Tuesday, January 28, 2020

So Good At This Romance Thing

I had decided to abandon Kriv's grand epic about Cutter. At least, for now. It's been a very disorienting month, with me going to the other store once a week. That had me so turned around, and Hubby was exhausted as well, so we cancelled D&D this week, which helped ease the self-appointed pressure to have the epic written. Of course, this also means I in fact do NOT have anything new to share with you fine folks today. I also only have two completed project options for Writing Group tonight: my Christmas exchange story The Great Debate or my Plagg-centric story Forever in Darkness.

To be fair, though, I do still have a backlog of most of my Fruits Basket stories that I could also read if I wished.

Let's get more into my week, though. As I mentioned, going to the other store, while an easy enough drive and job, is quite disorienting. To counter the extended commute to work, I have to wake up about an hour earlier than normal. Last Wednesday, however, I ended up blanking on which store I needed to work at, and woke up about 15minutes before I was supposed to head out the door! I didn't have anyone's cell numbers either, so I couldn't warn them about my being late. It all worked out in the end, but still: disorienting. Then, yesterday, I completely blanked on what day of the week it was, and woke up an hour EARLY, expecting to drive out to the other store. Hubby groggily asked me why I was getting up so soon, and only then did I realize it was Monday, not Wednesday. Again: disorienting. Having that Friday, Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday stretch off last week also threw me, because then I only had this past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at my normal store before having another day off. The work week felt so short.

Tomorrow is my last day at that other store, though. February's schedule is back to my normal Monday through Thursday routine, with the usual "work Saturdays, and alternate Fridays and Sundays" set-up. I can get back into Zumba too. Also, this Sunday is the Superbowl, so no more football on Sundays, which opens that up for the next seven months or so. It will be nice to be back in a normal and predictable routine. I hope it will help clear my head and straighten me out.

What helped a touch this past week was being able to just spend a day with Hubby. As I mentioned last week, we went to a double-movie date. It wasn't a theater-created event so much as "we drove all this way out here; might as well make a day of it" sort of thing. We had a lovely brunch at home, then headed out to the theater.

We finally got around to watching the final Star Wars movie The Rise of Skywalker. I'm not the biggest Star Wars fan, so I'm not ENTIRELY sure why it's getting such hate? I mean, there IS something in particular during the climax that I was bummed about, and kind of wished a certain fantheory was proven correct instead. Also, I wish Disney was brave enough to allow Poe and Finn to be a canon couple. I saw a Tumblr post commenting about a headcanon/AU where both Rey and Poe were dating Finn, but only had a sort of rivalry bromance between the two of them where they mostly tolerate the other for Finn's sake. Watching the movie as if that dynamic were canon made everything so much better! Either way, I did enjoy the movie, warts and all.

The next movie Hubby wanted to see was Jojo Rabbit, but that didn't start for a little over two hours after Star Wars ended. So we walked the mall and found a gaming store. We were lost in there for about an hour as one of the employees - or son of an employee, I was a bit lost as to his relation to the store - just chatted Hubby up about role play games, the different gaming nights the store hosted, and the board games the store sold. I kinda felt like we were cheating on our local gaming store simply by listening to this guy and wishing we lived closer to that mall so we could actually make it to some of the gaming nights. Maybe one day when we have off....

Next was dinner, and back to the movies for Jojo Rabbit. It was funny, it was sweet, and it was heartbreaking. My only real qualm was that I felt Jojo's story wasn't QUITE finished, mostly because we had no definitive answer as to where his father was: Jojo swore that his father was a great war hero that was coming home once WWII concluded, however some characters implied that his father was actually dead, and others stated he had gone AWOL from the war, and others still swore he had rebelled and was with the Allied Forces. Hubby was fine not knowing, because Jojo's main story had ended when the movie did. I wish we had a more precise bit of knowledge about the kid's father though. All-in-all, while I enjoyed Star Wars, I think I liked Jojo more. Both movies were stellar choices by Hubby.

Also, the theater we went to was one that had those new plush power reclining seats, so that was fun to relax in while pseudo-snuggling Hubby during the movies. It would be better if we could have moved the armrest from between us, but close enough, I guess.
Having a day with JUST me and Hubby, and being able to re-connect was great, didn't stop us from still being exhausted on Thursday, though. I also had stomach issues on Thursday, so it was probably for the best that we had cancelled D&D. Instead, I tried re-focusing on the Lukanette Secret Admirer Valentine's day exchange instead.

I won't go into details on the prompt I decided on because, on the off chance my recipient is reading this, I don't want to give away that I'm their Secret Admirer or what prompt I decided on. It required some researching though, to help inspire me. That's more-or-less what I did Thursday and Friday. Saturday was a busy day at work, and then Anime Night. I was a bit bummed in myself that, earlier in the week, I had purposefully picked out a red shirt and black pants to wear on Saturday in honor of Lunar New Year, and yet, on Saturday, I completely dropped the ball and wore a blue-striped shirt and gray pants instead. We also didn't re-watch any Fruits Basket or other Chinese zodiac-themed shows; we had too many other on-going shows that we watched. Still, it was an enjoyable Anime Night; as usual.

Sunday, during my day off, I was mindlessly trying to catch up on everything I had missed on Tumblr all week long. Once again, I waved the white flag before I was fully caught up, so those other posts are now forever lost to time. HOWEVER, before I did wave that white flag, there was one post in particular that managed to actually kick me OFF of Tumblr.

CaptainMalcolmReynolds - formerly ChubbyUnicornMama, aka LivreVer on Tumblr - had tagged me in one of those tag-games on Tumblr: you do an activity, and then tag others to do the same; yes, very much like a chain-letter of yore. The tag-game this go around was the Last Line game.

The "rule" of the game was "share the last line of your WIP, and then tag as many people as there are words in that line." I actually didn't have any WIPs, unless I went to my terribly non-linear draft of One and the Same. I had needed to actually start writing my Lukanette story. I had a few potential scenes, but I hadn't figured out the full plot yet. I kept putting it off until I had it figured out, but I was running out of time. Being tagged in that game was the push I needed. It reminded me to "just write; figure it out later." The story would figure itself out, and I could go back and edit, right?

Weeeeellllllllll......

I did write. Finally. I cranked out over 1500 words before stopping and posting my last line for the tag game. I'm kind of liking the world I'm building and the character development I'm forming. The only real hiccup? I was at like 1536 words, and Marinette had yet to show up in the story. My LUKANETTE story. My Luka AND MARINETTE relationship story.

I didn't actually NEED Marinette in a romance story involving her, right?

I went back to the story Sunday night to try to edit down my intro so it didn't seem so ridiculous... and failed miserably. Not only didn't I find much fat to cut, but I also continued the plot. I'm not up to 1955 words... and STILL no Marinette yet.
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She's getting there, I promise. The prompt just seemed more Luka-centric; it was arguably Luka's story. So Luka is the main character, and Marinette is the love interest. I have to build it up as Luka's story first, don't I?

I'm going to be another wreck, I think, when I finally publish this story. Writing gifts for people I don't know is so rough, man! I never know if it's something they'll enjoy. I hope they do. Hard to say, though, when two out of my last three writing gifts didn't get any sort of acknowledgement from the recipient. I still got love from others, though, so there's that.

I just need to figure out an actual plot for this thing. Maybe I'll read my start to this story tonight, and see if anyone has any hints on where to go with it?

I need to re-focus. We are now in the Year of the Rat; my Chinese zodiac year. As ChibiSunnie said: "Maybe being year of the rat means this will be your year and it'll give you extra positive vibes and energy to help you accomplish all of your goals!"

I hope so, Chibi, I hope so. Life has calmed down since my crazy December, but it's still, as I said repetitively above, very disorienting. I hope February brings me back to center. I need to really focus on getting this Secret Admirer story done this week. Next Thursday, February 6th, is the start of the LoveSquare Fluff Week, so my Secret Admirer story should be polished and ready to post before that starts.

Fluff Week will be like the Kyoru Week I participated in for Fruits Basket this past fall. The name of the game is to write a new LoveSquare fluffy story each day of the week - 6th through 13th - using the different daily prompts. I should probably attempt to brainstorm those as well. I MEANT to be brainstorming since I saw the event in December, but that didn't happen.

There SHOULD be a lot of writing going down the next few weeks. I probably won't have anything to share next Tuesday, because I have to wait until the 13th to publish my Secret Admirer exchange story, but I SHOULD have 5 of my LoveSquare shorts done by my post on the 11th. So, there's that to look forward to.

My "trial month" is nearly done. Time to really hunker down and get serious about my writing again.

Until next week, my friends.
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Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Creating an Oral Story

A couple days ago I was asked how I manage to keep myself writing.

I'm going to be honest: I don't.

I'm sure you can see where this blog post is going to go.

Nope. No writing this week. Last Tuesday I worked and didn't make it home until about 7pm. I then quickly had dinner, and turned around and did laundry. I didn't finally have some downtime until a little after 10pm. I wasn't about to start writing anything then. Wednesday I worked, and then dinner, and then I fought with my laptop for about an hour while Wolfhearted and Omnibladestrike were finishing up their new character builds with Hubby. Then we all hung out for about an hour before the return of The Magicians on SYFY channel. By the time the episode was done, it was 11pm. Thursday was once again work, then dinner, then D&D until 11pm.

