Chapter 24, that’s where I’m at with my current WIP, “Stempels”. My first attempt at a Dutch novel. I’m almost over two hundred pages, too. In other words, the end is nearing for this story and I’ve invested a lot of my personal thoughts and feelings into this work. It is basically a story I wrote to deal with my burn-out and a feeling a lot of people might experience in this day in age; the feeling that we won’t leave any impression upon this world, that time is just wasting away and we must find some way to make life work for us.

Which brings me to today 🙂 We’re in the second week of January 2021 and I just read that we can expect the Netherlands to remain in the type of lockdown we’re currently in, which means that the current measures will remain in power at least until the end of the month. That means this is a perfect moment for everyone to work on themselves! If you have to stay inside this much and avoid social contact, that means you have to spend a great deal of time with yourself. So, this week I intend to share some of my personal methods for improvement of the self, so to speak. But first, let’s try a fun exercise this week!

Sending a message to your future self

A fun exercise you can try is sending yourself an email with relay. Set it to half a year from now and just type yourself a letter containing all the hopes, dreams and goals you would love to achieve before the email gets into your inbox. What would you want to tell your future self? Maybe you’re going through a tough patch and hope that in half a year things will have improved. Or maybe you’re working on a new book that you want to find a publisher for? 😉 Anyway, just write without constraint. Write from the heart. Once you’ll receive that mail from yourself and read it, you’ll see how much can change in such little time! Most email programs allow delayed sending, but there’s also a couple of websites you can use to do it, like FutureMe.

What I like about sending yourself a message like this is that it can be about anything you’d like to tell your future self. So it is basically a form of self reflection, but instead of looking back, you’re looking forward. And the beautiful thing is that once you’ve received your message, you’ll be able to do some further reflection and gain some insight into yourself.

Books, games and other stuff

So, what’s keeping you guys busy these days? I’m over halfway with the two books I’m currently reading:

Reviews for these two will surely arrive somewhere this week! Although it has to be said that these two books are Dutch and I’m fairly certain they have not been translated to English, which is a bit of shame. 😉

My gaming time was a bit lower than usual last week, but the online presentation for Monster Hunter: Rise had me really excited and I did take some time to play the demo. The graphics are much better when you see the game in motion, which is a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. I can’t wait until the full game releases in March!

I’ve also taken a lot of pictures for new LEGO set reviews, so I’ll make sure to post at least one this week as well!

Hope you’re all having a great week ahead of you!

Happy Monday!

~Jeffrey