So, I had the epiphany a couple weeks ago to start video-recording myself as I create my various journal entries, then creating voiceover narrations of such entries, whether the actual entries I was writing at the time, or other entries entirely.
In my experience watching and participating in various writing sprints, I’ve found the visual stimulus of the act of writing can be a great motivator to do my own creative work, as well as a way to virtually co-work with someone else, even if they’re not live-streaming at the moment.
Without further ado, here’s the transcript of the actual journal entry I wrote in my official Writing Notebook: a Robrasim Travel Leather Journal.
Excerpted from my Robrasim Travel Leather Journal on April 18, 2026
This is a truly sporadic in-the-moment weekend. Earlier in the week, I had an impulse to find a place to go on a writing retreat, so I decided to see what I could find on Airbnb. Much to my surprise, about 25 minutes away from our house, between Crossville and Crab Orchard, was a remote cabin site out in the middle of nowhere.
So I talked to Melissa, that’s my wife, about coming. And she said she’d been wanting a mini vacation, a getaway, for about a month now.
So here we are, staying a couple of nights in a single-room cabin, with a deck overlooking a creek below, barely visible, but you can still hear it. No air conditioning, no internet, an outside kitchen, and a bathhouse.
And it’s great!
Thankfully, it’s still early spring, so it’s not too hot. Last night’s temperature got down to a brisk 61 or maybe 41 degrees. I can’t exactly remember right now. And this morning is cool and breezy, sitting here underneath the roof of the outdoor kitchen slash bar.
I’m just finishing off a cup of dark roast Starbucks coffee from the French press I used. I’ve already had my devotional, and after this entry, I’ll take a short walk to visit the huge three tom turkeys they have in a pen here before coming back to settle in and get back to work on writing book two of my debut novel series, pausing every so often to read The Neverending Story, a book I’ve never read but watched the movie dozens of times as a kid, practically grew up on it.
Then later this afternoon, some relatives are having their annual Easter egg hunt and cookout, a week late—but that’s family for you. And we’ll get to see DJ, our son, for a little while before he goes back to Dad and Karen’s, the grandparents, for the evening. And we come back for one more night of writing escape.
More good news: Since this trip is specifically for my writing business, and I gave a copy of both the first book in my SMART FOCUS series and my debut album, Revival in the Air, I should be able to count it as a business expense.
It would be amazing to be able to afford going on more of these writing retreats throughout the year. One each new season doesn’t sound unreasonable. But with things as they are where I work, being so unpredictable from month to month, things would have to shape up quite a bit for that to happen.
But it might not be as far-fetched as I might think. I’ll just have to start making writing retreats an intentional part of my career.
But enough about the trip. How’s the actual writing coming along?
As usual, it’s a slow start, especially since I don’t have some of my usual online resources available. (Without the Wi-Fi, you can’t really have those.) Things like online research, Dropbox syncing, access to writing sprint videos and writing vlogs, as well as access to the Publish and Thrive course that I purchased a few months back, again, for my writing business.
But overall, the writing went well last night. I was able to use the regular Clock app on my MacBook Air M3 as a sprint timer, and the natural nature background sounds served as my music. So it was pretty conducive to a writing environment.
I’m starting to see more of the immediate story forming as I continue to write. I’ve already plotted (loosely) ahead around five or six scenes. As I tend to overthink things, I may be overthinking this, but it feels like there’s so much more to uncover. There are plenty of loose ends, for me at least. Things that I can’t mention here because of spoilers.
I guess having so many ideas, especially in the messy middle phase of things, is a good problem for any writer to have. Still, it seems so overwhelming, so insurmountable to think about. “So, don’t think about it,” my inner voice immediately says.
Come to think of it, that’s the first time I’ve heard that voice in so long, years perhaps, I hardly recognize it. With all the usual chatter from my inner critic, I hardly have room or attention enough for hearing anything else. But I know this voice is right.
Don’t think about all the things that lay ahead. All the things that may not even be written into existence yet. They’re just ideas for now. Thoughts which aren’t written in stone, much less still fresh on the page.
Instead, use the light you have right now to see in front of you. As E.L. Doctorow famously quoted, that’s all you need to make the entire journey—just the next word.
“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” - E.L. Doctorow
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