Sunday, May 26, 2013

Writing Mostly For X-Men, But Writing A Lot!

I'm addicted again.

I really should just never go near forums. They are most certainly my drug. Especially forums where I'm telling a story.

Just about every bit of my free time this week was spent on the X-Men RPG yet again. Maybe celestialTyrant is right. I have an illness and I need an intervention.....

Granted, with me working in a grocery store and Memorial Day coming up tomorrow, there aren't too many hours of free time this week. So it isn't as bad as The Week of Feels the forum had at the end of March. Still, there have been BOOKS written as of late.

As I mentioned last week, after the month time jump in the game occurred multiple characters started up journals to sort of capture what happened over that month.

Lincoln's journal is about four pages long as he deals with the chaos of not really knowing what he is, why he's at the Xavier institute, who his mother is, the awkwardness of being a teen, and the possibility of being gay.

Whoops, there goes all the Lia/Lincoln shipping!




Funny side comment about that. Aside from commenting here about the possibility of shipping the two of them together - or at least having the love triangle between Lia, Lincoln, and Ripley - there is nothing posted ANYWHERE about the possibility of Lia liking Lincoln or the other way around. Yet, Tyler's player seems to have read the same "signs" as I did when it came to how Lia and Lincoln interacts. He asked me in a private message "So, uh, Lincoln wants to date Lia?" I responded that I had no clue what Lincoln's player had in mind; the two of us don't talk, we just let the characters interact on the boards. Lo and Behold, not even 12hrs later Lincoln's player posted a very confused Lincoln contemplating the possibility of him having a crush on his male professor. HAHA! Timing! Whoo!
Still, I find it amusing that Lincoln's player never even thought of him and Lia being together, and yet at least Tyler's player and I thought there was groundwork there. HAHA. I guess it's the same thing as Devon's player not realizing he was setting up Devon and Nys for a relationship.

Anyway, back to the journals. Tyler went on for a little over six pages about his training at the institute and recording his first solo album - since the character was originally a member of an Irish boyband. One of the pages was dedicated to a song he wrote for the NPC I control Crystal. The two of them are so adorable together! I really like Crystal, which is unfortunate. More on that in a little bit.

First, I want to say that I used Tyler's entries to figure out what Crystal was doing over the month jump, especially since as this huge fangirl she'd be following Tyler around campus like a lost puppy. I of course put my own 14yr-old fangirl spin on the events and rambled on a bit. Her journal is a whopping eight full pages of gushing over Tyler. It worked out well, actually. Tyler's player would read Crystal's journal and create his next entry based off of her and I'd do the same. It was fun feeding off each other like that. I also discovered that Crystal is VERY frank and finds Lia to be a wonderful older-sister figure, but also a bit of a moron.

I then did the same with Lia. In her attempt to try to get over Chayse I had her hanging out with mostly Tyler and Crystal, and so I used their journals to figure out what she had been doing. I also through in some "I'll never find love again" angst and added in some scenes with Lincoln and Ripley. The last two was mostly to lay the groundwork in case Lincoln did end up growing a crush on Lia, plus explaining where Ripley's came from. With the added characters to interact with and all the emo-angsty-lovesickness, Lia tops the charts with a wonderful nine full pages.

I didn't write one out for Willow, and I'm still debating if I even want to. However, I am excited to convert Lia's and Crystal's journals in to prose for my anthology. I swear to god I am working on that... sorta....

Anyway, I've started up a new writing tactic a few weeks ago. For the life of me, while I'm at the desktop I just cannot focus on writing with Hubby talking to his friends or watching TV. In other words, if I'm not in complete silence, which never happens while he's home.

So I've gone in the opposite direction. I drown everything else out by blasting music through headphones. Poor guy has to communicate with me through tossing things in my line of view to signal he wants to talk; either that, or send me Facebook messages. But he also seems to understand, so I'm thankful for that.

The reason I bring this up is that lately all these songs I've been listening to have been connecting to different aspects of the game, much like how it used to happen with the Hey Arnold story I was working on. Geez, anyone even remember I have that story?




