Welcome Back to Cheshir’s World
If you would like to quickly catch up from the beginning of any series, I recommend that you check out the June 2024 Monthly Summary, which I have pinned to the homepage of Cheshir’s World.
RJ and DT are very fun and effortless to write, but RHBC is becoming difficult once more. I think it’s because RHBC currently takes place in the modern world, so I feel stressed by the details and end up psyching myself out. Pedring is also a difficult perspective to write in for me, since his past is so integral to his current sense of purgatory(and further stagnates his thought process, making things less readable in my opinion), but cannot yet be revealed.
In comparison, writing RJ and DT is just like being a kid again. DT has a lot of foreshadowing and delicate themes that I have to craft carefully, but all in a way where these things flow naturally for me. Ah, and as always, anything goes for RJ, so that’s always fun.
I do have a plan on how I can “recalibrate” and write RHBC with more ease: I think I need to further solidify the theme of the current world. I’ve been relying too much on the ambiguity of the plot in this world to write, which makes it difficult for me to focus on how to edit it. If I have a clearer theme to work on, I’ll be able to tie everything together with a neater bow.
I’ll start doing this sort of BTS at the start of these newsletters now. I’m getting more comfortable.
Anyway, onto last month’s uploads!
September Uploads 2024
Click on the series title to be transported to its table of contents/directory.
Reincarnation Junkie
Our dear protagonist now has a name, as do three of the kidnapped liberated children. How many more of them will have names in the future? Who knows! We will certainly not find out next time!
We’re getting into the part of the story where my mentality had shifted and writing becomes fun again, not just an outlet. I’m back to writing in a daze and laughing stupidly at my characters.
I especially wanted to explore the idea of an unknown creature. In my notes, I’ve named the creature that Ako fights in the latest chapter “Mukha at Ulo”, so it’ll probably come up again even after the fight. “Face and head”. Can you guess why it’s named that?
Depuis Toujours
Cian gets into a strange encounter with Drusilla! While her sister has been kind so far, Drusilla seems to have something against Cian. Is this just the whim of a troublemaker? Or is it personal? Fortunately, Cian doesn’t think so and is only worried on Drusilla’s behalf.
This chapter feels short, but I don’t usually have long chapters to begin with. I remember writing it while thinking about the future moments in DT. To be honest, I don’t like writing with symbolism in mind, but it is fun to analyze stories and find those little details that the author used, intentionally or not, to tell a parallel tale.
Symbolism in DT…is it weak? Cheesy? Unintelligible? The things that I’ve written do matter to me in ways that can only be explained through the stories themselves, but I hope that readers are able to treasure their own interpretations first if they have any.
Returning Home By Chance
Pedring consults an automatic form of KY-8 and continues to struggle on what to do and who to be in this world! After experiencing his first day as a high school teacher, he wonders if he should be there at all!
I’ve never been a teacher, but I used to observe my teachers a lot and get confused about what they do in a day, especially the ones who didn’t do worksheets. It’s so hard! What are you supposed to do in that environment as a professional? Just teach? With what outlines and support? More often than not, I assumed that teachers just made and sourced their own materials with some kind of government help sheet. I don’t read enough stories about teachers (fiction and nonfiction) to have a smidgen of understanding at what they do when school’s out.
I have a cousin who is a teacher though (hehe hi Ate), and after seeing her do some things on her computer, I have many more assumptions. I’ll be using them to write as Pedring, so actually, I do know what teachers do—it’s Pedring who doesn’t.
Short Stories
So, problem: the “short” I was writing turned into a concept that I would rather do as a short serial, not a single short. Will it still count? I think it should. I don’t have a definite plan, but I think that I’ll start uploading it quietly under the Short Stories tag, and once everything is uploaded, I’ll reupload everything in one giant post and send it through the main newsletter like before.
In that scenario, I will continue to include related updates under this section in the monthly newsletter every time a chapter is released, as well as list each chapter in the Short Stories Directory page.
In Other News
This month, I have watched a few more interesting videos. The two I want to share here have helped me with the solidification of a few concepts in my WIP, and I am thinking of doing something similar to my Q&A post with one of these videos in mind. Maybe instead of a Q&A, I’ll pretend that I’m being interviewed on the specific concepts. It sounds like fun, but it also makes me wish that I had written everything out already.
As usual, please watch these videos with your own thoughts in mind. The creator of these two videos has a nice pacing and use of language. Although he is US-based, the concepts he discusses here can be applied and dissected universally. There are many related resources in the description as well—most, if not all, are available for free on the internet. I think he is/was a teacher of sorts (I haven’t checked for certain), so this all makes sense.
This one is nice and slightly related to how we learn and can benefit from alternative methods of teaching (alternative as in without the structure of general compulsory US schooling). It helped me not only with my WIP (since compulsory education is a point of contention), but also reframed ideas for my current self-studying. There are some references to politics in the last few minutes, so if that bothers you, be warned.
This one is about living in avoidance of government (Igorot mentioned!) and how barbarians are characterized and why. It helped me understand why people might view barbarians as bad (aside from the violent caricatures in media) and how official governments may launch campaigns against them. This creator has a series on this topic, but I have not yet watched it.
Future Posts
I’m already getting overloaded by Substack. It’s a little strange to be in this world of involuntary access; it’s very much like joining social media all over again. Anyway, there isn’t much planned for next month, except for a short story that I wrote this past month. I’ll be editing it when I can and uploading it sometime in October. It is my first time writing outright satire, so I’m a little nervous about it.
Oh, there is that WIP post that I mentioned earlier, but I’m not as motivated as I was for the last one. So, I hope you watch those two videos on your own time for fun.
Before We Part
I’m very happy to be lax. Or, maybe I’m escaping something. At the end of each day, I wonder if I have a new end desire or goal (now that many things have changed and I feel more and more alive). However, the vision remains the same: I want to be buried in the dirt like a tree and spend the rest of eternity resting, immobile, in a world without words.
Head above ground? I don’t know, that’s something I’m still on the fence on. Both seem nice.
In nature? Hm, recently, I think it’s not a bad thing to replace my dirt blanket with concrete.
I could sleep in wet concrete, and then wake up as a part of the sidewalk. That would be a little painful, though, to experience the solidification of concrete. I’m more open to dirt because there are worms and insects there, so I wouldn’t feel as suffocated.
If I were a tree, oh, I think that would be very good. How many birds and insects and little animals would flock to me, drill into my flesh, find a home in my arms…
Have leaves fall and drift off from my fingertips, sap rise and gunk up on my sides…
Grow towards the sun without seeing it. Could I smell the sun? Could I taste it? Maybe trees have a secret sense that is incomprehensible to others.