Well, aside from those two awesome bits of news, I have some of my own. Partially thanks to Lent, I managed to accomplish a Non-Zero week! That's right, kiddies, a full week!
Okay, so, for those who still don't know, I got the idea of the Non-Zero day from an old classmate of mine when she found the idea on Reddit and posted about it on her blog. This has been my philosophy ever since. I now live my life aiming to do SOMETHING daily - even if it's just writing a quick sentence or do five minutes of research - that will advance me towards the goal of becoming a professional writer.
It may not seem like it too much with the Non-Zero days I've done this week. None of them really push me towards writing that masterful manuscript that will be my break-out hit. However, it does get me in to a writing routine, which is something I'm desperately lacking. It gets me practicing and learning daily. It may still be another five years before I have a manuscript ready for print, but these Non-Zero days get me better prepared for that day than how I was previously living.
First up, as I mentioned, this new boost in writing is partially thanks to Lent. See, I've noticed lately that I spent pretty much all day on Facebook. I have at least twenty people on my list for getting notification, and I check those notifications as soon as I get them. I then putz around on the site while waiting for someone to do something on it. I also stay practically shackled to the desktop - since I don't have a data plan on my phone - in case someone hops on and wants to talk to me through Facebook Messenger. I crave human interaction, and so those IMs and notifications are like a drug to me.
I was truly addicted.
I noticed how unhealthy that habit is - on more than one level - and so I decided to cut down my use of Facebook. I now more-or-less stick to roughly and hour or two a day. Still a bit much, but I need at least that in order to catch up with all those notifications. Anyway, now that I'm not spending my day latched to Facebook I need to kill time; keep me occupied so I'm not tempted to open up the website in order to fill that social void. Thankfully, that's what writing is for!
So, how did that work out in to a week of Non-Zero days? Well, the first two days were kind of minimalist in that regards. I worked more on the snippet I have in the works with Nys and Willow talking to each other. Well, it's more of an argument between the two. Anyway, I got maybe half way through the story last Monday before I hit a brick wall. I just couldn't get things flowing. It's the same reason I haven't finished the Lia and Ripley snippet. I just don't really know either Nys or Ripley well enough to have them in my head. Since I'm not Cyhyr - the "Director" writer - I have difficulties just writing what I want them to say and have it still sound natural; unscripted. I need to have the characters in my head and "talking" to me so I can feel the natural flow of the conversation.
I mean, I have Ripley SORT OF in my head since I do know him at least a little bit. Hubby kept him sort of simple since Ripley hasn't really developed in his head yet. He's a laid back surfer who struggled to live on the streets for three years; causing him to become violent. He then had his anger channeled by becoming one of the security guards of the campus. He learned discipline and realized he enjoyed helping people, so much so that he's going to school to become a psychologist. He's easy for people to talk to and quite lovable. However, this tends to result in people taking him for granted as someone there to help them through their troubles; ignoring that he has troubles too. I already have a Lia/Ripley snippet up where Ripley drops the "psychologist" persona and becomes a lovesick teen. The current snippet I'm working on is kind of similar, but I can't find the trigger to get him to drop his facade. It was so much easier the first go....
And Nys? Well, Ronoxym doesn't really do much with Nys, and so I don't really know her too much. I do know that she's a lot more like his fiance Cyhyr than Ron will admit. That made things a touch easier. I just sort of pictured how Cyhyr would react in a similar situation. I basically wrote fanfic about my friend.
I might do that anyway. It would be cool to see the differing versions. Ronoxym needs to do the same thing with the Devon/Willow story we're working on. I'm sure people would get a kick out of his solo version of the story versus the one we end up with once done. Especially since my derailing his story easily added ten pages to the tale... whoops....
Once I hit THAT wall I moved on to another project yet again. I wanted to have SOMETHING up for you guys this week, and so I decided that I'd convert more solo-role-play-sessions in to Snippets. This most recent one was Willow doing a private training simulation out in the woods of Mount X. Though it doesn't necessarily push the overall story forward, it will probably still end up as its own chapter in X-Future: The Second Generation Begins. However, the role play only happened three months ago, therefore it will easily be another year or so before I get to the point where the chapter will fit in the story. In the meantime, I decided to drop it in to the Snippets anthology. I'll probably remove it once it's a chapter in TSGB, but I'll cross that bridge and all that. Until that time I can try to get some reads where its at now.
I'm not entirely sure who would read it though. It is just overflowing with spoilers. And so those who are reading TSGB might not want to read it in order to avoid getting slapped with the results of a LOT of plot twists. Those that don't care about the spoilers because they're players on the forum - and therefore already know everything - already read it as the original posts. I didn't really change much when I switched it over to narrative due to how I write on the forum in the first place. Then there's the group that aren't players - meaning the story is new to them - but they also don't care about spoilers. Out of that small group I have to now weed out the ones who are offended by foul language since the story has a bunch of it.
In other words: I'm not expecting a lot of reads for this snippet.
"Training with a Mind of Its Own"
I actually had everything all set to have this up on Saturday, and then work on this blog post on Sunday. However, I was missing talking to people online now that I had cut back my daily Facebook intake. I decided to try out using Skype as my go-to messenger over the weekend. It didn't work as well as I had hoped, and so I'm now on Trillian. I highly recommend. I've been super happy with it over the past few days.
Anyway, while I was trying out Skype on Saturday AngelBlood666 actually tracked me down. We proceeded to IM each other for the next TEN HOURS or so. It was awesome talking to him about just normal life stuff as well as touching a bit on writing. I feel like I've connected him on a new level now.
So, AB666, feel free to hit me up whenever.
Well, the Non-Zero Days continue on, and I have a project in the works to help even more with this goal. I'll let you know more about that in Sunday's post.
Until then!
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