Sunday, September 22, 2013

Birthdays, Apologies, Vamps, and a LOT of Pictures

I had a TON of online buddies with birthdays this past month! Sheesh! September is BIRTHDAY MONTH apparently!

So let's pause a moment to give quick happy birthdays to the following:
And sort of Duchess's little sister FMA:B since she was born this year at the beginning of the month. She actually shares a birthday with Chopfe.

Alright, so maybe that isn't a TON of people... but it's still a lot after months of no birthdays at all.

And since we're talking about my online buddies, AngelBlood666 has two new chapters up for his collection of the 30 Day Writing Challenge from last summer. He's now up to 26 out of the 30; better than my 14.

Final updating note on my buddies? Omnibladestrike just sent me his second chapter to read. This is pretty big. He's only done that once before. He usually gets so self-conscious about his work that he just sticks in an endless loop of reworking his first chapter. So the fact that he has finally moved on is fantastic, and in and of itself shows how much he's grown as an author. So big thumbs up there.
Now, if only I could just sit myself down to beta read for him and Chibi....
Gah, I miss having a netbook/laptop. I love my desktop, but computer chairs are so uncomfortable. I get a lot more relaxed and in the writing mood when I'm reclined or laying in the grass. Also, if I weren't tethered to the desktop - which is in perfect sight of the TV - I could remove myself from distractions so much easier. As it stands, I have to blast music through my headphones to drown out the TV and/or the talk of visitors playing MTG with Hubby, and then I have to try to angle myself so that I don't see the TV in my peripheral.

Although I can usually write while like that, I found it's increasingly difficult to beta while sitting at an angle to the computer and with music blasting in my ears. It's equally hard for me to proofread my stuff. Add in the fact that I'm getting sadly close to blind, and well...

Here, let me explain. I much rather prefer contacts to glasses. I look better in contacts. I don't have to worry about things in my peripheral being blurry since they are outside the range of my lenses. Plus, after a decade of almost exclusively wearing contacts, the extra distance between my eyes and the corrective lenses of my glasses is just enough to give me this weird fish-eye-lens feel that makes me a touch dizzy and kills my depth perception.

Problem is, like I said, I'm closing in on "blind." Without any corrective lenses of any kind I have to be within about five inches of something to see it clearly. Once your eyes get that pathetically bad it is impossible for contacts to be made in small enough increments to truly correct your vision. So, I can either stick with the prescription I have now which is a touch too weak, or go to the next level which would be majorly too strong.
Obviously I'm sticking with the touch too weak. This means I'm good for most sight purposes, but when it comes to reading something I have to be about two feet or so from it - depending on the size of the font, obviously - and items in the distance aren't as clear to me as they would be with 20/20 vision. To my guestimation, I'd say I'm at something like 15/20 vision. It's pretty darn close to corrected, but not quite there.

Add in the fact that I'm pinching pennies right now, and so I can only afford the contacts as opposed to the rough estimate of $200+ for new glasses. Ah, glasses. THEY can be made with small enough adjustments that they could get my exact prescription need and I'd be at full clear vision again.

Anyway, the reason I bring all this up is similar to why I brought up the whole desktop thing too. The way my desk is set up my monitor is probably about 2feet from my face, so it's at the edge of my clear vision with my contacts. Add in the normal eye strain of staring at a computer screen for too long. This results in me either adding a lot of stress on my neck and back as I lean forward to read, or really putting a strain on my eyes as I try to focus. Either way, it's literally painful for me to read at my computer too long in one sitting.

So, I apologize to Chibi and Omni for not being the quick-turn-around beta I vowed to be while coming up with my New Years resolutions. I apologize to my fellow members at the Writers’ Huddle for once again disappearing from the boards; it's just hard to read what conversations have been going on, let alone join in. I also apologize to AB666 for not reading/commenting on his chapters lately. Finally, I apologize to any other author whose story has been sitting in my inbox for weeks/months on end. Same goes for the three or so bloggers that I follow and haven't read in ages.

And since I'm here apologizing anyway, I might as well add in that I'm sorry that I don't have a chapter update for you guys this week. Normally - so it seems - I would therefore not have a blog update, but I figured if I wasn't going to give you guys a chapter I might as well give you this, right? Besides, I do have something else - aside from the above - to talk about.

