Running a Little Shallow This Week

OK, so I missed my "double post" last week. My Thursday got away from me. I do still intend on having one in the near future to talk about the reading challenge again.

As for my writing challenge, though, eh, I'm a bit sunk. I think I have a cold coming on, because I can't think of anything new. It is just complete blank up there. Either that, or I'm obsessively "Jolene" up in there.

She managed to survive the Wednesday session last week, but it stirred up a bunch of drama. Drama that continued on Saturday. She's trying so hard to be good, but she's really bad at it....

So, trying to think of a story that doesn't involve her or Rensin is super tough right now. I tried all week. I tried all weekend. I tried again yesterday. Nothing.

The best that I had was an anecdote I told a couple of friends the other day. I don't recall why I brought it up; must have been SOMETHING dealing with putting your foot in your mouth. A subject I know far too well, sadly.

Since I end up telling just about everyone this story anyway, as a means to make them feel better about their own temporary stupidity, I figured "Eh, might as well." It was a super quick write on Saturday. Mostly due to the fact that I've told the story so frequently. Plus, it's only about 500-words long.

My issue is that it is only 500-some words when I'm allotted up to 1000, and it's not a story I "created". It's an anecdote.

Still, it was better than no story at all this past week, so I typed that sucker up. I then tried to come up with an actual story to use for the challenge, but that only resulted in a small Jolene/Rensin scene that also was about 500-words long.

I'm hoping I can get back on my game this week.

In the meantime, enjoy my greatest idiotic moment, and keep this sucker bookmarked for the next time you feel like an idiot:

"Did I Just Say That?"

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My biggest issue is that it's not exactly easy for a laser-focused person to come up with something new on the fly every week like this. As opposed to ADHD Ronoxym who is constantly thinking of something new. I guess that's kind of the irony of our challenges to each other: I want him to be more focused, while he wants me to be able to have creative inspiration constantly.

It kinda works, though, because we're helping each other with our weaknesses. Intending to, at least.

The only real problem is that while I'm struggling to think of something new each week, and I'm obsessing about Jolene's next weekly session, I am completely dropping my NaNo prep. I don't even know the last time I at least THOUGHT about that story. Maybe that should be my focus today. Who knows, perhaps in my prepping for that I can think of something for Ron's challenge.

Playing Massive Catchup

Alright, well, I definitely didn't intend on completely skipping last week! I was doing so good, too.

I don't have a real valid excuse. My excuse is simply that I had to work last Tuesday, and also...

Here's the quick play-by-play of the past two weeks:

• Wednesday 9/7 - On death's door; crashed after work
• Thursday - Work until 8pm, and then OPENING GAME OF REGULAR SEASON FOOTBALL! We were up until midnightish.
• Friday - Work followed by me zoning out on the couch for hours on end trying to figure out how to level up my character in Bear's campaign.... It was bad....
• Saturday - Work again, half-hour break, and then straight into the weekly D&D session. Things are starting to look bad for Jolene. Me and Bear decided I need to do a solo-session with her to figure out background stuff. I stayed up until it's time to take Hubby into work.
• Sunday - Drop Hubby off; couple hours of sleep; pick him up; work; and then straight into the Giant's rival game! Sunday night football - minus a half-hour between the afternoon and evening games - kept us up until midnightish again.
• Monday - My coworker convinced me to join her in Aerial Yoga. So, right after work, instead of working on this post - knowing full well that I couldn't write it Tuesday due to working - I went to yoga with her, and then straight into the Monday Night Football double-header. By the time the games were over and I was back home it was around 1am.
• Tuesday - Work, and at that point I had been up for so many days in a row that I just zoned out instead of writing this post AFTER work, so that it could go up Wednesday.
• Wednesday - More work, and then straight into laundry. I was going to work on this post there, but it was the only free time Bear had for my solo play. It kept nearly the full two hours I was at the laundromat, and then another hour or so after I got home. Then quick folding/hanging of my clothes before bed.
• Thursday - My 10hr day at work, leading directly into football again. Another late nighter.
• Friday - While this was yet another day that I had every intention of writing my late post, it turned into me cleaning week-long neglected dishes, as well as working on a new weekly challenge Ronoxym gave me; something I'll talk about more in this post.
• Saturday - Work yet again, then about half-hour down time for food, followed by the D&D session leading straight from the Wednesday solo-session. Jolene is REALLY in trouble now, but Bear had to crash early for work, so we had to kind of stop right in the body of the drama! We're continuing with a short session tomorrow night, and I've been antsy about it since Saturday night! More on this in the blog too.
• Sunday - Hubby drop off; Hubby pick up; work; football. I was going to use the much more mellow atmosphere of football watching this week to FINALLY get to my blog, but at that point I figured I'd just write last week off and wait until today.
• Monday - Home stretch. Last day of work before my day off; FINALLY. Aerial Yoga was cancelled, so I left work and just vegged all night; enjoying my freedom.

