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Sunday, December 23, 2012
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Christmas is Coming Up Quick
This week was mostly spent socializing and working on my
Christmas gifts. Monday was the normal everyone-invades get-together. CelestialTyrant
crashed at our place until Wednesday, and so Tuesday was spent socializing with
him and working on Hubby’s gift while he was at work. Wednesday was more work
on Hubby’s gift, and then we all hit up the mall to do some Christmas shopping.
UNCLE: “Well, I finally got to read your story and it is
good – very good! I hope you get a chance to finish it sometime soon. I’m
looking forward to the completed story….The writing is very fluid, detailed,
and kept my interest. And I don’t consider myself a fantasy, sci-fi, or comic
book guy. I really see very few flaws in this ‘rough draft,’ so I would say you
have a very promising future in writing. Good luck with this story and the
other projects you were working on.”
Never bring three men to a Michael’s craft store if they’re
ANYTHING like my friends! They were like kids the whole time. :D
Thursday was spent working on the rest of the Christmas
gifts since Hubby was home the whole time. Friday was a long work day for both
of us, and then there was more Christmas gift making. Saturday was the same as
Friday. This evening I forewent sleeping while Hubby was at work so I could
FINALLY get back to his gift. I honestly don’t know if it will be done in time.
Then, when I wasn’t crocheting I was looking up crochet
patterns…. I have about 70 queued up for me to do!
However, poor Omnibladestrike has been so patient with me that I made
sure to read his story while I was at work. I finally finished and sent him my
edits this week – roughly a month after he posted the chapter on DeviantArt.
You guys should check it out. Yes, there are some rough patches that I pointed
out to him, but his revision is so much better than his past attempts. I think
he’s finally finding his voice and rhythm with his writing. The biggest issue I
still have is that the main character Mekonraiba doesn’t seem to have a consistent
voice. I don’t know if he has Mekon’s voice in his head. It takes some time to
build that though. That is, unless you’re Delaroux or DarkAngel1326, and then you have the characters
yelling in your head.
Speaking of which, I wonder how her story is coming along…
now that she’s going to have a bit more free time I wonder if she’ll start backup on Of Blood and Honor…
Anyway, back to me.
Yes, I didn’t continue with my story. I didn’t even continue
with the music video I’m working on with ChibiSunnie. At this point I think I won’t
be getting anywhere near either of those projects until next month or even
February; depending on how a major issue in my life pans out.
However, I did get a lovely letter from my uncle the other
day.
When Hubby and I went to the extended family Thanksgiving
gathering last month my uncle came up to me to ask about my writing progress.
He had been following my NaNo-themed Facebook status updates and was genuinely
curious on both my story and my writing in general. We talked about both my
NaNo story and my Hey Arnold fanfictions. He seemed greatly excited for me and
expressed interest in reading my works.
He then proudly proclaimed that he was a published author. A
running LinkedIn group he is a member of wanted to write a collaborative book
about the hobby. Since my uncle had already written some articles for
Helium.com, he rewrote the articles as a coherent chapter about motivation and
submitted it to the group. They loved his work and included the chapter in the
completed book. You can purchase the book as both a paperback and an ebook viaAmazon.com.
How does this all relate to that letter I received this
week? Well, when I got home from the Thanksgiving vacation I made sure to send
him an email that had links to my Fanfiction profile and my NaNo story
specifically. I then told him that I’d love to read his chapter as well. It’s
quite exciting to have a published author in the family.
My uncle did one better. He sent me a copy of the book along
with the aforementioned letter. He hadn’t read my Hey Arnold stories, but he
did read my NaNo story and had the following to say about it:
UNCLE: “Well, I finally got to read your story and it is
good – very good! I hope you get a chance to finish it sometime soon. I’m
looking forward to the completed story….The writing is very fluid, detailed,
and kept my interest. And I don’t consider myself a fantasy, sci-fi, or comic
book guy. I really see very few flaws in this ‘rough draft,’ so I would say you
have a very promising future in writing. Good luck with this story and the
other projects you were working on.”
