Where is the Darn Reset Button!?

A day early, but whatever....

I'm not sure what happened last week, but it didn't involve writing. It's probably one of the reasons why I wasn't so focused on getting this post written on time. Even now, it's a bit of a struggle to write this instead of hiding somewhere doing something else.

I'm in a rut, or at least I was, I'm still debating if I'm still there. Something snapped this week that just drove me far away from putting word to paper. I'm still not sure what it was.

I could blame it on not feeling well this weekend, but that only really qualifies for Sunday and late Saturday. I could blame it on having to work this Tuesday - why I didn't have the post up - so I could have this weekend off. I could blame it on the fact that Hubby and I got the latest Legend of Zelda game "Breath of the Wild." A game that I desperately wish I was playing instead of writing this, if I'm honest.

In fact, I could probably blame most of my laziness the past week on Breath of the Wild. I just get sucked into the massive world: how pretty it is, how strategic you need to be, how it calls for you to be creative in the ways you advance the plot. The problem with blaming Zelda is that it came out on Friday. It still doesn't excuse my writing neglect the rest of the week.

I just fell completely off the horse in February. I didn't even complete reading one book; although I did complete it last night. Even with the "Two hours of watching something; max" rule for Lent, I couldn't get myself to refocus so far this month. Yes, we're back to my greatest downfall: focus. I either have none or way too much.

It wasn't Lent, but my husband who helped reset me, or at least attempted to the other day. He's now taking my computer away for an hour or two and forcing me to sit with paper and pen. It didn't help me with writing this post on Tuesday after I was done with work, but it did help me actually write two prompts on the same day for the first time in I can't recall how long. Having my computer privileges revoked didn't help me type up more of my already written prompts, but it did help me finally finish reading my book. It didn't help me with the past two weeks, but it did help me with the past two days.

So, thanks, Sweetie. It's because of you that I'm typing this instead of getting sucked back into Hyrule. You always know how to get me re-centered. Love you.

Now, as I just mentioned, I don't have anything new for me to share due to it still being in my notebook. However, I can now share my update on my reading challenge:

Challenge by Reading Books Like a Boss

Again, I don't have "Ready. Set. Novel!" checked off because I haven't completed the book. In fact, I haven't even done any new activities out of it, sadly. I'm focusing on just catching up on the writing prompts thing. Along those lines, I'm now working on reading through the "March" chapter of my copy of "A Writer's Book of Days." I have to say, I'm getting quite a few notes throughout.

The pink and yellow tabs are locations of her prompts, but the rest are key
bits of advice that I go back to reread.

Now for me to actually get myself to FOLLOW the advice.....

As for the latest book that I added on for February's read? Well, ABC used to have a long-running show that ended this past season: "Castle." For those who don't know the main premise of the show, it was about Richard Castle, a crime/mystery/thriller author, shadowing Kate Beckett, a NYC homicide detective, as a means of research for his new novel concept. The pairing worked so well that even after his first book was long-since published, he continued his ride-alongs; now a pseudo-consultant to Beckett's team while also becoming close friends with all in the department. Well, since the titular character was a novelist, ABC thought it would be great marketing if the viewers of the show could actually read the books that Castle wrote throughout the series. Thus the Nikki Heat book series came to the real world. Each year when Castle's book dropped in the show, it also was released in the real world, and actually hit real world New York Times Bestseller lists. Even after the series got cancelled last year, at least one more Nikki Heat book is set to be published this May.

The real fun thing about these books is that they are completely "Richard Castle" books. Nathan Fillion, who played Castle in the series, is shown on the dust jacket as the face of Castle. The dedications and acknowledgments are completely in-character for Castle, although the latter does break the fourth wall a bit by thanking the main cast of the show, as well as the show runners, via first name only. Probably the best thing about how in-character the entirety of the book series is? I've tried for years, and I STILL can't find out who the ghostwriter was. I cannot find mention anywhere as to who is the true author of the Richard Castle books, and even during book tours and signings, Nathan Fillion would go as Richard Castle. Wonder if he's still going to do so now that the character is behind him. I guess I could find out when the latest - and possibly last - book comes out in May.

