The Never Ending Naming Struggle, and Other Writing Bumps

Wow! Super short post this week! Sorry about that...

Well, to start, my wrist is still killing me. It keeps feeling better, and so I don't think about it or the brilliant idea of getting it checked out. Then I go back to work and it starts throbbing again. It REALLY killed me yesterday because it was the first time I worked two days in a row after injuring myself. The next three days are going to be fun with three back-to-back-to-back work days. So much for injury recovery. Thank god for ace bandages, ice, and wrist braces.

Needless to say, the injury held me up a bit when it came to doing much this week. However, I managed to magically injure my wrist at JUST the right angle that it doesn't seem to really affect me while I'm typing. Not sure if it goes the other way around, though: I'm not agitating the injury while writing.

Hand writing hurts like the dickens, though. So I've only done a few notes and scribbles while on work breaks. Nothing terribly too major sorted out there.

I was determined to not go another week breaking my New Years Resolution of "No more than three Zero Days in any given week". So, I focused on more researching. Specifically, I focused on Canon Reworks naming. I even started up a little spreadsheet for it and everything. I have the Marvel canon character name, the code name, and some new name options along with what they mean. I haven't gotten so far as to try to tackle the new code name issue quite yet.

Jamie "Multiple Man" Madrox is definitely Cody, but I still need to come up with a new last name. Might just flip open the phone book on that one...

I personally still like Margaret for Kitty "Shadowcat" Pryde, but Hubby isn't budging on his dislike of the name. So, I'm trying out a few more options there.

James "Logan/Wolverine" Howlett will most likely be named Mateo, but I'm not 100% on that yet. On the one hand, I really like the uniqueness of the name. You don't see a lot of Latino characters with that name. I also like that it almost has a Japanese flavor to it too. On the other hand, people may not know how to pronounce the name. I know that Phfylburt had that issue at first. Because of that set-back, I'm leaning towards more easily-recognizable names like Ruben and Ramon. Not sure they fit his gruffness like "Logan" does, though.

Amara "Magma" Aquilla is now Hawaiian, and so I found a Hawaiian name that means "fire": Keahi. Much like Mateo, I'm a bit concerned that people will stumble when they come across the name, and that tends to jettison readers out of the immersion in to the story. However, the fact that BabyNames.com only had ONE name listed for "Hawaiian meaning Fire", and Amara is almost a non-existent character who is rarely spoken of by name, perhaps having a name like Keahi isn't so bad.

GAAAH, I don't know! I'm so hesitant at deciding on something definitely. I guess it's a fear due to the fact that I know I'm still so bad at this whole "naming" thing! I mean... come on....

HOW.  DO.  I.  TITLE!?

I did get some actual writing in, though. As I mentioned last week, Ronoxym and Cyhyr thought Devon sounded whiny in a monologue I wrote for him. See, in the current version of Please, Let Me Explain, Willow tells Devon that even if she believed he was innocent it wouldn't make things better; it could actually make things worse. Then later in the story, Devon again pleads with Willow that there must be SOMETHING he could do in order to prove he was innocent. This time Willow agrees; mostly to shut Devon up and to ease her own curiosity. I only JUST realized that both Devon's plea and Willow's agreement COMPLETELY ignore her earlier argument that finding out he was innocent would make things worse for her. I needed a new reason for Willow to listen to Devon so the story could stay on the track Ron set up for it. It's bad enough I derailed it majorly once.

Well, my solution was for Devon to point out that knowing the truth DOES suck and CAN make things worse, but he's now broken too. She wasn't the only one affected, and she's not the only one who would have regrets after discovering the truth. The difference is that he was forced to learn the truth and now has to live with the consequences. Willow needed to grow up and face the truth as well, regardless of how much it would hurt. It's supposed to be this angry snap back at Willow to suck it up. It was supposed to be a way for Willow to realize how childish and selfish she was being, and agree to follow through with Devon's plan. INSTEAD, Ron and Cy just felt Devon was whining in his little Emo Corner about how he hurts too. I'm hoping my rework fixed that. Although, I feel he went a bit over-the-top aggressive in this updated version. Eh, we'll see. Still waiting for Ron's response.

Speaking of Ron, he has today off, and so maybe we'll be able to get some writing work-shopping done. However, he's sort of all over the place lately. So, the first task would be to get him to focus on just one project.

Ironically, I'm getting a bit off-focus myself. Since I've been mentally blocked when it comes to X-Future, and I'm on hold with advancing PLME, I've been bouncing between menial researching for X-Future, more brainstorming for Gyateara, and actually thinking about working on What Is Truly Meant To Be again. Now, let me stress that there's no guarantee that I'll be doing any actual writing on the next chapter any time soon. Still, the fact that the wheels are grinding again after a two year hiatus isn't too shabby. We'll see where I end up going with that.