This week has just been rough at work. A LOT of my co-workers have been getting sick now that school started up again. In other words, school started, kids went back to school, the increased socialization within a confined space is causing these kids to catch each others' colds, said sick children are now bringing their colds home to their parents, and they in turn bring the sickness to work. Yay....
We're pretty short staffed to begin with, and on top of that a lot of my co-workers are college students who now have a very restricted work availability. So now that people are dropping like flies with these stupid illnesses, the few of us with open availability have to fill in the gaps. I personally gave up my day off today - as well as shifted my Friday and Saturday schedule a little to open up some hours for me to work before hitting overtime - in order to cover for someone.

When I'm not dead tired at work I'm home cleaning the apartment. Either that, or once more getting suckered in to my husband's siren-song of snuggling on the couch while binging on hours of anime. The meal of the week? Black Butler II, and now Fairy Tail.

Side note: I LOVE Gray!
Gray-Fullbuster-fairy-tail-17464806-1798-2560 250px-Gray_Anime_S2
HAWT (ironic for an Ice Mage...) Grrrrowl... ;)

Gray-Fullbuster-from-Fairy-Tail-gray-fullbuster-15811883-1280-720
I LOOOOOVE watching him enter this stance in the anime. He looks so awesome! *swoon*
*Ahem* Right... I'm married... to an actual man, not an anime/manga character....
I was semi-creative this week though. I swear!

So when I wasn't dying at work, cleaning, or wasting my life by watching hours on end of anime, I actually had the vampire LARP this past Friday. It's been MONTHS since we last played, so it kept a bit to get back in to character.

I then couldn't get her out of my head. Yay, insomnia!
Anyway, the character I'm talking about is my most recent: Neghya. Yup, name "stolen" from online buddy Neghya.

She is for our Sabbat game; simply, very violent vampires who wish to rule over Humanity as farmers rule cattle. If one were an X-Men fan I'd say - very loosely - that Sabbat are the Brotherhood of Mutants to the Camarilla's X-Men. They are chaos to Camarilla's order. They also have a sort of bastardized mock Catholic Church set up to their society's standings. It's complete with such positions of stature as Bishops being the most powerful vampires to rule over a city or borough, and packs within said city who each have their own Priest that performs rituals every night and Abbots who protect their haven.

All that aside, Neghya's story consists of living in a dystopian present in which every man is more-or-less out for himself. There are little to no "heroes" among Man any longer. Vampires and other supernatural creatures control nearly everything from the background, still hiding supernatural existence from humanity. In this dystopia Neghya is a 25-yr-old runaway who has taken on a nomadic lifestyle for the past decade, more-or-less. One night, after working a shift at a New York City bar, she comes across a strange man. I have yet to work out enough of her backstory to know how she pissed him off, but I do know she somehow came upon a ring that is of great importance; although The Bard has yet to bring the subject of the ring back up and so I have no real clue of its significance. Anyway, she either won the ring off of him by besting him in some card game - probably though rogue-like cheating - or she just plain stole it off of him.

Either way, she had the ring - along with more of his valuables - and he wanted it back. Not only that, but he wasn't about to be bested by a mere human. He is from Clan Ravnos; originally the Gypsy Kings of the vampire world, now a nearly extinct race of common rogues, thieves, murderers, and delinquents. Being outsmarted by a human was NOT an option. So he took his revenge on her the best way he knew how, but more on that in a moment.

The real draw for me to play Neghya was that I'm still learning how to play Vampire: The Masquerade. We have games so infrequently - and the rule books are so convoluted in describing how to play - that I never really understand what to do or remember key points that any vampire character should know. We set Neghya up as a newly-embraced vampire. The first role play session I had with her she didn't even know what she had become. She was terrified after killing a homeless man and draining his blood. Hubby's character Javed found her and took her in as his surrogate Childe. There were some humorous moments when she mocked the most powerful vampire in NYC because she didn't quite comprehend yet that not only were "those creatures from TV, movies, and preteen novels" real, but she was now one of them.

Since Neghya is still trying to wrap her head around the concept that supernatural entities do exist and that she's no longer human, she's also learning the ways of the Vampire. This of course means that I can goof up during game sessions and then blame it on Neghya "not knowing". Win!

The story diverged a bit from Neghya's original storyline; mainly because it wouldn't be fair to the other players if the whole game was centered around her. So, for game purposes, she's just a new recruit being thrown in sink-or-swim style during a massive war between the Sabbat and the Camarilla for possession of NYC. We're about to hit the conclusion of this war as we played out the beginning of the final battle this past Friday.

