Original Content

I did it! Ah ha! I did it! I managed to come up with original content! I finished my original story for Ronoxym!!! So super happy belated birthday, Ron! Hope you enjoy your gift!

Speaking of birthdays, I want to quickly pause in order to wish a very happy birthday to Omnibladestrike who celebrated his this past weekend.

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I'm glad we could hang out, and the b'day cake you bought was super yummy! Thanks for that.

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Anyway, back to my writing!


It kept me exactly a month to do so, but I managed to finish the story I wanted to gift Ronoxym for his 30th. The whole process was a bit exhausting, and I feel like I exposition-dumped a touch in order to explain the world enough in this short story. So it's by no means the same caliber as the professional Urban Fantasy stories Ron likes to read. Regardless, I'm kind of excited for the world I built and the characters I created - although I fear Colton and Zetelica's voices aren't different enough??? - so I'll have to slot this world build away for a potential continuation.

Right along side the Gyateara stories and "Glitches"....

OH! Quick side note with regards to Gyateara. I mentioned last week that Hubby used the site donjon to help him quickly create a dungeon and NPCs for the "one-off" D&D session he ran for us. Well, as Hubby was poking around, he found a Random World Generator on that site. You can either input or randomize the following features, and let the generator do the rest:

• World Name
• Map Style: Atlas vs Antique
• Map Font: choose from 8 options
• Percentage of water on the planet surface
• Percentage of polar ice caps
• Geography: Yes or No
• This adds labels for things like 'mountains' or 'forests' or 'desert' etc.
• Rivers: Yes, No, or Many
• Cities and Castles: Yes, No, or Many
• Hex Grid: Yes or No
• Label Map: Yes or No

It takes about three minutes or so - depending on the internet connection - for the site to take your data and generate a world map. This isn't going to be the final one, but here's an example I quickly generated for Gyateara.

The main issue I have with this generator is that it doesn't seem to really break up
the main land mass into separate continents. So it would be more of a guide than the
official map, I think.

If you chose to have the generator create castles and cities for you, there's also a listing of what they're called and where to find them on your map.

So it's a really neat tool, and I'll have to spend some time playing around with it a little bit. At the very least, it's a nice way to randomly generate coastlines I can shift around to make continents, and come up with location names.

Likewise, I've watched 3 different YouTube videos this week who had World Anvil as their sponsor. I poked around a little bit after creating a free account. It seems like a great place to ORGANIZE everything, and it is so detailed with how much you can break down everything.

You can break each section down even
further into subsections.

However, there doesn't seem to be any image makers or generators, so donjon might be the best free option so far. I'll have to take everything into consideration when I get back to Gyateara, and even to help me organize Glitches, I think.

But back to my point!

My glorious point is that, along with Gyateara and Glitches, I now have this new urban fantasy supernatural story. The best bit is that the world-build is mostly done now - so it has a leg-up on any and all Gyateara stories - AND it is a story with only one or two main characters and potentially a completable story arc. Which is something I really struggle with for Glitches, which, due to its origins, has more of a serial series storyline and about a 14-character central cast.

Thanks to Ron and my desire to come up with something for his big 3-0, I may have found at least a foothold for my first ever marketable original story! I'm so friggen excited about this thing!

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Granted, I have had no comments on the story even though I published it on Friday. I also only have 52ish hits - I don't know how many people SEE my Tumblr post; just those who react to it - and but one fave. But it's an original story, so it's to be expected. My fanfiction followers on FFN and AO3 wouldn't get a notification that I have original content up. I'm also not nearly established enough in the Miraculous Ladybug or Fruits Basket fandoms for people to probably care about original content I publish to Tumblr. On top of that, because I do have the main character Colton get super stressed and drop the f-bomb a couple of times, I had to mark the story Mature on DA and FictionPress. I just don't know where the "course language" cut-off is between Teen and Mature, and I wanted to be safe.

So, it stings, but I get it. I don't have a platform set up for original content yet, and considering how infrequently I come up with something original, I don't know how long it will take to build it up.

However, a lot of you lovely people seem to be my fanfiction readers, so here's your heads up, in case you were interested and didn't previously know.

"Blame Fate for This"

On FictionPress       On DeviantArt       On Tumblr

Colton has noticed the same woman following him every day for the past two months. However, when he tries to get away from his stalker things get way more complicated than he could imagine. He has powers no living creature is supposed to possess, and only Fate can figure out what that means for both Colton and the world.