Anyway, one of the songs I was really focusing on was "What Have You Done" by Within Temptation.
The first time I heard the song and I thought of the forum I originally thought it was a song Willow was singing with Devon. Sort of an anguished star-crossed lovers thing. Willow upset about the supposed betrayal, Devon following Brotherhood orders so he could get in deeper and find out more about his past, both having to attack each other even though they don't wish to battle.

Then, when the whole Willow and Chayse coupling came up, and the Devon x Nys ship, the song didn't seem to fit. Even to this day I feel Willow telling me that deep down there is STILL some sort of something for Devon that would prevent her from seriously injuring him. She still finds him a kindred spirit. But the song still doesn't really fit as star-crossed lovers anymore.

A few weeks ago I saw a fan video to the song using siblings that were forced to attack each other; sibling rivalry at it's most raw. The song fit wonderfully! Change the paradigm so the line "hurt the one I love" means familial love and not romantic love and there's so much there! That's when I realized that it is still Willow singing, but it's now her and **SPOILER**.

I get so excited whenever I hear this song now. I know that eventually the game will have Devon somehow return to the X-Men and then there'd be that confrontation between Willow and that spoiler character. I'm anxiously awaiting that story arc scene.

Aside from minor plot and character development elements, why am I telling you guys all of this? Well, because of what I said above about sadly really liking Crystal.

The more I listened to this song on Thursday the more and more I truly heard the anger in the line "What have you done now!?" This isn't just Willow wondering why a family member is now one of the villains. Willow is beyond PISSED at this character. This family member did something unthinkable and Willow loses all hope that redemption is possible. She's forced to face the inevitable; the family member has to be taken out. No matter what.

So, what is this "beyond the point of saving" act? Sadly, I think it might be killing off Crystal.



The villains were re-introduced after the 2yr time skip by having them attack Crystal and Chayse had to come to the rescue. I now fear that the story may have to have them succeed.

Originally, I thought the Brotherhood was attacking as an attempt to force Crystal to come with them. However, before Hubby gave her over to me to control, he had Crystal state that the Brotherhood was "afraid" of her powers. Plus they mostly fight The Purifiers - an organization of humans bent on eradicating mutants - so Crystal's ability to turn off mutant powers would only be of limited use as part of their roster.

On the other hand, much like the X-Men canon character Leech, Crystal's powers to negate other mutations could be of GREAT use to the Purifiers and other anti-mutant groups. They could try to dissect her and figure out what part of her code "turns off" the x-gene; using it as a weapon to finally remove the gene completely.

Therefore, I think the Brotherhood's goal was to kill Crystal and have Nys or Pyro dispose of the body before she could be "weaponized"; either that or before the Institute was able to train her enough that she could singlehandedly stop the entirety of the Brotherhood.

So, in other words, poor Crystal is at the Institute for the basic "to learn to train your powers", but she's also being hidden away from society there. Hidden from the Purifiers that might weaponize her, hidden from the Brotherhood that might try to kill her to prevent that from happening, and hidden from mutants that want a "cure".

As much as I'm enjoying playing Crystal, the writer in me cannot deny the great plot potential in killing her. The "weaponizing her powers" is a great story arc opportunity. We're having a few characters coming back from the future soon, and THEY could even attempt to kill off Crystal after discovering that the Purifiers were able to do just that. I mean, Marvel is either just finishing or just finished a similar saga in their comics surrounding the character Hope Summers and her impact on the future. So, it fits Marvel's writing style. Plus, we ignored anything involving Hope in our continuity, so it would be a cool twist to have our own version. Parallel events in a parallel timeline.

On top of the plot potential, there is also so much character development that could erupt from this. Lia, who is already protective of Crystal regardless of how much of a bitch the girl is to her, would most likely go all Mama Bear against the Brotherhood; becoming blood thirsty and craving revenge. She'd probably also become all emo again from not being able to save yet another of her friends from dying.

Tyler, who is meek and has no faith in his strength, would be right beside Lia in getting tunnel vision of taking out the Brotherhood after losing someone so close to him.

Devon would have a major conflict between realizing how "evil" his **SPOILER** is. Can he stay with the person responsible for Crystal's death? Or is this the straw that breaks his back and finally brings him back in to the X-Men fold as he also tries to hunt down Crystal's killer?