If I were to turn this in to its own World of Darkness fanfiction, Neghya's story would consist of her tracking down her true sire - the Ravnos - and take her revenge on him. There is unbridled hatred for this man, and Neghya wants to unleash her full fury on him. Fair warning, though, if I were to actually write out her story - a thought I toss around every now and again - it would have to be a mature rating and the first chapter alone would be greatly disturbing.

See, the Ravnos' revenge on Neghya was to "take everything that makes her who she is"; in other words, the most violently forced embracing he could think of. The whole thing was about dominance over her and stealing as much as he could from her. Poor thing is stripped down and shackled to a dumpster in a side alley behind the bar she worked at, is violently raped while being sliced open so he could slowly drink her blood while inflicting as much pain as he can, and then is turned in to a vampire just before he rips out her insides so she could survive the torture of it.

Jack the Ripper had nothing on this creep. In fact... maybe he once was Jack the Ripper...

When I started roleplaying as Neghya we knew that she was raped before being violently turned in to a vampire, but we didn't have the specifics. After Friday's game I guess Neghya wanted me to have the specifics.

I tossed and turned while having the most random bout with insomnia; something I've only suffered from maybe half-dozen times in my life. As I lay snuggled against my husband I couldn't turn off my brain as I witnessed the entire brutal scene of Neghya's embracing. I heard her Sire's voice as he berated her, screamed at her, threatened her, and mocked her. I heard her pleas for him to stop, forgive her, and spare her; I then heard her cries of agony. Actually, it's no wonder I couldn't sleep with such torturous visions playing out in my head.

At about 2am I caved and went to the desktop to type. I didn't get every single word or nuance, but I have more-or-less the entire vicious act written down now. Then during my break at work today I had Neghya's response to this vile deed. There is a trick that vampires can use on each other. Camarilla forbid its use - it's an executionable offence - but the Sabbat embrace it. In fact, Hubby's character Javed has an obsession with it to the point where he will frenzy if he is allowed the opportunity to do this feat and then it is denied him.

This action is called Diablerie; a heinous act, akin to vampiric cannibalism. One vampire drains another of his blood, and once the victim vampire is completely dry his very soul is consumed by the feasting vampire. Javed just taught Neghya how to diablerize a vampire during Friday's game. Now that she knows this trick exists, the extreme power and ecstasy it brings, and the complete irreversible death it causes; she's figured out how she'll enact her revenge. I have that whole scene written out too.

So, alas, there is no new X-Future chapter for you guys to read; almost exclusively due to me spending nearly two entire days watching anime with Hubby. However, I WAS creative over the weekend at least. Plus, I managed to get over my hurdle of "I can't torture my characters"; at least with poor Neghya. I think it's mainly because she was able to more-or-less recover from it. Same with Amara. I was able to torture her, but she also more-or-less recovered.

From what I hear, Hubby's co-storyteller - whom I idolize for his ability to create such compelling characters and side-stories - is thinking of doing something major that would result in a complete annihilation of one of his characters' personalities. I nearly cried when I heard that! And the guy hasn't even DONE anything yet. He's just THINKING about it! Man, to be so cruel and cold to one's characters after making everyone else fall in love with them!? That's talent.

So, while I sort out this whole mess of "can I truly torment my characters for the betterment of their development/the story?" I'll also debate writing out Neghya's story while I actually work on the next chapter of X-Future. Unless I'm called in to cover for more sick co-workers, I should have my scheduled two days off in a row this week. With any luck I can accomplish some writing on at least one of those days.

Wish me said luck!

Sunday, September 15, 2013

The Value of Blogging and Snuggling

Yup, did it again. I totally missed a week of updating. But, hey, at least I'm still updating relatively frequently. Neither DarkAngel1326 nor Cyhyr have updated their blogs in a while. So, at least my semi-frequent updates "count," right?

Although, DA1326 IS still in school and that's obviously a priority. So her infrequent updating is understandable. Cyhyr is also in school, plus she just blew through something like 15,000 words in a little over a week! So I guess she also gets a pass. It seems that Cyhyr's priorities are more on writing her fiction and less on writing her blog. If she's going to spend time at the computer writing SOMETHING; it seems she'd prefer that something to be her stories. I have to give her credit for her priorities. It seems that it should be more important for authors to care more about their manuscripts and less on their journalistic blog updates.