I feel so bad. Not only did I miss my blog post, but I also haven't had contact with my email pen-pal in nearly two weeks. My brain has been so burnt out that every time I open the email to respond to her my eyes cross and drop focus. So, I guess I know what I'm doing when I'm done with this post.

I've been slacking a bit on my prep for NaNo, and my writing has died down a bit with my brain being all fuzzy, but I haven't stopped completely.

On Friday the 9th I was able to get a hold of Ronoxym via FB messenger. Generic "how's things" talk for a little bit. I then tried to strong-arm him into doing NaNoWriMo with me and Cyhyr. I think I MIIIIGHT have convinced him, but he's a busy boy, so who knows? Between work, new-fatherhood, and going back to school, I have no clue where he'll find the time. Still, I'll be evil and poke him during November to ask how his writing is going.

Anyway, as we were talking "shop" I reminded him that he never gave me the writing challenge he said he made up for me back in January/February. After a brief moment of "Uh... let me remember what it was...." he gave me my challenge: write a new 1000-words or less flash fiction each week!

I'm now REALLY glad that he had forgotten about exchanging challenges until just now. Finishing up the last quarter of the year with this challenge will be interesting enough. A full 52 weeks of it might have killed me....

So, writing a complete story/scene/whatever in 1000-words or less is already super hard for long-winded me, but Ron wasn't done yet. Not only did I have to write flash fiction each week for the remainder of 2016, but I also had restrictions:

1. None of the stories could relate to each other. They couldn't continue off each other. I couldn't thread a bunch of 1000-word scenes into a full story. Each flash fiction had to be a one-shot.
2. I couldn't write about characters I already created. No X-Future girls, no D&D characters "behind the scenes" stories, no characters from original stories I already wrote. Each new, flash fiction had to be about completely different characters.
3. No. Fan. Fiction. None. No playing in someone else's sandbox. Not only could I not use my own characters, but I definitely can't use someone else's. Each week. New characters. Completely original.

I'd call him mean - and I think I actually did in our conversation - but I wasn't exactly kind to him either when I gave him his challenge at the beginning of the year; not that it matters, he had forgotten about it with all the chaos of Baby-Prepping.

OH! And speaking of Ron, he and ChibiSunnie just celebrated their birthdays! Happy birthday to probably my two writing besties!

Aaaaand we're back....

So anyway, my nervousness about Ron's challenge quickly turned into excitement. An adorable elder couple came into the store a few days prior, and they inspired me. I had my first story done within 24-hrs of getting my challenge.

When I was done I was actually at like 1013 words, though, so I had to grumble and cut until I was at EXACTLY 1000 words; still counts! Also, I cheated slightly. What I wrote wasn't a scene per se. There was no action. There was no dialogue. There was no true movement of character. Instead, it was a snapshot of a man dealing with his wife dying from cancer; what is known as a vignette.

A story is still told, but at the same time the elements of a "scene" are missing: the action; the growth.

"Screw 'Til Death"

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I read this story at writing group last week. I think I have stronger faith that the lack of critiques each week is due to my skill; not their neglect.

When I finished reading there was just this profound silence, and then this group exhale. I had comments like "Wait, you're HOW OLD again, and can write so poignantly about a couple in their late sixties?" and "I've been through this, and let me tell you, you've nailed it." Just about everyone at the table said similar: I captured the pain of losing someone you've loved your whole life; the loss of self along with your partner. Granted, after seeing my mother go through it, it wasn't a hard stretch to be empathetic towards those in that situation.

That's when Carson nervously pitched in a cautious "I don't mean to insult you, but... why do you write fanfiction when you can write like THAT!?" The room echoed his sentiment. He always seems to be able to put words to what everyone else seems to think.

I was probably blushing nearly as bad as when I read "Rensin's Conquest" to them. I had to admit to them what I've already admitted here: I know full well that I use fanfiction as a crutch to get past the "hard bits" of writing; namely creating the world and characters. Yet, I still fall back into the crutch because it was what always got me writing in the past, and writing fanfiction is better than no writing at all, right?

Still. It's SUPER encouraging to hear them all astonished at how well I wrote that tale. I don't know how they'll feel about the next one I wrote this past Friday, though. Not nearly as emotional, and in the realm of fantasy; which most of the group isn't really into.

