Soft Hobbies #5: What I read, wrote, and made this week
HOW many hours do I have on Baldur's Gate 3?!
Welcome to issue #5 of Soft Hobbies, a weekly creative check-in for imperfect perfectionists around the world.
Some good advice: if you’re writing for everybody, you’re writing for nobody. I was reminded of this by a recent Write Or Die newsletter, and took their subsequent advice to create a specific “target reader avatar” for my newsletter. Here it is:
My target reader is a 20s/30s creative person who identifies as an artist (or wants to), a recovering perfectionist, and has a wide variety of creative interests. My reader is focused on cultivating softness, safety, and consistency in their daily creative practices.
This is who I write Soft Hobbies for, and it’s also a pretty good description of myself at my current stage in the creative journey. Niching down on my Substack — getting more specific — has brought more freedom to my writing and interest in my work. I don’t feel boxed in, because I can talk about whatever random unrelated things I do each week, but I also feel like I have direction and a purpose. Having a consistent format and limitations inspires me to keep doing this newsletter because I know, more or less, how I should be writing, so I can focus more on what I should be writing. I’ve done it before, so it’s less scary. Hopefully that makes sense.
If you feel stuck in your creative practice, try limitations. Give yourself some arbitrary rules or a weekly deadline. Your poem has to be 25 lines max. You’ll only spend two more hours making this song. You must use only four colors for this painting. That’s the idea :) let me know how it goes!
Here’s what I got up to this week.
3 things I’m reading:
I started and finished Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, a very short and quiet historical fiction novel. Now THIS has some well-written dialogue (not like last week’s book, lol). Sparse and spare, with implied meaning and a colloquial way of speaking. You can really hear the characters. This type of story is not really “my thing,” but I’m glad I picked it up. Also I guess the film version just came out, produced by and starring Cillian Murphy??
I loved this newsletter from Lakyn Carlton’s True Style on closet fundamentals and how to avoid being prescriptive with your wardrobe. True Style is an incredible publication and Lakyn is a fount of knowledge on style and sustainability, offering perspectives that are sorely missing from the greater fashion conversation.
I’m still reading Martyr! and it’s going well. I wasn’t expecting the multiple-POV storylines, and the main character’s POV is still the most interesting to me. Definitely going to keep going with this one.
3 things I’m writing:
Today is my 2nd year anniversary with Ethan! I wrote him a card <3
I wrote a letter to my five-year future self with FutureMe. I’ve done this before and getting a letter from your past self is amazing.
Yesterday I used the official writing nook in my house for the first time in months. We’ve been having a yellowjacket problem and I’m terrified of bugs, so I’ve been nervous to sit up there. Pest control came by, so hopefully it’s safer now. I handwrote one journal page and a two-page story that’s been rattling around in my head for a while. The story would work better as a music video / short film, it doesn’t work at all yet on paper, but there is something there that I may come back to. My intention was to write the shittiest first draft possible and I think I succeeded, it sucks a lot ^_^
3 soft hobbies:
I’m up to a staggering 273 hours on Baldur’s Gate 3, which is now my favorite videogame of all time and I really can’t see it being dethroned. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted or didn’t even know I wanted in a game. It’s not perfect, of course, but it’s pretty damn close. This is my second playthrough but my first one as the Dark Urge and my tav is a Wood Elf Monk (Way of the Open Hand subclass) who hits like a truck. I’m aware this last sentence means nothing to you if you haven’t played the game. See the below video for a closeup of my character; isn’t he pretty??
Ethan and I went to an alpaca farm! It was so fun. Alpaca are very cute and have distinct personalities, which made feeding them very exciting.
My dad visited Seattle and we had a great day out in Fremont, then a fun visit to the basement of the MoPOP for their sci-fi/fantasy/horror exhibit! Always a great time for the nerds.
Your turn! What are you reading? Writing? Making? Have you ever pet an alpaca? Let me know, and thank you for your time.
Softly yours,
Auzin
aaaaaa happy anniversary to you and ethan!!! seeing that you wrote yourself a future note makes me want to do it too... i've never done any of those before because tbh I get kinda nervous that I'm going to disappoint myself with my younger self's expectations... idk... maybe it's time I put on my big girl pants and give it a try : - )