Friday I finally had a day off after a 10-day work week. I spent the morning paying bills, balancing my finances, and all that other fun Adulting stuff. I also tried out the ocarina my mom got me for Christmas while there was no one around to annoy. I got started on some of my chore backlog, but that was interrupted by my father-in-law popping in. My momentum killed, I fetched Hubby from work, did a load of dishes, watched a 45min YouTube video by one of the channels I follow, and promptly passed out for nearly 2hrs. Guess I needed to catch up on sleep too, huh? I then walked Hubby to his Friday Night Magic pre-release tournament a little before 6pm, and hung out at the store for a touch. When I got home I MEANT to either get back to cleaning, or maybe work on some writing.

Instead I spent pretty much the entire evening - all four hours of it - playing video games, because I haven't really done that hobby in a while. I then showered, quickly made up a picnicked dinner for Hubby's midnight tournament - something he wasn't sure he was staying for at first; there were two tournament options for the pre-release weekend - walked it down to him, hung out for a tick again, and then went home to finally crash.

Saturday I also had the day off; a rare 2 days in a row, and even rarer Saturday off. While I let Hubby sleep in - I think he got home about 4am? - I had breakfast, and finally took down our Christmas tree. It may seem pathetic that it kept me until January 18th to do so, but I didn't decorate the darn thing until Christmas Eve, and last year I didn't take the tree down until Easter... so having it "up" for less than a month, and down in January, is quite the improvement, I think.

The whole thing is so tedious too since we have to use a fake tree; Hubby being horribly allergic to evergreen trees and all. Between taking down the ornaments, packing them away, collapsing the branches, dismantling the tree, and vacuuming up all the plastic needles that STILL manage to fall off this thing like it's a real tree, the whole project kept me over 2hrs. I then got some dishes done, some more vacuuming, and then I made lunch for Hubby and I after waking him up.

We then had a fairly quick pop-in from some friends to FINALLY exchange Christmas gifts. After they left, I braved the snow to head back out to Walmart to try to find a tote large enough for our dang tree since the box it is normally stored in finally fell apart. The tree itself is over a decade old, after all. Navigating the bad roads, and Walmart, and trying to find a tote that would fit the tree AND my car, and then wandering Walmart trying to find my dang glove that fell out of my pocket was quite the exhausting trip. I made it home with just enough time to trim and shape my now horribly chipped nails before Omni and Goob came over for our normal Anime Night.

Sunday I was back at work, but not for terribly long: the store is only open 5hrs. I took advantage of the later start of the work day by casually watching some YouTube videos while getting ready for work and having something small to eat. Then work. Then I took Hubby to work, and watched the American football championship games. I enjoyed being able to watch the second half of the AFC championship game, but I actually found the NFC game a bit boring with how one-sided it was, also the Packers just weren't playing to their normal standard, I didn't think.

Still, I DID watch the games; casually. While doing so, I COULD have folded laundry or other such chore that I could have brought in front of the TV. Or I could have worked on writing since I was only half-paying attention to the games anyway. Instead, I turned my mind off, and played video games pretty much the entire time.

I had the place to myself. The 6:30 game wasn't terribly entertaining to me. I could have done just about ANYTHING else uninterrupted. I played video games. I win at life.
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Ironically, it was while I was avoiding even really thinking about anything that I was asked how I get myself to keep writing.

Yep. You saw right. I was asked how I get myself to keep writing while I was actively avoiding it.... Oh, Irony....
Memed image from
Ouran High School Host Club
The entire week was pretty much me just... not writing. I've stopped trying to force it. My brain needs to recoup from the franticness of the past few months. I don't want to burn myself out already, so soon into the new year. So, I just don't push it.

I am focused on cleaning my apartment so I'm not so stressed and de-moralized whenever I come home. Yesterday was Bedroom Day. I now (mostly) have a floor. I still have some baskets to sort through - one for clothes to see if they still fit, one of towels and wash cloths to be put away in the kitchen and bathroom, one of clothes to but away in the closet after I re-iron them, and one of socks I need to find the mates to - but I no longer have to climb in and out of bed via the foot of the mattress. We can also access our dresser drawers again after I re-organized them so they can properly close/open once more. Also... more dusting and vacuuming....

It's amazing how much stress is lifted with the simplest things, like, oh, I dunno, seeing your floor again!
Knives from the Scott Pilgrim comic books
by Bryan Lee O'Malley
The bedroom - plus a couple of breaks for meals and cleaning dishes - took up a large chunk of my day, but I feel productive, and less stressed. So why try to push it by also forcing myself to get some narrative writing in as well? I'm not doing this professionally yet, and once I am, writing would be my normal work day, wouldn't it? I mean, I'd have time specifically set aside for little to no distractions whilst I write.

Right now, though? Right now writing is my escape. It is my de-stressor. It is my passion. If I'm not feeling any of that, then what's the point? Why turn writing into a chore? I think part of my problem in the past was pushing myself too hard. I might not be pushing hard enough right now, and I DO need to produce SOMETHING soon because I AM going a bit stir crazy, but I'm also still recovering from the holidays.

So, I will continue to de-stress in other ways, such as FINALLY getting my apartment back in order so it's a calming space for me again. Or by FINALLY playing video games, since I truly do enjoy them and rarely prioritize time for them. Or just by napping, because I went from virtually NEVER drinking coffee to both drinking many cups a day AND drinking 5-Hour Energy shots while at work and can't make coffee. I'm all caffeined up, and it's probably not the healthiest thing. Naps are probably better.... That and going to bed before midnight if I'm trying to be up by 7am each day.

Besides, if I'm being entirely truthful here, it's not like I COMPLETELY took a hiatus from writing.

I actually got a bit TOO involved in Kriv's ode to Cutter.

Yes, Tuesday I was training the new employees, so I didn't have the downtime to write at work then. Wednesday, however, I tried to crank out the Epic of Cutter Von Richtor so I had it in time for our next D&D session. I managed to sort through the soft role play that Wolfhearted and I did of Cutter and Kriv just chatting, and created a sort of bullet-pointed list of Cutter Facts that Kriv potentially knew. I also found a free download for a modern translation of Beowulf, and started reading through that to help inspire me for how I might want to format Kriv's homage.

Side Note: the modern translation I downloaded on Wednesday, and therefore the one I was originally referencing, was this one by Thomas Meyer that you can actually download for free, legally, from the publisher. However, while working on this blog post, I could not remember where I found that free version of Beowulf. I wanted to link to it, so I hit up Google to try to retrace my steps in finding it in the first place. In so doing, I discovered another modern translation that is also free to download via Project Gutenburg. This version, by Ernest J. B. Kirtlan, is written in prose in order to simplify the story even further, whereas Meyer's version tries to keep the epic poem in its original formatting and cadence. You have a variety of options to download Kirtlan's version - I downloaded it for the Kindle - but I never was a fan of the Kindle formatting, which is why I'm still waiting for Ali Luke to release paperback versions of Dominion and Not So Imaginary even though I do own both as ebooks. Anyway, my point is that there is an HTML version of Kirtlan's translation for you to simply read online, and I'll most likely stick to that one for future Beowulf prose telling re-reads.
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Wednesday, as I stated, was spent re-reading Beowulf for formatting research, and I tried to plot out Cutter's Life As Known By Kriv. I didn't get much farther than that at work.

Thursday I again attempted to get Kriv's Ode to Cutter done in time for game, but things did not go to plan. Instead, I read through more of Beowulf. Even with the modern translation, the poetry formatting throws me off, so it's a bit harder for me to absorb and retain. I more-or-less knew the story from reading it in high school, watching the movie when it came out in 2007, and refreshing my memory via Red's recap over on Overly Sarcastic Productions. Still, trying to get the FEEL of what makes a story easily told and retold orally was tricky.

As I studied Beowulf, and pondered how to make my own story easily orated, I also thought back to my one friend's mom, and how she used to tell the story of Rindercella. Now, Rindercella is a spoonerism retelling of Cinderella that is most commonly remembered as a skit by Archie Campbell on the Hee Haw television show in the 1970s. It could have earlier origins, and Campbell himself could have either heard it from someone else or simply recited it from a script. Either way, it was so fun to listen to and repeat - plus the skit itself says to learn the story and retell it - that many people started recreating the skit, much like the Who's on First skit by Abbott and Costello. Anyway, the skit eventually became a campfire staple with the Boy Scouts, I guess. That's where my friend's mom heard it - she was a den mother - and she memorized it, and brought it to our Girl Scout campfires. It became a tradition there too, and my friend ended up memorizing it to tell her campers when she was a counselor, as well as telling it to the younger Girl Scouts when she became an assistant troop leader.

In truth, it wasn't until college or so did I realize my friend's mom didn't actually come up with Rindercella herself, and that, my friends, is how oral stories work. They are fun to listen to, fun to tell, and fairly easy to remember, both from an audience standpoint as well as a presenter's. It's also a bit tricky to try to find the originator of the tale; we can only really trace it back to Campbell thanks to it being recorded on TV and archived.

Kriv, of course, would want his name to travel with his story of Cutter, so I'll have to work his name into his Ode somehow, but in the end, yeah, I have to make it as fun as Rindercella, or as memorable and intriguing as Beowulf. It should probably be a bit trickier to remember, like Beowulf, in order to make Kriv's retelling of it special, since only those who have studied the epic can properly remember it, whereas those who hear it will only remember highlights.

Kind of like those Super Fans who can recite the entirety of a movie vs the casual viewers/fans who could tell you the characters, basic plot, some key one-liners, but little else.

