Behold! The Beauty of Arts and Crafts!

I apologize, but before anything else, I have to squee about something. Sorry if you follow my tumblr or already saw this on my personal facebook page, but I have to squee EVERYWHERE about this.

EdenDaphne finished my commission of Willow! I got the email yesterday, and I've been bouncing all over the walls about it since.

Maki Natsuo from Love Lab
created by Ruri Miyahara

Hacker Girl Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc

*Ahem* Anyway, without further ado, EdenDaphne's drawing of Willow:

Comparatively, let's check out what I was able to come up with over the years....

So much Willow! I love it! I love it! I love it!

I was also a bit impatient when I got the line-art for Willow about a week or so ago, so, while I was bored at work, I decided to try my own hand at coloring her. Considering I was on my phone and using one of those pens with the stylus on the back, I don't think it's all that bad....

The shoes got a bit derpy because I hit the
bottom edge of the screen while re-doing
the line art.

Clearly Eden's coloring was better - her shoes actually look like sneakers while mine look like they belong in a bowling alley - but again, I don't think I did too shabby considering it's the first time I ever attempted to color on a cell phone.... Also, I'm impressed with the way I was able to make Willow's belt sparkle, and how I streaked her hair.

Anyway, if you couldn't tell, I'm beyond excited for this! Now to save up another $70, and wait for Eden to open commissions again, so I can have another one of My Girls drawn.... who next time though? Trish, Lia, Amara, or Jolene? Maybe Lia. Poor girl hasn't really had any love in the past two years. Amara's on the same boat, but I need to solidify where all of her scars are first so Eden knows if she has to have any showing....

Eden wasn't the only one crafting though, and coloring my line-art preview of Willow wasn't the only crafting *I* did.

ChibiSunnie hasn't had a very good year, loves penguins, and is always so kind as to draw me a birthday and a Christmas card each year. I wanted to do something for her in return. So I spent about a week or so crocheting. The beak and eyes look kind of wonky on this poor thing, but otherwise I'm happy with it.

The scarf is detachable, just wrapped
around and knotted in place like
a real scarf.

I had used transitional blue yarn - it went from the light blue of the face to the dark blue of the eyes - but the craft didn't use enough of the yarn for it to ever really transition. The flippers/wings are a slightly darker shade, but that's it....

I don't know if Chibi gave her penguin a gender, but she named it Chibird, after the inspirational artist we both follow on tumblr. Mostly because Chibird compiled her artwork into a book called Loading Penguin Hugs, which I also gifted Chibi for Christmas, and the penguin on the cover is blue.

You can get your own copy of
Loading Penguin Hugs on Amazon.

It really is an adorable book, and comes with stickers! It's less than $10, so why not give it a look and see if it's a nice pick-me-up/stocking stuffer for yourself or someone you know? Spread the love.

Anyway, you guys don't come here every week to see arts and crafts per se. You're here mostly to find out more about my writing, correct?

Well, guess what? I did that too! Quite a bit, actually.... 4616 words worth. Which is more than any week during this year's NaNo... Figures.

I kept getting flashes of the last chapter for "One and the Same." Basically, it's this closing to the “Peeping Tomcat” mess/epic that made me want to write this sequel in the first place. I instantly thought how perfect it would be if that final scene paralleled "You've Got Mail": they'd be in the park outside Marinette's home, Adrien would walk up, Marinette would see Plagg and tear up as she realizes Adrien and Chat Noir were the same person that whole time, Adrien would dab her tears away and tell her "Don't cry, Ladybug," and they'd live happily ever after.

Well, fret not, readers who are probably mad that I dropped a spoiler like that without warning, because.... well... the ending took a... shall we say DIFFERENT turn.

What I'm about to say may be a bit obvious, but technically there's spoilers ahead centering around what should be the climactic tension of OatS. So feel free to breeze by if you don't want even slight hints....
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Anyway, the "You've Got Mail" ending, while sweet and the whole inspiration for OatS, just made Marinette forgive Adrien/Chat Noir too easily. What's the point of climatic tension if it's resolved simply because Chat Noir was Adrien the whole time? How could Marinette be instantly okay with Chat Noir's spying in PT upon realizing "Oh, it was Adrien!"? It was too shallow. Too quick. It sent the wrong message. There were all sorts of red flags.

I kept thinking "Maybe if Marinette found out about Chat Noir's spying as the mid-point, it would give me the second half of the book to rebuild their trust." I mean, the whole point of YGM is that Kathleen hated Joe, but he managed to regain her trust and friendship before she ended up falling in love with him. It would work, and maybe one day I'll write another take, another reason why Marinette would be mad at Chat Noir, so it fits YGM like I wanted. But this story doesn't seem to want to take that direction.