As I stated in my weekly recap above, Jolene isn't really doing very well. The session tomorrow night might actually see her untimely demise.

While I'm of course fighting to prevent that, I also must let the character make her own decisions and let the chips fall where they may. I already have her swan song written up should it go that far.

Since Jolene may not last much longer, I've started trying to find inspiration for my next character. I flipped though about twenty or so pictures people have drawn of characters created for fantasy games. Among them was this amazing picture.

Bard Ariane by Lapis-Razuri

Isn't she adorable!? I instantly knew that she was going to be the basis of my next character. Right off the bat I figured I'd make her a gnome. She also looks playful, like she doesn't really take anything seriously. She looked spunky, like she had a lot of "moxie." So I needed to figure out a good name for that.

With some playing, I figured "why not a name that - in theory - people could shorten to 'Moxie'?" Some more playing around, and I came up with the name Elymoxa. I personally shorten it to just Mox, but I'm assuming the group would shorten it to Ellie. However, the potential for "Moxie" is there, and that's all that matters to me.

Anyway, since she's not officially a character yet, I stretched the restrictions of Ron's challenge a bit, and I used her for my second flash fiction. Consider it a way to get to know her. Time-order-wise, since I haven't opened the Players Handbook even once to start officially creating her, you could say she's an original character I liked enough to make into a D&D character to play.... That makes this past week's story count for the challenge, right?

If you want a nice intro to Mox - who will probably change while I play her, because that's how it ALWAYS happens with my characters - then you can check out my flash fiction for week 2 of the challenge:

"No Time for Playing"

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If you want to follow along before I post in my weekly blogs for the remainder of the year, you can watch the anthology I've pieced together for these one-shots. It's called "Ronoxym's Flash Fiction Challenge." And, yes, it does occur to me that perhaps the name is a bit confusing. I'm LycoRogue, and it says Ronoxym's, but I was tired last Friday when I set it up. Besides, Ron was the one who challenged me. It made sense at the time. I might have to go back and change it though at some point....

The trick is to figure out what to write for this week's challenge....

The other trick is to get back on track with NaNo prep while dealing with the drama of Jolene's doom, and let me tell you, she has NOT shut up since the solo session last Wednesday! It's snippets and mini-speeches, but I have a couple pages worth over the course of the past week.

I'm really liking Jolene and her relationship - strained as it is - with the clueless Rensin. Even the setting of the campaign is awesome. I just wish I understood it a bit better so that Jolene could have played around in it a bit more. Perhaps Jolene and Rensin will be revived - as it were - in another story concept down the road.

I can't keep stealing other people's roleplay characters though, like I did with Phfylburt's Lincoln or Ron's Devon. I'll have to find a way of recreating Rensin as an original character to pit up against Jolene. I did have a similar concept for Amara's love interest for her story - which I had mentally "in the works" back in like 2005/2006, but never actually written down. I don't know if I can make Rensin as adorable as his player does, though. I'll need practice over the years of polishing.

Alright, well, since I'm now down a week for my blog posts, I might work on a catch-up one for a double-post week. Most likely focused solely on my reading challenge progress since I haven't talked about that in a little while. So, keep your eyes open for that.

In the meantime, I'm off to play massive catch-up to make up for the crazy-long work week I had.

Sorry for the Delay

I'm sorry, but this blog post is going to be a bit late this week due to lack of free time. I'm working overtime at work, have my writing group, and started up exercising after work. This should only be a temporary setback.

I apologize for the delay and will get everything cleaned up here as soon as possible.

In the meantime, enjoy some complimentary coffee and donuts while you wait.

Also, feel free to take some of this newly-found free time to sign up for my email updates, or my RSS feed if you haven't already. That way you can be quickly contacted once everything is finished up here. 

You can find the links to the right.

Alternatively, you can follow me on Twitter (@LycoRogue). I generally only tweet about my blog updates, so you don't have to worry about being flooded by me. 

Thank you again for your patience. We should have everything up and running again by Thursday, Sept 15 at the latest.

What Can I Salvage From This?

I had some self restraint last week. I didn't offer to read more of "Rensin's Conquest," and no one asked if I wanted to read more of it, so I left it be. Instead, I talked about how I was prepping for NaNoWriMo already, and then read them the 40-question Dread Character Questionnaire. As I predicted, they all loved the concept of those hard-hitting questions. One comment was actually that it's great that "there's no 'out' for those questions. It's not 'do you have...' it's 'which one do you have...'." I ended up passing the questionnaire to everyone via email.

I also let them know that I was shaking off the dust on "The Race for Destiny" for NaNo. As well as let them know what a disaster the original story was. So, they know the uphill battle I have for reworking it to be more original. Boy, is it ever going to be a battle.

