Holy Tolito! A Month Just Vanished!

Why hello, my lovelies. So sorry for the unexpected writing hiatus. I don't really know what happened there. I took a week off for my anniversary, and then I was again bombarded with both work and finally catching the sickness that was taking out all of my other co-workers at the time. Two weeks without a post or without finishing the latest X-Future chapter turned in to three as my mother visited. Soon the snowball-effect resulted in me not even having much of a drive to attempt to write anything. Next thing I knew it was over a month since my last post and longer since my last chapter update.

A whole month without writing anything - or even attempting to. Also, a whole month where I've been insanely stressed, drained, and all-around crabby.

I'm not saying the two are connected. I'm just pointing out facts. 

Anyway, with (inter)National Novel Writing Month finally upon us again, I decided to use it as a motivator to get back in to writing. I'm not sure how well it helped. On the one hand, I didn't write anything yesterday between work, chores, and overnight guests. On the other hand, I did finally finish that blasted X-Future chapter that's been sitting around for about a month.

I started that blasted chapter shortly after my last update. I got interrupted for some reason and then just never got back to it. I'd like to say that I can't believe it kept me a month to finish it, but I've had Hey Arnold fanfiction chapters that have been in waiting for just as long - if not longer.

Speaking of my Hey Arnold fanfiction, I've been hearing "Life After You" by Daughtry on the radio a lot lately. That song hasn't really played on the radio for a few years now. Add in the sudden revival of Gavin DeGraw's song "Not Over You" - which happens to be the inspiration for the chapter I've abandoned almost a year ago. So.... I think maybe Arnold and Helga are telling me to get back to work on their story. I'm not saying that there will be any updates in What Is Truly Meant To Be anytime soon - I'm too invested in X-Future right now - but I just may tackle the latest chapter a bit more before the end of the year. Sorry, folks, for going nearly a year without an update in that story.

Bad author. Very bad author!

The real irony is that the writing hiatus I stumbled in to over October was truly a complete stop. I haven't posted anything in X-Future either. No one really has. The game has halted completely - aside from Ronoxym doing a post as Devon about a week ago. Hubby's trying to think of a concept to kickstart us back in to playing. I'm just trying to get The Girls to start talking to me again.

Because of that - and because it's mad fun - I actually set up two cosplay costumes for My Girls. Eight bucks off of eBay and an additional two at the dollar store and I got myself a white wig with blue hair extensions. Roughly a ten dollar investment and I have a Willow Wig. Throw in some white shorts - or the white dress - and the white and blue cover-up my mother bought me for my birthday, and viola! I'm Willow! The playful, perky prankster who's a little bit of a flirt.

Or we could go the other way. Also for my birthday, my mother bought me pleather pants and a matching jacket. The pleather jacket has super wide lapels with little spikes all over them. The whole outfit just screams "Harley Davidson Biker". Add a red shirt I already own and the eight clip-on hoop piercings I also got off eBay. Mess up the hair so it's a bit wild and covering a lot of my face and BAM! I'm Trish!

Actually, that was legitimately my Halloween costume. I got all punked up. I wish I had the time and money to get my hair cut shoulder-length and re-dyed my normal gothic-red for October. That would have matched Trish PERFECTLY. I also wish I was able to get one of the clip-ons to act as an eyebrow piercing like I intended, but it kept popping back off, so I moved it to a lip-ring.

It was fun to roleplay as Willow and Trish. Hopefully that will get my juices going. At the very least I am picking up more and more the varying voices of my characters. I mean, I always knew that each of my characters - not just the X-Future ones - had their own personality. For the X-Future girls they were all sort of a bit of my own personality focused and refined. But given that they are all teenagers I was afraid that they were all using the same dialects and sounding similar to each other. I'm starting to feel more and more confident, however, that once my readers get to know my characters they'll be able to know who was speaking just based on how it was said.

I originally went more in-depth about what I meant; describing each girl and how her voice differs from the last. It ended up being this long-winded tangent. I think I'll have it as a bonus blog post to make up for the random disappearance.

As for this post, I'm just going to wrap up by stating that I hope I can get back in to the rhythm of writing again. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to write daily like a true NaNo attempt. I'm also pretty confident that once December hits I'll again disappear in to my little crocheting-hut while I make everyone's gifts. In the meantime, however, perhaps I can get back to at least updating this blog weekly and my X-Future story roughly every ten days.

Wish me luck!