This writing update is part of the rubric “Musings of the Awakened Writing Soul”. The Musings document my journey into the creative realm where I (re)discover my writing powers, form and develop a distinct creative voice, and remind myself of the true meaning of writing and creativity. All of this, while proving that writing and creativity can be an integral part of an already dynamic life in today’s reality. The Musings are also for you – those on a similar creative journey who want to connect and feel like someone gets it; those full of self-doubt and not believing it is worth it; or simply those old souls who enjoy reading deep, reflective content while sipping a hot drink on a cozy Sunday afternoon. Let the Musings make you believe in yourself and in goodness a bit more, and give you wings to fly into the enchanting kingdom of creativity.
What you can expect to see in this update:
- The rationale behind “Musings of the Awakened Writing Soul.”
- Creative year-end struggles and new future focus (fiction writing, book reviews, travelogues, writing craft)
- A reinvention of my old fictional buddy
Introduction
Welcome to writing update #6, after I skipped an update in December and almost lost all motivation and creative direction in the longest ever month of January, I can confidently say that I have chased all the demons away from my writings (for now). I won’t go too much into the details now on why that happened to me. I guess we, as creative individuals, have all been there in one way or another and probably not once but several times. But here’s the good news that I want to start this new year with – despite these little struggles, I have been writing these updates consistently for 6 months now, and I don’t want to give them up. It started as an honest ranting exercise to prove to myself that I can write and produce something consistently again, or even sort of a writing diary with no patterns and no specific topics. But these monthly updates have now turned into a meaningful, consistent little project which I hope can be useful to someone else. To celebrate this mini writing anniversary, I went back and slightly revised all updates so far to give them more structure, clarity, and ease for new joiners to tag along.
The New Rubric “Musings of the Awakened Writing Soul”
All writing updates have now been solidified into a rubric with a theme of its own called “Musings of the Awakened Writing Soul”. I bet you have seen the new intro in this update, too, and the headers, of course. Well, let me emphasize the reasons behind this again. This rubric is for all those new (or seasoned) writing and creative individuals who like to deep dive and reflect on the subtleties of the creative process. It’s for those celebrating every little creative spark, making all the effort to keep it alive, and gearing up to continuously battle self-doubt and disillusionment. If you are such a person, then rest assured, yours truly is in the same boat, just figuring out how to stay afloat. If you are not such a person, but you still choose to read, this rubric is also my way of telling you the story of a little dreaming person who has always wanted to be a writer, ever since she could remember. Despite all the drifting tides of life, she preserved this intrinsic writing desire, secured it deep inside her mind, until one day she realized that it had lurked in every aspect of her being, even in a legal career. The writing soul just refused to stay dormant for so long. That’s when she decided to embark on this creative (sometimes perilous) journey towards writing and herself, documenting it, even if it led nowhere, for those who would want to hear her call.
I sincerely hope that this rubric will continue to stand its ground, thrive, develop, and take shape, and I’m grateful for anything coming out of it and everyone who supports this journey. Going forward, the writing updates will most likely land on either a bi-monthly or quarterly basis in view of other creative efforts I want to focus on, such as writing fiction, book reviews, personal travelogues, and just teaching myself the craft and skill of writing. But regardless of the frequency, each update will add nuance, further context, and depth to the journey and will circle around the theme of rediscovering writing and creativity while handling real life and forming myself as a writer.
Working on a New Book Review
Now, briefly and concretely, about the substance of this update and what happened during my almost two-month hiatus. Besides the fact that the financial year-end is a brutal engulfing chaos that gives no quarter, even in December when everyone is all celebratory, in the first half of the month, I spent some time working on a book review for an old favorite – “A Discovery of Witches” by Deborah Harkness. It’s been some time since my last book review (Twilight in summer 2024, in fact, you can find it on the blog), and I’m still inventing a structure and figuring out a way about it that works for me. But I have learned some things about myself in the process. The struggle I have with book reviews is that I want to somehow magically transpose every feeling I felt from reading the story on paper, so I start rambling, writing long paragraphs, almost essays about characters, themes, feelings, and what have you. While this might be nice material, it needs to be contained and put in shape (just like the writing updates). I have made some progress in this regard, but we’ll see how it turns out in the end. Stay tuned for this new book review soon.
A Reunion with an Old Fictional Friend
The other cozy and unexpectedly therapeutic creative activity I did in early December was preparing a character sheet for one of the two main characters in the detective story I am brainstorming. I cannot tell you too much about him yet, besides his name – Hector – which derives from the ancient Trojan hero in Homer’s Iliad. But this Hector buddy has been in my head for a good number of years now (11 years in 2026). It’s strange how the idea about him evolved with the years and with my own perception of the world, but also how consistent his main characteristics remained despite everything. When I first thought about the main characters of this new story, I wanted it all to be a clean slate and not influenced by my previous writing attempts or childhood experiences. But it turned out impossible to conjure another character as vivid as this one, so I decided to give this new, mature Hector a chance. To give you some orientation, some of the conflicts connected to this character are the dichotomy of fear v. desire, isolation v. belonging, strength v. vulnerability, and, inspired by his namesake, this character also carries the themes of courage, loyalty, love, protection, and the reluctant hero. It’s not as simple as that, of course, but I will say no more at this point. For now, I’m just glad he exists in my mind and has survived the test of time.
Last Lines
A shorter update this time, but a steady promise of something more to come. I hope the new year has brought you all some new inspiration, reasons to be creative, inner peace, restful times, and courage to believe your efforts will amount to something beautiful. As always, let me know what you think of the new rubric, what excites you, what is boring, or just how your creative journey is going.
Until next time,
D.D.N.
The Sunlight Writer 