Thank you so much for the encouragement, Uncle! It may be a
while before I get back to Connor and Natalie, but I will continue their story.
Actually, I was thinking of putting “The Race For Destiny” on hold until I finish fully
realizing Amara’s world and then place Connor and Natalie there. It will make
the story a little less “Fable” and a little more “D&D” which is sort of a neutral
zone when it comes to “fanfic” versus “original fantasy”. We’ll see how the
story develops over the years.
Chibi also sent me a review/beta-edit of my story thus far.
Unfortunately, I took NaNo’s “Don’t edit, just write” a little too much to
heart. Apparently there was a huge block of text that I completely duplicated
in one of the later chapters and I didn’t even notice. I don’t even know how I
managed to do that! So I actually wrote 300 words less than I thought I did!
Dang it!
She also pointed out a few other things that I’ll have to go
back and tweak once I actually have the time to go back and edit. I do want to
comment on a re-occurring statement that Chibi made. Paraphrasing it was “I had
to chuckle at the cheesiness of…” I know! I know! There are some super cheesy
moments in this story, but most of those cheesy names/moments are actually the
scenes/names I completely swiped from the game Fable. “Chamber of Fate” is the
actual name of the room where the hero graduates from the Heroes Guild as well
as the room where the final boss battle takes place. Some of the cheesiness of
Connor’s reaction to the Chamber of Fate relates heavily on the fact that it’s
supposed to be a central location of major events in his life. Further in to
the story that would be better explained, but if the reader is chuckling prior to
these reveals perhaps I need to re-work how Connor acts… :P
Well, unless that Mayan Apocalypse turns out to be true, I’ll
catch everyone next week! :D
Labels:
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Darkangel1326,
Delaroux,
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NaNoWriMo,
omnibladestrike
Sunday, December 9, 2012
Being Creative Without Writing
After the winners were announced for the Halloween themed contest, a comment was made that there would be a Christmas themed contest as well. Here we are, a week in to December, two weeks from Christmas, and there has been no further mention of the contest. I guess the idea was dropped.
This means December is a nice break from the frantic writing I did last month. As of yet I haven’t written another word for any sort of fiction. It’s a nice break, but it’s also a little sad that things are still on hold. This doesn’t mean I haven’t been creative, however, it just means it is through different mediums.
First up, ChibiSunnie and I are going to be working on a fan video together. Ever since I first heard the song “One More Night” by Maroon 5 I’ve had this nagging idea that it’s a perfect song for Curly and Rhonda. The problem though is that the song is too “mature” to use clips from the show. It’s almost mandatory to use images of Curly and Rhonda while they’re in their 20s. Alas, there are no such clips aside from a brief glimpse of Adult Rhonda in the episode “Married”. I thought I’d be able to put the thoughts of the music video out of my head since it’s impossible to piece it together. I thought I would maybe turn the idea in to a story instead. After all, that is how What Is Truly Meant To Be started out – an idea for a music video that I couldn’t make, so I wrote the first chapter instead. I then continued the idea so that each chapter is now basically a music video in prose form.
Yet, I still couldn’t get the music video out of my head whenever I heard the song. In fact, the video slowly developed more and more. That’s when Chibi volunteered to help me out with this task. She’d draw images that fit to the shots I had in my head, and then I’d edit them together as an animatic. How could I turn down this offer? Thing is, the offer came during my writing frenzy, so December was the first time I was able to actually start seriously thinking about it.
I’m maybe half way through the song, writing out detailed notes in the way of prose so Chibi can “see” the footage that’s in my head and then she can decide on the image(s) she wants to draw to fit. I already have a pencil sketch storyboard from Chibi. We’re booking through this project! However, the amount of time it will take for her to draw everything out and then the time needed for me to edit it all together; I’m assuming we won’t premier the video until the summer. We’ll see.
