Thus Ends 2016

I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to manage it, since this is my last day off before the conclusion of the year, but along with this post I do have two others now started for me to publish this week. It should help me get back up to 52 posts by the end of 2016. Not exactly one per week due to two missed ones, but same amount of effort, I think.

I'd call it good.

I'm also going to have to go back to my NaNo strict mindset this week. I need to be able to say "I'm going to go write" and hide away so I can get these posts done. I'm going to go from my Post-NaNo writing recovery hiatus right back to ALL THE WRITING!

So, what am I planning, anyway?

Well, for starters, for a while now I've wanted to recap the books I've read, since I dropped the ball on that back over the summer. My first post will be a fairly lengthy one as I reflect on the sixteen books I've read this year.

When I commented in writing group that I've read sixteen books this year, Keaton seemed shocked. She's the type of person who either reads or listens to an audiobook about once a week; maybe even twice so she gets about 100 books in a year. So, I can understand that to her 16 books annually doesn't sound like much. She may even be as appalled as a lot of professional writers who swear that reading is just as important for an author as writing itself. Still, considering I haven't really read more than two or three books a year - and last year barely managed ONE - since college; a leap to sixteen books is a VAST improvement.

Anyway, I'll talk more about that in that post. My next supplemental post will be my new annual tradition of recapping the year. It's a nice way for me to look back on past years and see my growth. Same for other writers who might feel like they'll never get anywhere with their writing, or my fans who just like to see me improve. Having these yearly recaps turns my progress into a single post proving that I'm evolving as a writer, and that others can as well.

Writing used to be a passionate hobby of mine. That's it. A HOBBY. Something to do when I'm bored, excited, or need to work something out. Something to do when I felt like it, and only when inspiration struck.

Writing may be a calling of mine, but I never treated it as such. Now? Now there's some weight to it. Writing is a priority, sometimes over even cleaning my home, which I'm sure my mother appreciates....

I'm still nowhere near where I need to be to consider myself "serious" about writing. I'm still a year or so away from actually earning money with my writing. But it is definitely more than a "hobby" now. It is a commitment. It is a driving force. It is a life choice. It is as important as exercising, eating healthy, or socializing. It is how I keep well.

I just need to work on focus a bit more. I feel like if I can just laser-focus on a project, and follow it through for once, then I might finally be on the right path.

Between my passion for Jolene, and the fact that my backstory for the never-introduced Kizar doesn't fit Bear's world, I have been thinking a lot about Gyateara again. There hasn't really been much actual advancement in the world build, but I've been picking up a few ideas here and there that I might incorporate. I want to be able to finish building the playground that Jolene and her past can play on. I'd have to come up with a new love interest to replace Rensin, though, so I can keep it original once I transition Jolene from Laerrnesse to Gyateara. But once Gyateara's built, I can have so much fun!

I can redo my original NaNo story, hopefully whittling down the Legend of Zelda, Fable, and InuYasha heavy-handed fanfiction elements until they are either original, or unrecognizable as influences. I could finally run around with Natalie and Connor again. I could then "hop the pond" to the mainland continent for Jolene, and finally put Amara's story to paper. I might even play some more with Elymoxa, in a world where gnome-hate is uncalled for. Sliding down the southern coast, I can get to the desert lands for Kizar.

Each character could have their own mini-series of books, and then combined they could make up the Gyateara Chronicles - or something like that.

Then I could switch gears from high-fantasy to cyberpunk with "Glitches."

But for me to do either, I HAVE to finish world-building. I've been failing at so many of my writing-themed New Years Resolutions the past few years, but I think my main three for this upcoming year will be:

1. Write a new blog post every week; ACTUALLY hitting 52 weekly posts instead of this catch-up at the end of the year.
2. Continue reading; the exact challenge I'll talk about in that post.
3. Finish world building either Gyateara or the Glitches future.

Perhaps I should actually add a fourth resolution. One I tease Ronoxym about frequently:

• FINISH A FRIGGEN STORY FOR ONCE!!!!!

Obviously, "Lost Loves and Paramours" is my front-runner. I'm going to go back to Jolene's story in January, after I had time to really rest up from NaNo and the holidays. I'm going to aim to finish her story by March at the latest, and then edit over April and May. Come June, I should have a polished second draft that I can post for everyone to FINALLY read. In the meantime, maybe I'll post teaser chapters.

I think that's the trick. I did a lot better as a "plantser" than as a planner or "pantser" for NaNo. I needed a rough outline that I could then work with. I still listened as Jolene told me her tale, and it got a little side-tracked for a chapter or two, but I knew where I needed the story to go, so I could bring it back to center. Having that roadmap helped keep me focused; helped me keep writing; helped me win NaNo finally.

So, maybe 2017 needs to be thought of the same way: a story that I need an outline for, so that when I get sidetracked I know how to get back to center.

I won't plan out my day-to-day or weekly per se, but a monthly breakdown of what I want to accomplish - a visualization of my goals - should help. All the self-help time-management books and articles I read say to do that. Perhaps this will be the year that I listen. Knowing that I had a goal of 50,000 words in 30 days, and how many words I had to write daily - with weekends "free" - and knowing that it only takes up about an hour or two each day to hit that goal; it all helped me focus.

Focus is the main name of the game this upcoming year. I now have the discipline and drive. I'm reading more. I'm writing more. I'm established in my writing group. I have people who will hold me accountable. I now need to learn how to be FOCUSED. True, that means Ron's challenge to write a completely new story every week won't really help with that, but at the same time, maybe it will....

On the one hand, it ruins my focus, because I'm spending each week trying to think of something original. On the other hand, it refreshes my mind because I can take a break from whatever block I'm most likely fixated on. It also helps me learn to finish something, and in a short amount of words to boot.

So, I think I'm going to roll over Ron's challenge, but with some leniencies:

• Write a flash fiction or vignette of 1000 words or less every week. Bring these to writing group to read as well as post weekly here on the blog.
• Professionally owned intellectual property is not to be used for fanfiction. In other words, no fanfiction about books, shows, movies, songs, etc. However, if the X-Future boards or Bear's D&D campaigns inspire me to write side-stories, while technically fanfiction, they are fair game. This allows me to expand on my characters and help me better play those games.
• The stories can be in the same universe, but cannot be straight continuations of each other. No cheating by making the flash or vignette "complete" by writing another one or two in chapter form. Each 1000 words must be a self-contained story. However, if I want to write another vignette or flash about the same character, unrelated to any previous ones, or if I want to write another story within the same world/universe, I'm going to allow it. This way I can use this challenge for the main reason I'm rolling it over into 2017: World Building

See, I figured I can keep myself on track by forcing myself to write a 1000 word mini-story about either Gyateara or Glitches every week; building the world up with these stories. They can be more myths, or social studies of the different cultures, or explanations of the deities, or Slice of Life to get an in-depth look at the world from the perspective of different characters, etc.

I feel like the spirit of Ron's challenge - frequent writing not necessarily related to each other, and with a more succinct writing goal - is still there, but with enough wiggle room that it is still testing and growing my writing without flat out stressing and deterring me when I get a complete writers block. I'm sure Ron will say something if he thinks I need to tighten my belt with this challenge of his....

I'll talk more about my resolutions next week when I post my first blog of the new year, and I have two more blog posts I need to write this week. So I'm just going to say that 2016 as a whole majorly sucked for the entire world, and here's hoping 2017 makes up for it.....

1984 and Drow; Perfect for the Holidays

I noticed that this year in particular, there seems to be an influx of the pro-Happy-Holidays memes such as this one:

 As well as this one:

And I have to admit, I'm inclined to agree. In fact, my Roman Catholic mother believed so adamantly that we should respect and know other people's religions, that she taught them to us. Granted, the majority of the holidays outside of Christmas that we observed and learned about were still Christian based, such as Santa Lucia and Saint Nicolas Day - where I learned about Krampus as well, mind you. Still, we also learned about and observed Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, and Kwanzaa, as well as a broad overview of the Muslim observances. I'm sure she would have actually fit more religions in if she could, but she was a single mother, and adding ANYTHING outside your own religion during an already crazy holiday month is impressive in my book.

My point being, if you have had or will have a religious holiday this month, I wish it to be a happy, spiritual, safe, and loving one. If you are an atheist, I wish you a safe, loving, and happy month with family and friends, especially for holidays like Christmas that has become just as much a secular holiday about family and giving as it is the religious observance of Jesus' birth.

OK, well, now that I got that out of the way, on to the reason for my blog: writing.

Of which I still haven't really done any.