And then you have poor Willow finally giving up all hope in "rescuing" her family member as they become mortal enemies.

SOOOOO much can come from one simple death. So now I fear for Crystal as much as I fear for Nys with Trish around and desperate to hurt Devon.

But, I've rambled on about the forum for EVER at this point.

Round of applause for those of you still reading!

Let's move on to my writing course, shall we?
On Tuesday I received the second lesson for Holly Lisle's online course How to Write Flash Fiction That Doesn't Suck.

I haven't really done anything with it. I've been on the forum instead.




I may just delay actively participating in the course until such time as I'm not inspired. This way I don't really take away from all the writing I've been doing anyway for the forum. Plus, I'm still not really on the boards to talk with my "classmates".

The technical issue I had last week was finally figured out. It seems the website goofed up when I signed up, and so I was somehow not registered to be able to use the forum that came with the class. Holly's tech support is amazing and walked me through everything to get set up again! So thanks to her team! Whoot!

Unfortunately, now the entire forum has been having issues, so Holly had to start tearing the board down piece by piece to figure out what's wrong, and then slowly but it all back together. Although this didn't result in the entire forum to go down for a week, it did make me shrug and figure it wasn't worth hitting the boards. Why bother if the first few days I would just be reading other people's posts to try to get aquainted; just for things to be shifted and taken down and the like while I'm trying to do this.

Since next week is the last week of the class I'm not sure if I'll really bother utilizing the forum to help me along. I still have you guys and Writer's Huddle. Plus, I'm sure I will still have access to Holly's boards even after the course is complete, so I could always jump in there after the fact; once I've taken the time to actually work on the flash fiction.

Anyway, this week's "assignment" was to find two ways to escalate the problem we presented in our 150-words-or-less opening. An easy way to do this is to write out the problem sentence of your story again, and then write out two "Complication Sentences". These complication sentences are where you make the character's problem worse, and then worse again in an increasing manner.

Holly accomplished this in an amusing way in her second flash fiction she wrote for the course, and a truly heart-stopping one for the first. I legit want it to be Tuesday so I can read the ending of the first flash fiction she's using as an example.

The main thing I discovered is to not just look at "How can I make this problem worse" but to truly focus on the one word in your problem sentence that is the true issue. For Holly's amusing flash fiction the true problem is "unsatisfied". The character starts off unsatisfied, and after the first event he is still unsatisfied, but after the second event he realizes how truly unsatisfied he is. For Holly's emotional story the issue is the "inability to save". The character is worried about not being able to save something important to him, and after the first event he discovers that he truly couldn't save it, and after the second event not only did he yet again discover that he couldn't save something even more important, but his mother also discovers the pain of not being able to save something important to her.

Holly also pointed out a very important element of flash fiction: "Flash fiction does NOT mean you write it in a flash. It means the reader reads it in a flash." So, whenever you write, always remember that it isn't some sort of timed event. Take your time. Don't worry about getting it right the first time. Just focus on your story, your problem, and your character(s).

Speaking of which, I want to add in that you shouldn't try to force your characters or story to go in a certain direction. I've found on many occasions that if you just let the story flow in the direction it wants to go it's more entertaining to both write and read. For me, stories are like rivers. If you try to force the story to go in a certain direction instead of letting it continue to flow in it's natural course you'll end up with a lot of rough passages. Not to say it's not doable, I mean humanity rechannels rivers all the time, but it takes a whole lot of effort to complete.

When you try to force your story in a certain direction more often than not you end up fighting with the natural flow of your story and the struggle becomes exhausting. Cyhyr knows exactly what I'm talking about. She had massive Writers Block a little while ago when she decreed that her one character needed such-and-such development in order for the story to progress. She tried writing all of these scenes that would sort of force her character to finally achieve a certain maturity point. Her problem was that the sole purpose of these scenes was not to push the story forward, but simply to develop her character. The scenes were essentially pointless, her character fought her, and the whole thing became boring and a headache to write; which ticked her off because "If it's boring for you to write, it will be boring for others to read". She had all but given up on the story because she couldn't seem to get around this roadblock.