Eh, maybe my summary for this short story isn't eye-catching enough.... Or the title? I'm just so bad at these things, and I was kind of rushing those elements on Friday in order to make sure I hit my self-imposed deadline. Anyway, the story is about 6700 words long, just an FYI.

As I mentioned above, I haven't really had much notice/love for this story yet. On Tumblr the only note I've received thus far was a bot-account liking it. I really need to delete that note, but I'm still waiting for Tumblr to fix my access to my account activity log in order to do so.

Over on FictionPress I've had 4 hits, but nothing else. No comments, no faves, and no follows.

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On the other hand, DeviantArt has had 48 hits and one fave. And this time the fave looks like it's actually a person! Whoot!

It's a slow grind, but I'm content with the story, even if it's little more than a jumping point for a larger story. Plus, at least one other person seems to like it. No mention from Ron, but it IS 6700 words, and he is a busy guy with ADHD, so I don't know if he's had the time/focus/energy to sit down with it yet.

Regardless, the thing to focus on is that I WROTE AN ORIGINAL STORY IN A MONTH! COMPLETELY FROM SCRATCH! The actual writing of the thing actually summed up to only about a dozen days or so. I don't know about you, but I'm impressed.

Small life victories, guys. Also, added bonus: the story is thematically appropriate for Halloween, so it's a great October story, if I do say so myself.


In the end, no matter what else becomes of this short story - and yes, it's less than 7500 words, so it IS still considered a short story by most writing sites/publishers - I at least have gears in motion for an original novel idea. And I reminded myself that I CAN come up with original content; I'm not just some parrot who skillfully mimics the work of others. So, it was totally worth the effort.

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Speaking of my fanfiction, however, the stats for my Kyoru stuff have steadily increased this past week.

Reminder of my stats from last week:

FFN: 466 views, 5 faves, 5 followers, and 8 reviews
AO3: 418 hits, 31 kudos, 2 bookmarks, and 17 comments
DA: 138 views, 4 faves, but no comments

Total Results: 1022 views, 40 faves, 7 followers, and 25 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 201 notes; 151 likes, 37 reblogs, and 3 comments

And now the stats as of this writing:

FFN: 648 views, 6 faves, 6 followers, and 10 reviews
AO3: 510 hits, 40 kudos, 4 bookmarks, and 17 comments
DA: 181 views, 5 faves, but no comments

Total Results: 1339 views, 51 faves, 10 followers, and 27 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 248 notes; 170 likes, 46 reblogs, and 3 comments

Now, granted, if you add up the Tumblr Notes the total is actually 219; 212 if you don't count the seven times the KyoruWeek2019 event blog reblogged my stories. I personally don't count them because those reblogs had nothing to do with whether or not the moderator actually liked my stuff; the stories were tagged for the event, and so the blog shared it. Getting back to the notes discrepancy though, three of those over-all notes were my responses to the 3 comments, and for some reason I have 26 "missing" notes. My Day 6 story says it has 25 notes, but only 24 are listed. Same with my Day 5 story: it says it has 41 notes, but only 40 are shown. The big head scratcher is my Day 2 story. That one claims to have 73 notes, but when you go through the breakdown of the notes it only has 49 listed, including my one response to the comment. I have no clue why 24 notes are missing. Maybe those are people who saved the story to their drafts, so it's not officially reblogged yet? Is that how Tumblr works? In which case, I'm screwing up the notes count on a LOT of Tumblr posts.

Anyway, I'm fairly certain those 26 notes were "missing" last week as well, which means I received 47 new notes over this past week. Not too shabby considering the event is over, so there aren't really any new promotions for my stuff. Plus the KyoruWeek blog has since shared a bunch of generic Kyo and Tohru stuff from the season 2 trailer and/or the manga.

OH! Speaking of shipping week events, I want to make sure I don't forget this again! Last week I went on about my own writing for so long - which, I guess is reasonable; since this is my writing blog and all - that I totally forgot to promote Cyhyr's latest. Just as I finished with Kyoru week, she started up Sylvix Week. It's a ship for the Fire Emblem: Three Houses characters Sylvain and Felix. You can check out her week of stories here: Sylvix Week 2019 I don't personally see the ship, but Cyhyr does such a great job with these stories that I don't even care about canonical evidence. They're adorable together the way she writes them.

Also, Taurus Pixie, via her blog, had suggested the Miraculous Ladybug story The Lonely Waltz by her friend ChibiRinni. Holy smokes, that story got me worked up. It was MariChat, pining for Ladrien, singing and waltzing, and talk about really SEEING the person one is in love with. Marinette mentally beats herself up over breaking Chat Noir's heart, and Chat Noir wants to punch the guy Marinette is pining over for not seeing how amazing she is. I was just this giant ball of energy after I finished reading. So, go! Read it! It's about 8000 words long, but I've conditioned you by now to be able to breeze through that no problem.