Anyway, the idea is to have our video play out sort of like this Maroon 5 animatic video for "Payphone":
There’s more creativity this month than just that. Namely my Christmas gifts. Hubby and I have so little expendable cash; even $5 for a gift feels like a lot to us once multiplied by the amount of people we want to give gifts to. I thought we weren’t going to be able to give anyone anything, but then I found my tote of yarn. When I say tote, I mean one of those 35 gallon totes overstuffed with spools of yarn. For a little while about four years back I was addicted to buying spools of yarn simply because I liked the color. After finding the tote I decided I would crochet gifts for Christmas. It won’t cost anything besides my time.
Oh boy, will it take time! I’m not done with my first craft yet and I’ve already spent about fourteen hours on it. Basically, while Hubby is playing Fable III or while we’re watching our Prime Time shows I’m on the couch crocheting. I’m getting so stiff, and the craft I’m working on now isn’t coming out quite how I had planned. But hopefully the labors of love will be recognized. I know that one of my favorite childhood Christmases was the one where my parents made all of our gifts due to a similar problem Hubby and I are in this year.
All of this isn’t to say that I’m not writing this month. The likelihood of me doing any significant writing is slim, but it’s not impossible. I did open up chapter 8 to reread what I’ve written so far, as well as tweak a thing or two so it’s at least edited and ready. While I’m on break at work this month I might manage a little more of the chapter in 15min spurts.
I also have had Omnibladestrike’s latest chapter sitting in my email for about two or three weeks now. He patiently waited for me to finish up NaNo, but now the poor guy is on hold because of the above projects. I’ll most likely edit his story first before continuing on my own chapter, so I’ll keep you guys posted on that.
The best part? Check out that redhead by Patty on the left side. Does she look familiar? I’ll give you a hint:
Yup! Chibi totally included me in the crowd! So awesome!
CHIBI, HAVE I TOLD YOU LATELY THAT YOU ARE TOTAL AWESOME SAUCE!? CUZ YOU ARE!!! :D
This means December is a nice break from the frantic writing I did last month. As of yet I haven’t written another word for any sort of fiction. It’s a nice break, but it’s also a little sad that things are still on hold. This doesn’t mean I haven’t been creative, however, it just means it is through different mediums.
First up, ChibiSunnie and I are going to be working on a fan video together. Ever since I first heard the song “One More Night” by Maroon 5 I’ve had this nagging idea that it’s a perfect song for Curly and Rhonda. The problem though is that the song is too “mature” to use clips from the show. It’s almost mandatory to use images of Curly and Rhonda while they’re in their 20s. Alas, there are no such clips aside from a brief glimpse of Adult Rhonda in the episode “Married”. I thought I’d be able to put the thoughts of the music video out of my head since it’s impossible to piece it together. I thought I would maybe turn the idea in to a story instead. After all, that is how What Is Truly Meant To Be started out – an idea for a music video that I couldn’t make, so I wrote the first chapter instead. I then continued the idea so that each chapter is now basically a music video in prose form.
Yet, I still couldn’t get the music video out of my head whenever I heard the song. In fact, the video slowly developed more and more. That’s when Chibi volunteered to help me out with this task. She’d draw images that fit to the shots I had in my head, and then I’d edit them together as an animatic. How could I turn down this offer? Thing is, the offer came during my writing frenzy, so December was the first time I was able to actually start seriously thinking about it.
I’m maybe half way through the song, writing out detailed notes in the way of prose so Chibi can “see” the footage that’s in my head and then she can decide on the image(s) she wants to draw to fit. I already have a pencil sketch storyboard from Chibi. We’re booking through this project! However, the amount of time it will take for her to draw everything out and then the time needed for me to edit it all together; I’m assuming we won’t premier the video until the summer. We’ll see.