I'm also jam-packed with work compared to last week, so who knows how much writing I'll be able to get done. Still, I'm going to try my hardest to focus and really push myself more towards writing daily again. At the very least, I should be researching something every day.

I really need to get the new names for the Marvel canon reworks. Maybe that should be my goal for next week...

A Super Low Week

Miss you so much, Daddy.

This was not a good week. And that's not even counting today.

For those who might not know, back in 1998 my father lost his battle with cancer. Today he would have been 57. He was a fantastic, fun-loving man who truly taught me what type of man deserved my love. So much so that I married a personality-clone of him. It's a shame Dad and Hubby never met. They probably would have been best friends; after Dad got over the fact that Hubby was "stealing his little girl away".

All of the nerdy video games and card games and board games and video games and Marvel and role-play games and football.... I enjoy them so much with my husband, and every now and again I picture what it would have been like to add Dad to the mix.

I love my mom and my sister so much. They are my rocks, and I miss them terribly. But they are far from nerdy; although my sister is slowly warming up to her inner geek. It's hard for the four of us - including Hubby - to find something we all enjoy to do because of that Nerd-Gap. Dad, on the other hand, he, Hubby, and I would have been thick as thieves.

Maybe it's for the best. If Dad had met Hubby, or if he had the chance to teach me D&D, then Mom would have never been able to escape from being forced to play with us. My sister too. They would have HATED us.


But, remembering the loss of my father wasn't the only reason this has been a crappy week. In all honesty, this has not been a particularly good month, either.

I have yet to open a book, let alone finish the one I started in February. It's been weeks since I've come up with a new concept for the rebooted X-Future - or had ANY ideas on an actual title for the thing. I haven't touched Please, Let Me Explain either for a couple of weeks. Haven't edited a blurb I sent to Ronoxym. Haven't written anything new.

I've been "An Adult" this week. I woke up at the crack of dawn to exercise. I then used that energy to clean and catch up on the finances. I went to a bridal shower on Saturday, hung out with Ronoxym and Cyhyr on Sunday, and celebrated my sister-in-law's birthday yesterday.

Aside from briefly Boffing with Cy on the laundromat lawn, I've been a normal 30-something this week. That sort of depresses me.

OH! And for those who don't know what I mean by "Boffing"; Boffer is the term for mock weapons made from foam to prevent injury. They are usually used in battle-simulation games, but there are also Boffing LARPS. These are what people typically think of when they hear Live Action Role Play. The most simplistic of definitions are "Nerf sword fighting Renaissance Faire" or "Live Action D&D". Granted, it's a lot more involved than that, but if you're interested to know more you can click on the link above.

Another downer this week is that exactly two months ago today, I put in an application for a corporate job with the store I work for. It was an awesome job that isn't production or writing based, but was otherwise "designed for me". I had three co-workers see the job posting and tell me they instantly thought I was perfect for it. Well, I found out this week - after a painfully long interviewing process - that it was a "really hard decision" and that they "loved [my] enthusiasm and energy", but there was just another candidate with more experience, so they went with that person instead.

Aaaaaand, I also injured my wrist at work this week, so I've been walking around with an ace bandage on it the past two days; at least I've had those days off so it can recover.... yay...


Back to the awesomeness of my writing fails this week. Cy and Ron talked to me about the Devon monologue I wrote a couple weeks ago, and then sent to him. They agreed that - while Ron has yet to take the time to sit and edit it for me - they felt it was "whiny and a bit repetitive." In other words: not my best work. I went over it again last night, and while I can see their concern about it being repetitive - I wrote it stream-of-conscious and didn't go back to edit - I really don't see how Devon's whining about anything. He's expressing his feelings. He's expressing feelings that Ron ALREADY HAD DEVON SHARE; just with a new twist to sort of combat Willow's arguments. So I don't get the "whiny" critique.

Maybe it's because it's almost all dialogue right now. I didn't take the time to interject action to break up the long monologue so it sounded more speech-like. So.... maybe it's not ME who pictures Devon as whiny and wrote him as such. Maybe it's THEM, and they're just projecting because I don't have the action I'm seeing in my head. Because I'm picturing Devon just full force growling at Willow....

Maybe I need to go back and drop some curse words so it sounds more aggressive?

Anyway, the fact that I don't even know what they're talking about with their critique further proves that I must be having an off week. I blink and the hours of the day are gone with little to nothing accomplished.

On the semi-plus side, I have more free time than I care for this week, so here's hoping one of two things happen:
1) I actually find the time to WRITE again, because I've been a super grump lately, too.
2) I can utilize the time to completely catch up on chores so that's no longer a distraction from writing.