Even famous writers such as Rick Riordan - if they have blogs or other form of social networking at all - only update online every once in a while. Riordan's only been updating about once a week because he's in a holding pattern while his latest story is being edited. Since he can't do any further work anyway until his editor is done, Riordan uses that free time to finally catch up on his online presence. I haven't been following him long enough to know definitively, but I'm assuming his blog and Twitter accounts are barely touched when he's in the full swing of working on his manuscript; be it the first draft or one of his many revisions.

So, to bring this full circle, yes, I can give myself credit for updating at least bi-weekly, as opposed to the infrequency of the other authors I know who blog. However, they seem to prioritize so that the craft of writing their manuscripts trumps any work on their blogs. Perhaps I should focus more on this priority outline. Perhaps I'd be further than I am with my writings if I let this blog fall to the wayside, and instead use the two hours or so a week working on my stories.

Then again, I do seem to have faithful readers here, and I'd hate to disappoint you by just abandoning this blog. Plus, it is important for authors to have a fanbase; a platform; a gathering of faithful readers. I feel this blog does help me in that realm, even if it's just a slight bit. I'd hate to alienate my readers here that may not enjoy my Hey Arnold or X-Men fanfiction.

Besides, the fact that I missed last week DOES seem to display that I do - at least to some degree - have the priorities of "manuscript first; blog second". I could have easily wrote a blog post last week explaining why it kept me until the last minute to work on my chapter. I could have discussed why I didn't have the time to proofread the chapter prior to posting my update. I could have promised that it would be up before the end of the week - a promise I was able to complete, by the way.

However, I much rather prefer to have used the time I would have been blogging as time spent to complete my chapter and proofread it. I'd much rather have the chapter posted before putting a blog post up so that I had something to show for my week. Instead of telling you what I accomplished, and then showing you later, I'd rather just wait until the task was done.

At the same time, I didn't anticipate it taking so long for me to complete the proofreading process. I honestly thought I'd have everything completed by Tuesday, and therefore would have the blog post ready by then too; having me be only two days late instead of a full week.

Considering all of that, having this blog truly is beneficial to my writing; and proves that I really should never neglect it entirely. Even if I sometimes do fail at posting weekly, it helps train me to be in a regular writing rhythm. It gives me a reason and/or excuse to seclude myself and just write. It may be a completely different writing style or skill set, but I do practice - and hopefully improve - my writing each time I write a new post. The icing on this little cake is that it also holds me accountable.

I feel guilty whenever I go a week without posting. This therefore keeps me from forgetting about this blog. It holds me accountable for my weekly writings. If I miss a week - as I did last week - I feel even guiltier if I miss a second week. It truly, and honestly keeps me on the "regular writing" path. Now that I've been posting weekly chapter updates for the Writers' Huddle Summer Challenge, I feel obligated to keep up that rhythm. That way when I do my weekly blog updates I also have a new chapter for you to read.

Reader base, practice, writer discipline, and accountability. These are the things this blog brings to me and teaches me about. These are the four reasons I will keep working on my blog. These are the four reasons I'm not fixated on the "Manuscript first; blog second" priority ranking. These are the reasons why I'm working on an update now instead of working on my next chapter.

So, please forgive the delays.

Now that all of THAT is out of the way, how about something fun? How about a new chapter update?

I had the darn thing written by Sunday, as I have been for the past month. However, between picking Hubby up from work, passing out, and going to work myself I only barely had the time to finish writing; much like the week before. I didn't want to post a non-proofread chapter for a second time, and so I opted to just wait until I was done proofreading before posting the chapter and this blog update.

Monday I had a full work day; nine long hours that completely drained me.
There was no chance that I was going to do anything that required thinking at the end of that day.

So, I set out to proofread after work on Tuesday; especially since it was my shortest work day this week. Instead, I ended up doing all the backed-up chores that have been piling up over the past week or so. That, and Hubby convinced me to rewatch Trigun with him after he completed his half of the chores.

Wednesday I was determined to get the chapter finished. After Hubby distracted me with more Trigun, I finally accomplished my goal, and posted the chapter both on FanFiction and DeviantArt that evening. It was too late for me to work on my blog post though.