Anyway, the idea is to have our video play out sort of like this Maroon 5 animatic video for "Payphone":
Sorry, this video is the original lyrics, not the clean radio edit... :-/
There’s more creativity this month than just that. Namely my Christmas gifts. Hubby and I have so little expendable cash; even $5 for a gift feels like a lot to us once multiplied by the amount of people we want to give gifts to. I thought we weren’t going to be able to give anyone anything, but then I found my tote of yarn. When I say tote, I mean one of those 35 gallon totes overstuffed with spools of yarn. For a little while about four years back I was addicted to buying spools of yarn simply because I liked the color. After finding the tote I decided I would crochet gifts for Christmas. It won’t cost anything besides my time.
Oh boy, will it take time! I’m not done with my first craft yet and I’ve already spent about fourteen hours on it. Basically, while Hubby is playing Fable III or while we’re watching our Prime Time shows I’m on the couch crocheting. I’m getting so stiff, and the craft I’m working on now isn’t coming out quite how I had planned. But hopefully the labors of love will be recognized. I know that one of my favorite childhood Christmases was the one where my parents made all of our gifts due to a similar problem Hubby and I are in this year.
All of this isn’t to say that I’m not writing this month. The likelihood of me doing any significant writing is slim, but it’s not impossible. I did open up chapter 8 to reread what I’ve written so far, as well as tweak a thing or two so it’s at least edited and ready. While I’m on break at work this month I might manage a little more of the chapter in 15min spurts.
I also have had Omnibladestrike’s latest chapter sitting in my email for about two or three weeks now. He patiently waited for me to finish up NaNo, but now the poor guy is on hold because of the above projects. I’ll most likely edit his story first before continuing on my own chapter, so I’ll keep you guys posted on that.
Before I leave, though, I want to share one more thing in regards to my story. Early this week Chibi finished off yet another piece of fanart! She skipped over chapter 4 because she was just too excited about drawing this scene. I absolutely love the fanart she’s done, and she’s got plenty more planned!
CHIBI, HAVE I TOLD YOU LATELY THAT YOU ARE TOTAL AWESOME SAUCE!? CUZ YOU ARE!!! :D
Sunday, December 2, 2012
Finishing NaNo!
First thing's first:
NOVEMBER 25TH
– SUNDAY
The Thanksgiving vacation is now over. We were all packed up
and ready to head out the door by noon. The extent of my writing time was used
to finish up my blog post for last week before our drive home.
The drive itself was a bit chaotic. My sister followed me up
in her car; with her dog driving her insane the whole way. The drive is already
about 4hrs long, but with the holiday traffic we were stuck in stop-and-go
whenever we got near a city. Plus, about an hour from the house my sister’s
speed sensor or whatever broke on her car and she was terrified she had done
something to her transmission. So I had to calm my sister, tag team between her
and my mom to figure out what we should do, and then drove below the speed
limit with our hazards on the rest of the way. The full trip took about six
hours to complete.
I then entertained my sister to get her mind off her car,
and then I unpacked. There was no way I was going to write anything. Sheesh!
NOVEMBER 26TH
– MONDAY
NOVEMBER 27TH
– TUESDAY
So the mechanic called my sister to let her know that her speed sensor has indeed died, but as long as she doesn't push her car she should be able to use her GPS to track her speed and make it home safe. She can then get the sensor replaced by the dealership itself. Happy to have her car back, we took a trip to Walmart to pick up a few things so she could throw a second mini-party to celebrate her car being fine and CT being able to visit a second day in a row. Aaaaaaaaand then we get in our cars to drive home.... and her car wouldn't properly shift without the sensor. Terrified that she'd blow her transmission, we again dropped the car off at the mechanic's and once again I had to deal with an overly emotional sister. Thankfully, CT really helped calm her down.
Sis also got a call from the mechanic later in the day. He could get a new sensor for her. He'd bump her in front of all of his other customers so he could make sure her car was fixed by 2pm tomorrow so she could make it home in time to get back to work first thing Thursday.