As soon as I suggested NOT having the character development the gears seemed to start turning again. I suggested just telling the plot of the story and let her characters develop at their own pace. If the story doesn't end up where she wants it to be because the characters haven't grown as much as she needed she could always go back through the second draft and fix that. Once she has the plot down she can better see where she can plug in character growth scenes. Or she could find out after the fact that the characters will grow and mature on their own and she won't need to plug in those "this is purely for character development" scenes. Because, let's all face it, as great as those scenes are - the moments when the reader truly feels connected to the character(s) - they are essentially the same thing as "filler episodes" of a show.

Another "writer" that has been having a problem with pigeon-holing is Hubby's BFF The Bard Shadow. He's one of the players in the X-Men game. He also hasn't really done anything with his character when he completed him. Because his character didn't turn out the way he wanted, given the intricate backstory Shadow thought of for the character. So, instead of letting the character grow, develop, and alter bits of the backstory that don't fit anymore - because no one really knows the backstory aside from the two of us - he decided that the character isn't "workable" and is sort of giving up. If he just gave up control and thought of characters as living entities instead of just puppets whose sole purpose is to propel the story, well, I'm sure he'd finally have some fun.

Before I go, I want to send you guys off with a reminder that tomorrow is Memorial Day. No, this is not "National Barbecue Day". Please, remember why we have this day. Take at least five minutes to just sit in respectful silence as you reflect about how thankful you are for every man and woman who went in to military service to help protect you.



Sunday, May 19, 2013

Starting up on Flash Fiction and progress in the X-Men RPG

I'm not entirely sure how or why, but according to Blogger's stats graph I received 179 hits yesterday alone! All the days leading up to yesterday, the highest hit count I've ever received was maybe 30. Most days I have 8 hits an hour, tops. Yet, at about 2am yesterday morning I had a mind-boggling 144 hits within the same hour!

I doubt that was all readers. I most likely got bombarded by bots/spyware/whatever. But still..... if you are one of those people that stumbled upon my blog yesterday and came back again today.... I thank you! That was quite a surprise and it made me smile.

Now for a shocker for you guys. I started reading again! Whoot!

It started off with me FINALLY reading Devious.Editor's latest chapter after the thing sat in my inbox for a month!




So, sorry to DE and to all of her readers. She would have had the chapter up a month earlier if I wasn't being so lazy. Anyway, go check out her story/latest chapter.

Beyond beta-reading, I got back in to reading some Rick Riordan! Whoot again!
I was going to finally start up the Heroes of Olympus saga so that Hubby and Devon's player could FINALLY talk about it in front of me. Sadly, I have yet to unpack the library since our move this past winter; resulting in me rummaging through boxes only to find every book in that series except the first one: The Lost Hero.

I did find the first book in the Kane Chronicles saga, however, and so I started reading that last night. I'm enjoying it. I've always been a huge fan of Egyptian mythology, so I'm getting a kick out of the book. Already six chapters in to it. If I wasn't so exhausted I'd probably be further, but alas I ended up falling asleep on the couch with the book on my lap....




So I feel a touch accomplished since - as I have been mentioning frequently as of late - the one thing every author repeats is the importance of daily reading. As an author, you may only write on the weekends, or every other day, or some other non-daily routine. Reading, on the other hand, should be done just about daily. Absorb in as much as you possibly can with this daily reading; even if it's just half-hour a day.

I somehow fell out of this "taking time to read" routine, and I'm attempting to rectify that.

I also signed up for Holly Lisle's online course that I told you about last week: How to Write Flash Fiction That Doesn't Suck.
I'm proud to announce that both DarkAngel1326 and Cyhyr also signed up, and we're doing the course together! YAY! Sadly, I don't know how active either lady shall be. DA is in the home stretch of her college courses and won't have any time to concentrate on anything else until mid-June. Cyhyr still doesn't have reliable internet at home, and so she can only be online when she goes to the library or hangs out at my place.