For the original go of the story, I was taking elements from about five different characters each, in order to create my main characters of Natalie and Connor. I assumed that if I did this, then they would Voltron into a new, original character, not quite recognizable as the sum of the fanfiction parts. It didn't quite work out that way because the "stolen" elements were too much in the forefront. Connor's description, for instance, if one were paying even the vaguest of attention, would definitely be Link from the Legend of Zelda series; minus the trademark hat. Natalie's pink-stone pendent heirloom she's never without - that has mysterious powers and great importance in Albion - is clearly Hitomi's necklace from Visions of Escaflowne. Although it never got to that point in the story, Connor's transformation into a feral demon-like beast that only Natalie could calm is pretty much just straight up Kagome and InuYasha when he goes demonic.

I'm trying to figure out how many of those elements do I need to keep for my story. How many SHOULD I keep for my story? Do I just start completely from fresh? It's a bit of a struggle to figure it out. So, I started with filling out more of the questionnaires for Natalie and Connor.

I'm getting further with Connor because he was the one that actually had a bit of a personality the first go. I chose characters with some fire and tragedy to them when I first made Connor, so now I'm trying to figure out how to better meld them together into one personality instead of a patchwork of like-personalities from existing characters.

Connor's overall drive to become a strong hero so he can track down the raiding bandits that slaughtered his hometown, and get his vengeance on them, is full-on Hero from Fable. His transformation into Demon-Form, and why he transforms, is taken from InuYasha, but, unlike InuYasha, Connor fears the transformation and wishes to remain human. His brashness and slight elitism are hand-me-downs from Van from Visions of Escaflowne, but he also has Van's moments of tenderness, compassion, and protectiveness. His looks were Link's, but I think I also originally gave him Link's penchant for minimal talking. Granted, Connor wasn't nearly as "mute" as Link is in the games, but he was a man of few words - except when he was angry, apparently. I'm still not sure if I'm going to keep that trait since it will be just him and Natalie for a large majority of the story. Who knows?

As for the less-developed Natalie? Her main influence was Hitomi from Visions of Escaflowne; a girl who has a mysterious necklace heirloom that teleports her onto a different planet. She is then told that her coming was foreseen via prophecy, and it is her duty to help rid the land of corruption in order to bring peace. Hitomi - and therefore Natalie - is a bit of a loner who isn't terribly happy with her life, anyway, and so a "vacation" from Earth, while scary, doesn't seem that big of a deal. However, she quickly yearns to return to a world she knows, and this tears at her since the love of her life - Van for Hitomi; Connor for Natalie - is on the strange planet she's currently on. Does she stay with him or go back home? Can she survive long enough for that decision to matter?

The second main influence was Kagome from InuYasha, who also got teleported out of her normal life - this time via a time warp into Feudal Japan - and has the same dilemma: only she can help cleanse the land of evil while struggling between returning home and staying with the man she loves. Sensing a theme in Anime? Kagome also lead me to have Natalie be the only one to see the other pieces of the goddess Alrea's magical gemstone, just as only Kagome can see the fragments of the Shikon Jewel. Another Kagome trait is that she shoots cleansing "spirit arrows" to help defeat demons, so naturally, Natalie can only use Albion's magic by using a bow and arrow as conduits. Last Kagome trait: as mentioned above, Natalie is the only one who can calm Connor down when he's in a feral rage. Their connection, and his growing love for her, are the only things reminding him of his humanity.

Natalie, along with a bunch of other anime heroine archetype traits, also has a sprinkling of Miaka from the anime Fushigi Yuugi. Just like Hitomi and Kagome, Miaka was teleported from the modern world to a different one - again in the past, like with Kagome. Once again, the trope of falling in love with a man, and therefore being torn between staying and going home, plays out. The added is that Miaka is believed to be a speaker for one of the four gods due to her coming from a different world/time, and that in completing a quest that would allow Miaka to summon the god, she would be granted a wish. Natalie gets the same treatment: she's speaker for Alrea, and in completing her quest, she can have a wish granted; this is the main reason she goes on the quest in hopes of using the wish to get home.

So, as you can see, Connor's character is a lot more developed; a lot more complex. The elements I grabbed for him were more personality-based with a central drive attached to it. Natalie's character build was more about the similar archetype/trope I was seeing in anime: a girl teleported from her home due to some sort of magic/mysticism about her is told that she's the only one who can complete a task that would bring peace to the land; she begrudgingly does the dangerous quest in hopes of having the power to return home once it's complete; as the quest goes on she becomes more competent and more of an equal to her male counterpart, whom she falls in love with; once the quest is done and the world is saved, she's torn between staying with the man she loves or going home to the life she knows.