Thursday I had every intention to finally get the blog update done, and to start work on the next chapter; maybe finally concluding the events that occurred on the forum all on June 22, 2012. However, Hubby informed me that  2-Feathers-And-A-Stone wanted to boot Maddog24 and Duchess over to our apartment for a few hours. She had finally had their second daughter - a few weeks early - and she wanted some time alone in the house to clean and finish getting the place ready for their new baby girl. Duchess usually gets in the way of cleaning, and sometimes MD24 does too. I welcomed the visit, and so I didn't really get too involved in things like my writing or finishing off my chores as I expected MD24 to show up at any moment.

The minutes ticked in to hours and next thing I knew it was close to six, we still needed to do laundry, and so MD24 decided to just stay at home. He then asked if they could maybe swing by on Friday. He never showed up then either. At least this time I was in "screw it" mode and just did what I needed to do around the apartment. My sister is visiting this weekend and I wanted to at least have all my chores done.

Sadly, the working 9days straight - plus not feeling 100% to begin with - took a toll. Instead of using the hours between me and then Hubby getting off work to clean or at least write.... I.... passed out.

Apparently I was so tired that I completely slept through my alarm. Hubby ended up waking me up by calling to see if I was going pick him up; since I had the car. I was already a half-hour late. WHOOPS! He understood and we laughed about it when I got there to pick him up.

So late on a Friday evening I gave up on the blog post. It was so close to my normal Sunday update anyway that I just allowed the week to pass. I did the same for the next chapter. Since I would be posting the links to the chapter I completed this Wednesday I decided to just go for the "vacation" from writing and not worry about the next chapter until this upcoming week. It also gave me the free time yesterday and today to just hang out with my sister during her visit.

Besides, allowing Hubby to distract me with Trigun also allowed us to do something that we haven't really done in a little bit. Something I desperately missed. We just ignored the world and snuggled on the couch for hours. It was a great stress reliever.
The only problem now is that I have the one song from Trigun stuck in my head. It's a "folk song" that was written for the show/manga that is periodically sung as a nod to the "old days" and the main character's lost companion. The song was released as part of a Japanese soundtrack to the series, but since only the first two lines are ever sung in the anime, only the first two lines were ever translated. So a normally five-minute-long song is stuck in my head as two lines that take about thirty-seconds to sing. So I have 30sec looping in my head and I'm singing it at work.
Worse yet? Hubby finds it amusing to sing the opening two notes to get the song stuck in my head again.... Thanks, Babe...
Bah, anyway, if you want it stuck in your head too - for some crazy reason - then here's the song.
Otherwise, here's the chapter I completed this past week. It consists of Chayse's attempt at the Danger Room at a higher difficulty level than recommended for him.

Rescues and Robots on FanFiction
And over on DeviantArt

I'm excited to say that I actually have two people who have faved the story on FanFiction. I also have good old ChibiSunnie devouring the chapters. She's a bit confused now and again because she doesn't know anything about the X-Men fandom, but she still seems to be greatly enjoying these chapters. So... YAY! Maybe I can convert her in to the fandom before I'm done. Muahahahahaha.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Delay Post

Yup, pushing the writing to the last minute again. I'm working diligently on it still, but I kept passing out at the computer all week while working on it. I'm hoping that's simply due to me being tired coupled with the strain on my eyes, and NOT because this is a boring chapter.... Anyway, I didn't start really working on it until 1am this morning, worked on it until 5am, fell asleep, and started working on it again about 1/2hr ago. I'm not sure if I'll get the chapter done before I go in to work at 3:30, and I don't want to post an official blog update for the week until I can link to this week's X-Future recap. So please excuse the delay, I hope to have the official post up either tonight or Tuesday. I know tomorrow will be shot since I'm pulling a nine-hour day at work and I have to keep cleaning the apartment for my mom and sister possibly swinging by this upcoming weekend.

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Ending the Summer Challenge With A Weak Bang

Ugggh... this was not a good writing week.

It was not a good motivational week.

It was not a good week.

My work week consisted of insane hours, cranky co-workers, incompetent co-workers that made me want to punt them across the store, managers that couldn't stand still long enough for me to accomplish anything I needed to for the Wellness portion of my work week, and finally a rarity for me.
Customers that just irked me.

