh bless my friends). I already knew the next scene needed to be edited a lot, because basically the entire thing was just filler. The first half was a way too long narrative summary with a bunch of unnecessary detail which could be condensed significantly, and the next half was a scene also way too long for the purpose it served, and to make matters worse, it also introduced a bunch of pointless characters that never show up again, so the scene just feels kinda forced. I’ve done some trimming on the narrative summary, and I’ve cut out the scene that follows, so what I need to do next is add some details that pertain to the timeline and illness change (if you read my last post, you might recall me mentioning that I was doing these revisions in the first place because I aged my characters up and changed the illness of my MC’s sister), and then I’m gonna draft a new much shorter scene that’ll serve the same purpose the previous scene did, but without so much pointless, contrived detail, and without friggin’ introducing new characters that’ll never appear again, my god Soto what were you thinking.

But you know what, I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. I’ve made an important discovery during these edits, which I discussed with @shaelinwrites, who herself was recently stuck in revision hell with her manuscript I’m Fine, and we both agreed; it’s honestly much easier to draft new, better prose than trying to elevate very old less mature prose. As I’m revising these chapters, I sometimes get the feeling that my prose isn’t very complex or sophisticated, but then when I get to draft completely new lines or even paragraphs, I wonder how the new words seem so much better than the old ones. Then I look back at the date and remember that these chapters I’m revising were written in friggin’ 2014. It’s no wonder the prose ain’t that sophisticated lmao. It’s hard work improving something which at its core is less refined!

With that said, I think it’s time for some excerpts. I didn’t show any last time since I hadn’t been working much on my writing recently, but this time I have stuff to show!

Excerpt:

He seemed a hidden gem waiting to be uncovered, layered deep in the crusts of his own humility and class, a rare find with all the potential it entailed – academical and monetary.

This was the line I talked about which basically solved all my problems for me lol bless this line. And bless @shaelinwrites who convinced me to get rid of an unnecessary word, THANK YOU GIRL, I WAS DUMB, YOU WERE RIGHT, THE WEASEL WORD HAD TO GO.

Excerpt:

They arrived in Naples, grandest seaport of the Mediterranean, without incident. The capital of the Sicilies was a majestic sight when approached from the sea, rather alien with its numerous colourful structures raised on slanting green hillsides amongst sprouting palms, so very different from the grey, uniform London back across the English Channel.

Just some description; looking at pictures of Naples helped a lot for this lmao. I’m still not entirely happy with it, it needs a good clean up and stuff. Buuuuuut you know what, it’s progress, and that’s all that matters right now!

Chapters edited: 2/16

Current total word count: Around 123k (I’ll give a more precise number when I’ve gathered all my chapters in one document)

Current total chapter count: 16

Look at the lovely progress on chapter 3 since last update <3

Art

So honestly I don’t have a lot of WIPs to show in the art department this time around, because a) I’ve mostly been finishing up the sketches I showed last time, and b) the new stuff I’ve started are secret projects I’d rather not reveal yet. So don’t blame it on inproductivity! d:

Like I said, I’ve finished some of the WIPs I talked about last time, and even better, I’ve posted them as well, so you can go and take a look at the final product: the Disney portraits, and my portraits of the Armstrong siblings.

And with that said, can we just marvel at this improvement?

Sometimes it can feel like you’re never getting anywhere, and that’s when it’s important to gaze back at your journey and see how far you’ve come. I’m certainly pretty happy with how my skills have developed in the past two years! I want to do more “draw it again” pieces in the future so I can track my own development n.n

The only thing I feel I can show a WIP of (that I’ve not already shown, anyway) is this character portrait I’m working on for Serena. Used my girl Selena Gomez as reference cuz she’s the best face claim for Serena I’ve come across <3 It’s actually this portrait’s fault that I got into this entire Selena Gomez groove, and oh how grateful I am for it because Selena Gomez slaaaaaays.

I’m not entirely sure I’m gonna keep the portrait like this for her official character portrait though, because I feel it’s a little risqué~ for a Victorian portrait LOL. I mean, slay that hair, Serena, you know ya sexy af, but gotta stay in character with your setting, yanno? Lmao I dunno, I need to rethink it a bit, but regardless I’m digging the sketch thus far!

I think the next thing I’m working on will be lining and colouring Owen’s portrait, and then I also have all these secret things in the works that I wanna make progress on so I can reveal them. Aside from this, I’ve been hard at work on setting up commissions, and I’ll soon make an announcement, so keep an eye out for that if you’re interested in getting a portrait done by me!