What could be a higher tension point then Marinette finding out everything that happened in PT? I had originally written a plot skeleton where Marinette does indeed ask for Chat Noir's ring back since she can't trust him as an ally, and then Master Fu talked her into giving it back. It got too messy though. First and foremost, how was she going to take back his ring without finding out who he was? If she had him give back the ring, and therefore reveal himself as Adrien to her, how would she react? How would she be around Adrien from that point on?

It just.... the story took a dark turn. A fun turn. One I might explore in a different fanfic, but it just wasn't the direction I wanted OatS to go.

So I was back with the dilemma that Marinette was too forgiving of Chat Noir too soon. Plus, the girl is intelligent, so the fact that she didn't figure out who Chat Noir was before Plagg revealed himself felt wrong for me.

That's when I got those sparks for the final chapter. Basically, Marinette wondered why, if Chat Noir knew Ladybug was Marinette the whole time, did he keep pushing Marinette to confess her love to Adrien? It didn't add up for her. Until it did.

That was supposed to be the ending. She figured it out, and then her and Adrien would have talks about the whole thing. It really helped me with the whole "If they fought because she didn't want to know who Chat Noir was, why did Adrien show up to their date with Plagg in full view for her to know who Chat Noir was?" problem. He didn't randomly decide to tell her anyway, she figured it out and confronted him! Boom!

The problem was, the moment she figured it out was too good of a stopping point. I couldn't continue the chapter. My readers need a week to freak out at me, and I'm evilly waiting for that week with building anticipation.

So what I thought was my final chapter turned out to be the penultimate chapter. How do I keep doing that? The same thing happened to PT. I keep going into what I think is the last chapter, only for the characters to be like "Eeeeeh.... we actually have a LIIIIITTLE bit more story to tell."

And therein lies my current problem. Up until this chapter I've been fairly good at ping-ponging the story. It's in Marinette's first-person POV, the next chapter is in Adrien's, then back to Marinette, then back to Adrien, etc. However, the final chapter - when Marinette deals with the emotions of discovering her partner and the boy she's been pining for are the same guy - SHOULD be in her POV, shouldn't it? But the previous chapter - when she all but proved that Adrien is Chat Noir - HAS to be in her POV. Do I give up my formatting at the very end of the story and have two Marinette chapters in a row? Do I switch over to Adrien, giving them equal number of chapters to tell the story, and keeping the formatting? What about Marinette's insight though? Do I go real avant-garde and ping-pong first person POV within the chapter? Using line breaks and names to signal to the reader that the POV just switched? Do I conclude with the same scene being played twice: one chapter with Adrien's POV, and then the same scene retold in the next chapter via Marinette's POV?

I JUST DON'T KNOW!!!!!!
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OKAY, EVERYONE, THAT SHOULD BE THE END OF THE SPOILERS!
YOU CAN STOP SCROLLING BY NOW!

If you skipped that whole chunk, the spoiler-free long-and-short is Things Got Messy In The First Draft Of The Final Chapter; Now I Have POV Issues.

I don't know whose story the final chapter is. Should I be in Adrien's head at the conclusion of the story, letting him tell the audience what happened? Should I be in Marinette's head and have her tell everyone how things went down? Do I go a bit experimental and ping-pong between them within the chapter itself?

What I THOUGHT was going to be the final chapter turned out to be a 2400-word penultimate chapter, which will be lengthened because it needs a proper opening. I sort of just jumped in mid-action without any context because *I* know the context, and I wanted to get the meat of the chapter out of my head first.

That chapter ended up adding one more loose end to tie up so I could conclude this thing.

Oh, and by the way, don't get too excited. I'm still jumping all over the place with this story. I have yet to write most of the middle.

Anyway, with this final chapter - or what should be the final chapter, unless the characters throw me off a second time - I don't know which direction to go. There's a lot there that I want to be in Adrien's head for, but I always pictured the final chapter needing to be told through Marinette's eyes. While there's a lot going on with Adrien, OatS was supposed to be Marinette's story for the most part. She's the one who has to be hit with a bunch of stuff: the repercussions from "Peeping Tomcat", feelings being torn between Adrien and Chat Noir, the struggle between wanting to know who CN is vs the need to keep identities secret, etc.

Not really sure where to go and not wanting to end my momentum, I decided to just break format and write the final chapter in third person. Hop into whomever's head I need. Then, once I'm done with the chapter, I'll go back and see who was the one really telling that chapter, and rewrite using that person's first person POV.

