7daysinaweek

[7daysinaweek]

Day 3 - Wednesday - Video Editing

Given how fresh I am to it, I’d hesitate to call it a passion, but it seems I have a large tolerance for video editing, as this was the longest and easiest I have worked on any of the days projects, and while I am not 100% nor confident with my end result- I am happy with the dedication I showed to getting it done and the ways I broke my pattern of perfectionism and issues with getting rid of anything.

On the chopping block for today was one stream of a game called “Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion” the length of the stream was one hour and forty five minutes and I spent around 4 hours editing it, although it was my first time and I was slowly learning how to work out what all needs to be cut to make sure the through-line of the edit still makes sense while including the least amount of in-between, backtracking, stream interaction, and off topic content (save for the funny parts) as I possibly could, and it was a genuinely enjoyable experience and I found myself distracted and loving track of time for hours. The video is currently exporting on my computer and I did manage to mess it up by making a banner using illustrator while it was rendering, I somehow managed to change or affect the font that was being used and it had to start the 50~ minute render over, losing me about 35 minutes worth of spent time.

Task Type: Editing Stream Vod

Time spent on task: 4 hours and change

Personal rating of project: 8/10

Elements completed:

Make Both Youtube Accounts

Finish editing first stream

Get friend to make me an editor or give login on twitch

Download other Stream Vod

Work out streaming schedule with friend and update the youtube channel descriptions

Get two >4mb png pfps of the bunny, one with a two on it from illustrator

[7daysinaweek]

Day 2 - Tuesday - Writing

Transcribing writing that I did many years ago is an odd experience, it transports me into the rooms and headspaces that I was in when I wrote the pages and passages, and the specifics of the things I remembered and forgot surprise me greatly.

During both middle and high school I started making what I would have called a “video-game” in reality I was world building for a universe of my own creation, something to dump my creative ideas into that was written and crafted under the guise of storytelling and an eventual hope to make it into a video game. I gave it the name Quest as a working title and wrote in various notebooks about it for a couple years before my passion surrounding it died out. I tried my best to leave the texts unedited as I transferred it even though some of it was written so ungodly. My plan is to make a Quest V 2.0 and I will share the original texts as I convert and rewrite the texts, there is just too much to post all of the digital texts right now without any of the context from my brain. I spent much too long being distracted and not working on it while I was supposed to be so I’m rather upset with myself but I got it done- to cut myself a little slack, it was some extremely menial work of just typing up pages and pages of text.

Task Type: Writing

Time spent on task: 1:15

Personal rating of project : 3/10

Elements completed:

Organize folders and start working on Quest V 2.0

Sort old google drive

Finish transcribing notebooks

Black Notebook

Character Descriptions

Creation Plot

Sort personal google drive

Pick a document to be first version 2.0

[7daysinaweek]

Making 1:15 worth of work take 10 hours

Being okay at a few things feels like the largest detriment to being bad at other things for someone who struggles with perfectionism. The curve of getting better at something and building up a resistance to the pitfalls of something not turning out how you want is a harsh and unforgiving one and pushing through lack of motivation when the joy of the idea of completing the task leaves and you are left with actually doing the task is terrible. Every inch of distraction I allow myself becomes a mile, or in reality, multiple hours of lack of working and it just begins to tilt and disappoint me further- its a brutal cycle but my awareness of it is my only solace in the “fight” against it.

[7daysinaweek]

Resistance and Self doubt

Even just two days into a new routine I can find myself struggling between what I think I want to do and what I elect to do, even just the smallest choices can have trickle down effects on the rest of my day and what happens within it

To be honest, I have already dropped the ball. While I knew it was going to happen, I was hoping I would be able to last more than two days before I messed up the schedule- I did not do any writing on Tuesday, and while this isn't a big deal in reality, and an an outside perspective of this blog would just see posts throughout different times within a span of days regardless of my actual productivity, I am aware of the lack of things I am doing and it annoys me. I suppose this kind of struggle is part of the creative process and a neurotic persons response to the impending wall of self improvement, but I am trying my best to slam up against that wall with all of my might.

I will do both my writing tasks and my video editing tasks today and post them as I planned to.

[7daysinaweek]

Day 1 - Monday - Singing

Re-remembering how to sing in a way that is replicable and can be translated into terms today felt like seeing a mountain peak and sizing it up, before realizing you have to descend into a valley before you can begin to climb.

Singing today was a good experience, but it reminded me how much I have lost control of my voice since I was in choir. The terms and concepts used stayed in some capacity but it was difficult to control and differentiate between whether or not I was singing in the right key or if I had shifted an octave- given these addition complications, the time spent spent looking for each others vocal ranges, and the fact that I elected to clean my room tonight I do not actually have any recordings to post, and I am rather disappointed with my lack of output, but I want to be kind to myself, and I should have them next “Music Monday” as my friend put it. I was exactly ecstatic with the way that tonight turned out and felt regardless of lack of produced proof. The framework that was worked on is an obviously important part of being able to execute on this cover the way I want to.