Me and Bear didn't really manage to connect last week in order for me to do the solo session with Jolene that I've needed to do for about two weeks now. So, once again, the girl is in limbo. Which meant I didn't really have anything to do for this Saturday's game. Not that it mattered, because a) I forgot it was Saturday until about 10:30; stupid last-minute Christmas shopping and the like, and b) I apparently wasn't the only one who couldn't/didn't make it to game, so Bear had everyone make their new characters instead. Or so it seemed when I looked at the chat log.

As Jolene's group of Northerners slowly implodes, Bear decided to create a secondary campaign that we'd bounce back and forth between: one week Northerners, one week Southerners. Otherwise known as the dark elves: Drow.

To help me catch up after my oopsie of missing the building session, Bear and I have been building me a drow character in an almost painfully slow pace. Just like Jolene, I started off with just a class in mind, and then the faintest idea of physical looks, but not much else personality, drive, or backstory wise.

So, that was the main thing I worked on yesterday.

I started off with the idea that I wanted to play a male this time; see how I do with the opposite sex. I then decided that most of my characters are social, and they don't really fair well, so why not a more physical character this time? Thus, I landed on Fighter as the character class. I know that the Dice Gods hate me or something, because I routinely roll too low to actually manage anything. Thus, I knew I needed a character who could take a hit; otherwise known as a tank. The character that willingly takes the brunt of the attacks because he can handle getting hit. While the enemy is fixated on him, the other party members go in for the kill. The main way to be a fighter tank is to go "sword and board" - one-handed weapon coupled with a shield.

Alright, so all of those basics were figured out. I was then going to go very anti-Jolene. Someone who was a good fighter, but not very charismatic. Someone who isn't a moron, but not very crafty or witty. Someone who may be shy instead of flirty. Someone who maybe didn't talk much at all - strong silent type - but when he did talk, it was something of note.

Then I realized that what I was doing was merging Rensin and Corlmitz together to make myself a character, so I scrapped that idea. This new guy is back to being a bit more Jolene-like. He's more lithe than bulk for a fighter. He's the kind of guy who would spin on his knees while still participating in swordplay before gracefully getting back onto his feet, so, a more dexterous fighter than strength-based one. He's got a casual coolness to him. He doesn't openly flirt, but he knows he's attractive and will purposely lean a specific way, angle his head in a certain direction, toss his hair, or casually strike a pose in order for girls to swoon. He's not very silver-tongued, but he's still a bit on the suave side of things. He also LOVES swordplay, and is usually grinning ear to ear whenever he can participate in it; especially against someone else who knows what they're doing. He'll joke and banter while fighting, but can get intensely serious if the need arises.

I told Bear to think of my new character as someone along the lines of Westley and Inigo atop the Cliffs of Insanity in "The Princess Bride", or Legolas and Gimli in "The Lord of the Rings", or, well, most renditions of Robin Hood. Upon further thought in the matter, and the addition of my realization that he knows he's handsome and would accept a lady's company whenever it's offered, I also added in Bronn the Sellsword from "Game of Thrones"; specifically the TV series, since I have yet to crack open the book series.

I also sifted through a few dozen pictures on drow in Google Images, and landed upon this one to be my character, a dark elf from the game Lineage II:

My favorite feature is the short hair. Most drow are depicted with long, flowing locks. It made this guy stand out for me.

I sent all I knew to Bear, but I still didn't have much by way of backstory or real drive. Sure, I'll make him a sellsword - if Bear decides that knights-for-hire exist in that society - but WHY is he a swordsman for hire? Is there a fight he won't participate in, regardless of coin earned? Why doesn't he take on some other profession? Is there a reason money seems to be his key drive? Is it the money that put him in the profession, or was there another bit of the job that he finds enjoyment out of? What would his convictions be once grouped with the party? Would he have convictions, or would he just follow whatever the rest of the party says? Is there a line he won't cross? Does he have his own code of ethics? There's a lot that needs to be fleshed out based on these small details.

Plus, I've never played a race outside the D&D core rulebook: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Gnome, Halfling, Half-Elf, or Half-Orc. So I wasn't sure how to play a drow. I don't really know their racial culture and attitude. On top of that, Bear's drow are slightly altered from the "traditional" ones in D&D, so there's that. All-in-all, I felt a bit lost. Especially when I told Bear my concept for Kizar, my desert nomad who was basically exiled into the mainland of Vahamdras:

See, the problem is, I only had the most basic, loose cultural information for the desert people of Bear's world. I used that to come up with a really neat character concept, but according to Bear, there are a lot of factors in his world - that I didn't know about - that would have prevented a majority of Kizar's backstory to have taken place. Essentially killing the character. I'll just have to rework the rival clans of his backstory so that they aren't Bear's any longer, and find a way of building him into Gyateara.

Point being, I was afraid of the same thing happening to my drow. I created Jolene, only for her to not really mesh with either the world or the party she was grouped with. It's been a fun read to see the drama that now swirls around her because of that, but it's exhausting as her player, and it's probably equally exhausting for those playing alongside her, let alone Bear trying to run a campaign when she unintentially derails it all the time with personal drama. I then created Elymoxa the gnome, only for her to also be shot down due to not really fitting with the world/party. Next up was Kizar, whose backstory was so amazingly unorthodox for Bear's world and the culture he came up with for his desert tribes that Kizar wouldn't have worked either.

I was nervous of it happening again, as, it seemed, was Bear. So, we are in an agreement: he's building a few different drow fighters for me to pick from and build from there. That way I know the skeleton works with his world. It's fairly easy for me to flesh out a character from that point.

I mean, Willow was a skeleton NPC that became one of my favorite characters. Crystal technically still is an NPC, but I feel I've fleshed her out more than simply "She's an Irishman who is in the US for protection and training, here is her power set, she doesn't really have a filter, and she's obsessed with Tyler." Colette was celestialTyrant's character, but he didn't have much time to flesh her out before work overwhelmed him. For her, I basically had "She's the Canadian daughter of Wolverine, here is what she looks like, here is her power - which makes her nervous around people - and she's a complete Otaku."

The bits of my drow that I know - fun-loving, sword-wielding tank who can be a bit of a lady's man even though he doesn't outwardly flirt - I sent to Bear as a base, along with the picture I chose. So, now I'm waiting for him to finish setting up the character options, and then pick from there. We'll see what comes out of that, as well as if we can manage to get Jolene's solo session finally out of the way before the end of the year.

In the meantime, I'm back to minor world-building of Gyateara. Mostly to see if I can find a way of shifting Jolene over to my world instead of Bear's. For the most part, I only really need to change the name of the country she's in, a few of the towns she frequented, and the deities she evokes when angered: instead of "Oh god" or "Christ!" she'd say - in Bear's setting - "Oh gods" or "Vestulaan save me..."

I haven't actually gotten anywhere with my continuing build of Gyateara. I've mostly been playing around on FantasyNameGenerators.com, and rereading what I already have established. It may amount to SOMETHING someday. I'm just no good at solidifying anything. I'm much more reactionary than take-charge.

If you were to give me a playground and told me to have fun, I could do wonders. Give me an open field and tell me to build the playground of my dreams, and I'm overwhelmed with the logistics of everything.

I'll figure it out at some point, though. I know I will. Until that point, I'll just slowly chip away at it.

The week wasn't a complete wash, though, I did manage to pick up a copy of "Nineteen Eighty-four" by George Orwell from the public library. A few days behind where I wanted to be. I wanted to finish "Hammer of Thor" by the 10th, so that I could read my next book between the 11th and 20th - today - and then finish the year reading one last book. Well, I did finish "Hammer of Thor" after publishing my blog last week - I mean, RIGHT after publishing it - but I still couldn't get my hands on "1984" until late Thursday.

Still, I am already over 170 pages into the book, and a couple pages ahead of schedule to be done by my Christmas deadline. I'll just have to figure out a book I can blast through in about 6 days for my "Book I should have read in school." However, apparently "1984" is one of the books a lot of kids have on their required reading in school. There is a trio of dystopian novels that most kids have to read: "1984", "Brave New World", and "Fahrenheit 451". I read "Fahrenheit 451" in middle school. I read "Brave New World" in high school. By natural progression, one would assume I'd read "1984" in college, but it was never even on a recommended read list.

A lot of the "previously banned" books have become "required school reading" books over the years, so it's only natural that the two would overlap. Still gives me wiggle room for my last book: another banned book I could claim should have been on my school's required reading list?