Normally I love customers. I love interacting with them. I love the quick brain teaser of trying to figure out how to make a mad customer happy. I love the diversity. I love the repeats that you get to know and vice versa. Even if I get a cranky customer every now and again I can shrug it off as "eh, they're just cranky" or "They probably had a bad day."
This week though.... *sigh*

Add in that tomorrow is Labor Day - that glorious ringing out of Summer in The States - and my week was insane and tiring. To be honest, I can't really recall what I did day-to-day like I normally do when I write these posts.

So when I was home I had no energy to actually think. I zoned out by either watching TV, putzing around on Facebook and DeviantArt, or playing one of two video/computer games. A few days ago I started up playing Fable on the Xbox again - only to be ticked off that I failed one of the side quests for probably the seventh time since starting up that game file. My main go-to, since I'm already at the computer, is to play the game King's Bounty: Armored Princess.

The worst part about my burn out? It just might happen again this week. As I stated, a holiday is tomorrow, and I have an equally crazy work schedule. Joy.

Anyway, enough griping about how I didn't WANT to write this week. Point is that I still did. I forced myself, but I got through it. I guess sometimes that's just what you have to do. Especially if you write for a living; you can't just give up a full work-week because you don't feel motivated.

So, in the end I guess it's good training for future weeks like this when I'm writing for a living.
*knock on wood*

It was a bothersome week for the forum recaps as well. The first recaps were easy. Aside from the second one about Nix - which was easy enough to gather; just go through the listing of his early posts and get the info needed - the first and third recaps were live role play sessions. This meant I had enough interaction and "story" to write out my recap chapter without much effort. Just read the session and write what happened. Simple.

Well, for this week it wasn't so simple. The day after the Danger Room session a whole bunch of us players just did a ton of individual roleplaying. Simple things to set up what our characters do in our day-to-day and/or how we reacted to Nix's control loss and/or the Danger Room session. So, there were a bunch of posts scattered across the multitude of boards that we have on the forum. When I say "multitude" I'm not joking at all. We have six different sections of the board: a section for character bios and the like, a section for general out of character discussion, a section for polls, a section for important Moderator/Administrator announcements, a section for roleplaying as X-Men characters, and most recently we added a section for roleplaying as Brotherhood characters. Out of just the X-Men role play section there are 136 topics. Granted, a large portion of them are closed but are available for reading; a large portion are still open for people to continue roleplaying in.
That's a LOT of boards to sort through!

So I started off my weekly task by going to Hubby's and celestialTyrant's accounts since the two of them were the most active when the game first started. Through their profiles I was able to track down their posts and when they posted them - the same tactic I used to figure out everything for Nix's control slip-up recap. From there I noticed that a LOT was going down on June 22, 2012. I then used this information to sort though the over-hundred topics to figure out which ones were created on or before the 22nd. This narrowed it all down to 22 topics. Still quite a few, but not nearly as overwhelming as 136.

From there I went through and found all the posts that were up on the 22nd specifically. This narrowed it down to just 10 topics, but it was still a LOT of posts. It was too much for me to try to organize them while still on the forum itself. So I thought a touch out of the box for that.

I copied and pasted all of the posts from the 22nd in to a word document. They were all still in their forum comment layout of member name and picture, timestamp, and comment all nestled in to table cells. Because of this the posts - roughly 130 of them - take up a little over 31 pages!
And we're back to overwhelming... just a touch.

Well, thank GOD for time stamps, because while I was going from one topic thread to the next I was able to organize all hundred-plus posts in to the order they were originally posted. It definitely helped flow everything easier, especially when certain "scenes" flow from one location to another - therefore going from one topic thread to another.

Needless to say, just tracking down everything that happened on the 22nd and organizing it was a task that lasted about two days.

I then attempted the last mini-challenge of Writers’ Huddle's Summer Writing Challenge: Spend exactly 5 minutes planning the scene/chapter/post/article before writing. Five minutes and that's it. Not a minute more or less. It was basically a challenge to see what you could accomplish in such a short period of time - much like last week's writing for 10minutes. It was a nice exercise for those who never plan ahead of time, as well as those who spend hours or even days writing out the planning before writing. Ya know, like how I write for What Is Truly Meant To Be.

Anyway, as I was re-organizing the posts according to their timestamps I of course glanced over them to get a basic idea of what was going on that day. I figured "alright, five minutes? I got this" and started to write bullet points about what happened; periodically glancing at the posts to make sure I didn't miss anything. Well, 5minutes quickly came and went, and I was maybe a fifth of the way through the posts.