Youtube

It’s been a month since last update, and I upload new videos every Friday, which means I’ve got new videos to announce to y’all! So if any of you like kpop, vocal covers, or speedpaints, here’s where you should look :D

I’ve actually gotten pretty good at this Youtube thing (thanks to the scheduling feature, it saves lives), so my uploads are fairly consistent. I upload every Friday; every other week it’s a vocal cover (usually kpop, but not exclusively), and the other week it’s a speedpaint, so *hint hint* you should subscribe if you haven’t already *hint hint*. I’ll soon run out of covers to upload though, so I should record some more... Ahem.

Anyway, here’s the most recent one I uploaded. The song is a bit obscure if you’re not a dedicated 4minute fan, but it’s one of my favourites!

And my second cover can’t be embedded due to copyright, but I’ll leave a link for it here so you can check it out! It’s for the song So Good by Kara. The acapella for this one was super fun to record what with all the harmonies and background vocals and stuff.

And of course, I uploaded a few speedpaints as well! There are actually four up on my channel now because one of the speedpaints was split into two parts to prevent a 45 min video lol. So if any of you are interested in seeing my process, check them out! The first one was a birthday gift I made for the amazing @juliajm15 back in March <3

And the second, split into two parts (lineart and colour), is one I find particularly interesting since it’s more elaborate. I really do like how the colouring came out for this piece!

So yaaassss, remember to subscribe if you’re into this sort of stuff!

Bonus: Fanart feature!

So you guys, I have some really amazing friends who make some really amazing fanart for me, and I must share.

Where to even begin? I seriously get all teary-eyed when someone takes the time to make something because they enjoyed my story and characters so much *cries*. If you’ve been following me for a while, you’ve probably seen me gush about all the amazing artwork @juliajm15 has done for me over the past couple years, but I wanna shine some light on two of my other good friends and loyal supporters who made some incredible and thoughtful tributes to my little labour of love!

First up are some amazing edits as well as a drawing done by Rachel over at @coffeeandcalligraphy.

This pretty thing is a fan book cover Rachel made for my first book, Memoirs! I love the aesthetic of the title so much, and there’s some actual symbolism in there with how she chose to colour coordinate the elements; green for Daniel, red for Serena. Just knowing how much thought and care she put into it makes my sentimental little heart swell <3

These two edits are just GORGEOUS. Once again done by Rachel, she made this for my birthday last year <3

For the first one, she used lyrics from Elton John’s Daniel because I’d mentioned that this song was the perfect message for Hazel to give Daniel, and the little doll reading the book is sooooo adorable because Daniel and Hazel have this thing with reading fairytales together *cries* and then it’s wearing a white nightgown too, which is basically what Hazel always wears since she’s confined to her bed!

For the edit beneath, she picked an actual quote said by Serena to Daniel, and the summer aesthetic with the greeneries and the flower in the background to symbolise the summers they spent together, bah it’s too much! The care and thought put into this makes me emotional all over again, and these edits are just so lovely!!

And last one: my darling, Daniel! Rachel actually made this for our friendship anniversary a short while ago, and I still feel bad that I didn’t think to make anything for her lmao. She used the ref I found for Daniel, and his face honestly is just so friggin’ adorable, and then she used a quote from Renaissance to go along with it! I seriously have the best and most thoughtful friends in the entire world, like wow.

Another one of my friends who’s been giving me a bunch of cute fanart lately is @sarahkelsiwrites! Just take a look at this adorable drawing she did of Hazel:

Hazel is a very beloved character, but she doesn’t get nearly as much love in terms of artwork as my other characters, so it’s always so nice when someone remembers her <3

And okay, but this one kills me:

I literally screamed when she sent me this. LOOK AT HIS TATS HAHAHAHAH. So for some context, basically @coffeeandcalligraphy has a weird fetish for angst, and we started talking about how our characters have different kinds of angst. I started calling her characters angsters, because they angst like it’s cool to angst, aka gangster, aka angster. Rachel then said that Daniel’s angst is elegant, which turned into a really lame pun, and the rest is history...

Long story short, don’t mess with E. Angst’s tea, yo. Much British, very angst.

And the last one and I DIE CUZ MY BBY LOOKS SO HANDSOME <3 <3 <3 So Sarah brooded that somehow, everytime she tries to draw a girl, it turns into Daniel, but yanno... Can’t complain.

LOOK AT THE SMOOTH LINEART THO. I couldn’t draw smooth lineart for the life of me until I’d had my graphic tablet for like two years. Ugh I love how Danny looks here, his expression is so perfect! Thank you so much @sarahkelsiwrites and @coffeeandcalligraphy for the amazing gifts, I feel so blessed to have such generous, thoughtful and talented friends! <3

So that was all for this time around; I hope you enjoyed seeing what I’ve been working on! I’ll be back soon to summarize my progress on all my projects again, so until next time, folks!