52°02'09"N 10°02'05"W
Gentle NW winds of 6 knots
Captain's Log: 7/2/2025
This passed 30 days have been filled to the brim with activities and events. While I tried to make an attempt to write a log 15 days ago, the time simply could not be made within a reasonable amount of time to comfortably sit down and write a simple log. Time management is next on my list of task modifications that need to be made. I'm not the best at maintaining, let alone tracking the time I invest in certain affairs. Be it trying to practice my guitar, piano, sketching or trying to get some words in within my next writing project. The ability to better manage my time is something I truly need to be better at. Thusly excuses out of the way and lets get down to the proper updates that brings you here.
Concerning my writing:
So sadly I was not able to make it to page 100 as I had hoped I would during the month of June. However movement has been made, and thus are the result of currently moving, while slowly, progress. At the moment presently, I’ve found a few ways to finally tie up all of the up and coming foundational pieces I’m setting to what will become an epic of a first act. Sadly there are many complex piece to what will become one incredible story that wasn’t originally meant to come about. But this is what happens when my buddies insist I write an epilogue after the events of TLPK.
I guess the joke is on me!!!
But carefully setting up the big event of the first act is always as much tricky as it is fun. I want to be careful and not have the story move too quickly, but at the same time I’m trying to keep in mind the concept of m readers not having tremendously large attention spans. This is only the first draft, and as Hemingway would put it, “The first draft of anything is shit.” So I’ll write it, and let it play out as I intend it, and then go off my feedback later on.
So far writing The Last Pirate King sequel is a lot of fun and has become a much more complex piece than I originally anticipated. But at the same time, I’ve yet to write anything of this large a scale as well. The Last Pirate King offered me the opportunity to establish stakes I never thought of originally when I wrote the draft 1. But after adding everything and making it so much bigger and raising the stakes made it even more intense a scale than I thought it could have ever become when I first outlined it all out back in 2020.
But now looking back at when I first came up with the second book, made take the original plot and make it bigger, and sooooooooooooooo much worse than the first. It will be a true modern pirate fever dream of an adventure!
Concerning my opinion on writing:
While occasionally slipping in on the r/Writers subreddit to look at posts and see how other writers are doing. It disturbs me the amount of new writers that have gotten too comfortable with the concept of using AI to do the writing for them.
I understand the struggle when it’s your first real project and the pressure of trying to write something that can be perceived as compelling and poetic in language. What’s even more disturbing, although also easy to relate to, is how often many first time writers want to have their manuscripts written and perfected all on the first draft. As a writer, currently on the third draft of my first novel that I have EVERY intention of traditionally publishing, I can definitely say those insecurities are challenging to overcome. Especially when AI can do it all for you, perfectly (though subjective) each time. Plus depending on how one uses the AI, the AI will likely understand the common criticisms in the world of writing to where it will put in its two cents on moments where you can do better in or areas it waters down due to insignificance to the narrative. Among other many aspects that can make AI a valuable tool for a first time writer, it’s also far too easy to fall in the trap of just enabling it to do the job for you instead. I see this with many new writers as well as a handful of individuals who willingly embrace the idea of the AI doing it all for them.
This subject has become such a vast controversy in the world of writing, that virtually each and every single publisher and literary agency will blacklist, and avoid every and any writer who has expressed having used AI on their manuscript in any way. No attempting to ignore the subject of NaNoWriMo and their takes on the topic; I’ll simply implore any new writers to embrace the idea of fumbling in your writing journey. By using AI to do the task for you it will by default come off as better no matter how hard you try. This is an insecurity I hope you can conquer.
Yes writing anything can take time, and receiving correction for things you may have overlooked in your narrative is a VERy difficult pill to swallow. But I promise you that there’s growth in it. You won’t get better by having the AI do it for you, instead utilize it to give you examples on a certain sentence or grammar structure and punctuation. Or as a means of finding direction when it comes to doing research. Avoid using it for any proofreading and do the proofreading yourself. You’ll be amazed at how differently your own work will sound when you use and AI to read it to you. All in all AI does have its usages in the world of writing, but doing the job for you is NOT one of them.
Attempting to cut this rant short, don’t be afraid to do the work, make the mistakes and learn along the way. Like the characters in your manuscript, you’re embarking on this journey as well.
Concerning the Captain:
As I said before in my introduction, the past 30 days have been chock full of events. A few weeks ago, my las and I took a voyage down south to DC. It was my first time visiting the Capital as well as my first time visiting the Smithsonian Museum. While half of the Air and Space Museum was under renovations, it was still breathtaking to finally be able to see the X-15 even if it was from a distance.
The journey was primarily for the now notorious, Stray Kids concert. Which I can say without any other way to stress it, a legendary concert that was more than unforgettable. It was damn near almost 100 outside and the sun going down didn’t make a single difference. Quite the contrary, even though the temp got down to 95 it was still 80% humidity outside and was beyond unbearable. Due to the excessive heat, the concert was cut short as Bang Chan himself personally witnessed people passing out from heat exhaustion left and right. In the end 6 people were hospitalized and… I think it was almost 15 or so people that had passed out near the stage. I don’t entirely remember because the end of that felt like a fever dream and everything felt fuzzy in my vision.
Don’t even get me started on the water situation. Due to that policy in particular, I can now say I have personal beef with the Washington Nationals for that. It was probably the most unacceptable expression of negligence I have ever seen considering we all knew that heat wave was coming. Nonetheless it was quite the unforgettable event.
Concerning the morale of the crew:
Morale seems to be well. While trying to stay cool, everyone seems to be having a good time and we’re looking forward to the coming holiday weekend of Independence Day. Just going to try and sit back and relax and try to work as little as possible. Might play some Black Myth Wukong and try to finally beat the Yellow Wind Sage. Wish me luck.
Until we next make full sail,
Flynn Forecastle ⚓️