Either way, I'm happy that I'm making such good progress with "1984", and I'm really enjoying the book. I was kind of hit-or-miss with Orwell's other dystopian story "Animal Farm." It was an intriguing plot, and an interesting way of showcasing the cultural commentary. There were parts, though, that I was kind of "whatever" about. Or, perhaps I only recall being "whatever" about them because we weren't able to actually ENJOY the story. We had to analyze every bit of it for English class.

Either way, with regards to "1984," even though there's parts of the main character Winston, and his love interest Julia, that I find a bit extreme and vaguely sociopathic, all-in-all, I'm rooting for them. If no other reason than the fact that Orwell did an excellent job at showing that Big Brother and the Oceanic government are a totalitarian society that needs to be overthrown.

All-in-all, thus far I must say that the book is indeed a reread must. If nothing else, because Orwell doesn't spell anything out for the reader. Winston knows his environment, and he's not going to directly explain any of it to the reader. Instead, small bits of information - such as the meaning of certain Newspeak words - comes to light slowly throughout the book. Which then makes earlier, semi-confusing passages make a world of sense. Already, once I've received a definition or explanation that was a mystery before, I have flipped back to reread about five different passages; now better knowing their full meaning. It's amazing how something as simple as knowing the throw-away word "Proles" is Newspeak shorthand for Proletariat can make a confusing passage within the first ten pages a key explanation of the two different classes within the Oceanic society.

Anyway, it's nearly time for me to publish, and this blog - which is discussing yet another week I didn't write anything - is already quite lengthy.

So, even though I started off this blog with a merry "Happy Holidays" to all, I AM Christian, so I'll finish off with this thought for Sunday:

Get All The Reading Done!

I'm just going to confess right now: I didn't write. Not a lick. I didn't even role play this week, since I had to work through the D&D session on Saturday. Instead, I spent the week still catching up on chores I had neglected in November in favor of NaNo. I've also worked on prepping for Christmas, as well as organizing the living room a bit. Mainly due to the fact that I bought brand new living room furniture! Aside from the kitchen island my mother bought us for my birthday a few years back, this is literally the only bit of new furniture that we own. Exciting!

Hubby picked the matching loveseats out. Awesome, right?

Anyway, the last thing that I've been focusing on this past week is READING. I still have two more categories in the 2016 Reading Challenge, and I haven't touched either yet. But I'll get back to that.

First, I wanted to state that at writing group last week I ended up reading my still-yet-to-be-edited first chapter of "Lost Loves and Paramours" - my NaNoWriMo story about Jolene. It was glaringly obvious that I "head hopped" - switched from one character's POV to another's - and I'm not entirely sure how to fix that. Especially since I do the exact same thing in a later chapter, and that switch to Teo's POV from Jolene's is one of my favorite scenes. However, I only jump from Jolene's POV about three or four times, and for maybe 1000 words out of the over-all 50,885... So I have to find a way to keep the story entirely in her head, or I have to include a lot more scenes where we're in the man's head. It will be a challenge to edit this thing....

Plus side? That was the only critique: I head hopped, and it was mildly jarring. The room seemed otherwise stunned at how well my first draft was. Well, all but one woman who has kind of been rubbing me the wrong way; she simply said "I don't comment about people's first drafts." Um... isn't that the point though? I didn't realize our writing group was simply a place for us to stroke each other's egos. I thought it was a safe spot to come together, read our works, get critiques in order to improve, and work out the kinks so that we can all become successful.

Keaton also irritated me about the same thing a few months back when I wanted to talk more about one of my stories, but I only had the outline; not the actual narrative. I wanted to go over the outline to see if people could help me figure out the structure of my story before I actually started writing, yet she didn't want to hear it; claimed she didn't want it to spoil the story itself by having her know what was coming. Instead, she wanted me to read whatever narrative I had.

I mean, I get it, but at the same time, if the outline is done well enough, it should still be engaging. People should still be like "I want to know more" or "I can't wait to actually read this!" It's a synopsis, and if it's good enough, it should make you want to read/watch the actual thing. Right?

On top of that, DFL doesn't like to read her stuff or talk about her writing progress at all because she doesn't want to "waste anyone's time" with seeking help. She doesn't have anything new to read to the group, so we should just pass on by her instead of allowing her to ask questions or talk about her latest research in the matter.

After a year with this group, I truly feel they are missing the greatest point of having the group in the first place: a place for us to grow.

So, I want DFL to talk to us about her progress, even if no new narrative is written. I want Keaton - and all the other members - to listen to the pre-production of novels: the story concepts, the general plot/theme concepts, the outlines, the character descriptions/builds, the world-building, etc. I want this new woman - who, technically, is an old member who has finally returned to group - to comment on first drafts so we can know what to look for when we edit. If she points something out - like the head hopping - that the author already knows is a problem, a simple "Yup, I know. I need to fix that" is all that's needed. That's exactly what I said to Carson when he pointed out the head-hop in my chapter. I blushed slightly and said "Yeah. I do that. I know I need to fix that." But who knows if this woman had insight to my draft that I never thought of?

Still, having every one else - aside from that woman - say they couldn't think of anything else to change, aside from fixing the head-hop, was very encouraging. In the past - as repeat readers probably already know - I was paranoid that their lack of commenting on my writing was due to them brushing me off; my writing, or I, wasn't worth their time. They'd focus more on some of the older authors; giving longer critiques of lines they loved, words that seemed out of place, and character building.

I still don't really get any of that. None of my lines seem to stand out - either because they're excellent or terrible - and no one seems to go on and on about my character builds. However, in-between group sessions, I get a lot of comments from the group members about Jolene. They all seem really interested in hearing her story. Then there's the fact that they all actually verbalized last week that they couldn't think of anything to change, because the story was good. It's giving me confidence that they truly didn't comment in the past simply because they couldn't think of a critique, not because there was so much wrong with it, they didn't know where to start.

So, there's that.

Now, back to the Reading Challenge.

Upon review of this blog, it seems the last time I really talked in-depth about a book was my thoughts on "Xenocide" back in June. Aside from that, I did talk about "Ready Player One" while I was reading it, but didn't give it an overall review once done. I kept meaning to do that as my "make up" posts to still get me to 52 by the end of the year. Yet I keep falling off the horse about that too.

Therefore, I will not guarantee it will actually happen, but I do really want to reflect on all the books I read this year in one blog post. I might do that as my "year in review" post that I write each December. I haven't quite figured it out yet.

For now, though, I'm racing through "The Hammer of Thor," the second book in the Magnus Chase series written by Rick Riordan. In fact, as of this writing, I only have 30pgs left to read. I almost polished it off last night, but my eyes began to glaze over at about midnight.

I'm a bit behind; I wanted to be done by the 10th. That way I could break down the last three categories I needed to cross off into three 10-day blocks; allowing me to finish by the end of the month. Aside from reading "Coraline" in a day - one of the challenge categories - this would be the fastest I've read a novel: 10 days.

Well, in recent, post-college years, at least. When I was in high school and middle school I would be able to take a whole Saturday or Sunday; curl up in bed, and just read all day long. Can't really do that anymore. Stupid adulting.

Anyway, once I'm done with "The Hammer of Thor" I really TRULY need to figure out the last two categories that I've been avoiding all year long. As of right now I STILL don't have a clue what I should read for "Should have read in school." Because the only books I didn't actually read in school - that I can recall - are "The Old Man and The Sea" by Ernest Hemingway, and "The Red Badge of Courage" by Stephen Crane. In both cases, I did read about half-way through the books before giving up on them. Both cases, I gave up mostly because I kept falling asleep while reading. These books are just painfully boring to me. The plot and/or characterization just isn't there. I can't connect.

Both books are fairly short, however. Perhaps I could plow through in less than 10 days, call the challenge complete, and move on to the banned book. The other alternative to the "boring novels" for the "should have read in school" category is also super short: "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck. Hubby was actually so shocked when I told him that this book was never on my required reading list in school, that he handed me his copy about a decade ago, and told me to read it. That and "Lord of the Flies" by William Golding; another book I couldn't stand.

Anyway, I could always reread "Of Mice and Men" and call that challenge category complete, even if I had read it before. Or I could tackle the two books in my entire schooling career that literally put me to sleep. Or I could go for another classic that most were forced to read, but it never ended up on my school's required reading: "A Stitch in Time," or "The Giver," or Shakespeare's "King Lear." See? Still have no clue what I'm reading.