With all the extra chaos, yet another writing-free day.... :-P
Sis also got a call from the mechanic later in the day. He could get a new sensor for her. He'd bump her in front of all of his other customers so he could make sure her car was fixed by 2pm tomorrow so she could make it home in time to get back to work first thing Thursday.
With all the extra chaos, yet another writing-free day.... :-P
NOVEMBER 28TH
– WEDNESDAY
Continuing the November theme of being grateful, I have to have list some things I've been thankful for this week.
1 - CT being able to visit for the third day in a row. His visits really helped calm my sister down.
2 - The mechanic doing everything he could to make sure my sister could make it home safe - and never once charged her! I'll talk more about that in a moment.
3 - Sis being able to visit in the first place! Yay!
4 - BEING ABLE TO WRITE AGAIN after a week away from the computer.
Let's start with the car saga. Sis gets a call first thing in the morning to find out that the mechanic tried calling everywhere and couldn't get the sensor, so YET AGAIN sister is a wreck wondering how she was making it home. So we started off the day with her going BACK to the mechanic so he could teach her how to drive an automatic car like it's a standard to make sure it shifts. After CT calmed her and she had one last mini panic attack right as she left she managed to make it home with no trouble at all.
But when it comes to writing, well I got an hour in first thing in the morning. I dropped Hubby off at work and then wrote while waiting for Sis to wake up. I then wrote for another hour after Sis went home. Not terribly too much, but it was better than nothing!
1 - CT being able to visit for the third day in a row. His visits really helped calm my sister down.
2 - The mechanic doing everything he could to make sure my sister could make it home safe - and never once charged her! I'll talk more about that in a moment.
3 - Sis being able to visit in the first place! Yay!
4 - BEING ABLE TO WRITE AGAIN after a week away from the computer.
Let's start with the car saga. Sis gets a call first thing in the morning to find out that the mechanic tried calling everywhere and couldn't get the sensor, so YET AGAIN sister is a wreck wondering how she was making it home. So we started off the day with her going BACK to the mechanic so he could teach her how to drive an automatic car like it's a standard to make sure it shifts. After CT calmed her and she had one last mini panic attack right as she left she managed to make it home with no trouble at all.
But when it comes to writing, well I got an hour in first thing in the morning. I dropped Hubby off at work and then wrote while waiting for Sis to wake up. I then wrote for another hour after Sis went home. Not terribly too much, but it was better than nothing!
NOVEMBER 29TH
– THURSDAY
Blockaded myself in my room for a few hours to try to catch up on my writing. I wanted to at least finish off my chapter so I had one for today's update. I got an amazing 2600+ words written! Hazzah for basil pesto hummus!!!!!
NOVEMBER 30TH
– FRIDAY
The last day of NaNo. With some encouragement from Ali Luke I decided to try for half-NaNo; 25000 words. After yesterday's mad dash I only need 1400. My thing though is that I had a major issue with my characters just doing their own thing. For instance, Connor flipping out unnecessarily and apparently disappearing for a month. Now I needed to figure out how to get him back in to the story. :-P Also, I needed to figure out how Natalie discovers that she can see the jewel shards. Both issues completely halted my creativity. As of 9pm I still hadn't written anything!
After a mini-break down I blockaded myself in our room with more hummus. I was slowly word counting after each chapter. It was almost an hour of "write a paragraph, see if it's enough, than write another paragraph, see if THAT is enough, etc." I finally hit 25010, but then realized I only needed about 200 more words to hit my 1667 daily word count. After 1400 words 200 shouldn't be too much more to write. I then wrote 1730 words by the end of the day, only to discover that if I wrote 20 more I would be able to "roll over" the extra words to finish off one of the days where I only needed 30-some words to hit the 1667 daily count. By the time I finished the day it was about 11pm - when I have to go to work at 7am tomorrow - and 25,360 words in my novel!