Anyway, I mentioned back in February, when I started reading the book, that it's a bit of a floater. "Heat Wave" is the first book of a series, which is why I currently have it as "start a new series" even though I have read this book before; I haven't read the others yet. All the books in the series have Nikki Heat's silhouette on the cover, so "woman on the cover" could be used. The majority of the cover is red, so it could bump off "Ready. Set. Novel!" if I wish. Finally, the titles are all plays on Nikki's last name, so I guess it counts as "Name in the title."

I decided to stick with the rolling ball and pick up the second book in the series. I'm not sure if I should read through the remaining four books I own - there are eight Nikki Heat books in total once the new one comes out this year - and just count them as extras, or if I should use them to fill in those "floater" categories for the challenge. Either way, I'm going to try to knock out "Naked Heat" this month. I'll figure out where to put it later.

Now that I'm getting my reading back on track, I really do need to do the same with writing. Yes, I wrote two prompts on Tuesday, but yesterday I didn't write anything, and today I only wrote this blog post. I did contact Spink, and we're going to try to set up writing dates. Sure, the bi-weekly writing group meetings are great, but we only read what we already wrote. The group sprints we did in November really helped me stay focused, and I think I need that again. So, I'm going to try to set up a "date night" at least once a month where Spink and I will meet up for a few hours and do little more than writing sprints. Between that and Hubby "grounding me" until I've written something, I might actually get traction again.

We'll see how well it works while I'm visiting my family for my sister's and my godson's birthdays this weekend....

Also early, but you get the idea....

Thanksgiving Week Was A Bust

NOVEMBER 18^TH – SUNDAY

I managed to plow through another 300+ words in the break room at work tonight! Yes, it’s not terribly impressive to write 300 words in 15 minutes, but it’s something, and it’s faster than I have been writing lately. Actually, the characters sort of took over this time and I went in to an all-out word sprint! I actually was almost late getting back from break because of it. Maybe it was the basil pesto hummus I was eating. :-D

Anyway, I discovered two things about my characters. The first being that Connor has one heck of an anger problem. I’ll have to wrangle that in during the re-write. I mean, he’s allowed to have issues given his background, but I didn’t expect him to go off on the Guildmaster like he did – and he went off on poor Natalie too. Poor girl. Speaking of Natalie, I also discovered that I totally forgot a key component I wanted for her personality. Therefore, she’d probably react way different than she has been. Gah…. Whoops.

NOVEMBER 19^TH – MONDAY

I managed to finish off chapter 5! Actually, after last night’s word sprint I only needed another 100 words or so. Well, with all the Thanksgiving chaos of this week it’s good to know that my secondary goal of posting a new chapter every week is still going strong. I just wish I could keep up the weekly update momentum when I switch back over to my Hey Arnold story. It’s doubtful though since the Hey Arnold chapters are about 3x the size of the ones for this NaNo story. However, perhaps I can finally get in to that monthly update rhythm I always wanted to accomplish with this story.

Anyway, back to NaNo.

I chewed through another thousand-some words in the break room first thing this morning. I brought Hubby in to work an hour before my shift started, so I just stuck around and typed. Not only did I finish the most recent chapter – as I just stated – but I got a nice chunk of today’s writing done. Sadly, I still ended up about 500 words shy for the day. Just add them to the pile I guess.

See, I had people talking to me in the break room when I was on my actual break during my shift, so I didn’t get any writing done then. When I came home I discovered that Cyhyr and her boyfriend were finally visiting again! We haven’t seen them in like a month! So I hung out with them for a little while, Cyhyr Tumblred with me. Then, celestialTyrant showed up. We were supposed to all go out to eat, but since CT and Cyhyr’s boyfriend haven’t seen each other in ages they decided to play a game or two of Magic.

By the time all that chaos ended, Cyhyr and her boyfriend left to get food and head home, and CT was finally ready for us to eat it was past 9pm! I NEVER eat dinner that late! Plus, I had been hungry for over five hours, but kept avoiding eating anything because we were supposed to go out “any minute now”.