So, yeah, all of that style research kind of took over, and I didn't really get anywhere with my actual writing.

Buuuut, that's probably a good thing now that there's a major monkey wrench in what Kriv's story SHOULD have been. As I mentioned last week, Cutter and Faelyth were left behind when the rest of the party were teleported out of the hidden basement lair. Then Cutter died when he was crushed under the collapsed stone ceiling, and further smooshed under the stone block used as a trap door for the lair. Kriv, of course, was not around to witness any of this, and Faelyth ran away before telling anyone. So my glorious idiot of a dragonborn has to somehow figure out what happened himself. Either that, or Solf or Hakkim need to figure it out and relay that info to Kriv.

The party did indeed return to the last place they saw Faelyth and Cutter - with Faelyth's older sister Kiatha in tow - and tried to search for their lost companions. However, the guards hadn't had the personnel available to excavate the caved in stairs yet, and the party were all too weak (read: failed our rolls) to move the heavy stones. So Cutter's body is still under a stone block, and the debris was too dense for anyone to see any potentially still-whole limbs sticking out for identification. The only clue was the trail of blood Faelyth left behind when she fled.

It was deduced that at least ONE of the lost duo had gotten out, while covered in blood. It was unknown if it is their own blood or someone/something else's. Kriv did note that only ONE set of tracks was found, so perhaps the other partymate was still in the rubble. The rest of the party quickly dismissed these concerns, stating that the one set of tracks doesn't mean anything; perhaps the other just didn't have any blood dripping off them, or perhaps Cutter was carrying Faelyth.

Now, please know that I TRIED to have Kriv figure it out. I did. The rest of the party dismissed any "ah-ha" moments Kriv might have had. Instead, Kriv did what he does best: wove a grand tale. I personally blame all of my years watching Castle for this: tell a great story despite the lack of facts, and just tweak it once new evidence comes to light.

Cutter was surprisingly empathetic, especially towards meek Faelyth. The more Kriv unknowingly made Faelyth uncomfortable, or the more Faelyth proved herself a competent companion, the more Cutter stuck by her and was protective of her. Kriv, of course, misread this as Cutter having romantic affections for Faelyth. It probably didn't help that Cutter had a ruddy complexion, and so he always looked either sunburnt or - as Kriv probably thought - always blushing. Add in that Faelyth seemed the most comfortable around Cutter, ya know, because he wasn't putting her in peril or trying to push her into the limelight like Kriv. To the hyperactive imagination of my bard, Faelyth's seemingly uncharacteristic calm with Cutter proved she returned his romantic feelings. The fact that Cutter wouldn't play along with Kriv's playful flirtations only solidified that the gladiator's heart was only for one person.

Cutter had also grumbled about being forced into a marriage contract in order to keep his main patron happy. That's when Kriv first thought of Cutter and Faelyth as "star-crossed lovers."

Now that the duo could not be find after "conveniently" being left behind, Kriv is convinced the two eloped. The way he sees the events is as follows:
         During their brief time on the beach, wandering the dense jungle, and the many trials of the ziggurat, Cutter's and Faelyth's unconventional love sparked. It blossomed on the ride back into the city, but the duo knew they had to keep their newfound affections secret. For at his home, in the very city they were returning to, Cutter had a very wealthy and demanding patron. This Elf of high-standing was so fond of the gladiator that he wished Cutter join his family by way of marrying the Elf's daughter. Should the patron catch wind that Cutter preferred another, let alone a Drow - a hated "inferior" by Elven standards - all funding would cease, and Cutter might even become an enemy of the elite. Due to his loyalty to his owner/boss/father-figure, the dwarf Frinan who owned and ran the gladiatorial arena, Cutter would never do anything that might affect profits for the fighters' pit. Beyond that, neither Cutter nor Faelyth wished to have an Elf's vengeance sent upon her.
          It was painful for the two lovers to keep their feelings secret and chaste, but they persevered. Then, as if Fate itself wished them to be together, they were left wholly alone in the basement lair. No one would know what happened to them. They could run away. They could be together!
          "No," said Cutter, "For I am betrothed, and still shackled to be a gladiator. We shall be hunted down should we flee." So instead, he devised a great plan. He was a man of strength and endurance. He had neared Death before, and snarled at it each time. He was too stubborn to allow Death to take him before he was ready. He also knew from experience what parts of the body bled the most, and how long one could survive such wounds. Studying the stairs they had descended before, he began hacking away at the stone in order to cause a terrible cave in, leaving just enough space for the duo to sneak through. He then cut himself in order to pool his blood among the debris, and had the unsoiled Faelyth move the last bits of debris into place to hide the hole they escaped through. It would look as if there was a terrible accident trapping them inside, and they would be thought dead. Perhaps the lovers even concocted a plan to hide the fact that their bodies were no longer inside.
          Forgetting his wounds, Cutter walked away from his past life, his future one draped along his side. Likewise, Faelyth no longer needed to fear or flee, for her bravery and home had her tightly wrapped within his arms. Pausing only long enough for Faelyth to finally tend to Cutter's bleeding, the couple fled the city, to start anew elsewhere, leaving their old identities behind.
Kriv is too much of a hopeless romantic to be deterred from this headcanon of his ship finally sailing. Even when Faelyth's older sister Kiatha mentioned that Faelyth "doesn't like men" Kriv simply responded:
"That just makes them an even more unlikely couple! To think that Cutter is the one man to manage to work his way into Faelyth's heart!"

Like I said before, I can't keep my characters from The Stupid.... Kriv will bend facts to meet his headcanon, reality be damned, apparently.

So... uh.... I guess, instead of an In Memorium, Kriv is now writing a sort of Romeo & Juliet about Cutter and Faelyth, but with a happy ending???

Regardless, I still needed to lock down what highlights of Cutter's life would be included, so Friday was back to plotting that out. I had all of the backstory that Kriv should know about Cutter already ironed out. Now was time to work through the highlights of the campaign. I had a bit of practice during session as the new characters asked about Faelyth and "what happened to her?"

Of course, Solf instantly knew that was entirely the wrong question to state within earshot of Kriv. Instead of a simple "we were investigating this thing at this underground lair, and we got separated; we're not sure what happened next" the whole group was regaled - sorta - by Kriv's tell of EVERYTHING that happened since first meeting Faelyth and Cutter.

In truth, I was going to just start the tale in such a grand manner that it was obvious what Kriv was doing, and then I was going to "fade to black" as it were, and then "cut" to the last bit where the party was separated. However, Quarthix wasn't there for the first four sessions, and I had handwaved over a lot of that first arc when Kriv originally told the tale in the tavern upon meeting Solf. When Quarthix expressed interest in actually hearing the tale, I leaned hard into it. By the time I got to the part where the party met Solf, and therefore all players knew exactly what happened, everyone seemed so into my overly dramatic retelling that I just sort of... continued to run with it? The whole thing probably took a good ten or twenty minutes. To be fair, though, that's still a fairly decent recap for... what... seven sessions averaging roughly 4hrs each?

Anyway, I had realized upon my impromptu retelling that I didn't quite remember the ziggurat dungeon dive all that well. I still haven't taken a moment to look back on the map that Hubby drew - which will likely refresh my memory - nor have I talked through the events with Hubby, Omni, and/or Wolf to try to better recall the highlights in proper order. I wish Hubby had notes, but since the dungeon was supposed to be a one-off, he just used a random generator, and I don't think he has that info anymore. I'll have to check....

Regardless, I haven't touched my campaign recap since Friday. I already told you what I had done the past three days which took priority.

Now I'm on the fence between "Well, Kriv doesn't think they're dead, so no need to rush through this story; focus on the Miraculous Ladybug Valentine's stories" and "Now that Kriv thinks there's an epic love story to tell, I should probably come up with something for next game; plus it gives me something new that was written this month since I haven't shared anything since Christmas."

We'll see which side prevails next week.

In the meantime, Hubby and I haven't had much time TOGETHER and ALONE in a while, so we're off to a double-header movie date.

OH! Two more things, though, before I go. This first one I meant to share a while ago.

Long-time readers of this blog might remember how, in 2018, I talked about a story called Mr. Lucky and the Cat by fanfiction writer HariWrites. I really enjoyed the non-magical/con-man/thief AU that she had created. Instead of superheroes, Marinette was a cat-themed burglar a la Catwoman, and Adrien was a con-artist who used his wealth and model status to weasel his way into expensive homes and closed events showcasing unique riches. In both cases, our nontraditional heroes were more-or-less Robin-Hooding; stealing previously stolen items from "evil" elites. There was also a parallel plot where Tikki was the lead detective for the string of robberies, and Plagg was the main investigator for the company that had insured nearly everything that had been stolen. There was a lot of mystery and suspense as you tried to figure out who to trust out of a cast of characters you know to be good in the show's continuity. Also, of course there was a sort of forbidden romance between Marinette and Adrien, and who wouldn't fall for that?

Well, seeing how popular her story was, and realizing that there was really very little connecting her story to actual ML canon - just the character names, vague relationships between them, and Easter Eggs nodding to the show via the things being stolen - Hari decided to try her hand at reworking the story into an original work.

And on January 6th that original rework of the story was published!

