In about three weeks, NaNoWriMo is going to take over my life as it does every year. This year I'm being even more absurdly self-indulgent than usual and am just throwing a bunch of my characters, including Sorrel, into a universe together and seeing what happens. It's probably going to turn into a pile of nonsense like it does every year, but NaNo has always been about the journey for me.

Before that happens though I feel like making a small list of ideas/goals here that I am otherwise likely to forget about in the incoming whirlwind of frenzied writing.

- I need to take like, a day, or at least a set of like four hours (with breaks of course) and dedicate it to studying how to draw anthro bodies. Specifically the digitigrade style that I prefer. Not to a state of anatomical perfection but just enough so that they don't look totally mangled whenever I try to draw them. I'm hoping that after that if I do at least couple of doodles a day I'll start to actually become comfortable with drawing more than just weird heads.

- I'd like to actually get Sorrel's visual details on paper in a way that at least somewhat reflects what's in my head. I've been meaning to do this for literally years and part of my hesitancy is that if I get it wrong I'll be stuck with it forever. I need to remind myself that's not true and I can change it whenever I want. I need to remind myself of that 200 times a day, probably.

- Similarly I'd like to do a sort of short story/scene that details some of Sorrel's history/backstory. I might end up actually rough-drafting that as part of nanowrimo and then refining it later.

- I'd like to do more short stories in general but I feel like I need some prompts. I'd feel weird doing them all about my existing characters/universes for some reason. It feels too personal almost. Does that make any sense? That probably doesn't make any sense.

- Some years ago I got somewhat involved with a furry 'self-hypnosis' community which mostly involved listening to some MP3s which attempted to change the way you perceive yourself. I don't know if any of it actually worked but I always found them very relaxing and focusing in the same way I enjoy listening to guided meditation files. I'm kind of playing with the idea of writing scripts for similar guided files that sort of take you on a little mental adventure in your preferred form. I don't feel like I have the voice/equipment to actually record the scripts but maybe someone will.

Anyway, that's all I can really think of right now. Time to go to work and pay the bills.