So CT insists we all pile in to his car as we say “screw it” to our original plans of hitting up the Chinese buffet and just go to Taco Bell. Then CT gets a flat. For the second time in about as many months he has a problem with one of his tires going flat due to a faulty valve stem. Plus the lugnuts are on too tight for anyone to loosen them enough for CT to put his donut on. Which means, in the cold, perhaps a 1/4mile from my house – which isn’t so bad except it’s a long steep hill leading back home – we now have to walk back to my house so we can drive to a local store, and buy an air compressor so CT can fill his tire enough to get him to an auto shop to get his tire fixed. We walked the few yards to the McDonald’s – because we were just too hungry at that point – bought our food, and then I noticed that I was going to be late getting back to watch Castle. This is the one show I NEVER miss a new airing! So instead of eating in the McDonald’s to warm up, we practically sprint back to the house so I can eat and watch my show.

Good thing CT was going to be crashing at our place until Wednesday anyway.

NOVEMBER 20^TH – TUESDAY

While Hubby and I were at work CT hit up my in-laws to help him get his car mended. So now he’s all set. He also knew how stressed I’ve been about how disastrous our house is, so he offered to help clean. I’m still incredibly embarrassed that anyone even HAD to offer, let alone actually following through with it. However, I’m super grateful for his help and the fact that he’d volunteer in the first place.

He did simple things while we were gone, like cleaning up all of the Magic cards still all over the table from the night before. Then, when I got home at about 1:00 I started to wash the massive pile of dishes – I’m not joking when I say almost every dish we own was in the sink – while I instructed CT on what other elements of the house needed to be organized.

We did end up hitting up that Chinese buffet after picking Hubby up from work at 5, but the rest of the day was cleaning some more. The only writing I accomplished was a little shy of 200 words during my break.

NOVEMBER 21^ST – WEDNESDAY

More massive cleaning and work. My hands are disasters from being in water all the time, so CT offered to finish off the last of the dishes while I finished organizing the stuff that he would have no clue where to put away – even I didn’t know where to put it.

We got the house actually looking presentable by the time the in-laws made it to the house. Go us! We had an…. interesting…. dinner. All-in-all it was a fantastic day. Not one for writing though.

NOVEMBER 22^ND – THURSDAY

Thanksgiving!

I went to work while Hubby and his mother cleaned up after last night’s dinner. Then Hubby did the packing. I got home, showered, ate, and then we sprinted out the door. Made it to my mom’s at about 8pm. We ate the left overs of the Thanksgiving dinner Mom and Sis made. We watched some TV as we bonded. And then we crashed.

Worse part is that I completely forgot to grab my laptop when I went in to work. I was going to just use some paper I left in the break room, but of course I also forgot my pen! *sigh* So much for writing even at work.

NOVEMBER 23^RD – FRIDAY

As predicted, I spent the entire day with my husband, mom, and sister. We hit up Walmart – not for Black Friday shopping, we just needed lights – and then we decorated the house. We cooked more food to add to yesterday’s leftovers and had a “proper” Thanksgiving dinner while watching a movie. I attempted to write, but every time I got distracted.

NOVEMBER 24^TH – SATURDAY

Couldn’t sleep too well. My old bed was too small for both of us. So at about 6:30 I gave up and just went in to the living room to write. I wanted to quickly catch up on these blog updates since I haven’t even taken the time to do that over the past few days. I then discovered that the word document that I use to periodically update throughout the week ended up virtually blank! Nothing I’ve written since Sunday was in the document! Sooooo my early morning writing turned in to re-writing everything you read up to this point. Awesome.
So instead of my morning being spent on NaNo it was spent on this blog update... whoops.
The rest of the day was spent at the family gathering, and so there was no writing done yet again.

NOVEMBER 25^TH – SUNDAY
Because of the mini-vacation we didn't need to wake up at 1am to drop Hubby off at work! Whoot! So I got to sleep, and pseudo sleep in. The whole family once again hung out while I finished up this post and updated my NaNo story. Plus now my sister is following us up and spending three days with us at our place before she starts up her 7-days-a-week job leading up to Christmas. So it's perfectly clear that I'm not getting much farther in my story, but it was a valiant effort I guess. Sure, the story won't even be getting started really, but perhaps I'll have one last chapter update next week.

Castle Fanfiction Devoured More of My Life

Well, I did it again. I allowed myself to be consumed with Castle fanfiction. I spent about four hours reading more fanfiction in an attempt to find that illusive story I mentioned in the last post - the one written based on the preview for this week's episode. I had to muse about the fact that an amazing episode such as this week's "Countdown" ends up spawning an insane amount of fanfics. Seems a good episode inspires many. If only Hey, Arnold! was still on air, perhaps it would have a lot more fanfics.