Problem is.... 2200 words in and I'm still torn. Adrien seems to be bogarting the chapter, but there are still crucial bits of info that only Marinette would know. Plus, I still want her reaction to everything....

I'm seriously leaning towards ping-ponging 1st person POV in the final chapter, and just make sure I transition well enough and have their voices distinct enough that it won't get confusing.

In the meantime, it's fun emotionally torturing these poor kids. I'm a horrible human being.

OH! Speaking of torturing these little beans, Jowy's Pixie has a new story up! She actually gifted it to me and three other friends of hers: TLOS21, ChibiRinni, and oh-calliope! How cool is that!? We have a STORY as a Christmas gift from her? Soooooo coooooool!

Maki Natsuo from Love Lab

created by Ruri Miyahara

What's really the most awesome thing about it is the fact that she's writing it based on the 12 Days of Christmas. So each day, for twelve days, she's posting a new chapter of her story. Let's say that again.

EACH DAY

A NEW CHAPTER

FOR TWELVE DAYS STRAIGHT

How amazing is that? Such a quick turn around! Bravo to her. If you're at all in the fandom, feel free to give this girl some love:

Twelve Days of Chatmas

Christmas is fast approaching, and Chat Noir is determined to get Ladybug the perfect gift. The problem is, they all keep going disastrously wrong. Will Chat Noir be able to find Ladybug the perfect gift in time?

I just adore this story. If you know anything about the Miraculous Ladybug chibi episodes on YouTube, know that Pixie writes TDoC the way the chibi episodes SHOULD be written. I'm just gobbling this story up and loving that daily email telling me the next chapter is live.

Oh, and speaking of Christmas, next Tuesday does fall on Christmas itself, so I'm not sure if I'll have my post up as per usual. It may be up Monday night, or written ahead of time and scheduled for my normal post time, or I may work on it Wednesday instead.

So, if you haven't yet, why not check out that right panel of my blog? There's a spot there for you to sign up for email alerts, or you can drop me in your RSS feed... assuming people still use those.

Alternatively, you can follow me on Twitter or on Tumblr. I'm @LycoRogue in both spots. I do tend to fall a bit behind with my promotions lately, unfortunately. Priority is to get the post up, and then get errands done. If I don't have time between those two my promotional posts tend to be late.

So those email alerts are probably your best bet. I have nothing to do with those, they're all computer generated, so you KNOW they'll be on-time.

Anyway, until... some time next week.

Progress, Presents, and Promotions

I've been slacking. I only opened my word document once this whole week. It's Christmas time, so focus shifted to getting cards and presents set. Plus, work has been... interesting.

But the gifts are just about all set, and the cards should be good to go within the week. Which means I should be able to get back to working on the story this week.

That being said, though, I did manage to work a bit on the story on Wednesday. I even finished off the first draft of chapter 1 for "One and the Same." It needs a bit of polishing. Of course it does, it's a first draft. However, it's done. I just need to transition into chapter 2. Then I have most of three figured out, and four is done.

I've also been thinking about the final chapter. Since I promised some of my readers, I'll hide spoilers regarding my thoughts on the final chapter.

The final chapter will be seriously tricky due to the rebuild of the trust lost between Ladybug and Chat Noir. I have to make especially sure that Marinette doesn't forgive Chat Noir too soon. I have the skeleton of the final scene figured out I think. I also want to focus more on how intelligent Marinette is, so I've been playing with a few things with that.

Nothing is written down yet for that final chapter. So that might be my focus this week. That way I have a solid ending. I can then tweak later as I work back to the finale.

While you're waiting for me to get my butt in gear though, there is something else you can read.

Remember over the summer when I talked a bit about Ali Luke's latest novella? Well, it is finally live for mass consumption.

This cover is just so gorgeous. Bravo to Ali's artist Lorna Cowie.

You can check out Ali's book over on Amazon for just $0.99! Or, if you have Kindle Unlimited, you can read it for free. Just be sure to leave her a review once you're done!

Need a reminder of "Not So Imaginary"?

Your "imaginary friends" aren't imaginary at all.
And they're definitely not your friends.

When Ruth tracks her foster brother Jonathan to a flat in South London, she's hoping for a happy reunion.

But Jonathan tells her he can't talk to her and slams the door in her face.

They've been apart since they were children - but she's never stopped being his sister. And when she realizes he's in danger, she vows to protect him, no matter what.

***

Jonathan's website design business is thriving.

It came at a price.