Same goes for a once-banned book. There's so many to choose from! Also, the list of banned books is not very consistent. I can't find one comprehensive list, when I assumed there was one that libraries used for their annual Banned Books Week. For those who don't know, this is a week at the end of September where libraries purposely display books that were banned or challenged; encouraging others to read these books. It is an expression of Reading Freedom. For more detailed info, please check out the link.

Anyway, books I "should have read in school" could also cross over into these "banned books" category. Some most notable are "Of Mice and Men" and "The Giver." There's also "A Stitch in Time" or "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" or "Brave New World" - a book I greatly enjoyed in school - or "Nineteen Eighty-Four."

I think I'm largely leaning towards 1984. For three reasons: One, it's the year I was born, so why not?

Two, so many TV shows, movies, and books reference it. Heck, even I use "Big Brother" frequently. It is such a well-known concept of a book, and the main parts of the story have bled into modern culture without a lot of people truly knowing its source. I want to know the source.

Three: Spink is reading it, and it inspired me to want to. It's considered such a great classic by most, and it seems a shame that I haven't cracked it open yet.

So, heading into this final stretch for this challenge, let's take a look at how I'm doing so far:

Challenge created by Modern Mrs. Darcy

The coolest part is that I've also read four books that don't fit on the above challenge list: two self-help/how-to books and two fiction novels. Not too shabby for someone who only read one book last year! I might try for two books a month next year.

NaNo Winner!

That's right! I did it! I finally did it! Six years after I attempted my first NaNo, after five attempts, after a year hiatus from the challenge: I did it!

Pardon me for puffing my chest up a bit, but this is such an accomplishment! It'd be an even bigger one had I actually finished the book. Nope. Jolene has a much more epic back story than I thought; at least, in the first draft form. Over 50,000 words into the story, and I'm only about 60% of the way, if that. It's a lot more of an undertaking than I thought.

Back to the important part, though. I completed NaNo finally! Conquered that beast. It was a bit of a struggle. I had to write my fingers off to accomplish it. The last two days I wrote 13,745 words! I think that's the most I've written in such a short time. If it isn't, it's in the top three. I was actually nervous about finishing on time.

I mean, technically, I didn't. Five minutes til midnight, and I still had 1100-some words to write. I ended up cheating: I took last week's blog post, and added it to my word count in order to surpass 50,000 words. A lot of people do that: literally count all the narratives they write; even if they're non-fiction. To make up for it, and to make sure the NOVEL had over 50,000 words, I stayed up until nearly 2am sleepily typing away. I ended up with 50,883 words! That surpassed what I had when I cheated with my blog post, which was only about 50,100-something.

That's when I majorly screwed up.

See, I wanted an accurate count on my novel for posterity sake. So, here it was, 2am on December 1st, and I couldn't re-validate my novel. I already had all the "winner" bragging rights posted everywhere on my NaNo profile. I had the purple "winner" banner. The 2016 medallion on my author info page was also a pretty purple and said "winner" instead of "participant." I could download a winner certificate, could save the pretty "Winner" banners for both this blog and my Facebook profile. I could get access to the NaNoWriMo 2016 Winner profile picture too. Not to mention access to all the discounts winners receive as "goodies"; discounts to a bunch of cool writing-related programs and instructors that sponsor NaNoWriMo.

Fun side note: the only fully free goodie - the rest are large discounts - was the James Patterson MasterClass lesson on editing. I had a nice chuckle about that since I already have that class, thanks to my Mommy buying me the full class series for my birthday two years ago.

Anyway, I already had all the fun stuff and bragging rights. I knew that while I extended the deadline by two hours, I figured it countered the original cheat of adding 1700 words not involved in my novel. I had actually won it! I could have left things alone, but noooooo, I had to have that accurate word count of my novel. So I manually overrode the November 30th word count; except my touchpad jumped, and I accidentally saved the new word count without all the digits. I had unintentionally dropped my word count below 50,000 words, which had the site recant all the "winner" benefits; putting me back to "participant" status. Even when I fixed the word count to my 50,885 close count, since I couldn't verify the count any longer, the site wouldn't give me back my hard-earned winnings.

The whole thing really deflated me, and killed all the excitement I had for surpassing 50,000 words in a month. A bit depressed, I tried writing to the Office of Letters and Light; the non-profit that runs NaNo.

I'm happy to report that yesterday I received an email stating that they had reverified my word count on their end, and reinstated my winner status for this year! YAY!

Hacker Girl Facebook Sticker
by Birdman Inc

So, let's talk a bit about this challenge. First off, I want to show everyone more-or-less my day-by-day progress.

First up, what my stats screen actually looks like over at NaNoWriMo.org
Look at those pretty purple "Winner" icons!
Isn't it cool to see those spikes in my writing?

My completed NaNoWriMo 2016 calendar. Even with seven sad faces of nothingness, I made it!
14,025 words in three days! Nuts!
Calendar created by Dave Seah

So cool, right? After that craziness on the 30th, I just had to take a rest. So, I've been spending the past week FINALLY reading "The Hammer of Thor" by Rick Riordan.

I have to say, I'm somehow shocked at how topical and kind of progressive this man is. In the Heroes of Olympus he's had openly gay characters. In "The Hidden Oracle" he not only has the gay characters as an adorable couple, but has a blatantly pan-sexual character; constantly talking about his two greatest lost loves: one male; one female. In "Hammer of Thor" we're introduced to a transgender/gender-fluid character. He even tried to have his main character Magnus try to empathize with the concept of trangender by remembering a time that he was forced to write with his right hand for a school year, even though he's naturally left-handed. Magnus admitted it's a poor analogy, but I give Riordan props for trying to find a way to explain this experience to his middle-grade target demographic.

When I haven't been working or reading, I've been spending the rest of my now opened up free time to celebrate two birthdays!

Old man is 33 now. :D

We finished last week celebrating my Hubby's birthday with Cards Against Humanity and booze. It was a fun time that included finally officially meeting Ronoxym and Cyhyr's baby girl. I mean, they popped in with her when she was only a month old or so, but she was asleep, and I was busy running a D&D session, so I didn't really get to MEET her. She was so smiley. Apparently she takes after Daddy, and loves meeting new people.

The other birthday celebration included more booze, but a movie this time as I crashed over at Spink's place.

Happy 24th, Spink!

It was fun to cram in so much socializing after semi-neglecting it....

And now, because I'm still a proud little peacock, I'm going to finish up with a few stats that at least I found interesting about my book. You can just stop here if you don't care.

I wrote 26 chapters ranging from as little as 1051 words to as many as 3105 words. My average word count per chapter was 1957 words, even though not a single chapter actually had 1900-some words. Oh, the glory of math.... In contrast, my MEDIAN chapter length was 1804 words per chapter. The official breakdown is as follows:

• One chapter finishing with 1000 and change
• One chapter at 1100+ words
• One chapter each as well for 1200 and 1300 ranges
• Two chapters ended in the 1470s
• Three chapters had 1500-some words
• Three chapters were also within the 1600s
• One chapter - on the lower end of the median - had 1740 words.
• Two chapters had 1800+ words
• Eight different chapters had over 2000 words in them: one each in the 2000, 2100, 2200, and 2300 ranges; two chapters were 2400+ words long; two had over 2500 words.
• Two chapters - one dealing with Jolene's cheating boyfriend, and the other when she met the brothel madam - had over 3000 words.
• One chapter had Jolene tackle a dungeon, and that was my longest one at 3105 words.

I even think I slightly improved on my chapter titles! I started off kind of blah and straight forward, but I feel like I got more intriguing as I went:

1. Finding a Place to Belong
2. Growing Attached
3. Falling in Love
4. First Heartbreak
5. Rediscovered
6. Moving on
7. LIAR!
8. Meeting the Fox
9. Winter Smiles
10. Fox in the Chicken Coup
11. Life as an Adventurer
12. Stargazer
13. Tale of Myrica
14. Love, Despite Yourself
15. Here to Stay
16. Running Away
17. Remind Me of Someone
18. Always Forward
19. A Night to Remember
20. Harrowing Caverns
21. Who Are You?
22. Wine Ruins Everything
23. Let Me be Your Friend
24. Breaking Her In
25. Breaking the Illusion
26. Parasite

Another stat that amused me was the inconsistent "screen time" of each of Jolene's loves. I originally thought that Jacob - the first and strongest love of Jolene's life; the ruler all others are measured against - would have the most chapters. She loved him the most. She was with him the longest. He was the most important to her. Yet, Searl, a man she's all but forgotten, has the most chapters dedicated to him. Here's the breakdown:

• Jacob: four chapters;  8543 words covering a NINE YEAR relationship. Jolene was five, and Jacob was seven when they first became friends; Jolene was ten and Jacob was twelve when they realized they had romantic feelings for each other; when Jacob turned thirteen he unofficially proposed to Jolene; right after her fourteenth birthday he announced his engagement to another woman.
• Teo: three chapters; 5427 words; roughly six-month relationship
• Parvil: three chapters again, but 5714 words covering the feverously short six-week relationship. There was also about two months of friendship building first, though....
• Jesan: five chapters; 9006 words. In truth, 1389 of those words were an impromptu chapter telling the mythilogical story behind a constellation, but the remaining 7617 words covered their four-month relationship.
• Searl: whopping six chapters and 11,815 words. Not too shabby for someone Jolene dated for five months, and really couldn't give two-shits about anymore. I guess he gets extra time because he was her first lover.