Anyway, when I noticed that it was about one PM and I still was reading fanfiction I forced myself to close all of the stories I had opened up in sort of a queue form. I then FINALLY reread the story I was looking for in the first place - I ended up looking through the list of my reviews in order to find the story; should have done that in the first place.

I worked on my own story periodically throughout the rest of the day, but I was frequently interrupted by showering, laundry, eating, taking care of my sister's dog, and watching episodes of Hey, Arnold! as a means of research.

I did manage to get the opening of the chapter done as well as the set up leading to Arnold's realization that he has to break it off with Helga. A few more days like today and I might get this done before mid-March. Which means only two months in between chapters XP At least my readers will be so use to the hiatuses that taking a month off to write during Script Frenzy will seem normal to them...

Back to the Grind

So after my post yesterday I feverishly started writing out the plot of my next chapter for my story. In fact, I was almost late for work because I refused to leave until I was done writing out my chapter's skeleton! I DO THIS ALL FOR YOU, MY READERS!!! XD

When all was said and done, and I had a few moments to myself while driving to my internship today, I ended up mentally changing the entire beginning of my next chapter. Oh well. See, originally I was going to have Arnold talk to Gerald and Gerald would say something that would get Arnold thinking. Therefore, Gerald would inadvertently break up Helga and Arnold. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do that to poor Gerald. Plus, if Arnold dumping Helga ended up being a twisted form of peer pressure, then his realization that he really is in love with her - as seen in the first chapter - seems less powerful. It would be kind of like "Well, yeah, I'm in love with her, I always was, I was just coerced in to dumping her." I need more of an "I thought I just liked her, and gave her up because I didn't love her, and yet it turns out I do".

My only problem with the later scenario is that it feels too much like Arnold's reaction to Lila in the episode "Arnold and Lila". Quick recap for those who don't know or remember. Lila, through a twist of fate involving Helga, ends up thinking Arnold has a crush on her and forms one for him as well. Arnold goes on "dates" with Lila even though he doesn't have this supposed crush on her, but eventually ends things because he's a nice guy and doesn't feel like dragging Lila along if he doesn't like her "that way". It's not until after he breaks it off with Lila does he realize that he really DOES have a crush on her. And thus two and a half seasons pass with Arnold crushing Lila and all the ArnoldxHelga shippers sending death glares to the Wendy's mascot look-a-like.

However, seeing as how this scenario of "just kidding, I really DO like you that way" has already occurred in canon, it just might be precedent enough to make Arnold's reaction believable. If he made that mistake with Lila, why not do so again with Helga? Aw, but then we have the "but he already knew he liked her romantically because they already dated" argument. GAAR! XP

I still think I'm going to leave it with Arnold thinking that he doesn't love Helga and having her love him and them being in a long distance relationship just isn't fair to her. This whole thing is ironic because I'm using the song "I Will Always Love You" by Whitney Houston as my inspiration for this next chapter... Gaaaah, I'll figure it out.

Regardless of me not really knowing how I'm going to set up the inevitable breakup, I still managed to write a few paragraphs today. I actually brought my netbook in with me this time when I went to my internship. Smart move because I did end up needing to kill about a half an hour before they had something for me to do.

Once I was done with my internship and I came home I had every intention of working some more on my chapter - before it became another three month wait like the last one - and yet I was distracted by another of my Fandoms: Castle. I was running late at work last night and so I ended up missing the oh-so-important first half of the episode. I fought with the internet a bit today, but ended up getting to the episode. Afterwards I wanted to go back to a fanfic that someone had written based on the episode preview and see how close they were. Unfortunately the story I was looking for was buried under tons of new fanfics inspired by the episode. I ended up spending my night reading those instead of working on my own story. Worst yet is that I never did find that original story I was looking for...

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I also have tomorrow off - which is rare on two accounts: 1) I rarely get two days off in a row and 2) rarer still is me getting a Wednesday off. Well, I didn't find out my schedule until about nine PM, and so there is no way I can give Lou Reda Productions a heads up that I'd be coming in; resulting in me having an old fashioned day off again. I'll try REAL HARD to use it to write, but I do have a messy bedroom that I've been neglecting...

We'll see how this goes. Stay tuned!