Flint and Corwin, the two "imaginary friends" that have been with him since childhood take it in turns to tell him what to do. Corwin is calm, organised ... and ridiculously uptight. Flint is wildly carefree ... and savagely dangerous.

Jonathan's in too deep to escape. There's no-one he can turn to: he's forbidden to contact Ruth.

He's not even supposed to think about her.

Then she moves into the flat next door.

Clear your evening and sink into this pacy story of a brother and sister, and two not-so-imaginary "friends".

Yeah, go and read her novella. It's dark and intense without being overly so. It's a nice intro to the supernatural universe that the Lycopolis trilogy is set in.

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There is but one more thing to report this week.

I GOT ANOTHER EMAIL FROM EDENDAPHNE!!!!

She has the line-art done for Willow, and asked me if I had any tweaks. I'm still internally screaming! She looks so awesome.

Maki Natsuo from Love Lab
by Ruri Miyahara

I can't wait to show everyone the completed product!!!!

Sooooo, yeah, that was my week. I hope to have something a bit better to share with you guys next week. Sorry for being so lame the past couple of posts.

Thus Endith Another NaNoWriMo

Well, this year's NaNo attempt did not go as well as planned at all. In fact, I was lucky to write for half the month. In the end, though, I learned to come to peace with my writing pace, and I managed at least a quarter NaNo. It's better than I thought I'd be able to do when I first started slacking off.

Calendar made by David Seah.

Now, even though my "official" total for NaNo was the 12,865, I did wonder what it would have been if I listened to Cyhyr and ChibiSunnie.

I had totaled some of this up two weeks ago, and I still didn't include the emails or messages I wrote in November, aside from the anecdote I wrote to Chibi. However, for the full count of everything else....

• Posts about "The Seven Deadly Sins": 695
• Observation about "DuckTales": 34
• Post about my WIP "When Love Matters": 563
• Posts about my WIP "Glitches": 5067
• Post promoting fanfics I'm reading: 344
• Post promoting my progress on "One and the Same": 373
• Facebook posts talking about what I'm thankful for: 717
• Anecdote Chibi counted for me: 1494
• Go Vote blog post: 2975
• In-story Calendars are the Key blog post: 2839
• All the Writing; None for OatS blog post: 3758
• No Time for Writing blog post: 2138

That brings my non-OatS writing in November up to 20,997 words. Add in the 12,865 words I DID write for OatS, and my NaNo count - according to Chibi and Cy - would be 33,862 words. Still not enough to "win" NaNo, but enough to surpass a half-NaNo, and set a new record high for a non-winning NaNo story.

Yeah.... nearly 21,000 additional words NOT put towards my current WIP. Meanwhile, there wasn't even 13,000 words put TOWARDS the WIP. Clearly I was real focused this year.... go me.


To be fair, I do have most of Act I completed...

• Chapter 1: I just need to figure out a transition between chapters 1 and 2, which needs a specific catalyst.
• Chapter 2: mostly done before I even started NaNo; I just need to find that transition from chapter 1.
• Chapter 3: majorly needs polishing, and I have a notation about a third of the way in to add more to transition from the start of the school day and the end of it. For the most part it's done though.
• Chapter 4: I think it is the most ready-to-publish bit I have thus far.
• Most of chapter.... we'll call it nine? I just need to work up to that part of the story.

Okay, so that was most of Act I, but what about everything else sitting in my WIP folder? Regardless of when I wrote it, how much of OatS DO I have done? Well, I was surprised to see that I have 27,637 words! I would have also hit half-NaNo status if I counted all the words in my WIP; not just the ones I wrote in November. Super neat, but still not winning.

What if I combine forces? Let's see... 20,997 words written outside my WIP, 12,865 words written for OatS within November, and an additional 14,772 words written before November started. That's right, folks, I wrote more for OatS BEFORE NaNo. Anyway, using all three stats, I could hit a grand total of 48,634words! STILL not a winning NaNo, but so much closer with all of my cheating.

Going back to how much I did write for OatS, regardless of when I wrote it, I was still curious as to the word distribution. I'm hoping to be a bit more consistent for this story than I was for PT. There's spoilers involved in my scene-by-scene breakdown of where the word-count is in OatS, but if you want to see that breakdown...