I've also found two awesome Fruits Basket fics that were promoted during Kyoru Week. First up was the one-shot Written on your skin by palamig. There's spoilers for the second half of the manga, but it is delightful angst and fluff. The long and short is that a student asks Kyo if he'd mind if the student asked Tohru out on a date. That night, while studying with Tohru, Kyo unintentionally shows off his jealousy with a pen. It's lovely, and Kyo and Tohru are written so well. AAAh! If you don't care about spoilers or you know the ending of the manga, you should go read it.

The other fanfic I found is a touch naughty. It's post-manga, and Tohru and Kyo are living alone far from any "adult supervision." They attempt to get a bit more intimate, but the mood is always interrupted somehow. It's got that same great "will they; won't they" tension, which is an awesome twist of the trope for an already established couple. It's called In Every Light That Shines and it's by crossingandromeda.

My final reading suggestion actually should have been promoted weeks ago. That webcomic about Hades and Persephone that I've been talking about off and on for the past year? Well the first chapter was officially published to Webtoon at the beginning of the month. So, please give Punderworld by Linda Sejic a try. The artwork is so pretty, and the story seems excellent, based on that first chapter and the teasers we've received all year.

Check out the full-quality and unmarked image here.

Again, I know I shouldn't be reposting work without the creator's permission, but I want to showcase her artwork, and I hope by putting on those intrusive watermarks it helps mitigate my faux pas. At least this way if someone finds her work via a Google search and stumbles upon this repost they know where to find the clean version....

Please don't yell at me, but I WILL remove all reposted artwork if the artists request it.

Tanuki Facebook sticker
by Yanare Ku

Anyway....

Aside from finishing up that original story for Ron, I've also broken back into One and the Same finally! I took a two-day breather after basically writing daily for the past two weeks or so, and then yesterday I cracked open my OatS folder. I've mostly gone back through everything I've written already, in order to put myself in that mindset again. I've also decided that a 3000-word "chapter" I've written has no true drama to it. It doesn't push the story forward, so I'm going to instead recap that scene in another chapter and "scrap" what I have.

It hurts to "kill my darlings," as it were, but it hurts less knowing that I'm planning a sort of "deleted scenes" collection after OatS is fully published. That way people can see the alternate scenes I've written before changing POV or scene order, the scenes that aren't told in either Adrien's or Marinette's perspective so they don't fit the overall narrative, and the scenes I like but don't fit in the story without bogging it down. Such as the one I just completed yesterday before realizing it has to be scrapped.

Planning that post-OatS project really eases the pain of all that "wasted time/energy" or the hurt of "this is really awesome, and I love how I wrote it; but it just doesn't work for this story." It also gives me freedom to play with point-of-view, narration, and describing the "mundane" scenes to better help me solidify the story I'm telling. None of it will be wasted effort. First and foremost, it wouldn't be wasted anyway, because it would all help me improve and better build the main story. However, it now has that secondary benefit of also still seeing the light of day when all is said and done.

I still need to figure out my akumas for November, and I still have that tricky middle where I want to build up the MariChat relationship, but I have to make sure the story still pushes forward while doing so. In other words: I have a lot to figure out still.

In the meantime, I may take another time out to attempt to draw my new Dragonborn D&D character Kriv. However, my main focus between now and November 1st is to finish going back through what I have of OatS so far, and prep for NaNo.

I also need to get some "Halloween Movies" in for the month! How have I not watched Sweeney Todd or Little Shop of Horrors or Rocky Horror Picture Show or Hocus Pocus or any of the Underworld movies or even Ernest Scared Stupid yet this year?

I'm such a slacker...

At least I have my costume situated. I'm glad I was able to find one that actually fit me. The straps are a little loose but are otherwise fine.

It looks amazing alongside Hubby's Steampunk costume. Plus, the Steampunk goggles Hubby got me for Christmas have a blue tint to them, so they also work really well with this costume. The only real concern I have is the choker Hubby also got me for Christmas. It looks amazing, but the lacing is so wide and my neck is small with all the extra chunk I've put on over the years, it looks a touch awkward on me. I'll have to see if I'm actually going to be able to wear it or if I'll have to pull and audible and hope Hubby won't feel like he wasted money on his gift.

Either way, I was able to find a costume that fit after all, and presumably it will also fit when I start to loose wait; at least, for a little while. So yay to that as well!