Task Type: Music

Time spent on task: 2 hours

Personal rating of project : 6.5/10

Elements completed:

Set up microphone at a comfortable loudness

Pick a song and make a recording of song

Work out Vocal range (C3-B4)

Find Hozier Backing Track

Check Audacity Version

[7daysinaweek]

First Day Prelude!

Transitional periods and starting things are always tricky to me, but singing and music is one of the most powerful tools for getting me moving. I wanted to be bold with my first day of this experiment so I figured starting both with a friend and with Hozier would be nice bold beginning.

It Is finally the first day of my little project! I left work early and came home to clean my room and prepare the space for productivity. I am excited and nervous. As I am unsure of how much information I want to record about this process I am planning on starting with a lot of recorded information about how much time I spend doing work each day and my level of satisfaction with the end result as I finish up my work, these also may be posted quite late in the day so I figure I may end up posting them the day after if I prefer.

I will be posting both the version with and without my friend parts, as to avoid obscuring my voice for improvement tracking purposes.

[7daysinaweek]

General Anxieties About Doing Something New

Planning projects has always come easier to me than executing on them, and as we approach the starting date of this escapade of mine. I remember how many ideas like this I have started and quickly abandoned in my life, and I try my best to, without judging myself too harshly for my past endeavors, have hope that this will be different. I am nervous that this may also fizzle out like other projects I have started, but I am hopeful that the level of broadness and lack of constriction of creative freedoms is what will make this pan out differently.

[7daysinaweek]

What is 7daysinaweek- extended

Explaining things in a succinct way has never been my strong suit, I enjoy explaining concepts I'm passionate about and ideas I feel I have a strong grasp of to people, but sometimes I tend to be a bit long winded and prattle on about non-essential details. I wonder if I have done a good enough job of explaining what this account will consist of in a way that would make sense to someone who might stumble upon it.

My goal is for this to be an anonymous journal of sorts, as well as a catalog of my improvements at my passions, somewhere where I can talk about what I did and didn't like about anything I make. Additionally, I hope it becomes a place for people who also like things and dislike being bad at things they like to congregate and discuss how hard it is to practice or what specifically stops them from doing certain activities, and maybe to remedy some of the anxieties that halt self improvement. 

This is meant to be a space filled with lack of self judgment, a luxury I do not often afford myself, a place where I can and should be bad at things- and I plan to post the end result of what I make in any given day, regardless of how comfortable I am with how it turned out. Its meant to push the limits of what I consider presentable and destroy how precious I have become with the idea of myself and the things I create. The way that the Drawfee YouTube channel speaks about “not being precious with your art” and not being afraid to start over is a palpable example of the rhetoric I want to apply to mediums other than art.

I want to clarify back on my comments about both the focus on anonymity and the “posting whatever I make” in any given day- as these two do sometimes conflict. The goal of this account is to avoid a perception of who I am as an individual behind the account (excluding my creative styles and quirks) and the actual location of the content that I am creating, and to mostly focus on the act of creating in spite of worries. To highlight improvement. There will be times I will draw people, record music with and perhaps even edit content made by friends and people I know. If it is ever worked out who they are, who I am, or where this content is posted, I doubt I would really mind, but I feel I will avoid interacting with it on principle.

[7daysinaweek]

Goals for Each Task

In my opinion, one of the most difficult parts of being bad at something is not knowing what needs to be done to improve at said thing. I think it is paramount to my improvement in anything that I am constantly aware of what I am doing next. Right now its Friday 7/16/21 and I plan to start this rotation in 2 days on Monday of next week, my current goals are as follows:

(Mon|Singing / Music) Record myself singing and work out what my range is, pick a song and make a recording of it.

(Tues|Writing) Clean out both my old and new google drive and finish digitizing all of my old notebooks of writing about Quest, Organize folders and start working on Quest V 2.0

(Wed|Video Editing) Set up both youtube accounts and finish editing stream

(Thurs|Business) Complete designs, finishing making website and upload designs

(Fri|Art) Read “Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” and work on understanding of value in black and white

[7daysinaweek]

Prelude and Schedule Plans

There are a lot of things in life that I am passionate about, and doubly so things that I am bad at. I want to get better at a few of these things. This account is meant to stand both as a record of my progress in improving, and as a sort of body doubler as I, like so many people, struggle a lot with actually doing anything that I think I want to do and even more so struggle with being aware of progress I’ve made towards any given goal. The goal is to build towards or work on one main skill in any given day, and have some subgoals that are expected every day. I am running with the assumption that dividing the week into segments of activity as apposed to trying to do a little bit of everything each day might treat me better.

The current working schedule is:

Mon: Singing / Music

Tues: Writing

Wed: Video Editing

Thurs: Business

Fri: Art

Sat: Free Space / Reading

Sun: Rest

Daily Expectations: Clean something, Eat at least 1 self cooked meal, Sleep by Midnight, Get up by 10am, Drink a full glass of water while working, Go on a run.

Any interaction with this post is appreciated, its easier to body double when I know I’m being watched <3

(I’ve also opened up asks on this account incase anyone has any questions)