Thankfully, the course isn't as "intense" as I had feared. I received an email on Tuesday to start off the course. The email had links to the first week's worksheets as well as links to the "classroom" forum threads. I don't know about DA or Cyhyr, but for some reason I can't log in to the forums; so I'm doing this on my own. I'm not getting everything I should be out of this course this way, but it's still better than not doing anything at all. I'll just catch up once the whole "I can't log in" issue is figured out.

I'm also cheating a touch on the "assignment" anyway. I obviously won't state exactly what the exercises and worksheets talk about because it's Holly's course, not mine. I do strongly suggest the course if/when she opens it up again.
Anyway, I will give you the broad strokes so that you know what I'm working on. Plus, maybe it can help you out a little too if you're struggling.

For the first "assignment" we're supposed to come up with a list of desires, such as "financial security" or "a long-term romantic commitment" or "Save a life", etc. We are to also come up with two-word character descriptions: one adjective, one noun. Examples here include "heartbroken boy" or "hungry dragon" or "desperate mother" or "crafty dog", etc. Once you have the lists made up, we're supposed to match the character descriptions to the desire. Next was coming up with a problem that would stop the character from achieving their desire. Things such as "Unknowingly befriending a serial killer" or "Being abducted by aliens" or "Framed in an armed bank robbery", etc. Our top five groupings of character description, desire, and problem became the core elements of the five flash fiction stories we'll write throughout the course. The next two steps were to come up with a "Problem Sentence" - almost like the tagline of a movie - using a dozen or fewer words, and then write the opening of our stories using 150 words or less.

So how did I cheat? Well, the worksheet obviously went in to more depth than I described above. We were supposed to start clean with these ideas and just let them grow and develop. Really let our imaginations go free. Holly is writing flash fiction right along side us for the course and shared two of her stories.

The first one is about a boy who found a dying fairy in the modern world.
The second story is about a dragon who befriended a princess who feeds him her would-be suitors.

I'm cheating because I'm purposely not starting from scratch. Maybe some time in the future when I want to work on original fiction I'll go back through these worksheets and do them as intended. In the meantime I just jumped over all of the opening exercises and went straight to the character description, desire, and problem groupings.

I'm using the course to help me with my current stories; namely, the X-Men RPG and the Gyateara story I was working on for NaNo. So, instead of five completely original and unique flash fiction stories, I will end up with five flash fiction snippets of my characters; much like the scenes I've already been working on for that X-Men anthology.

Instead of the intended 10 two-word character descriptions, and then grabbing the most interesting five I came up with, I decided to come up with 2 two-word descriptions for each of my five characters. Didn't work out too well, I only have Trish, Willow, and Lia as definite characters I'm going to use for the course; still not sure who the last two will be. Even then, only Trish has both character descriptions figured out.

Trish: Psychotic Pyrokinetic & Patient Strategist
Willow: Imaginative Trickster
Lia: Motherly Teenager
Yeah, Willow and Lia's descriptions are so lame. I guess Trish is so much easier to give a description to.

Now that Hubby officially handed over the reins of the one NPC Crystal over to me, I'm debating having her as my fourth character. If so, who would my fifth be? Amara? I already know so much about her, but at the same time I don't have any of her stories written down. Perhaps this would be a great excuse to do so.

My other option is to use this course to figure out Natalie and Connor some more so I can get back to my Gyateara story. In the end I'll be sure to post my flash fiction for you guys to read, so please let me know what you'd prefer.

You know you'll be getting a 500-word story about Trish, another about Willow, and a third about Lia. Question is, who do you want the last two stories to be about? Crystal the 14-yr-old mutant with the ability to turn off other mutants' powers, and is beyond elated that she's going to the Xavier Institute with her pop idol Tyler? Amara the half-elf/half-gypsy disowned by her people who is struggling to find a way to win enough honor to finally be accepted? Connor the half-demon whose family was slaughtered in a bandit raid and was raised by the Heroes Guild, only to discover he alone holds the key to save his country? Natalie the Earthling magically transported to Gyateara who discovers she's some sort of prophesied "goddess" who has the ability to help Connor in his destiny?