Being able to accomplish BOTH is obviously ideal, but we'll see how I do.

Short post this week, but I'd rather take the extra free hours to do some chores/writing than drag out a post about virtually nothing this week.

I'm hoping I'll finally have SOMETHING for you fine folks next week. Until then...

Beautiful, Lovely Warmth!!!

The weather is finally super nice. Winter dragged on forever, and then it was spring for about three days before winter snuck back up. We still had SNOW at the end of APRIL. Granted, it didn't stick to anything besides the grass for a day, but still! Then it was Spring-like again, but still chilly with some high powered winds.

This past week, though. This week was fantastic. Well, for me. Hubby is already dying because 80-degrees is way too hot for him. It's just about perfect for me. I am seriously starting to think I'm actually cold blooded....

The warmth and light breezes are perfect "open the windows" weather. It's also great motivation weather. The sunlight, the warmth, the breeze; it just wakes me up and gets me excited to be productive. This is super awesome, except for what the weather was motivating me to do: clean.

Don't get me wrong, my place is in DESPERATE need to be organized. I have baskets of laundry, a sink of dishes, snacks stationed everywhere instead of confined to the kitchen, and paperwork for balancing the checkbook scattered across just about every surface...

So, I was super productive this week in cleaning. The problem there, though, is that I haven't really taken the time to WRITE this week. I keep meaning to, but then I get the drive to fold laundry or wash dishes. So I run with those...

The extent of my writing this week consisted of:

• Finally transferring the last of Please, Let Me Explain from Ronoxym's version to our shared one
• Checking in with Writers’ Huddle forum
• Listening to a 2-part seminar Ali Luke posted

Noooot. Really. Much.

I didn't really edit much on PLME; it was just a straight up transfer so we have the one file to work with. Instead of our former 3 or 4 we keep snagging things from and/or adding to.
Writers' Huddle was pretty quiet this week - as was X-Future yet again - but I did get a bit more advice on my problem coming up with titles. Still not sure what to call the X-Future reboot, but at least people are trying to help.

The real gem from WH this week was that Ali posted an audio seminar - about half-hour total if you listen to both parts - about finding time to write. Granted, I failed at listening to her advice this week, but that doesn't mean I didn't take it to heart. I'm going to try harder this upcoming week. We'll see how successful it will be.

I did have to chuckle that once again Ali seemed to have had her crystal ball aimed at me. She posted the seminar on Sunday, I believe, and she managed to touch upon something another friend of mine JUST introduced me to. This past Friday AngelBlood666 had posted about "Don't Break the Chain" on the Struggling Writers' Society FB page. It is a concept that the comedian Jerry Seinfeld uses - and one that Ali talked about in the seminar - where you buy a calendar that has the entire year on one page, so you can see January 1 all the way to December 31 all at once. Then, when you accomplish whatever goal you have - writing, filming, exercising, cleaning, painting, etc - you mark the calendar. The next day you accomplish the same goal you also mark the calendar. Soon you will have a line - or chain - of days where you completed the task. Now your motivation is to keep going; even if it's something small and simple that takes five minutes. You're going to want to do anything you can to continue that chain. And if you break it, you're motivated to make the next chain even longer and longer still, until you eventually get a full year without a broken chain.

It's essentially the same idea as the No Zero Days as well.

I'm a bit ashamed that I failed at keeping my resolution of having no more than 3 Zero Days in any given week, but I still have over half the year to make up for it. I just need to use this nice weather for motivation on more than just cleaning. In fact, maybe once the place IS clean I can keep it that way easier and be able to focus more on writing,

Ali also commented in her seminar that she finds she tends to get cranky and irritated easier when she hasn't written in a while. I have to say that I'm the same way. Don't know if it's true of all writers, but I find that a fun parallel.

It's like a Snickers commercial, but instead it's:

"Go write!"
"Why?"
"Because you're a cranky, whiny, irritable dingbat when you don't."
*Comes back after writing a few pages.*
"Better?"
"Better!"
Writing, because you're not you when you haven't.

To finish up, I'm going to talk more about Ron's writing progress. Because, apparently this blog is partially his too instead of him updating his own.

This past Sunday while talking to him I noticed that I had recently received an email. He had sent me a new Devon story he was working on based on what amnesiac Devon is currently doing on the forums. It's barely a page, and Ron claims he wasn't quite at the point of having me look at it - hence him not informing me of the story while we were talking. I still call shenanigans since he could have waited until he was done before sharing it with me. I think he DID want me to read it a bit early.