I haven't had a chance to read my copy yet, but if it's close to the fanfic I already read, then I highly recommend. Best part is that it comes with both an e-book AND paperback option. Yay, physical books!
Promotional image from HariSinclair.com

Thief by Night

By day, Bonnie Duncan is a social media manager, by night, she steals from high society. A consummate multi-tasker, she balances her double-life with ease; bossing it in the boardroom and behind the mask. Until, mid-diamond-heist, she discovers another thief taking the same gem she was ordered to lift and has to take decisive measures. To complicate matters, she soon discovers that she knows the other thief and, worse, he’s handsome and charming. Can she keep her secrets while she uncovers his? Can she resist his charms and stay focused on the job?
You can either request your library get a copy of this story, or you can pick up your own via Amazon.

As for the other thing, well, you know that NaNoWriMo project that Cyhyr asked me to beta read? Well, her edits on that first chapter are done, and she posted it to AO3 late last night/early this morning.
Vesper Scienta wanted nothing more out of life than to make sure her charge and best friend, Prince Aster Amicitia, was happy. She would follow him, always, and keep him safe, as her appointment as Shield dictates she must. She was happy. They were happy.

Then they found the Messengers.

Now she's flitting through time itself, racing against the weakening pulse of the Crystal. It's been almost nineteen years since the Dawn Returned, and the world needs saving again. Vesper just doesn't understand why it has to be her, or why the Messengers separated her and Aster, or why they paired her with the daughter of the Marshal and the son of the King of Light - both from different times.

Time's running out. The star will burn. Raise the dawn, become the night, restore the Crystal.

Vesper just wants to be with Aster again.
I am not even much of a Final Fantasy fan, and I've never played nor really saw any game footage of FFXV. All I know of these characters I either learned from Cyhyr talking about them, from the posts Cy reblogs on her Tumblr, or from the short-format fanfics Cy has written within this fandom. In other words, I'm going in fairly blind. Which means you can probably trust me when I say you don't need any prior knowledge to enjoy this story. You just feel the intensity of the situation as you follow Vesper. You feel how much she cares for Aster, you become confused and disoriented beside her, you become as frustrated as she does, and you also want to see Aster again. The visceral storytelling and mystery were enough to draw me in, for sure.

So, there you have it: one free read, and a fairly cheap-to-buy one. Hopefully they can tide you over until I can get my own act together.

Maybe I SHOULD force myself to keep writing....

Might be something to reconsider and re-calibrate in time for this Saturday's Lunar New Year.
Free use image from PublicDomainPictures.net

Tuesday, January 14, 2020

Fantasy Story Epics

This past week has been... interesting.

Tuesday, the 7th, was my last day off, and I don't get another one until Friday, the 17th, so the work-week craziness hasn't let up yet. I do get two days off in a row, though, and my second Saturday off in a single month! I usually only get Saturdays off if I specifically request them, and even then it's only about 4 all year. I don't know if I'll figure out what to do with myself with a "weekend" off like this! Especially since I'll work my normal 5.5hr work day on Sunday, and then have Monday and next Tuesday off as well! It will almost be like a mini-vacation! I'll probably need it at that point.
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What grand plans will I be able to knock out? Especially since Hubby will be at work Friday, and at the local gaming store for the latest MTG pre-release. There's usually a midnight pre-release tournament, which means Hubby will probably sleep in pretty late Saturday. I might have the morning to myself, as well as pretty much all of Friday. Oh, the possibilities are swirling through my mind right now....

This past Wednesday was my first day helping out the store about 45minutes away. It actually wasn't that bad of an experience over-all. The ladies I was training seemed excited to learn, which is a fantastic shift from past employees I've attempted to train. There was a decent amount of customer traffic, but not so bad that it was overwhelming, which was also nice. Honestly, the only time I cursed my fate about having to go out there was the drive home. We were having major snow squalls all day - and of course we've been having gorgeous springtime weather ever since - and those squalls were not letting up. I hit up the same highway I drove off of when I drove home from visiting my mom and sister for Thanksgiving. I was much farther east than where I drove off the road, but that was always in my head as I attempted my trip home.

The road didn't have enough snow on it for the plows, due to the wind brushing it off, and yet there was enough on it to be slippery. The roads were also icing over, so the majority of my trip home was with my hazards on as I drove about 40mph (~64kph) in a 65mph (~105kph) zone. Any faster, and I started to slide, or the wind would push me. It was darn near terrifying whenever a big rig (lorry) billowed past me. But I kept my pace, I white-knuckled my way down the highway, and I made it home safely; even if it did take me nearly an extra 10min to do so.

I didn't do much else Wednesday night. I simply snuggled my husband and binged Netflix.

Tuesday night Hubby wanted a breather from his re-watch binge of the American The Office. So, since we were intrigued anyway, and Netflix had been bombarding us with ads for it, we caved and finally started up The Witcher. Wednesday we finished the first season: 4 episodes Tuesday; other 4 on Wednesday. I must say, the show was great advertisement in and of itself. I'm now intrigued enough to want to play the games and read the novels the whole fandom is based off of.

It's been a while since I've had a computer that I could really play games on, though, and I don't know if my laptop is capable. Anyone know if there are console ports for the first two games? At the very least, Hubby can get the third game for the PS4. I saw recommendations to stick with a Windows platform, such as a computer or Xbox One, but again, I don't know how well my laptop will hold up, and our Xbox is a 360.

I'll touch back on The Witcher series on Netflix towards the end of this post. First I want to finish recapping my week.

Thursday was the return of our D&D sessions. We made the mistake of separating the party again. This time it wasn't intentional though. Also, our party was nearly wiped by a friggen magical Rug of Smothering!
Rug of Smothering as depicted
in D&D 5e rule books
Something that looked like an area rug version of Aladdin's carpet from the Disney animated movie, and acted like Dr. Strange's cloak in the Marvel movie, nearly killed us all off. We're good like that.

The story gets a touch long, so I'm going to finish my weekly recap first, and then I'll circle back to this.

Friday, I was once again at work, and then I did some much-needed shopping at Walmart - I had been avoiding it for a while - before coming home to talk D&D with Hubby and Wolfhearted. After an hour or two, Wolf headed home, and Hubby and I again cuddled as we talked about our day.

Saturday I pulled a minor whoopsie.

Remember back in November when I was singing Cyhyr's praises for doing so well during NaNoWriMo? Well, on January 2nd she asked me if I'd be willing to beta the first chapter for her. I warned her it might be a bit before I had time to beta; she was cool with that since she had two other sets of eyes also checking it.

This past Saturday I finally found time to read and beta her chapter.... and apparently proceeded to give the poor thing a minor heart attack.
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Those other two sets of eyes that are also beta reading for her? One is her bestie, the other is her husband. Both beta read and commented that first weekend of the year. I don't know how many comments Cy resolved before I got to the document, but I only recall seeing about two or three from each of them. The story's a fanfic, so the bestie was mostly pointing out errors with canon facts, and Ronoxym was mostly commenting about overall flow and feel of the story.

But, see, Cy asked me to look at her story with a "critical eye"... and I took that request super seriously.... aaaaaaaand I left her like 100 comments on a 21pg/6600+ word chapter. Most of the comments were either positive reactions to her writing, or questioning whether or not she missed a comma. Some were questions to clear up things the fans would inherently know, but were confusing for a non-fan. Some comments were asking about continuity or foreshadowing and the like. All-in-all, I tried to keep my comments even between both the praise and critique categories.

Cy has since told me that she appreciates the critical eye I put to her work, and she did thank me quite frequently for my comments. But... yeah... I can only imagine what it was like to have gotten a notification that I was editing her work... and there were 100 comments to sift through! I'd probably have a heart attack as well.

Sorry for the added stress right out the gate! My bad!
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I do have to admit that I got quite the chuckle out of one of Cy's comment replies in particular. My final comment on her chapter was a simple "More, please?" to help encourage her because oh my goodness am I intrigued!

Her reply?
Cyhyr: Maybe if SOMEONE didn't leave ~100 comments on the first chapter, I'd have the second one available for y'all sooner than feb 1st lol
HAHA. Fair. She did follow up with basically a "for reals though, thanks for the comments. I want this to be the best I can make it" so, yay for that.

After terrorizing poor Cy, I spent the evening watching anime with Hubby, Omnibladestrike, and Goob.

Minor tangent: Omni has changed most of his handles to either his given name or to dragnime. So... Omni, if you're reading this and would prefer I use dragnime for your name here, please let me know.

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Sunday was a fairly slow day, so I tried to utilize some of the time wisely: I started drafting up this post. I did have major edits left to do come Monday, but I still had a decent chunk churned out already. Super helpful since, ya know, I'm at work right now, and clearly couldn't get the post done and published at my normal time if I had waited until this morning to start.

Look at me, actually getting this thing pre-written, edited, and scheduled to publish "on time."

Sunday evening, while Hubby was at work, and I had the American football playoffs on in the background, I had every intention to finish my draft of this blog, or possibly work on some fictional writing.

Instead I spent HOURS trying to catch up on that social media backlog I keep commenting about. I really should just wave the white flag and resolve myself to the idea that everything that happened on Tumblr the last week of December/first week of January is long gone and forever lost to me....

I did also balance my bank book, and buy new long-sleeve shirts for work... so... there's that.
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As I already mentioned, yesterday was mostly spent finishing up this blog post so it would be good and golden for today's update. I also did some roleplaying with Wolfhearted - Kriv and Cutter just having a chat - but I'm not sure how "canonical" I should consider it. We were roleplaying a quiet moment from, like 4 play sessions ago, and Kriv didn't really act "appropriately" in a later session given the knowledge he now supposedly had. It may be a fun AU session between us....