The later third - or maybe even as much as half - of the posts were all two large scenes, and so I was able to make it through bullet pointing the rest of the posts in another 15minutes or so. I now know that there was just so much going on this third day of playing that I'm going to get either three or four recaps out of it - depending on how long the second recap ends up.

The first recap is basically what the full day of roleplaying was: everyday happenings and people dealing with what happened in the previous recaps.

You can find it on DeviantArt here.
It's also up on my FanFiction version of X-Future: The Second Generation Begins.

Quick aside: I actually had someone favorite this story on FanFiction this week! The X-Men stories haven't been getting much love/attention, and so to have someone fave the story was like "WOW!"
So, thanks, ItsAlexO!

Okay, back to the recaps.

The first recap ends with Lucas Kinney racing towards the Danger Room after getting an alert. The next recap will be why he got that alert in the first place, as well as why Nix is so nervous. This was tricky because when the game was first set up we didn't have a lot of the things we have/use now to help game play flow easier. For one, we didn't really know how to create hot-links in our comments. We now use this to help refer to either a crucial event that will make our current post make more sense, or as a means of directing people to the previous location we were at in our scene. It would have been VERY helpful to help me sort through everything. The other real key thing we do now is have blank posts - aside from a single blue line - separating one scene from another in the same location. The last thing - the one that would have been super helpful for the Danger Room recap - is that double-posting was defaulted to condense down in to one post if the posts were within an hour of each other.

How this works is if you post a comment and then went back to that location thirty minutes later to do another action - but no one else posted in that location in between your two posts - the two posts would condense in to one with a blue line breaking the posts apart. When it did that the timestamp on the non-original post(s) is lost.

So Hubby had a Danger Room session going on in which he had nine posts in a row. These all condensed in to one large post with lines separating them. I have no clue what time the individual posts were up aside from the original one. That in and of itself isn't that big of a deal. What makes this whole scene a pain in the butt is that while Hubby was posting in the Danger Room a whole bunch of players had their characters reacting in the Danger Room Observation Deck, therefore including their reactions in to the scene. So I had to read through both and try to figure out where the Observation comments fit in relation to all of Hubby's posts; a task that would have been easier if I had timestamps to go off of. *sigh*

Even better is that Lia wasn't one of the people watching - she was off doing her own training. CT wanted to interact with Lia - I think mostly because I was off on my own while everyone else was roleplaying in the Observation Deck - and so Nix came to talk to her. Thing is, according to the Observation Deck posts Nix was there until like the last five minutes of the session, and yet he somehow managed to miss how it ended..... The timing is tricky, so I'll probably fudge it a bit when I re-work the recap.

Anyway, depending on how long the DR session is - which will probably be very long - I may make the next portion of that extended story a third recap... Danger Room Aftermath. The scene for that went on for a bit as well, so it just might be enough for its own recap.

The final one for the day would be **Spoiler: Sorta. Not really, but whatever. Hover cursor over to see.** going on dates. So keep your eyes out for those updates. Whooo!

As for the Snippets... still no love for them; ItsAlexO didn't fave that story set. Maybe people are purposely avoiding the Snippets to avoid the spoilers???? *shrug*

Anyway, I haven't even THOUGHT about working on the next Snippet I have in the works. I'll keep you guys posted though.

At least X-Future has been at sort of a crawl/stand still for the past month. Kinney - who is Hubby's right-hand-man and fellow storyteller for the game - wanted to do a Danger Room session for some of the guys, but he then had to go on a week-long vacation to visit the in-laws before the session was done. Plus none of the guys seem to be online at the same time and so there are hours and even a day or two in between postings. This session is literally taking a month to conclude.

Problem there is that it freezes the rest of us more-or-less to make sure our characters don't get too far ahead time-wise. In other words, the rest of us will be roleplaying a day or two ahead of those guys and it's a pain to catch people up.
  • So Crystal and Tyler are in roleplaying limbo until "the next day" can start up.
  • I have no further advancements for Trish since her day was pretty full already and is probably on the next day at this point. Plus... she's in a cell, what can she really do? Hubby's trying to figure out what Deadpool can do to mess with her this time.
  • Willow and Chayse are very slowly chugging through the day, but neither of us really know what to do with them; especially since Chayse wants to ignore the two huge elephants in the room: who Screw Driver is and the identity of the traveler from the future.
  • Thanks to my taking over as Jamie "Multiple Man" Madrox and playing the "insanely over protective father" card, Lia and Ripley are advancing slowly but surely; with a bit of a cameo from Ronoxym's secondary character Oswald, Ripley's best friend.
OH! Random little fun tidbit about Trish that happened this week. Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook already know this, and originally I wasn't going to include it on such a public venue as my blog, but it was just too good not to.

