Hey Everyone!
So just a few things I wanted to talk about concerning the blog.
I wanted to post something for Halloween yesterday, particularly my own Japanese ghost story. While I was still at the cultural center, I encountered a lot of strange things – especially since I was frequently working early mornings or nights. The security guard and I used to trade our own stories.
One day, however, some really creepy things happened in the break room and the bathroom. It made me think back to all of those Japanese “bathroom” ghost stories I’d watched videos about on YouTube years ago. 赤マント, or Aka Mento levels of creepy.
It was very slow sometimes working there, so I had a habit of bringing notebooks and either studying Japanese or writing short stories. I thought I wrote down in detail what happened that day, because I remember texting my mom about the incident when it happened. Especially since besides myself, only maintenance was in the building and they were in the basement and I was alone on an upper floor of the building.
I hunted for two days looking for a particular notebook with the story. I have a really bad habit of buying a bunch of notebooks and using them for certain topics, or to just have one laying around in a random place whenever a spark of inspiration comes.
I did find one late yesterday evening, however, it was only half of the story. I really remember writing it down, so maybe next year I’ll post it in full.
Then I thought about doing a sort of countdown with past scary shows I’d watched. Psychological-thrillers and psychological-horror are particularly terrifying themes to me so I wanted to focus on being trapped in your own mind. I went back and forth with the idea, writing short reviews of some of my favorite series before deciding it didn’t sound good or felt half-assed, and abandoned it.
I am extremely picky about my writing and way too hard on myself. Actively trying to change that.
So I have a few little reviews that I most likely will push myself to sprinkle through the blog in due time.
I was working on the #YokaiSpiritSunday series, and one of the resources I was using (a medium blog post about Shinto regalia to cover the next yokai I had in mind) up and got deleted. I dabble in academic journals mainly for the series, but couldn’t find anything like that in English until that article. And they deleted it. As I gave them a clap for it.
I don’t know why, but I feel like I jinxed myself by showing appreciation before completing the article, which is usually what I have been doing. So I am still working on that, hoping to get one out this Sunday. I’m still also trying to figure out if I want to do it bi-monthly or at least three times a month. The research for the article is easy, I just seem to slog when it comes to editing. Also something I’m working on. But in general if I’m not completely happy with something, even with a self-imposed deadline, I really just will not do it/complete it/publish it until I’m happy with it. I had a really bad habit of doing that in film school by missing term paper deadlines and emailing the professor to literally type “I was not happy with my work and self-sabotaged. Can I have an extended deadline” and they usually obliged.
I’ve also been working on a book series, which I think I eluded to in earlier posts on this website. I’ve been writing content for when I launch the site, working on graphic novels and shorts trying to flesh things out more. There are two main stories in the series, and the rest is an offshoot. Similar to George R.R. Martin’s “1000 Worlds”, each story (for the most part) takes place in the universe on a different timeline. It’s a project I am super excited about, but I have (another) bad habit of doing all or nothing.
So I will either write a ton of content for In Asian Spaces, or spend a week or two writing and world building for the series and neglect this website. On Twitter today, I came across the #NaNoWriMo hashtag and decided “hell, why not” and threw my hat in. For those of you unfamiliar, basically it is a writing challenge to finish the first draft of a short novel (50,000 words) in the month of November. There is a huge community surrounding it and it feels good to be writing with everyone else, telling stories and sharing tips. It’s so much support and good creative energy.
I also feel like by entering, I’m one step closer to the goal of attending WorldCon 2019 in Ireland.
It will also help me kick start this backlog of short film screenplays, web-series ideas, graphic novel scripts, short story ideas and novel ideas I’ve been hoarding and inconsistently growing since college. In Asian Spaces was one of these ideas – a blog dedicated to anime, the culture surrounding it and its influences. So I am slowly, but surely getting to this mental list I’ve had for years now.
Luckily, I’ve been prepping content for this month and December to try to get ahead to work on my backburner projects, so this is where that comes in. I won’t be posting as much this November because of the reasons above, but I also don’t want to completely be a ghost. I have a few Kdrama reviews to upload this month from a backlog of binges in times prior. The Korean Culture tab has been kind of dry as well, so I feel the need to add in some reviews along with other one-off article ideas.
I also have a few manga reviews and then in December I’ll be reviewing all of the shows I mentioned on the blog (and a few I haven’t) that I vaguely promised reviews for “at a later time”.
So that’s the game plan for the remainder of 2018, along with guest posts and contributions to other websites. If anyone would like to collaborate on anything, please don’t hesitate to shoot me a message on the contact page or email me at InAsianSpaces@gmail.com .
It’s been wonderful getting to know those in the aniblogger/jblogger community here on WordPress. Everyone is so talented and has such unique voices, I truly feel lucky to be a part of it. Thank you, Everyone, for being so kind and encouraging! It really does mean a lot to me (=
I’ll most likely be posting something later on today and was going to add this onto the post, but judging by the length I’m glad I decided to leave it separate. Here’s to a creative November, Everyone! (=
-In Asian Spaces