Anyway, now that we're all caught up, let's backtrack to that D&D session on Thursday, and how that relates to both my current fiction writing inspiration, as well as The Witcher series.

Fair warning, this is going to be a bit long, so if you don't particularly care about the details you can go ahead and just scroll down. I'll signal when I'm done chatting about this, and I'll recap the main details so you won't be lost. Also, for those reading my full summary, there will be blood and character death mention, just FYI.
Or rather, let me chat at you
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Anyway, leading into this session, the party discovered - in a very unfortunate manner - that a smithy was unintentionally selling items made out of cursed metal. Said metal items - typically sold as expensive pieces of jewelry such as necklaces - inflicted insanity upon the wearer, and was causing murder and mayhem within the city. The party had tracked down the warehouse where the metal was supposedly previously stored by a small rebel collaboration of Thieves Guild members. Said thieves were allegedly trying to work their way through the social ranks in order to become one of the elites; even-footing with nobles in the area.

We closed out the previous session by discovering one of the shipping crates in the warehouse was actually a solid block of stone merely painted to look like a crate; expertly painted, but still. Said stone block was fixed to the stone floor via grooves, and pushing the block along the grooves revealed stairs to a secret basement hidden beneath it.

Thursday's session started with the party searching the hidden basement. This is where we encountered the Rug of Smothering - or Murder Rug, as Kriv started calling it. The battle was probably way harder than it should have been, especially when we gave up fighting the thing for a few rounds, instead opting to try to pull the dang rug off of our allies. It went from smothering Cutter to suffocating Kriv... all with just one simple hit point left. We would have been fine if ANYONE hit it just once more, instead of attempting to wrestle the blasted thing!

We were far more depleted and beaten up than Hubby expected we'd be, considering it was the ENTIRE PARTY against this SINGLE RUG; NO OTHER ENEMIES. So, after confirming that the coast was clear, Cutter muscled that stone block door back closed. Feeling secure, the rest of the party voted to take a Long Rest in order to recover.

The D&D rule books define a "Long Rest" as:
...a period of extended downtime, at least 8 hours long, during which a character sleeps or performs light activity: reading, talking, eating, or standing watch for no more than 2 hours. If the rest is interrupted by a period of strenuous activity—at least 1 hour of walking, fighting, casting Spells, or similar Adventuring activity—the characters must begin the rest again to gain any benefit from it.
Since we could still take watch, we each offered to do so, but Cutter was too paranoid about the group resting in an enemy's lair with only one presumed entrance/exit. He refused to rest - health points be damned - and had Cutter take sole watch. No skin off the rest of our noses... supposedly. After our rest was completed with no incident, our newest party member Solf - or, more accurately, Kriv after watching Solf eye up one of the lair walls - discovered a false-wall that led to a large storage room of gems. Cutter was still on edge and all sorts of "Oh, hell no!" about the gems; refusing to touch anything within the Thieves Den we had stumbled upon. The rest of the group grabbed handfuls. Kriv opened his backpack and just swiped his arm along the shelf to knock as many gems into the pack as possible.

Then we had to roll saving throws.

Kriv, Solf, and our NPC partymate Hakkim all vanished as we touched the jewels. Omni's character Faelyth passed her throws, so she stayed behind with Cutter. This was the beginning of the end.

Turns out the gems were how the thieves normally left their den; they were all transportation spells, similar to a portkey from the Harry Potter franchise. If Faelyth and/or Cutter grabbed just one gemstone each, Hubby would have instantly teleported them as well, but he first wanted to see the party's reaction.

Faelyth and Cutter decided to jet the heck out of that room once the other three disappeared. Cutter attempted to re-open the door he had closed behind the group; not knowing that the thieves used the gemstone teleportation specifically because the stone "door" is designed to lock into place once closed, and cannot be opened from inside. After a few fails, Hubby wanted the duo to go back to the gems and be teleported. However, Cutter is a laser focused man who was more-or-less weaponized since he was a child. He goes after a single task, and doesn't waver unless aimed at or otherwise directed towards a different goal.

Cutter's goal was to get the heck out of that basement lair, and he couldn't think of any option other than through that door. So he started hacking away at the stone to try to carve their way out. Hubby made sure to give Wolfhearted plenty of warning signs - mainly dust falling on top of Cutter and the roof above him shaking - to stop what he was doing and change his plan of attack. Cutter isn't that kind of man, and Faelyth is too socially anxious to pipe up and say anything to the hulking man. Sooooo Cutter chopped away enough for the stone to slip through the doorway... and... onto him.

The real ironic part is that, since Cutter did manage to dodge, and therefore only had part of his body crushed, he would have been able to survive the incident had he rested earlier and recovered all his health - or healed his earlier wounds if we aren't being meta about it. Instead, poor Cutter was still too beaten up from THE DAMN MURDER RUG and succumbed to his injuries.

Panicked, Faelyth tried to climb over the rock to get through the newly opened door and out of the warehouse. She slipped on all of Cutter's blood, smashed hard against the stone block, nearly died as well from basically impaling herself on the corner of the stone, and crawled her way to safety... after accidentally pushing hard enough on the stone to shift it and further flatten poor Cutter's corpse.

While Omni had fun running Faelyth, she no longer has ties to the party, has no clue where her other partymates are, is a Drow covered in blood - which is never good - and is a painfully introverted  monk that does NOT like being in a city to begin with. So he's going to have her Flight instincts kick in, and she's going to jet. Omni's going to bring in a new character instead of continuing to play as Faelyth, but since she is still alive, there is a chance of potentially running into her again in the future.

In the meantime, though, Faelyth not even attempting to look for her missing partymates before skipping town also means it will be super hard for Kriv, Solf, and Hakkim to find out what happened to their left-behind friends. They may never find out about Cutter's death, and if they do, they may not realize that Faelyth is still out there somewhere.

This is of course assuming that the trio will survive their own ordeal. The gemstones teleported them into the thieves' treasure room. They each filled as many pockets and pouches and sacks as they could, then snuck out of the room. They figured out that the "thieves" are actually cultists worshiping a... demon, I think? Kriv expertly found and dismantled a bell alarm on the exit door, only to discover six cultists praying on the other side... and proceeded to use Thunderwave to attack them... which slams the targets with a powerful air wave, buuuuut also booms out a THUNDEROUS clap that can be heard up to 300ft (~91m) away. Good thing you dismantled that bell alarm there, Kriv....

I really can't control any of my characters from doing The Stupid. Buuuut, Wolfhearted is clearly the same way, hence poor Cutter's death. At least Kriv's trio survived their encounter thus far, and stopped the blood pool from making a demonic summoning circle. Also, Hubby fully supports players not meta-gaming, by following the character's lead instead of re-directing them using player-only knowledge or foresight. Given his characterization thus far in the campaign, Cutter absolutely would have kept hacking away at that stone, believing his 23 year-old self too indestructible for the roof caving in to actually be a problem. Wolf played him that way, damn the results, so Wolf has bonuses for his new character's creation as a reward for such play.

Wolfhearted does seem excited for his new character, as is Omni for his. Wolf was over Friday night starting his build of the new character, and Hubby's trying to get Omni over tonight to work on his.

Anyway, it will be cool to see how these new characters interact with Kriv, whom I could have sworn I was going to lose on Thursday, and I would have been so devastated! I've grown really attached to this kid! I believe he is officially the second-longest D&D character I've played as, and is closing in on Jolene for longest-running character.

Not too shabby for a randomly thrown together character for a "one-shot" game....

Also, yes, Kriv is totally a "kid" still. He may technically be considered an adult by Dragonborn standards, and may have the same physical build as an adult human, but he's still only 16. So I'm very much trying to play him like a modern-day 20 year old human: an adult but still so green to the whole Adulting thing that he might as well be a kid.

That said, due to Kriv's confusion about the term "seed money," he's spending most of the 800 gold coins he swiped from the treasure room on a bunch of large pots and soil. Then Hakkim - who was born over 200 years prior, but due to his Wild Magic constantly shifting his age is effectively now 20 - will plant his own coins in an attempt to grow "money trees." Honestly, Kriv isn't THAT intelligent, but he does have - barely - "above average" intelligence, and really should know better than to believe you could grow "money trees" by planting "seed money." To be fair, though, he did also witness Hakkim's Wild Magic sprout a tree that had fresh baked loaves of bread as "fruit." So now, to Kriv, all things are possible if Hakkim's Wild Magic is involved.

Hubby even rolled for the likelihood of Hakkim's magic sprouting plant life from the gold coins, AND FRIGGEN PASSED WITH A ROLL OF LIKE 97! So, assuming the trio manages to get out of the cultists' den, and survive until Kriv can buy the pots and soil, and assuming the planted coins are not disturbed, golden trees will start to sprout in 3 years, and will be fully matured "money trees" - growing precious gems instead of fruit, and having sheets of emeralds for leaves - in about 14 years.

And Solf wanted none of our nonsense, so he doesn't get a copper of any of our profit!
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by Birdman, Inc
Soooooo, yeah. That was Thursday!
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OKAY! FOR ANY WHO SCROLLED PAST THAT EPIC ABOUT OUR LATEST D&D SESSION, YOU CAN STOP NOW! I'M DONE!