While I tried to limit my writing to weekdays only, giving myself weekends off for socializing, I seemed to write fairly close to writing daily anyway. The 50,883 words was actually written within 23 words once you take out the days I failed to write anything for the story. Not to say I didn't write anything at all; just not for the story. Pretty impressive; only missing seven days, and managing an average daily word count of 2212. Of course, with days only having 200-some words; that meant I had to pick up the slack a LOT on other days. End result is still the same, though:

Fell Off The Horse

It is the 29th of November; I have today and tomorrow to finish my novel of 50,000 words. I am currently at 37,140. It is a decent amount written this month, but it will be a true grind to get the remaining 12,860 written. It's not an impossible task, though. I just need to write 6400+ words today and again tomorrow. I've written one shots that long before. I've written that much in one day before. Not THIS year, but I've done it.

It will be a challenge, that's for sure, but not an impossible task. Shame I don't count my blog posts as "words written." Yeah, it's cheating a bit if I did, because they aren't words towards my novel. Still, this post alone is 1729 words; which is over 100 words more than a day's normal Target Word Count.

It just bums me out that I'm so far behind, because Hubby took vacation time this week, and this is my only day off with him. Instead of spending it enjoying the day together, or getting errands done, or even cleaning the house, I'll be hiding in my room writing.

I had hoped to catch up at least a LITTLE last night so this last-minute crunch didn't seem so daunting. However, apparently the drain of the weekend was a bit more than I thought. As soon as I secluded myself in my bedroom to write, I typed up about 500 words, and then promptly passed out.

Poor Husband. He stayed out in the living room to try to not disturb me; patiently waiting for me to emerge and let him know I was calling it quits for the night, and that we could go to bed. He ended up passing out on the couch, and it wasn't until 3am did he decide to venture into the bedroom. Since neither of us had work today, he assumed I was downing coffee and grinding out words for the last five hours.

Nope. I was snoring away that whole time. Poor thing.

I did manage to get SOME writing done over the Thanksgiving weekend, though. The Saturday of our get-together, I managed to knock out over 2300 words, which kept me on track for my normal "two days off" word goals. Sadly, I had already missed three days, and I didn't write anything on Sunday. Four off; three on; and not hitting 2000 words most of those days. This week I did indeed fall way behind. I was doing so well this year, too.

I was on top of things week one. I began to slip in week two, but I managed to play catch-up, and was only a couple thousand words behind. And then this past week just killed me. I don't even have the "Oh, I was super depressed" excuse this time. It was just poor time management. November is just too chaotic, and instead of saying "NaNo; sorry, I can't hang out" I instead was like "Eh, I can catch up on writing later; let's do the thing." Dumb move.

I'm the closest to winning that I've ever been, and I haven't given up hope yet, but this will be an annoying final two days. I'll know better for next year, though. I really DO need to keep my writing time fiercely protected. I also will make sure to have the book play out in "real time," so to speak.

See, most books take place over the course of a few hours, or a few days. Some will take place over the course of a few months where the time jump happens between chapters. There are rare books that try to cover multiple years, and when they do, there's usually a consistency with it. The male and female protagonists meet up every summer. The main characters go back to school every September. The protagonist hits another growth milestone: walking; talking; school; first love; etc.

Jolene's story is similar to that last example, but a lot more chaotic. For the stories that cross over large passages of time - such as a memoir - each chapter is typically one major event before jumping to the next major event. This chapter is about a birthday. That chapter is about the wedding day. The next chapter is about letting the parents know she's pregnant. So on and so forth. Well, Jolene's story is about each of her boyfriends. I was going to have a boyfriend per chapter, but then I realized that a single chapter couldn't really cover months-long relationships from introduction, through the romantic gestures that got them to fall in love, to the chaos going on in the guy's head, to their inevitable break up. There is just too much to tell in just one chapter. Plus, there's too much time to cover. If I were to keep it as one chapter each, there would be about a dozen time-jump breaks through each chapter. I'm not a fan of that.

So, instead, I ended up writing multiple tiny chapters per beau. When I say "tiny" I mean they all average about 1900 words. On a typical 8.5x11" paper, 11pt font, these chapters are about two or three pages long. Upon the rework, I feel like I want to find a way to combine them into their own chapters, but I still don't know how to do so without either twenty time jumps, or really broadly showing each relationship.

As of right now, I give a quick recap of what advanced in the relationship since the close of the last chapter, and then I drop into a specific moment. I show them interacting and talking with each other. I go from fast forwarding through the mundane, to stopping at a specific moment to showcase their relationship. I then fast forward again.

To cut back on the time jumps, I'd have to not showcase these moments. It would simply be: this is how they were introduced; this is the nature of their relationship; this is when she realized she loved him; this is when he told her that he loved her; this is the moment he broke her heart. End of chapter; next beau! There really wouldn't be much dialogue and "show vs tell" except for the beginning and ending of each chapter. Showcase how they met. Give broad "telling" of the relationship as a whole, and hope the reader connects with the guy the way Jolene does; understands why she likes him so much. Then I can do another showcase for the reader to see their break up.

Now isn't the time to think about that, though. Now is the time to just get the story down on paper - as it were - and once I'm done writing everything leading up to Rensin, I'll stop. I'm fairly certain my readers would want to know how her love life story ends, but I don't have a conclusion. Also, I'm respecting Rensin's wishes - the player - in not including Rensin - the character - in any fanfiction. So, her story will stop upon the morning she's informed that a ship is about to crash land at Guthram. From there I'll set it aside; maybe read it at group to get insight on where to start with edits. Then I'll attack it again.

Getting to the editing phase will probably be later than my original January thought. Considering I'm still not done writing about Jolene's fifth main love: Searl. Once I have him kick her to the curb I still have close to four years of her life to cover.

She still needs to join a brothel, learn to become a prostitute, suffer there enough to get out of the brothel, and work solo until Bannerman Marcus sleeps with her and nearly kills her. Then it's off to the Thieves Guild to learn how to better protect herself. She's there a year learning a new trade while sleeping with Sandy, and the complicated relationship they had while she still prostituted and slept with the guild leader Pezer. Once she leaves the guild there's a huge blank space in her timeline where it's just generic "She prostitutes herself out, and then steals from her Johns before skipping town, and doing the same in the next village." She begins getting called the "Golden Succubus." Tragedy again strikes Jolene, which leads her to her first female "relation" while drunk in a bar with a pirate friend who is a repeat customer of Jolene's. Then she meets Orick, who falls madly in love with her, but she no longer believes that anyone COULD love her, so she skips town without giving Orick a second thought; he becomes a stalker of hers. Jolene winds up in a major city state, and ends up seducing the closing bartender and barmaid in order to steal the full night's till. That was when she noticed the wanted posters of herself going up, and heads to Guthram. I then need to write about her short experience while in the "Thief Port" for about a week leading into my conclusion: the serpent-wrecked merchant ship carrying Rensin crashing into Guthram's port.

I am NOT going to get all that done in the next two days. The story will probably push 100,000 words when all is said and done. This was a much larger undertaking than I thought when I tried to conquer it.

So, I will write my little heart out to try to make it to 50,000 before midnight tomorrow. Then I'll probably calm down to only a couple nights a week of writing. I might finish Jolene's epic by February. Then I'll take a month off to let it process. Then back at it in April; if I don't try to again take on Script Frenzy with this new Plantser process. I might have the second draft ready for Shadow to read come summer. I wonder if he can hold out that long.

Life would be so much easier if I could get back into writing at work. Silly store actually getting customers; or the chain manager hanging around....

Oh well, you need to work with what you've got. And right now I've got a little less than two more hours before this blog is supposed to go live, so I'm going to try to use them to up that word count!

Giving Thanks

OK, so... um.... yeeeeeaaaaaahhhh.... about last week.....