Keep in mind, I'm trying to keep Connor and Natalie as a package deal, which means Crystal and Amara are also a package. Choose wisely. This isn't to say I won't go back through and attempt to do two more flash fiction stories with the "unpicked" character couple. I'll just be doing so after I'm done with my original five for the course.

Anyway, while working with the known three of Trish, Lia, and Willow I discovered that Lia is insanely boring! Now, that's not entirely true. Lia is dealing with the normal problems that plague teenagers: heartbreak. It's a problem everyone can relate to, and I already have a scene between her and Hubby's character Ripley that feels compelling. It's just, her "Problem Sentence" seems so boring compared to the other two.

Lia: "A heartbroken teenager struggles choosing between her ex and two others."
The others being the love triangle between her, Ripley, and Lincoln; all while she's still attempting to get over Chayse. See? A bit more compelling when I can use more than a dozen words, right?

Willow: "A playful trickster turns serious to get both answers and revenge."
Answers on why Devon betrayed them. Answers on who blew up the Xavier Institute and why. Answers about who Screw Driver truly is, and how he became a member of the Brotherhood. Answers on who the Challengers of Heaven are. Answers about what happened to Nix, Lucas, Idie, and Brianne - all missing persons from the institute. Finally, revenge on those responsible for the explosion that killed six students. Revenge on those who took Nix and the others. Revenge on Devon for the betrayal. Revenge on Pyro and the Brotherhood for turning Devon against the X-Men. Revenge on Screw Driver for scarring Chayse.

Trish: "A psychotic pyrokinetic attempts to secretly destroy the life of her rival."
She can't out right kill Devon now that he's proven to be a rival for Pyro's time and affection. If she killed Devon in cold blood her plan would completely backfire; causing her to be hated and hunted down by the very man she would kill Devon to be with. Her jealousy of Devon's connection with Pyro drives her homicidal thoughts, but that same desire to have what Devon has keeps her at bay - for fear of forever losing her opportunity. She must now strategize how to get rid of Devon while becoming the favored in Pyro's eyes. Unfortunately for Devon's traveling companion Nys, no one but Devon seems to care what happens to her.

So there you have it, the basics of the flash fiction stories you should be receiving by the conclusion of the course. Which one are you most excited to read about? Does anyone care about poor Lia's story?

In the meantime, Hubby had another mini time skip over on the forum. This time only a month time jump. However, one of the players suggested we start up a new topic thread folder specifically designed as character journals. This way we can let everyone know what our character did over the course of that month. A brilliant idea so we can see the character growth that happened, plus it gives us a springboard for what to do now that the time jump occurred - instead of our normal "duuuuuuuuh, I'm not sure what my character is doing now..."

They've been quite interesting reads. However, they are far from complete.
- So far Tyler has been working on his latest album, which includes a song dedicated to Crystal. It reads like a boy band love letter. It's so cute!
- Crystal has just been fangirl-ing it up; enjoying every waking moment she gets to follow Tyler around like a puppy.
- Lia is trying to get over the break up with Chayse, and is doing so by going full Mama Bear Mode; being overly protective of Tyler, Crystal, and Lincoln - the three youngest/most skiddish new recruits. I even have a scene going with her interacting with Lincoln to see how he's coping with the new disappearances. Eventually, I'll have to also work in more interactions with Ripley to set the ground work for that. Hubby and I already discussed that Lia helped Ripley study for his college finals - which he aced.
- Lincoln's journal is amusing to read as the poor thing completely freaks out over the chaos that has ensued in just the first week that he has lived at the mansion. I'm curious as to how the journal will reflect his interactions with Lia....
- Chayse and Willow each have journals set up, but neither of us have anything written in them yet. Neither of us really know what these two have been doing over that month time skip.

As for Trish? Well, we're still 2yrs back with her, Devon, and Nys. She just finished having the new recruits run the Brotherhood's obstacle course to gauge if they're "Brotherhood Material". Quicksilver - one of the two heads of the organization, the other being Pyro - declares all four recruits - Devon, Nys, Screw Driver, and a lunk named Warbash - passed and are now probationary members. Trish was already a bit upset about that, especially since she didn't see anything special in Devon or Nys. Then Quicksilver slipped Trish a note letting her know that the Brotherhood officially knows that Devon is indeed Pyro's son. Devon still doesn't know this, but Trish is beyond pissed off at this realization. She stormed out and we're all waiting for Hubby to make a move as one of the Brotherhood members before we can do any further interactions.