I'm no where even STARTED in the main portion of my plot, and I only wrote on 15 days of the year. So if I had written daily I probably COULD have hit the 50,000 words and get about 1/2 way through my tale. It will be a while before I can go back to finish the story, but I'll let everyone know when I go back.
My goal is to convert everything in to a script so it's easier for me to organize my thoughts. Most of my words were description of the world of Gyateara and the magic used - which works with NaNo's goal to write as much as possible, but doesn't work for a polished story. With the script I could streamline and then switch back to prose once I have everything - including character personalities - figured out.
I also want to read through Rick Riordan's "Heroes of Olympus" series as well as Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle in order to get a better idea of how to describe the world/magic of Gyateara.
Before I work on finishing this story, however, I have the following writing goals:
1 - Supposedly there will be another Hey Arnold writing contest, this time with a Christmas theme, so I'll have to start thinking about what I want to write for that.
2 - I want to get back to working on What Is Truly Meant To Be after not updating in MONTHS.
3 - I want to see if I can get back to the second half of the July Daily Challenges.
4 - ChibiSunnie and I want to get back to working on our fanscript for The Jungle Movie.
We'll see how long it takes to get back to this story.....
After a mini-break down I blockaded myself in our room with more hummus. I was slowly word counting after each chapter. It was almost an hour of "write a paragraph, see if it's enough, than write another paragraph, see if THAT is enough, etc." I finally hit 25010, but then realized I only needed about 200 more words to hit my 1667 daily word count. After 1400 words 200 shouldn't be too much more to write. I then wrote 1730 words by the end of the day, only to discover that if I wrote 20 more I would be able to "roll over" the extra words to finish off one of the days where I only needed 30-some words to hit the 1667 daily count. By the time I finished the day it was about 11pm - when I have to go to work at 7am tomorrow - and 25,360 words in my novel!
I'm no where even STARTED in the main portion of my plot, and I only wrote on 15 days of the year. So if I had written daily I probably COULD have hit the 50,000 words and get about 1/2 way through my tale. It will be a while before I can go back to finish the story, but I'll let everyone know when I go back.
My goal is to convert everything in to a script so it's easier for me to organize my thoughts. Most of my words were description of the world of Gyateara and the magic used - which works with NaNo's goal to write as much as possible, but doesn't work for a polished story. With the script I could streamline and then switch back to prose once I have everything - including character personalities - figured out.
I also want to read through Rick Riordan's "Heroes of Olympus" series as well as Christopher Paolini's Inheritance Cycle in order to get a better idea of how to describe the world/magic of Gyateara.
Before I work on finishing this story, however, I have the following writing goals:
1 - Supposedly there will be another Hey Arnold writing contest, this time with a Christmas theme, so I'll have to start thinking about what I want to write for that.
2 - I want to get back to working on What Is Truly Meant To Be after not updating in MONTHS.
3 - I want to see if I can get back to the second half of the July Daily Challenges.
4 - ChibiSunnie and I want to get back to working on our fanscript for The Jungle Movie.
We'll see how long it takes to get back to this story.....
DECEMBER 1ST
– SATURDAY
I took a writing break! 'Nuff said!
DECEMBER 2ND
– SUNDAY
As mentioned at the top of this post: IT'S THE HUBBY'S BIRTHDAY!
With all the other writing - and lack of writing ability - this week I wasn't able to write this blog post prior to today, which is why it's late.... So, so late....
Oh well, I'm off to celebrate Hubby's birthday before I have to go to work at 3:30. In the meantime, enjoy the TWO chapters I wrote this week! Go me!
As mentioned at the top of this post: IT'S THE HUBBY'S BIRTHDAY!
With all the other writing - and lack of writing ability - this week I wasn't able to write this blog post prior to today, which is why it's late.... So, so late....
Oh well, I'm off to celebrate Hubby's birthday before I have to go to work at 3:30. In the meantime, enjoy the TWO chapters I wrote this week! Go me!
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