The quick recap for those who skipped the breakdown:
      The party explored a hidden basement lair that was believed to house thieves trying to topple the social elites by way of cursed metal jewelry inflicting murderous insanity among them. There was no one in the lair aside from an enchanted Rug of Smothering, which nearly killed off the party by strangling Cutter, and then Kriv, while also beating away the other three.
      After taking a rest, which Cutter refused to participate in since he was on-edge about camping within the Thieves' Den, everyone else was healed and had recovered their mana (spell slots, if you're being meta about it). The party discovered a hidden stock room of gems, and while greedily grabbing them - something Cutter again refused to participate in - Kriv, Solf, and NPC partymate Hakkim managed to grab gems that were secretly teleportation spells. They vanished, and in a panic Cutter and Faelyth attempted to go back through the entrance they had used to descended into the lair in the first place, except when Cutter closed the door behind them earlier he accidentally locked them inside.
      Laser focused on his task to get them out, and confident he could take any damage that came his way, Cutter carved at the door across the top of the stairs, and ended up having the roof collapse on him, causing him to bleed out and die - although, his injuries would have been survivable if he had rested and recovered with everyone else. Hubby still rewarded Wolfhearted for his playing of Cutter because it was in character to a fault, and that dedication to characterization over survivability should always be praised. Faelyth, terrified of everything she witnessed, just ran away. We may see her again in future sessions, but in the meantime Omni is bringing in a new character as well.
      Meanwhile, the trio of Kriv, Solf, and Hakkim discovered that they were teleported into a treasure room, and quickly looted it before escaping the room. They realized they are hunting down demon worshipers, not rebellious thieves. While trying to escape the cultists' den, Kriv used Thunderwave to surprise attack six cultists praying in the next room. He didn't think about the fact that such an attack would alert others just as well as the bell alarm he had JUST disarmed.
      The trio survived the cultists - barely - but are now unsure if they will be going up against another wave of them. In the meantime, Kriv and Hakkim made a plan to use the 800 gold pieces they each swiped from the treasure room as literal "seed money" in hopes that Hakkim's chaotic Wild Magic will take hold and cause the gold to sprout into literal "money trees." Hubby rolled, and assuming we survive to plant the money, and it doesn't get disturbed, we WILL have literal money trees sprouting.
Now, since Kriv didn't witness poor Cutter's demise, and who knows if he'll run into Faelyth to hear tell of it, I don't know if he'll ever find out that Cutter died, as I mentioned in the more in-depth summary. Presumably, the local guards will EVENTUALLY come upon the destroyed hidden opening to the den - or the trio will lead the guards back to it - and find Cutter's body there, and it will still be recognizable enough to know that it was him crushed under the stone flooring. Someone has to tell Cutter's owner/boss/adoptive father over at the gladiatorial stadium. Perhaps Kriv will find out that way if he isn't part of the discovery of Cutter's corpse.

Either way, I already have grand plans of Kriv writing up a Beowulf-style epic in honor of Cutter. However, because it's Kriv and because Cutter wasn't very forthcoming with personal info - Monday's questionably-canon soft roleplay with Wolfhearted notwithstanding - I'm guessing Kriv's epic might not end up being terribly accurate....

None of this will happen until Kriv finds out about Cutter's death, however, so I have some time to work on it.

I already have plans. Lots of wonderful, glorious, hyperbolic plans.

And this finally brings me back to The Witcher on Netflix. In the series, there is a bard by the name of Jaskier. Now, apparently the name Jaskier is Polish - the language the books were originally written in - for "yellow flower" or "buttercup" and thus his name was translated to "Dandelion" in the books and games, but kept as Jaskier for the Netflix series. Also, in fairness, Jaskier/Dandelion is simply his stage name, if you will. If we're being technical, the bard's name is Julian Alfred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove, a noble turned bard upon completing his studies and becoming bored with teaching.

Anyway, he has become a beloved side character, and is responsible for probably the most popular and obsessively played/shared/covered song from the Netflix series: "Toss a Coin to Your Witcher," a ballad to try to positively rebrand the otherwise ostracized Geralt of Rivia and his other Witcher brethren.

I really do love this song, and I get all of the hype it's received. Give it a listen, if you haven't already by now. The show has been out for nearly a month, after all....

Anyway, while there is really no way I could ever make Kriv nearly as epic and/or masterful as Jaskier, I now have a new "mentor" as it were. I doubt I could write anything as catchy as "Toss a Coin..." but that's the goal I have for Kriv and his epic retellings of himself and his friends. There's a reason I created Kriv as more of an acting bard than a songsmith though.... Again, Cutter's getting an epic written about him that is more akin to Beowulf's poem, or the Odyssey, or Trials of Hercules and the like rather than a song. I'm excited to get this figured out.

Any sort of work on my ML fanfiction - either OatS or prepping for my February projects - are most likely put on hold until I get this dedication to Cutter ironed out. I need to make sure it's good to go for whenever Kriv discovers his friend's fate.
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I'm aiming to have it done by next Tuesday's update, if not the week after. However, if this epic DOES take more than this week to write, I AM hurting my chances to hit my OatS writing prep goal, as well as my Valentine's Day story prepwork. So I'm pushing to get this epic done THIS WEEK.

I want to give you fine readers something new to read so bad!

Until next week.
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by Birdman, Inc

Tuesday, January 7, 2020

Resolutions and Amazing Gifts

Ah, it's good to be back on my Tuesday routine. The stress of 2019 kinda rolled into the start of 2020, but it's dying down again a touch. My normal routine is still a bit off this month, however. There is a new hire at a different branch of the store I work for, and, for whatever reason, I'm apparently the Go-To-Gal for training new-hires. I've done so in the past, and I'm tapped to do so again this month. The added trick, however, is that the store she was hired for is so understaffed right now that the poor manager hasn't had a single day off in over a month! I thought MY December was rough!

To try to help a fella out, I'll be going to that store once a week to both train the new hire, as well as man the store - as it were - so the manager can finally have days off again. By the time I'm done training the new-hire at the end of January, hopefully she'll feel confident enough to run the store once or twice a week so the manager can continue to have his days off, and I will no longer have to commute roughly 90minutes round trip each week.

My own poor manager now has to work six days a week in order to cover for me being at the other store on one of her normal days off. So this is not the greatest arrangement all around. But it helps give someone his days off again, and it trains someone new, and I'm getting paid mileage, so it all works out, I guess.

Still, I won't be home until closer to 7pm on the days that I'm down at the other store, which means still no Zumba for me. I feel like it will do more harm than good to only go on Mondays, especially since I haven't been able to go for two months already. Soooooo, guess February will be my grand return finally???

Dear lord, I'm going to die when I go back....
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by PRANEAT
I also missed the first Writer's Group meeting of the year because I had to work on Tuesday - which was the 31st, so technically NOT the first of the year, but close enough - and I'll be working again when our next meeting comes around on the 14th! Which means I'm also going on month 2 of no writer's group meetings. This is killing me!

Hopefully, I'll be able to make the meeting on the 28th. Otherwise, February will be my true Restart Month: back to normal work week, back to Zumba 2x a week, back to Writing Group every other Tuesday, etc.

In the meantime, January is going to be more of a "trial run" for 2020.

I heard recently that the best way to create lasting New Year's Resolutions, and other such new routines for the new year, is to start the new resolution/routine in December. That way you can get into the routine and iron out any problems with it before the year starts. You would be less discouraged then - because if something falls through or otherwise fails you have time to correct it before the new year, whereas once in the new year you feel like it's not worth trying anymore - and you are more likely to continue with the resolutions.

So I'm a bit late to the party with this "trial month" attempt. However, December was far too chaotic for me to do a trial run of anything. I just completely collapsed and crumbled last month, and adding to those stressors would not have done anyone good.

Instead, I'm using this mindset of January being the "trial month" for my resolutions and new routines to try to refine things. Especially since I wasn't TERRIBLE with my resolutions last year. As I noted last week, I definitely tripped through my resolutions a lot, and fumbled quite a bit, but in the end, I didn't give up on them, so that's a win... right?

Let's check out how well I actually did with those resolutions, shall we?

2019 Resolution #1: Try yet again to write at least 4 out of 7 days of the week

With the chaos of frantic cleaning for my mom and sister to visit, I somehow packed my planner in a "safe spot" that I cannot find right now, so I don't have the stats for January through June of 2019. I vaguely remember them being fairly good with keeping to this resolution. I also did fairly well in July, working on One and the Same during my Camp NaNoWriMo. The rest of the year, though????
  • Aug: This was the start of me slipping with my time audits. I only have 13 days marked as having written; 4 of those were my weekly blog posts.
  • Sept: Even worse, I only have 11 days marked as having any writing progress.
  • Oct: Thanks to Kyoru week and trying to finish my original story gift to Ronoxym, I have marked that I wrote every day for the first 18 days of October - minus Monday the 14th. I don't have any days after the 18th marked though, so I think I only wrote my blog for the rest of the month? Totaling in 19 writing days. Still not very good.
  • Nov: Ironically, I only have 3 days marked on my calendar, but I also did the worst with keeping up with my time audits in November. I know I at least worked on my blog, and then on my story at Group, every Tuesday, and I have a single Thursday marked as having written something, so I know at least 5 days were spent writing. I know I was stressed in November, and certainly didn't write daily, but I feel like I wrote more often than 5 days....
  • Dec: Ug. December was the worst offender for forgetting to do my time audits. I only have 2 days marked on my calendar, but I know I wrote a blog post for 4 out of the 5 Tuesdays, and I wrote my Plagg one-shot on the 13th. I also got my ML Secret Santa exchange done by the 24th, and had worked on that for a couple of days. I want to give myself the benefit of the doubt, and say I wrote at least 10 days out of the month???
So, yeah... didn't do too well with this resolution during the back half of the year. I'm hoping I can get myself into a much better routine so that I don't slip around July again, when life starts to get more and more frantic for me.