So, I allow myself to go ahead and be all emo and vent-y in this blog for three reasons. First, because my mood does greatly effect my writing, and as a writing blog I feel it is only fair to explain this issue to my readers. Second is because I feel it's important for me to see the times that I was down, and remember that I bounced back. To see that with each passing year my "Why am I bothering" posts get less and less. Perhaps one year I'll actually make it through all twelve months without feeling lost; at least, in regards to writing. Finally, I write those posts on the off chance that someone else feeling just as low and worthless stumbles upon my blog. Upon reading my rock-bottom moments, maybe they will feel like they're not alone anymore. Someone else has been in the same place they are. They aren't a freak. Others go through the same thing. And each following week I usually feel better. So, maybe said hypothetical reader will see it as hope.

Thus I keep in emo posts that apparently freak people out, and then I subsequently get about four different IMs from people asking me if I'm OK.

Um.... whoops.....

I appreciate the love, though.

So, that, plus the fact that American Thanksgiving is this Thursday, leads me to start this post with some positive vibes: 30 things I'm grateful for; Writing Edition.

1. I've discovered that writing is my passion, and I did so early in life.
2. As much as I whine about not being good compared to others, if I were to look fairly objectively at my work, my first drafts are actually really good compared to most. I just need to do a few structural edits, tighten things up a scooch, and/or fix a handful of grammatical/typo errors; for the most part.
3. Everyone I know gets that I'm a writer and cheers me on. I even have my co-workers thumbing over at me and stating "she's the writer..." People understand and accept that I'm as much a writer as I am a female, Caucasian, or 5'3". It just IS. I don't have a single nay-sayer surrounding me, and the only one I've ever really come across my whole life was my college creative writing professor. Apparently I'm beyond lucky with this lot; most of the people I talk to have friends, family, spouses, kids, and/or co-workers who don't understand the calling that is being a writer.
4. Along those lines, my blog has increased to close to 50 reads every week, and 11 followers. I know this is pathetically small in the grand scheme of things, but considering I only had about 11 hits each week when I first started, it's an awesome improvement. Especially since this is a glorified diary, and not an informative blog like most are this day and age.
5. The passion my mother has for my writing, even if I don't ever seem to write in the genres she enjoys to read; it's more stuff my dad would have loved. She's my biggest cheerleader - sorry, ChibiSunnie, but you can't surpass a mother's support! Even in weeks, such as this past one, where I feel like writing is a waste of time, she has relentless faith that my calling to write will get me somewhere. She is willing to do whatever it takes to push me there.
   As a side note, writing a list of things we're thankful for in November is her idea that she instilled in us since my sister and I were super little, so you can also thank her for this list!
   
6. Proof of my mother doing whatever she can to help me succeed: her buying me MasterClass lessons. They are inspirational and informative. I still find myself referencing back to the James Patterson lessons. In fact, those lessons were the main reason why I'm a NaNo "Plantser" this year - "[finding] the sweet spot between plotting every detail and jumping in blind." I like to think I am so successful with NaNo this year because of that, and I wouldn't have thought to do so to the extent I have if it weren't for my mother getting me into that MasterClass. At least, I wouldn't figure it out on my own so quickly.
7. I have an awesome writing group that I can go to every other Tuesday; and today is one of those Tuesdays! Everyone is super supportive, and I've made some friends there that I enjoy seeing every meeting; as well as chatting with via Facebook the rest of the time.
8. She may still think that it's needless elevation of her, but I still consider Ali Luke a writing mentor of mine, and it's great that we're such good friends. I appreciate being able to connect with her, and having her cheer me on.
9. While we've been slacking with the back and forth, Ali set me up with a really awesome writing pen-pal. We really do click, and we're supportive of each other. It's nice to have such a large supportive net surrounding me.
10. While most of my Facebook posts and statuses seem to go unnoticed - simply due to the lack of reactions/comments I ever get - every single post I've made this month in regards to my NaNo progress has had "likes" and "loves" as well as words of encouragement. And not just from my mom, either.
    
11. Even when I'm exhausted, I can manage to crank out at least a few-hundred words towards NaNo. It helps keep me from feeling like a slacker.
12. I gave myself permission to miss up to two days each week by going with the "write only on weekdays" word count. Granted, I'm still behind by a little over 1200 words, but that's a heck of a lot better than I've done in the past.
13. In past NaNo's I usually have already given up by this point in the month. I'm basically insanely behind in word count, or I lost track of my story, or life just got in the way and I couldn't find any writing time; it was depressing. Which is why I didn't bother with it last year. But this year has been going amazingly, even if I am behind. I can still smile at the progress I've made, be proud, and press on knowing that if I get just ONE good day in, I can easily make up the words I'm behind.
14. I have almost viciously loyal fans. Granted, they are only about five in number, but how many aspiring writers can say they even have one? If you are one of those fans, know that I love you and I'm beyond humbled by your undying love for my craft!

    

    Hacker Girl
    Facebook Sticker
    by Birdman Inc

15. Ever since I started working at my new job in April, I've had tons of time to write and craft. It's fantastic to have a job that allows me the downtime to be creative so I am less stressed about having to fit it into my limited "outside of work" hours. It gives me the evenings to clean, snuggle with Hubby, and/or socialize. It really relieves the pressure of trying to shoehorn writing into my life; keeping it from feeling like a "chore."
16. Even if Hubby and I haven't had much time together, if I tell him "OK, I didn't find time to write today, I have to hide away for an hour or two" he gives me a kiss, locks me away in the bedroom, and wishes me luck in finding inspiration. I know our alone time is precious, especially since it will nearly disappear once we start having kids, so it means a lot to me that he understands how important writing is to me, and is willing to sacrifice some of his time with me so I can do what I need to.
17. Silly thing to be thankful for, especially since one could argue that it's made me lazy in my learning, but God bless whomever thought of the concept of a spellchecker, and added kudos to whomever thought to include it automatically online. I've always been an atrocious speller, and spell check has kept me from looking like an unintelligible idiot for years. A+, Spell Check.
18. Aside from two slip ups this year - I believe it's only two, and fairly recently - I've been able to consistently write for this blog each week. It kept years, but I think I finally found a good rhythm and schedule. Now to figure out when the heck I'll actually be home on Tuesdays in order to coordinate my promoting of the blog at the same time it goes live.
19. I've seen a lot of my friends hit hardships with their writing and more-or-less give up, even though you can tell that it pains them to do so. If this wasn't a passion for them they'd just be like, "yeah, I wasn't that good. It sucks, but I'll figure something else to do." However, you can hear the frustration in their voice that they just can't get the words and the story they're trying to tell out of their head. To these friends, I wish you the ability to figure it out, and a reminder that I'm around to talk to if it would help. However, they are also reminders to me of what could happen if I stayed in the mindset I had last week.
    So, this bit of thankfulness is dedicated to the fact that I can bounce back, and - aside from a near six-year hiatus after the discouragement from my aforementioned professor - I haven't given up writing for more than a few weeks.
20. The shear fact that my friends have come to me with their writing concerns is also a big thing for me. In times that I feel useless and bottom of the barrel in regards to writing, it's nice to have others come to ME. They find me comforting and supportive enough to want to bring their problems to me, and occasionally they do so because they hope I can give them advice. It's nice to get these reminders that I can "pass it forward", in regards to mentoring and supporting other writers. It shows me that I have something that I can give back to the writing community; that I'm not just taking all the time. I have something of value that others wish to tap into. 
21. Many blessings to YouTube, MP3 players, CDs, and music in general. If I'm not in the right "mindset" for a scene I need to write, I can just bring up a playlist I put together as a sort of "soundtrack" for the scene - or the character as a whole - and it brings me exactly to where I need to be in a song or two. Also, music keeps me productive. As I'm writing this post I have a whole playlist of 90s songs going in the background.
    
22. While I may be running out of steam throughout the story - some parts awesome, some parts complete trash - I'm still so grateful that I am inspired enough by Jolene to be able to get the nearly 33,000 words that I already have. I'm not even half-way through her backstory yet! Talk about character epics!
    
23. Along those lines, I am grateful that editing is a thing. I'm going to need to hit this story pretty hard-core come January; after a month of taking a writing breather and setting the story aside so I can come at it with fresh eyes.
24. Even when I feel clueless on how to start a chapter, a scene, or this blog, I can generally just place my hands on the keyboard and work my way through. When I feel I have nothing to say, I can still fall into a groove, and end up with a great deal to tell. May I never take this ability for granted.
25. The amazingness of my Wonder Twin, Ronoxym, and the fact that we've been chatting a heck of a lot more the past month or so. Apparently, my writing inspires him, and anyone who has read this blog long enough would know how much he inspires me. In most cases, we are on such the same wavelength that I can always go to him if I'm stuck with something. It's also so much fun to see what new Plot Bunny is hopping around in his head. Now, to try to get him to actually MATURE one of those suckers!
    