So that's where I am with all of my writing. Yes, it's still exclusively X-Men related. Yes, I'm still WAY behind in working on my Hey Arnold chapter. Yes, even though the chapter has been scripted out for MONTHS now I'm still uninspired to actually write the darn thing. Yes, I am still working on the introductory chapter(s) of my X-Men anthology, but I am hoping to finish that up soonish.

Don't forget to let me know in the comments which character(s) you want me to use for my final two slots for this course, and/or whose story you're most excited to read when everything is completed.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Important Info For A Free Online Course!

As predicted, I didn't really have any time to work on ANYTHING this week. I spent my free time cleaning the apartment like a mad-woman, and then I spent my weekend either at work or with my mom. Beyond that, I was working on my niece's baby blanket some more. At this pace I might actually have it done by Christmas....




Barely anything major went on at the forum either. However, due to some coaxing words from ChibiSunnie I started to go back on to Writer's Huddle a little more frequently. It's a good thing too, because I discovered this little tidbit and I wanted to pass it on to you guys.

Honestly, this is the sole reason I wrote ANYTHING for today's blog post. I wanted to make sure any writers out there didn't miss this opportunity.

There is a three-week Flash Fiction online course hosted by Holly Lisle. It is completely free. All you need to do is sign up for her - also free - online writing community. Just go to her writer's boot-camp How To Think Sideways and sign up. Once you do that, there will be emails with links on how to sign up for this specific course. Once you sign up, you're receive the course materials (lessons and demos, etc.) automatically.

Here's a little bit about Holly and how she runs her courses via the Writer's Huddle member who brought this course to my attention:

"Holly Lisle has had over 30 (approx figure) of her fantasy novels published traditionally. I'm currently taking her "How to Revise Your Novel" 22-week, very demanding online course, but I'm super-glad I took this course since my novel has really improved considerably, even without the formal re-write yet.
"Holly can be to an extent profane at times, she's opinionated, and a bit controlling (though she leaves you alone to decide how you want to proceed). She is not aiming at arming you to write literary fiction–or for that matter any specific genre or particular quality-level. She teaches how to write a good story that is marketable in today's market.
"She is an excellent teacher, direct, plain spoken and rather brilliant. Her aim is to train those willing to work to make a living selling fiction, and to that end she is very practical in her approach."

I already joined, although I'll admit I'm a bit intimidated by the whole prospect. I have no clue what I'm about to get myself in to for the next three weeks, but I swore to you guys last week that I'd have something productive to talk about next week. So here's hoping it gives me the kick in the butt I need to get serious about writing.

I also posted this info here so that you guys can join me on this journey! If you do, please let me know in the comments below and we can cheer each other on as we push through this boot camp together!

But hurry up! You only have until
Tuesday, May 14th
to sign up!


So, until next week, one last round of applause to everyone's mother and to every who is a mother.


Sunday, May 5, 2013

Ten Years With My Hubby!? But No Writing to be had.

I honestly have no clue what to write here this week.

Aside from maybe this:

HAPPY PSUEDO-ANNIVERSARY, BABY! 
HUGS AND KISSES!


Ten years ago, at 12:19am on May 3rd, my husband asked me out via AOL Instant Messenger. I had recently broken up with my boyfriend and was feeling lonely. Hubby had a crush on me for a while now - although I thought he was still crushing on some other girl at the time - and when I told him I was ready to move on from my break up he asked me out. It threw me for a loop since A) I didn't know he liked me like that, B) I never really thought of him like that, C) We were best friends, and D) He had just gone home for summer break and so we wouldn't be able to see each other again until the fall semester. After staring dumbfounded at the screen for about three minutes I finally responded back with something wonderfully poetic and romantic like "Sure, why not?". We "dated" by calling each other every day - which is how we continued our long-distance relationship over an 8-yr courtship after he stopped going to Lycoming. He came to visit me in July for my birthday. We shared our first kiss and watched "Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl" on our first date. We didn't see each other again until school started back up the last week of August.