Anyway, this is kind of big. First, Hubby got him writing as Devon again last week. Then it inspired him enough that he decided to do some side prose using Devon. A few more steps and he might complete PLME. However, I'm sure he's going to finish his current story first. Don't worry! I don't have any characters in this one, so I won't be hijacking it from him. He'll actually be able to complete the story this time!

So, some on, people! Let's encourage him along! While you folks do that, I'll be over here and try to actually do some writing this time.

Reconnecting with Ronoxym and More Devon Writing

This week was pretty much just me editing Please, Let Me Explain while also talking off and on with Ronoxym.

To be fair, it's more of a case of tag. He never seems to catch me when I'm actually home. Then when I try to catch him back he's at work or something. On the rare occasion we can actually connect it's great. For instance, he recently let me know that he's up to about eleven pages of his script. So yay for him!

Honestly, we're just reconnecting as friends. We haven't really spoken much about PLME, but he HAS gotten back in to Devon writing! See, there's a bit of a loophole in how Devon left the board's story. So now he's doing this cool side-story with Hubby about Devon having amnesia.

When the loophole was discovered Hubby decided to come up with a BUNCH of options for Devon's grand return. After a randomized dice roll to narrow it down to three options, Ron got to decide which one he wanted to write. Hubby decided this was the best option, because if he just picked a story line for Ron, he may not be inspired to write it. Which means he'd stay off the forum, and that defeated the whole point.

Anyway, Hubby and I feel good old Ron chose wrong. One of the final three options was that Devon woke up with no memory of who he was. He somehow morphed in to a dog before collapsing, and so when he awakes he thinks he's a sentient dog who can breathe fire. I'm not gonna lie. I'm a bit disappointed he didn't choose that.

Nope. Instead, Ron chose the "Devon only knows his name, that he's a mutant, and that he's out for Trish's blood - although he doesn't remember who Trish actually IS" route. Still fun. He and Hubby spent the late morning/early afternoon yesterday getting started on that story. Which is fantastic because that means Ron is back on the boards; back to writing as Devon. Which also means Ron is just back to writing; period. So, yay again for him!

Now, back to what I started with: me working on PLME. As I mentioned in my last post, I found a bit of a snag where Willow's tone about the whole Devon situation seemed to have taking a weird turn; completely ignoring the argument she had in the opening scene with Devon in his cell. On the one hand, we could cut that opening scene and ignore the plot hole it created. But we both loved the scene so much, and, frankly, it's one of the few scenes left that still remains from Ron's original version of the story.

So part of my week was trying to bring everything full circle again. Get the story back to the part it's at now, but without ignoring Willow's original argument. I had a spark of inspiration last week while at work, and I wrote out this whole monologue for Devon. Ron says he has some tweaks to make it sound more "Devon-like". I can dig that, especially since I'm only collaborating with him on this story because I said the same thing about needing things to sound more "Willow-like".

While that part is on the back burner I realized that I really don't want to lose the story we already have. It has some really good stuff in there, even if it's not entirely accurate any longer. I figured the best way to solve that issue is to create a copy document. I would keep the current PLME file as is; for posterity - so to speak. Then I would change the 3rd quarter of the copy to the publishable version of PLME.

I then realized that it would bring me up to like five copies of the same document, more or less. I knew I needed to weed some of it out. So I spent the past three days or so with the current PLME document open side by side with the other versions. I went word for word through each document. Any place where I saw a difference I either kept whichever version I liked better, or I would make a note of the difference in a comment that Ron could weigh in on. It was tiring work, but it went fairly quickly with my personal version of the document. Originally, this was a copy of Ron's version, but with the grammatical errors and typos fixed. I also started rewording a few things. Eventually I just started up the current PLME document so we finally had a joint Word Doc that we both could edit. Anyway, since it was my personal document, there weren't too many things different between the two - aside from edits that Ron and I already agreed upon.

The tricky one was going through Ron's original version. I couldn't edit it - which is why I made my version - and so I had a LOT of notes attached to it. Not only did I have to have his version and the current version side-by-side to compare the two, but whenever I got to a notation I had to read it over and decide if it was still a valid concern. Those that I feel we still needed to discuss/decide on I transferred over. With any luck, enough was added to the current PLME file that Ron won't need his version any longer as well.

To be fair, I haven't COMPLETELY finished transferring his version to ours. I still have some bits and pieces of Willow's POV part at the tail end, but I'm super close to finishing.

Once I'm done, I get the fun of working more on the rewrite! Perhaps Ron writing Devon again will re-inspire him to finish up his side of the rewrite. While I'm waiting on his end, I get to make sure all the head hops are weeded out.

Man, I'm so excited about the progress we're making.

I just wish I didn't slack off on my reading or chapter/story posting in the process. I hope the finished product of PLME will be good enough to justify the trade.