T/P/S – Being Daunted, Investing in Yourself, and Daily Anchors
From JP | 06.12.2025
It was a bit of a heavy week. I want to keep this type of self-focused entry relatively rare for T/P/S. I’m still learning to strike a balance between authenticity and providing value to readers of this weekly series.
Thorns – Delayed Gratification
Perspective is a horror tool. Experiencing hard times in the moment is painful and sometimes debilitating. But seeing hard times coat the path ahead is soul-crushing.
If you’ll allow me to dwell in the doom for a moment: I am in the process of drafting a novel. In other words, I’m doing something I’ve never done before, and have never been taught how to do. Despite my lack of experience and knowledge, I’m trying to make it my life. But it’ll take time for me to do that. In fact, it would be an optimistic prediction to expect some sort of monetary benefit within the next five years.
It’s a little disheartening, if I’m being honest, but it also feels strangely good to face reality to find that what I’m reaching for is still attainable. Delayed results are still results, and they’re truly better than nothing. And my pride and ego absolutely refuse to let me miss the chance to write my stories.
Petals – Transferrable Skills
On a brighter note, I just started a course to help me learn project management skills. While that’s ostensibly a career-oriented move and not directly tied to writing, I think it’s a good skill set to help me focus the effort that I want to dedicate to my novel and this website.
I’m being proactive about building skills that will be useful and relevant to the overall logistics of building my career as an author. I’m investing in myself in a way that feels like my choice, and that decisiveness from myself feels really good. Choosing to not just indulge, but to improve is something that I could use a lot more practice in. In that spirit, I’ll take this opportunity to celebrate the momentum of the moment as a vote towards the type of person I want to be.
Seeds – Setting a Rhythm
Before my next post, I want to implement a technique to help infuse a little more rhythm and structure into my week.
I recently learned about the idea of “anchor activities” and how they might help my overall productivity (and by extension, my writing). As I understand them, these “anchor activities” are tasks that are relatively consistent from day to day (a commute, a meal, an obligation) that mark divisions in your day. The idea is to view these anchors as transitional periods from one block of focused work to another as a way to develop a rhythm to your day.
For me, these anchors help me manage the productivity-obsessed guilt that creates decision paralysis (“I should be working on that other thing instead”). By creating clear conclusions for each work block, it’s easier for me to allow myself to move on to other things, even if I didn’t finish everything that I wanted to prior to the anchor. By giving myself permission to move on to other things, I want to see if I’m able to better manage my increasing number of parallel projects.
That’s all for this week!
Wishing you momentum and rhythm,
JP Violet
The Path Behind — A postscript
I was pretty focused on some career things related to my day job this past week, so I was unable to write those scenes between my protagonist and his scene partner. I’ll try to get to that this week. On the bright side, I finished Six of Crows! It was so incredibly good, and I highly recommend it, though. It kind of ends at an odd place for my tastes, but that doesn’t sour my experience at all.
JP Violet 