2019 Resolution #2: Finish and post my fanfic sequel One and the Same

I don't know what it is about this story that is so hard for me to write! Clearly I just full-on failed this resolution/goal, but I didn't give up on the project either. So there's that. I worked on it for every NaNoWriMo attempt. It was my project for April's Camp NaNo, and again for July's Camp, and once more during the original NaNoWriMo in November. I've chipped more and more and more away at the project. I've solidified scenes. I've gotten rid of others. I've strengthened the plot concept. I've gotten the rough draft past 50,000 words. I. Just. Can't. Complete. The. Dang. Thing!!!!

I think part of the delay is that I feel like this story isn't as strong a showing as Peeping Tomcat was, and I want both stories to be equally good. Especially after the long wait, I don't want to disappoint my patient readers by having One and the Same feel inferior. So it's certainly a struggle, and OatS beat me in 2019, unfortunately.

2019 Resolution #3: Post at least one new completed story per month

I mentioned this last week, but I both succeeded and failed at this goal. I did not manage to post a completed story every month. I DID, however, manage to post over 20 completed stories this past year. While the resolution did state "at least" one story - already implying that I'd write more than one in any given month - and therefore should cancel out the abundance I produced in August and September, I'm still going to call this resolution NEARLY successful. A... B+ grade for the effort I put in to complete it and the added "extra credit" stories to make up for the "missed assignments", as they were.

2019 Resolution #4: Win NaNoWriMo again this November

Yeeeeeeaaaaah... No. This did NOT happen. Fail. Super fail. Nope.

HOWEVER, I also didn't give up attempting to write in November. I kept wanting to. I kept telling myself it wasn't working, and yet I pushed on. I chipped away word by word right up until I left to visit family on the 29th. I made sure that this was NOT going to be my worst showing at NaNoWriMo. It is only my SECOND worst showing; I managed to irk out a little more than 3900 words. Still 3900 more than I had going into November, right? So... yay?

2019 Resolution #5: Continue my weekly blog post routine

I was so close! I had gone MONTHS without missing a post. I may have been days late, but I got it done before the week was out. Then, in June, I tripped and missed a week. I was going to make up for it by writing my normal blog post, as well as writing up my feelings about the novels Graceling and Bitterblue that I had read over the summer as a bonus. I wanted to wait until I finished the trilogy, and never did get a chance to read Fire, so that bonus post was never written. I tripped again in November. While I also kinda-sorta tripped last week by having it be my first post of the new year instead of the last of 2019, I'll leave it to you to decide if I was down 2 or 3 posts in 2019. Either way, 50 posts out of the year is fairly consistent. It seems to be my norm: out of the nearly-ten years that I've had this blog, I started writing in it weekly back in 2012. Since then, I have written 50 posts/year 3 times - including 2019 - and more than 50 posts also 3 times. I have only managed to write once per week in 2017, but even for that year I missed weeks and then double-posted later so....
As for that "reading challenge" I was going to write up, and post later? The one that became "Meh, I'm reading a lot of fanfic this year; I'll just try to track the words read"? Yeah. That ended up going virtually nowhere, sadly. I did read a lot of fanfic - especially in December - and I did manage to read at least three professionally published novels. All-in-all, though, I feel like I slacked off in my reading.

It may simply be because I read quick fanfic one-shots while on brief work breaks, and so mentally I slotted them away as "don't count" for whatever reason. So I'm going to try to do better with that as well.

Which brings me to....

*~*~* New Year's Resolutions for 2020 *~*~*


To be completely frank, they're going to more-or-less be the same resolutions as 2019. As I said above, my goal this year is to REFINE. So let's see if I can do better with these goals this year.

2020 Resolution #1: Try yet again to write at least 4 out of 7 days of the week

I must tackle this goal first and foremost by getting into the routine for my time audits; track where my time is going so I can better see when my best writing time even is. These audits also hold me accountable for my time. Plus, they really do help when I reflect back on the year and try to see how frequently I did get to work on writing.

I also need to get back into finding set times to write. I have an alarm on my phone that goes off every night at 8pm, telling me to go write. However, due to TV shows Hubby and I wish to watch, socializing, or just chores getting delayed, I haven't actually stopped to write at 8pm in MONTHS. Maybe even all of 2019! So clearly that is not a good time for me to write. I fear that my best writing time is in the morning, before I start my day since I have such limited time post-work day. Which means training myself to actually slide out of bed instead of hitting snooze for an hour so I can cuddle my husband. We'll see how well I do with finding a more routine writing time.

It does help when I routinely work on this blog every Tuesday morning from about 8am until.... whenever it is I get to finish it. So maybe a similar routine will help with consistent fictional writing as well.

2020 Resolution #2: Finish and post my fanfic sequel One and the Same

I. Am. Determined!

I have lived with this story for so long, and I've had TWO WHOLE SERIES SEASONS to give me new fodder to work with. My readers have patiently waited for an extra YEAR past what I promised them. I can't keep delaying this story. I'm going to try to be realistic though. So here is my sub-goal breakdown:
  • Jan: Get my bearings. Re-read what I have of OatS. Re-read PT to get back into the feel of the story. Re-read and re-tweak my outline.
  • Feb: Get back into a writing rhythm. Refine the outline using the notes I took in January. Refine what I've already written for OatS, again using the notes I took in January.
  • March: Now that I'm back in rhythm, and no longer distracted by other writing projects, start working on figuring out the dang akuma attacks, as well as other "middle bits" that have been halting my progress on this story.
  • April: Use Camp NaNoWriMo to finish the rough draft of this dang story!
  • May: My manager's daughter is getting married in May, so I might be working extra hours the last week of April. If this hinders my writing, use May to finish the rough draft. Otherwise, use it to recoup from Camp, and work on other projects. Let OatS sit.
  • June: Polish OatS. Go through and edit what needs to be edited so that the "rough draft" is in its nearly-polished form at the very least, and the first chapter is as good as I'm going to be able to make it.
  • July: Spend Camp editing OatS so that I can post a new chapter every week, just as I did with PT.
  • Aug: Finish polishing up OatS in order to get ahead of my posting schedule; having the whole thing as perfect as I can make it before the end of the month. Keep publishing new chapters weekly.
  • Sept: I will most likely be publishing weekly chapters still. Use this time for any catch-up spill-over from August, and focus on the next big writing project; whatever that is.
We'll see how well I stick to this scheduling. Encouraging words and gentle pokes/prods to stay on track are appreciated.

2020 Resolution #3: Participate in at least one fandom event per quarter.

I switched this one up a bit. Last year, when I gave myself the goal to write a story a month, it was partially a way to make sure I kept writing as a priority. It was a means to hold me accountable so I wouldn't slack off. It was a way to train myself to produce a bit faster. Most importantly, though, it was supposed to be a way for me to build up readers.

My name would pop up in feeds more frequently. I would be closer to the top of "recent uploaded" lists within the fandom tags on FFN, AO3, and Tumblr. There would be more content for readers to consume if they liked one story, and that would give them a better feel for my over-all writing. Hopefully, that would lead them to like my writing in general and want to subscribe to/follow me. Also, if I posted moderately frequently - once a month - then perhaps that would also be enticing to readers: this content creator does so with moderate regularity. I knew I wouldn't be as quick or popular as those who posted daily, or at least weekly, but it would be a start.

In the end, I fear that my drive to complete SOMETHING monthly forced me to focus more on those monthly stories, and less on OatS, which could have helped with my overall delaying of the project. Especially when some of my time was spent just trying to figure out WHAT to write. Sure, there were points where inspiration struck and wouldn't let go - Prescription for Love in March, Love Taps in June, Sparks for the Moment in July, and both Painfully Close and evolving Stranger in a White Dress into I Don't Care in August - but most of the months had me painstakingly plan something, and usually as a gift for someone.

Participating in events will probably have a fairly similar affect on OatS, sadly, since I will be working on those stories instead of dedicating that extra time to my main project. HOWEVER, events usually come with prompts. Sure, there were days during Kyoru Week where I spent most of the day trying to figure out how to use the prompt, but there were also days where the story came fairly quickly. Prompts help direct me, so I'm not as stressed trying to figure out what to even write about. Truthfully, that was part of my issue with the fandom gift exchange for Christmas. I didn't really have much of a jumping point, whereas I had more direction when writing my gifts for Taurus Pixie and ChibiSunnie throughout the year. For February's Secret Admirer exchange, we will be provided with two prompt ideas from our giftee, and I know it's going to be Lukanette-centric, so it should be a lot smoother sailing than the Christmas exchange was. In theory, these prompted events will be less stressful and easier on my creative muscles then pulling a random story out of thin air monthly. And, most importantly for my over-all goal for the year, much like with my monthly posting attempts, I hope participating in these events will help get my name out there more. Part of the draw of the events is that the host will reblog the participants' works. This puts it in view of the event's followers: an audience of the other participants, as well as non-participants who may have followed specifically to enjoy the new content. That is most likely a much larger audience than what I currently have.