26. I have to give a special shout-out to Shadow. He's been in love with Jolene pretty much as soon as she was introduced in-game. His passion for her, and his need to know her story, is what really helps drive me to keep going. Plus, his determination to not read my story - even though I shared it with him - until I tell him it is complete and edited, is really going to push me to not just toss this to the side once November is over. On top of all that, he digitally pokes me nearly daily to make sure I'm writing instead of wasting time on Facebook.
27. I'm thankful for my new laptop. Yes, it still annoys me nearly daily, but I think that's because all computing devices got together one day and made a pact to never work properly for me. Still, about 95% of the time it works beautifully, and it's amazing how motivating it can be to have functioning equipment when trying to do something.... such as writing.
28. I've been able to not just get reading in this year, but a LOT of reading in; at least, compared to past years. It's a part of writing that I've neglected under the assumption that "I should be writing my own story instead of wasting time reading stories others have written." So, I'm glad that I can get past that mental block and again enjoy good stories, while also mentally noting what I should do to improve my own.
29. Fanfiction being a thing is amazing to me. The fact that people accept that others want to continue an already established story just might be my bread and butter someday. I may use it as a crutch to avoid doing the work of creating an original world - or original characters in some cases - but it keeps me writing. Those times I try to be original and it results in me pulling out my hair, I can fall back on fanfiction writing to keep me from hiding in my emo corner. I can use my imagination to try to think of new situations or scenes not explicitly seen, and go to town. Keep my skills sharp. Keep me from getting too down on myself. Keep me writing even when I think I can't do this properly. Keep me posting things for others to read, and then, presumably encourage me to keep going. Fanfiction keeps me positive, active, and pressing forward. Three cheers for this genre!
30. You guys! My readers! I will always write because it is who I am, but the validation I get by having people read my work is unquantifiable. Seeing people respond to my writing, seeing my blog hit-counter go up, seeing my followers expand, it all energizes me and encourages me. It holds me accountable. If I was just writing for me, who knows if I'd post here every week? Who knows if I'd try so hard to get stories written and completed? Who knows if I'd bother to attempt writing challenges? Who knows if I'd try to expand and improve? All of this. All this growth. All this determination. All this dedication and discipline. All of this is because of you, dear readers, so super THANK YOU to each and every one of you!

    

    NuaNia
    Facebook Sticker
    by PRANEAT

Whoo! That was an exercise! Now, to try to remember all of those points in the future so I don't get as bummed out anymore.

As for my NaNo progress, well, I am 1200 words behind where I SHOULD be, as I mentioned above. However, that still has me at nearly 33,000 words, which is more than I've ever written for NaNo before. Most I've ever written in one month. All of my stories with more than 30,000 words have been written over the course of months; even years.

The best part is that while there are definitely parts of this story that I want to skip over because they just aren't entertaining for me - so I can only imagine how boring they can be for the reader - I'm not burnt out. Not like I thought I would be.

Writing has become a daily routine; as it should have been ages ago. Even if I write 500-words; that is still SOMETHING to bring me forward. It's still 500 more words than I would have had if I just went "meh; don't feel like it today." I'm FINALLY making writing an equal priority. Plus, hiding away for about an hour isn't that bad right now, while I have limited other responsibilities.

Will I be writing 1600 words every day once NaNo is over? Probably not, but I do think I'll be in enough of a habit to keep pushing forward with daily.... SOMETHING writing related. Which is the main point of NaNo: get yourself into a writing habit. "Winning" NaNo with a 50,000-word novel once the month is done is just frosting.

Also, the more I work on Jolene's story, and the more the D&D sessions take Jolene and Rensin in the opposite direction I thought they'd go in, the more I want to work on Gyateara, and working on Amara's story finally. I have to admit that the similarities between Amara and Corlmitz has helped bring the poor girl back to the forefront, after being hidden in the corner by my X-Future girls.

I have so many stories that I want to tell, and I want to complete. I have this drive now that I haven't really felt before. I have this determination. It is invigorating!

The rest of 2016 may have been a disaster-and-a-half, but for writing - and my ability to get out of working in the local grocery store - this year has actually been quite awesome!

Here's to pushing forward, keeping this passion and discipline, avoiding the "woe is me" pit-traps, and having an even better 2017!

For my fellow Americans, happy Thanksgiving. And for everyone, I'll catch ya next week with my last drive to hit 50,000 words before the close of the month.

Climbing Out of a Little Depression; Don't Mind Me

I feel like I need to start off with the elephant in the room: Donald Trump is the United States' president-elect.

Now, I won't get into the politics of this and the social effects this has. That's not what this blog is for. What I will say is that regardless which side you were on with this election, this week was emotionally draining, and a bit of a shock.

So, I was already in a daze from the election. That Wednesday evening I was hoping for some much-needed distraction. Due to their move and lack of internet, Bear had to cancel two games, so he had one of the "make up" sessions last Wednesday. During said session Rensin - and Dunina - was frozen in stone by a basilisk gaze. So.... still emotionally charged.

I was itching to write Jolene's entry on this, but the characters weren't in a good resting spot, so it didn't make in-game sense for her to journal about it. I'm waiting until the "dungeon" is cleared before I post my next journal, but boy howdy will it be long!

At least two others couldn't wait, but I'll get to that in a bit.

This week for NaNo, I was writing about Jolene's third love: Parvil Kiv.

Addison by CrystalCurtisArt
Commissioned by WindyAutumnMoon for her character

It occurs to me that I don't think I shared the images I found for each of Jolene's loves, so I'll backtrack real quick before continuing on.

First up is the first - and strongest - love of Jolene's life. She's loved others since him, and Rensin is super close to being on par with the love she had for him, but this is the ruler others are measured against: Jacob Highwin.

How I picture Jacob dressed up
and while working the forge
Yvad Trevelyan - Skyhold Outfit by Slugette

Imagine Jacob with honey-brown eyes
instead of these purple ones
Yvad Trevelyan by Slugette

The last gentleman I'm going to share this week is Jolene's second love Teo Apenell. There's actually a really awesome scene that I wrote between him and Jacob. Poor sap didn't realize he'd hurt Jolene almost as much.

Image found via Pintrest
Original source unknown

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I was writing about Parvil this week. Sadly, I don't really have much on Parvil. His relationship with Jolene was basically "rebound boy after being heart broken over Teo," and he was more into a physical relationship than an emotional one. He was the "rebel" she was with for a brief stint. Good for backstory purposes, but now that I have to write out the actual relationship, I've got nothing. I'm running on empty.

I wrote the chapter that introduced him, but I just can't write the next one. I've been chipping away at it a few-hundred words at a time, but I really should have had this finished by Thursday at the latest.

Proof that planning really DOES help with writing momentum. I had so much figured out for Jacob, and he ended up sticking around for four chapters. Then I had a nice chunk of information figured out for Teo, and he was another three-chapter character. Now that I'm Pantsing the part I'm writing about Parvil, I'm slugging along.

It also doesn't help that I know this chapter is most likely the one where Jolene finds Parvil with the lusty barmaid. It's already an emotionally charged week; I just can't mentally put myself there without sobbing and curling in the corner to weep. It actually already happened this week.

See, along with the emotionally draining election, and the emotionally charged game where Rensin got frozen in stone, there were at least two other things that got me really emotionally raw this week.

While part of me doesn't want anyone to see my unedited work - which is why I'm not posting it here - I still kind of want input. So, since I was going to convert the edited version into the canonical back story for Jolene anyway, I decided to share my progress on the forum Mouse made for the game.

I warned people that it was raw and unedited. Not a problem. I then posted the link to the Google Doc I'm constantly updating. Still good to go. Theeeeeen I noticed that Rensin responded to my link.

Seems he was burnt, bad, by a fanfiction writer before. To the point where he cannot stand fanfiction or fanfiction writers. It felt like he thought them downright deplorable. This stung. This drove a knife right to my core.

Everything I had told myself over the past years - all my writing doubt - it came erupting to the surface. The thoughts that I'm not an actual writer because I need the crutch of someone else doing the work of world-building and/or character building. The hate that I'm incapable of doing something original. The slacker attitude that I was doing FANFICTION for NaNo while there are thousand others "doing it correctly" by writing something completely original this month.