It was an odd courtship. A hard courtship filled with lots of sacrifices. I have to say though, I think the smartest thing I've ever done in my life was type back "Yes" when Hubby asked me out. A day shy of 101 months of dating we got married; so our "official anniversary" is in October, but May 3rd will always be our "anniversary" as well.

AAAAAAAAAAAnyway. Enough of that mushy stuff.
You care about writing! Right?
Well, sucks to be you then, because I didn't really do any....

My week has been overrun by more crocheting and lots of work. Lots of work also means lots of work drama. Bucket-loads. I won't bore anyone with the details, but it's been insanity this week.
Joy.



When I wasn't at work, I was massively Spring Cleaning. Anyone who invaded my house before we went to go see Iron Man 3 last night would beg to differ as they wove around a maze of covered snack tables, laundry baskets, and boxes I'm still unpacking. However, it's true. I spent a great deal of time cleaning this week.

So the extent of my writing was once again focused solely on the X-Men RPG. Trish, AKA Lighter, finally got to come out and play. It's a little slow going since Devon's player only really has internet access when he visits us. Sure, he's starting to pick up the weekly-visits routine he and Cyhyr had before he proposed to her; resulting in them not visiting as frequently to start saving up for the wedding. However, when the two do visit, there's a lot of socializing and the forum posts take FAR too long to write and publish. The last few times he visited I would put up a post, he would respond, I would respond, and he would have to head home. It's been kind of pathetic.

On the plus side, though, his one other character Nys - a female traveling companion of Devon's - has really had time to grow and develop within his head. I can't wait to see how she's turned out over the past week or so that she hasn't really been active due to the lack-of-internet.

Side note about Nys. Originally, she was going to be a quick, passing character that Devon would run in to and direct towards the Xavier Institute. That was it. Somehow, she weaseled her way in to becoming Devon's cross-country traveling companion as he searched for the Brotherhood. Devon's player was alright with that and decided it could be helpful for Devon to have a friend while on the road and when he finally joined the Brotherhood. The thing he DIDN'T take in to consideration though, was that Devon and Nys are becoming attracted to each other.

It's subtle, but even from Nys' introduction you could tell that there was something there. There was something about how he wrote Devon and Nys interacting that just called out "These two want each other". The problem is that he apparently didn't realize he was writing them like that. In fact, he was purposely trying to avoid that and thought he was doing an alright job at writing them as a platonic traveling duo. So, naturally, when I asked him "So when are these two going to kiss already!?" his response was "Wait. What!?"

He now rages as he notices more and more how romantically involved they're getting with each other against his will. So - naturally - I have to constantly tease him about the DevonxNys shipping; as well as the possibility of Nys getting killed off simply because Trish doesn't like Devon and it's the best way to hurt him. Whoops.

I'd also like to take a moment to apologize for apparently getting Writer-Emo/Fishing-for-Complements again last week when I talked about Cyhyr.

I appreciate the concern and insane amounts of motivation I received in response; especially from ChibiSunnie who seemed to be nearing a panic attack at the thought of me not writing anymore.




I'm sorry for any concern I may have caused. I just get in to these Emo-Fits. Considering Omnibladestrike seems to do the same thing, it may just be a natural "Am I good enough?" reaction us writers fall in to every once in a while, especially when faced with superior writers.

I have another semi-heavy work week this week, plus the crocheting, plus my mom is visiting ME for Mother's Day; which means excessive cleaning on my days off. Also, before anyone jumps the gun, no, I am not "with child". My mom is visiting ME for Mother's Day because she wants to spend it with her daughter and knew I wouldn't be able to take the time off to drive down to her.

Anyway, my point is that it will be yet another crazy-busy week where I will probably only write on the forum, if at all. I also might not get around to posting next week depending on if I have a moment to write up a blog post with Mom visiting and me still having to work at 3:30pm.

So, maybe I'll catch you next week. If not, happy Mother's Day to all of my maternal readers, and I'll try to be productive enough to have something worthwhile to write about for May 19th.