Natalie is the plot. Connor is the characterization. I need to balance that out a bit more. And get a bit off the tropey-ness. That's the challenge because while I know I need to completely rework everything, I'm also trying to figure out what parts are alright to keep so that it's still a reboot of my original story instead of stealing Connor and Natalie's names and starting completely fresh.

I'm definitely going to need help with this.....

On a different train of thought.... I completed "Ready Player One" by the close of September. Easily completed it, in fact. Had time to spare.

The ending was both awesome, and a bit aggravating. Much like "Island of the Blue Dolphins," I wanted just ONE more chapter. Just one!

Don't get me wrong, both books had good endings that wrapped things up enough that you could sort of connect the dots a bit to mentally figure out what happened next. No need for the author to spell it out. Still, I wanted like an epilogue or something. Especially with "Ready Player One," I wanted to see the aftermath of everything. Crisis was adverted, social loose ends were quickly tied up, and then that's it! No aftermath info. Nothing about what happened to the world after the crisis ended. No explanation as to what the main characters did once they were able to take a breather, especially since their entire life for the past 5yrs was preventing the crisis presented at the conclusion of the book. Now that they never again have to worry about that, what do they do with their lives that was previously consumed by that quest? How do they handle the world now? Are they now celebrities? Still outcasts? Do they fade into society? Do they help improve society? Do they remain tight friends, especially after everything they've been through? Do they part ways now that they don't have a common goal? Does a new crisis arise to fill the vacuum of the old one?

GAAAAH! Ernest Cline needs to write a sequel! He reportedly has a third book currently in the works, so maybe even though his second novel "Armada" doesn't seem to have anything to do with "Ready Player One," perhaps this third one will? Probably not. So again I proclaim: ERNEST CLINE NEEDS TO WRITE A SEQUEL TO "READY PLAYER ONE"!

In the meantime, I'll have to track down "Armada" and wait for the film adaptation for "Ready Player One" to be complete. It should be good, since Cline apparently sold the film rights literally the day after a bidding war to publish the novel. Cline also made sure that he kept enough creative rights so that he was in charge of the screenplay. THAT'S how you do it! You don't just scoop up the first check written for you for fear that your story will never be a movie if you pass. You wait until a studio will let you write the screenplay so that you KNOW the adaptation will do the book justice. Otherwise both you and your fans just become bitter and grumbly about how inaccurate the movie is.

Anyway, if you haven't noticed from me ranting about it the past couple of weeks, I. LOVED. "READY PLAYER ONE." Definitely one of my top faves. Don't know if it surpassed ALL of the Percy Jackson novels, but it's definitely nestled among the series. I think I'm just a fan of first-person stories because the narrator is allowed to be a snarky smart-ass.

Regardless, if you are a fan of gamer-culture, distopian sci-fi, and/or 80s pop-culture and obscure Atari games, then this book is definitely a must-read for you! I'd actually strongly encourage everyone to read it, but the gaming and 80s culture references are so forefront that if you're not into them it might diminish your interest in the book overall. I mean, Cline has Wade - the narrator/protagonist - explain these movies and games so well that you don't need to know them in order to enjoy the story. I know I never heard of half the stuff referenced. I mean, I watched "Ladyhawke" for the first time on Friday because it was one of Wade's guilty-pleasure favorites, I never heard of it before reading "Ready Player One," and Spink just HAPPENED to have a copy of it. I have to agree with the character Aech, though, it's DEFINITELY reserved for "guilty pleasure" status along with the likes of "Howard the Duck."

My point is, that you don't need to KNOW early video games or 80s culture to like the book, but a penchant for them will help. I know I squeed a bit at work - bouncing up and down in my chair, and giggling like a loon - whenever they got to bits I did know. I nearly lost it when there was a "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" reference.

The characterization was so good, too! My only disappointment was that I thought more shady things were going on with Art3mis, and I was able to quickly figure out why Aech was nervous about meeting Wade in real life. Add those to the calendar confusion that annoyed me; which also continues with the fact that the blurb on the book cover itself stated "in the year 2044..." even though the book - post prologue - actually starts in February of 2045...

Knives from the comic book series Scott Pilgrim
by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Anyway, my point is, that Cline losing track of his in-story calendar, and some missed opportunities with character were the only real parts that I didn't like about the book. Those, and a few times where he needlessly repeated himself, but they were few and far between.

All-in-all, I'd give the book an 8.5 out of 10. Go read it! Go! Now!

It will give you something to do while I figure out my own writing....