As I was getting ready for bed on Wednesday I put on my red nightgown. I've been wearing a lot of blue lately and Hubby jokes that I'm just in "Willow Wear" or that I'm "Cosplaying Willow". After noting to myself that I had worn red I chuckled that I was finally in "Trish Cosplay". I quickly corrected myself that the nightgown had to be "Lia Cosplay" instead since a nightgown was way too girly for Trish - who would be more likely to wear shorts and a t-shirt to bed.

After another second of pondering I realized that she - in an extreme case - just might wear a nightgown as an act of seduction. Thing is, I MEANT to think to myself that she'd wear one to seduce PYRO. Ya know, the Brotherhood baddie who is Devon's father and the object of Trish's affection? Instead, what I accidentally thought to myself was that she might wear one to seduce DEADPOOL. The wackjob Merc With A Mouth who had been interrogating her.

I then shuddered at the thought.

That's right. MY CHARACTER Trish was so repulsed by the thought of trying to seduce Deadpool that not only did SHE shudder in my mind, but she actually got ME TO PHYSICALLY SHUDDER AS WELL! As an experiment I then purposely thought "What? Deadpool and Devon both start with D... it's close."
I then gagged.
WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL!? This is a whole new level of characters taking over....

Does this ever happen to any of my writer readers out there? Or am I just a nutjob????

Speaking of my writer readers - although I'm not so sure she reads my blog... I know Ron does... anyway - I have great writing news in the world of Cyhyr. First off, her collaborator finally finished her chapter for the fanfic they're writing, and so they were able to update after a year hiatus. Kind of makes me feel better about not updating WITMTB since February. The real reason I bring up Cyhyr, though, is because the woman has been a writing machine as of late.
Cyhyr: I wrote 25 pages in my session yesterday. How many can I write today? I'm shooting for at least 20; I've already got 9 though, and I think I can challenge for 30...
I'm at 17 pages now but I'm hungry and I don't want to leave...
Update: just finished scene 6 and I have a total of 48 pages written, so 23 today...
[I'm working on] a completely new fanfiction that slapped me across the face and said "write me" on Thursday night. So I started it a little then and now I'm almost 50 [frigging] pages into this shit.
So, let's give her a cyber round of applause for her great stamina and drive. Now... for me to find that same drive...

Alright, I just want to conclude by announcing one last thing that I accomplished this past week; last Sunday, actually.

For nearly a year now I've been thinking of branching out and starting up a more conventional blog - one that's informative instead of journalistic - but I couldn't figure out what I have enough knowledge about to write more than one post. That doesn't really matter if I write the one or two posts I know about such-and-such subject, submit it to a blog as a guest post, and repeat for the next topic, etc. However, I'm too lazy to spend hours on end tracking down a variety of blogs, and then attempt to write a guest post for each of them; although this is the best way to get started with a paid gig as a blog writer. Ali and I tried working on figuring out my specialty for a little bit at the beginning of the year, but it didn't really get far.

Well, Sunday I realized that I goof up a LOT, and in a wide array of categories. I've also figured out how to fix these goofs. So I've decided that my next blog should be a sort of "self-help catch all" in a sort of "learn from my mistakes" way.

I've reserved the url CritFailing.blogspot.com for when I start up this new blog:
Crit Failing: A Guide to Goofs and Screw-ups

Thanks to my co-worker Sergeant Strudel for the blog name idea. My other title possibility is "I Roll Ones", but I think that's already a "fail blog" on Blogger.... Eh, the name has time to change/evolve. The important part is the blog url.

Sadly, I don't have nearly the time to dedicate to running two blogs, especially when I barely manage to update this one weekly. Plus, I need to figure out how I'm going to write professional, article-style posts. On top of everything else, I need to set up a cache of articles; really focus on the mess-ups I do that may also plague others as well as advice on how to avoid/fix the problem.

It will be a bit of an undertaking and the new blog probably won't launch for another two years, but I at least have a plan! Whoot!

Now off to work on that next recap.... or to sleep.... probably sleep....