The long and short of this resolution is that I hope it helps ease my stress of having to come up with something new monthly. I also hope it helps me learn to produce faster, it helps refresh my creativity when I run into writers blocks with OatS, and it helps increase my name recognition within the fandom(s). On top of all of that, I hope that - while I have two different events in February already - cutting down to one event every quarter - January through March, April through June, July through September, and October through December - will also cut down on the overall distraction from OatS. We'll see how this new resolution fairs compared to my "once a month" one from 2019.

2020 Resolution #4: Plagg Appreciation Days

Another new one for the year. I need to recover from my poor showing at NaNo last year, so I won't aim to "win" this year; just to again participate and maybe succeed with a half-NaNo. So, instead of having a NaNo-focused resolution, I'm instead focusing on a fun, semi-sporadic fandom event I want to get trending.

Since the show Miraculous Ladybug includes both a black cat themed superhero and a black cat looking super being, I love the idea of focusing on those two boys every Friday the 13th. People equate that day with black cats and bad luck, and the reason Chat Noir has the powers he does is precisely because of the black cats and bad luck connection. Add in that we don't get to see Plagg on screen nearly as much as we do Tikki, and Chat Noir rarely gets a chance to shine in the show, it is very often that Plagg is overlooked, and Chat Noir is only used in MariChat romance fanfic or as a main character in a demon  or enemy AU. They need better representation than that, so I wanted to turn Friday the 13th into Plagg Appreciation Day (and/or Chat Noir Appreciation Day) within the fandom. I already wrote two Plagg-centric stories on the last two Friday 13ths since I came up with this concept. I want to make sure I hit both Friday 13ths of 2020 as well, and possibly get the concept trending within the fandom.

For those who would like to help me with my stretch goal by participating in Plagg Appreciation Days, we have a Friday 13th in March, but we don't get another one until November. Poor Plagg, at least he had three relatively in a row: September, December, and now March... One every 3 months is pretty cool....

2020 Resolution #5: Continue my weekly blog post routine

This will forever and always be one of my resolutions, until it becomes second nature to me. I will attempt to write one blog post each week. I will try to not miss a week and then have to make up for it via a double-posting. I will try to plan ahead so I have the blog post ready ahead of time on Tuesdays where I work or are otherwise busy. Considering it's already past my noon posting time, and I was three days late in posting last week, I won't bother attempting to post at a regular time. This year is just "once per week; preferably on Tuesdays" and I'll build from there next year.

2020 Resolution #6: Track my reading

Once again, due to how crazy December was for me, I neglected to find an official reading challenge for 2020. I also neglected to write one up myself. Instead, I'm going to try again with simply track my reading: How much do I read, how frequently do I read, how much do I read in fanfiction compared to traditional publishing, etc?

With the frantic pacing of this year, I don't recall going back and reading anything yet. Great start, huh? Especially when a friend of mine has already blown through her first book. Still, January is "Trial Month" this year, so I have time to "catch up", as it were. So, from now on, at the end of each blog post, I will attempt to include a QUICK recap of what I read that week, to better keep track of it all. Along those lines, I am a fan of fantasy, urban fantasy, "modern" sci-fi - so stuff set before 2100, Steampunk, and comedy. If anyone has any recommendations, please feel free to leave them in the comments section below.

Now, if you couldn't quite tell based on my post being roughly 80% about my resolutions, I haven't really done much writing yet this year. I spent last week cleaning, working, and trying to get my blog post up. Then post-blog-publishing on Friday, it was back to cleaning. Saturday was the tail end of last-minute cleaning before the fam showed up, then it was a weekend with them. They left about 3pm on Sunday, and then it was time to do more cleaning; mostly 4 loads of laundry.

Yesterday I just needed a break. After I was done with work, I picked Hubby up from his job, and we did quick grocery shopping. Then we made dinner, ate, and I crashed. I tried going through the countless Tumblr posts I have backlogged, or read and comment on reviews I received, or read and comment on Taurus Pixie's latest blog post, or reply to ChibiSunnie on Facebook. Each time my mind just went, "Nope. We're shutting down now. Catch ya tomorrow."

So I did indeed hit all of that - minus the Tumblr feed - first thing this morning to make sure I had the energy to do so. One of the reasons this post is late... but... priorities.

I did intend to spend last night starting this blog post, as an attempt to get the post written Monday nights, and simply edited Tuesday mornings; making it easier to publish on time.
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With laundry caught up on, I don't have to do that tonight, and with Hubby and I doing our shopping last night, that's another chore I usually do on Tuesdays and don't have to. I also don't have writing group tonight, so that's two extra hours in the evening. Perhaps I can use all of that newly found time to get back to writing. I'd love to give you an update on that next week.

In the meantime, though, holy smokes did I get awesome gifts this Christmas!

Hubby had given me the SOFTEST throw blanket in the shape and style of the Hylian Shield from the Legend of Zelda franchise.
Found on Amazon
He also got me a set of Steampunk D&D dice that are brown and yellow with gear designs on each side. There was also a bunch of "little things" sprinkled throughout December, but those were the two "main gifts" from him.

I also got a copy of Muppet Treasure Island from my sister-in-law. This has to be my favorite Muppets movie, and up until Christmas, I only had my VHS copy. My father-in-law gifted me a journal, pens, and a book on grammar. My manager also gifted me a journal and pens, because people are enablers of my addiction to journals/notebooks. My other co-worker gifted me a room escape game that will be fun to try out.

I already shared last week the story that I was gifted in the Secret Santa exchange.

Then there was my mom! I got two new bracelets with encouraging inscriptions on them and other such positive meanings behind them. She also got me an assortment of books to help me with writing prompts, and world building, and even map drawing! Whoot! Then there was also the friggen Ocarina!
Found on Amazon
I've wanted one pretty much ever since I found out they recreated the Ocarina of Time from the Zelda game of the same name. I kept delaying my purchase for whatever reason, but Mom swooped in and got one for me. Now to try it out and see if I can actually learn how to play the thing. It didn't really go well when I tried learning the alto horn and trumpet in middle school, but that was MIDDLE SCHOOL. I'm much older, more mature, and more determined to learn now.

I'm just nervous to start with anyone around. I'll most likely be squeaky and out of tune to start, and I don't want to annoy anyone with my practices. I'll keep you posted on my progress with that, though.

I also got a message from ChibiSunnie last week, wishing me a happy new year, and to digitally gift me my annual Christmas card. Look at how amazing it looks!!!!
Christmas card created by Chibisunnie
See the full-sized image on her art blog
EEEEEE, it's steampunk Kyoru! I love it! You can see how much I love it in my reblog of it. I'll spare those of you who didn't click that link by simplifying my feelings to: LOOK HOW PRETTY! EVERYONE GIVE IT LOVE!!!!


Now... as much as I hate stating that one gift in particular "won" over all of the other fantastic and amazing and heartfelt gifts I received, I'm certainly leaning towards stating that my sister kinda "won" Christmas this year.

Last year, while I was still gushing about how well Peeping Tomcat had done the first year it was live, my mom asked for a Word document version of the story. It's hard for her to read it off the sites I posted to, and for some reason she wasn't a fan of the PDF or other e-reader download options available off of AO3. So I went ahead and sent her the original document.

A little while later, my sister also asked for the file. I found it odd that she needed her own copy, but I ran with it. For her, I sent the Word document as well as the PDF. About a month or so later, she asked me about the image I used for the PT cover:
The official cover art I used for
my FFN and AO3 postings
The banner image I used for promotions
since it took up less space.
I also used this for each of the AO3 chapter titles.
My "spidey-sense" was tingling when she asked for the cover art images. I had suspected that she was planning on doing something with them to help commemorate my first novel-length bit of writing.

That was back in like May or June, though, so when my birthday came and went and I didn't get anything, I just shrugged it off, and kind of forgot about it.

Until Saturday, when I opened my sister's gift, and saw this.
I flipped open the book and....

MY SISTER FRIGGEN PUBLISHED MY FANFICTION FOR ME!!!!!


Now, it isn't available for public consumption in physical form; it's not for sale since it is fanfiction and I don't have the right to sell a story filled with someone else's characters and world-build. Still, IT'S FLIPPIN' PUBLISHED! I CAN PUT PEEPING TOMCAT ON MY BOOKSHELF!

How cool is that!? How have I not thought to do this myself?

The poor thing was having one heck of a time with the story, though. The formatting kept fighting her - must be a family trait - and my copy is actually the third one she bought, which is why I didn't receive it as a 35th birthday gift. The first publication turned out way too large - from how she described it, it sounds like a Coffee Table Book - and so that's now my mom's copy. She likes that the font is so large, so it's easier for her to read. Plus, Mom prefers reading physical novels over e-books. The second version was with a matte hardcover, but my sister wasn't a fan of how that turned out, and there were still formatting errors within the text, so that's now her copy.

My copy still has - I think she counted six? - formatting errors in the text itself, but the gloss finish cover and size were closer to what she wanted to get for me, so that's the version I now own. I don't mind the errors. As Hubby joked, it's probably fewer than what appears in most professionally published work. I'm just so friggen excited about having a physical copy of my work like this!
Maki Natsuo from the anime Love Lab
So, super duper humungo thanks, Sis, for the gift. It is suuuuch a motivational boost for my writing! Plus, it's further incentive to get that re-read of PT done so I can better get a feel for OatS.

Also... now I know where to go to print off a physical copy of OatS once I finally have THAT story done!

Okay, it's now 2:30, and this is yet ANOTHER epic post. So I'll cut off here. Until next week, you guys.
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