It was like my inner editor and writing doubts were given a mouthpiece, and it was someone I respected for his writing; someone I wanted to better befriend. Instead, I now shrink away from him. I feel just completely unworthy, and almost fear meeting him outside of the game setting. It.... it was bad. I couldn't think about my story for a day or two. I just kept thinking that he was right, that I was deplorable for writing this fanfic instead of trying to do something myself.

Mouse came to my rescue. She told Rensin that it was fine; that she and Bear knew me and trusted me; trusted my writing. She then cheered me on.

Still, the wound was there, and her standing up for me - and Rensin's subsequent "Oh, okay then" - couldn't stitch it closed. I tried to ignore it. I tried to let it be, but every time I logged onto the board and I saw Rensin's name as "last poster" on my NaNo thread I hurt. So, against my better judgement, I explained my hurt to him. I tried to be diplomatic about it: This is how you hurt me, please think stuff like that through before you attack someone next time. However, I was still emotionally raw from everything else this week, so I guess it came across as me being the one doing the attacking. So, Mouse again stepped in by telling us to be civil.

CIVIL!? I didn't realize I was being hostile. If anything HE was the hostile party, and yet she asked for us to be civil after I posted. That cut me harder; realizing how misunderstood I was.

I guess now I understand how Jolene could be misunderstood in-game. If I couldn't explain myself without people feeling attacked, how could she? No wonder arguments seemed to pop up out of nowhere around her. No wonder her calming, carefully chosen words meant to show concern were always seen as harsh and criticizing.

Again, I sunk further into my writing funk. If I couldn't properly explain or present myself in writing when it comes to my own conversation, how could I possibly do it in my fiction? If my simple words could be so misinterpreted how could I properly tell a story to another?

That inner editor that was supposed to be locked away this month busted out of his cage and was roaring around me about how inadequate I was. I'd read what Rensin wrote on the board in the Myths or Journal sections. I'd read what Corlmitz wrote in his journal, backstory, or Legends section. I'd read what Mouse would put in Mahtab's journal or more world-build info about the various religions. I got emotional. They all provoked such strong emotions in me: anger, fear, sadness, joy, etc. And I watch people react to these posts stating just that.

Then there are my posts: Jolene's posts. Nothing. I'm not even sure others read them. No one ever comments. I am amazed by the writing the others do, and I feel so subpar. It took everything I had to push through. To keep going. To just write this week, even when every ounce of me told me to quit; it wasn't worth it; no one cares; I enrage people with my effort.

If that wasn't bad enough, we then had game on Saturday. We had continued through the "dungeon" - it's a set of sewers under the city they were in - but we're not quite done with it yet. Hopefully, we'll complete it tonight.

Anyway, Jolene is already on edge from Rensin being turned to stone, but he's back to flesh, so she's kind of elated at the same time. Then they came up against a vicious monster. It should have been challenging, but a lot easier for us to take down. Sadly, the dice were not with us that night, and we all rolled far too low to do anything more often than not. This resulted in Rensin and Dunina again nearly kicking the bucket.

Mahtab was able to get them both to full-health - or close to it - easily enough, but she admitted that she probably wouldn't be able to do much more healing that day. That's when Jolene innocently suggested that they retreat, regroup, let Mahtab rest, and possibly get other means to heal so they didn't need to rely on her as much.

Mahtab wasn't hearing it. According to her, she never retreats. Then she basically told Jolene to hide in the back if she wasn't brave/strong enough to fight. That stung. Jolene announced that she was pretty much the only one who came out of the fight unscathed and that she was more worried about them than herself. Frustrated that she again got misunderstood and ridiculed, she stormed ahead. If they wanted to march to their deaths she was done trying to stop them.

That was when the shit hit the fan. Rensin called out for her to "go home" since he couldn't handle her whining and fighting all the time. Jolene argued back that her fighting all the time was to protect HIM since she had to watch him nearly die THREE TIMES within the past week. She couldn't handle it because she loved him. It was the first time she admitted - even to herself - that she loved him.

In truth, I didn't expect Rensin to scoop her up and start a make-out session, overjoyed by her confession; they'd been through too much and she cut him too deep for that. I did, however, expect him to at least sigh and state something to the effect of "about time you admitted it." Or for SOMEONE to state something to that effect. It was obvious to everyone but her that she was madly in love with him. "About time you admit it" and then a "but we have to do what we have to do; we'll discuss this further later." That was more-or-less the reaction I was expecting.

Instead, Rensin swung from left field. He blurted out that he was sick of hearing Jolene focus so much on herself and how what the party does - whether or not they survive - effects HER. He then accused her for not understanding him. That's when he dropped the bomb that he re-evaluated his feelings and realized what he felt wasn't love; never was, and never could be.

Well, I was right there sobbing beside Jolene. And not a single party member tried to comfort her or reprimand Rensin for his harshness. They all stood there, more-or-less releasing a sigh of relief that the volatile relationship finally came to a close. The only one who reacted was Corlmitz, but even THAT was unexpected. He went off on BOTH of them for acting like children and finding the most inappropriate times to hash out their doomed courtship.

The night kind of spiraled from there.

First, there was the emotionally draining election. Quickly followed by an emotionally charged D&D session. That was followed by Real-World Rensin's criticism about me writing fanfiction for NaNo. Which, compacted with how I view everyone else on the board and how I'm sort of the outsider of the group, just tore the dreaded Inner Editor out of my head and plopped him right in front of me to try to battle. I saw myself the way Jolene sees herself within her group: an outsider always misunderstood as selfish and uncaring; disconnected. Then there was character Rensin's random outburst to implode his relationship with Jolene, followed by even more ridicule from Corlmitz. Again, I felt like I WAS Jolene. Was Rensin's harsh breaking off of the relationship somehow emotionally backed by me and Real-World Rensin butting heads about my story? Finally, I have to break poor Jolene's heart a second time by writing her finding Parvil in the arms of another.

I couldn't do it! I couldn't keep working on my story this week. There was just too much. I was just too depressed. I had to climb out of that hole before I was lost to despair.

So I switched over to "Some Like It Flame Broiled."

Can't handle a break-up scene due to crushing depression? Switch over to a smut story filled with violence!

I finally finished it, but I have to also admit that once the foreplay was done the story kind of died off. Apparently I'm great at foreplay, but the actual sex scenes and post-sex fight scene? Meh.

I sent it over to Ronoxym while playfully yelling at him for it. I needed a happy place to hide from Jolene for a while, and apparently that "happy place" was a smut story between Trish and Dark Devon.

Ron got a nice chuckle out of it and we playfully teased each other over the weekend as I kept using SLIFB as my "safe space" to further avoid Jolene and the depression that came with her. However, after I sent the story over to Ron, he agreed with me: about 65% through the story it just kind of died off.

However, with just a quick read through my 13-pg story, that was his only criticism thus far. He even pointed out a line that was perfectly in-character for Dark Devon, and it was during the "meh" part of the story. So... win? I was so concerned that I wasn't going to keep Dark Devon in-character, especially after everything about fanfiction writing this week.

Ron still needs to give it a better read to actually put his Editor's Hat on, but the fact that there weren't parts that he instantly stated as "he's out of character" gives me hope. He joked that he'd help me figure out why the story went sideways at the end. "Together we shall save this smut!" HAHA.

Um, thanks, Ron. I'd really like to have something that is strong all the way through, but at the same time.... all this effort on a story that will most likely never see the light of day....

I also used my depression a bit this week. I did write up Jolene's journal entry while the emotions were still raw. I just have it saved to add to and edit depending on how the rest of the dungeon goes. I'll then post once I'm done.

I've also started writing Jolene's farewell letters to everyone. An individual letter for each party member. I have Mahtab's, Rensin's - which he can't read himself yet...., Corlmitz's, and Dunina's written already. And they are LONG! Sorry, players!

So, I have written a LOT this week. More-or-less 1227 words in SLIFB, 1360 words for Jolene's journal, and 2897 words for the farewells written thus far. Add in the words that I did write, and the fact that I'm scheduling myself Saturdays and Sundays off, and I'd be ahead of the overall word count I should have been at, instead of about 8,000 words behind. I wish I could count it....

Before I get even more depressed with tonight's game, I'll have to push past Parvil's break-up scene. Maybe if I get to the point where I'm writing happy thoughts again - like the start of Jolene's relationships when they believe they're in love - I can push through. I can write.

Wish me luck.