• Chapter 1 - Ladybug and Chat Noir defend Paris against an akuma attack: 3341 words
• Chapter 2 - Ladybug and Chat Noir defeat the supervillain, and Adrien recaps PT as he tries to figure out what to do next: 2596 words
• Chapter 3 - Adrien acts more like Chat Noir at school, confusing Marinette. Also, Marinette is informed that Gabe wants to meet with her to talk about her portfolio: 6548 words
• Chapter 4 - Finding Marinette at the Trocadero; the start of the MariChat friendship: 5260 words
• Alya calling out Adrien's flirting (practice writing that helped me get perspective, but won't appear in the final text): 429 words
• Chapter 6ish? - Chat Noir finds out about Marinette's crush on Adrien: 3726 words
• Getting Marinette's number (originally written for PT): 1126 words
• Chapter 9ish? - Chat Noir learns the significance of The Bracelet: 3241 words
• Chapter 13, maybe? - Chat Noir confesses that he knows who Ladybug is: 1370 words

After writing an angsty story focusing on one POV, moving to a new genre - basically a romcom - and bouncing between two POVs has proven quite difficult. There seems to be mostly fluff. My chapters basically read as incomplete one-shots: no lead-in to explain why they're in the situation going on. The chapters are cute little self-contained stories, but figuring out how they all thread together has proven difficult. There is also little drama pushing the story forward. It's like this story is my excuse to write an anthology of warm and fuzzy MariChat scenes. 

So that's my latest roadblock: figuring out how to add drama to keep people "flipping the pages," as it were.

Granted, it's fanfiction. And it's one of the more popular corners of the love square. I'm sure people would read the next chapter for no other reason than to read more MariChat goodness, regardless of if there's any over-arcing plot or development.

That's not me though. I know this is fanfiction and I should be happy with just getting something on paper. Others would love to read what I get on paper. Still, this is supposed to be "practice" for me. This is my way of flexing my muscles and showcasing what I can do. Therefore, I try to write as professionally as I can. If I don't think a publisher would pick it up, then I'm hesitant to post it.

But then the devil on my shoulder whispers "It IS fanfiction.... just post the fluffiness; who cares if it's 'professional' quality? Fanfiction isn't supposed to be professional." And I'm tempted to listen.

Honestly, I probably would have listened already if OatS wasn't a follow-up story. If it was its own little thing, I'd say "Meh... it's fanfiction, let's have some fun!" Having it be in the same universe as “Peeping Tomcat” though? Having it be a direct sequel to it? I feel like there needs to be some sort of consistency between the two books. I already switched things up by adding Marinette's first-person view. I can't have another dramatic style change by dropping the aim for professional quality to "just having fun."

Do I sound snooty? I feel like I sound so elitist right there.

I hope I'm not making anyone feel bad. If you are a fanfic writer and you do write fluffy "for fun" stuff, that is totally fine! I'll probably be one of your first readers. I eat that stuff up. Me not wanting to write OatS that way - even though the story itself seems to have a different opinion - doesn't mean YOU writing that way is bad. Fanfiction IS for fun. Writing self-indulgent fluff for everyone's enjoyment is one of the main draws of fanfiction. I just tend to take this a bit more seriously than I probably should....

Anyway, to try to help me around my latest writing roadblock, I've been studying other people's MariChat scenes. Reading fanfic - mostly one-shots - and fancomics, and flipping through fanart and theories. Doing so sort of helped me out with what I'm currently calling "chapter 9." Some more "research" has also started the ball rolling with how I can handle a couple other scenes. I'm still rattling the possibilities around in my head, but I do have a starting point at least.

Speaking of researching via reading other people's work, I re-discovered a lovely one-shot. I had completely forgotten how much I enjoyed the story. It feels a touch out of character for me, but Adrien's inner workings are beautifully confused and I LOVE it. Apparently I am complete trash for Adrien Angst, especially if it's over his slow processing of his feelings for Marinette.

Anyway, the story is "Supercut" although I'm not entirely sure how the title relates?????
**UPDATE: LNC messaged me. Supercut refers to the Lorde song that set the tone for the story... neat**

It is a post-reveal, but pre-relationship transitional story as the two superheroes re-evaluate their civilian relationship. It's told through Adrien's POV, and it's glorious as he tries to figure out how he now feels about Marinette. Let alone trying to decipher how Marinette feels towards him. Because why would Marinette confess she's in love with Adrien now that she knows that he's been in love with Ladybug: aka her?

You can find Supercut by LNC over on AO3. If you prefer to use FFN, you can find the story under LNC2 here.

While you're off reading that adorable one-shot, I'll be over here trying to get some more work done on OatS, and possibly get a monthly one-shot done as well. We'll see.

Before I leave you, though, here's a quick shout out about my husband's birthday being this past Sunday.

Love you, Babe!

Fun factoid: both Aaron Rogers and Linda Sejic share my husband's EXACT birthday; as in all 3 were born on the same exact day in the same exact year. Neato.