Who's ready for Halloween to get here already?

Found years ago via Google Image.
Most search results are not in English so it's hard
to track down the original artist. Sorry.
Please let me know if you know who designed this.

Car Craziness

Hey, everyone! Just wanted to start off by saying

Me as a Bitmoji

No real writing done this week YET. AGAIN.

Granted, that is largely because I've been working on figuring out the insurance stuff - spoilers: it did NOT get sorted out last Tuesday - and checking to see how much it would cost to get the body work done on my car.

I've been to the police station to petition for a copy of the accident report once it's done.... which it isn't yet. Apparently it takes roughly two weeks for an accident report to be completed. I've set myself up with a new insurance company... long story I won't get into. I've gone to one collision center that gave me the top estimate of "only brand new parts for that specific vehicle from that specific maker." He seemed to know what he's doing, and I trust his skills, buuuut, he himself was being very unprofessional while I was there. The next collision center was a bit of a disaster with the owner grumbling about how crappy new cars are, and how he couldn't give me a proper estimate without taking the front off my car first, and then he slammed my hood shut... which dislodged my headlight further and wouldn't let my hood actually latch...


He also gave me the low-ball estimate of "probably going to use all refurbished parts, and I couldn't see everything without taking off the front" which was about half of the quote the first guy gave me.

Needless to say, I am NOT going to that second guy.

Thankfully, my manager at work knew of another collision center in the next town over, and let me leave work early so I could get an estimate before they closed for Memorial Day weekend. I have to say, I am DEFINITELY going with these last guys, as long as their estimate doesn't come back as more than the first guy's.

See, I don't have the estimate quite yet.... I got there with about a half-hour before the collision center closed. They took pictures for insurance purposes, and checked everything out to see what I would need replaced. They didn't have the time to look up prices for the pieces, though - hence me not having the quote yet - because they were a bit more concerned with a couple of other things.

As I mentioned, the headlight got dislodged further while the second repair guy was pulling and shifting things to see around the front bumper to see what needed replacing. Which meant the inside of my hood looked like this.

The back of the headlight was now resting on my fuse box and was preventing the hood from closing all the way. The cracks in the headlight were now at the perfect angle to catch the rain we had been having off and on all week, so some water was already pooled inside a touch.

Also, with all the not-so-gentle tugging on the front bumper, it was now significantly off the main body of the car. When I drove my Cruze to the third collision place, since I'd be on the road for about ten minutes or so, going about 50mph (80kph) on the stretch of road connecting the two towns, I thought I'd be smart and bungie everything together. I have a whole package of those mini-bungies that are only about 3 or 4 inches long (~8cm). I latched two from the hood to the body, making sure to lace through the bumper as well to try to hold everything together.

The guys at the collision center were not fans of my ingenuity....

They were afraid the bungies wouldn't hold. The bumper could fall off the front too quickly for me to stop, so I'd run it over; popping my tires and/or tearing my undercarriage apart. Or I could cause an accident. Oooor, the bungies would fail and my hood would come flying back at me, smashing in my windshield, possibly dislodging and destroying my roof, or even get me into another accident. Then there was the headlight problem: it could scrape the fuse box and damage that, at the very least abandoning me with no electricity to my car, at worse it could spark an electrical fire. Plus, the water pooling in the headlight could also cause a short. The turn signal wasn't working either, or the fog lamp... and I have no horn to warn people....

They were NOT going to let me leave with the car like that. So, instead of pricing up my quote for me, they - completely of their own accord; free of charge - spent the next half-hour banging out the dent a little on the one fender so the headlight could lay in it properly. They also JUST finished repairing another 2015 Cruze that was hit on the left side by a deer. So they had a "replacement" headlight. It's not a permanent fix since this light is cracked as well, but the bulbs still work and the crack isn't so bad as to allow water inside. So it's a better option for safety reasons.

Also, don't worry, all of this work was after they took the pictures for the insurance company, and the original headlight is in my trunk in case the adjuster needs to see it in person.

They also managed to easily pop my blinker back in place and snap my bumper back on. Now, my bumper is in place, my hood closes, my fuse box is clear, and my lights work! Still need to get the actual parts replaced, but it's a good tide-me-over until I can get that police report and finally get some pay out from insurance.

Headlight from other Cruze that was hit by a deer

Bumper popped back into place and hood fully closed!

I felt really safe knowing these guys were looking out for me. Even if it was a ploy to try to win my business, it worked. Customer service will win you clients most of the time...

So that's been MY week for the most part. That, and being so mentally drained from this whole nightmarish rollercoaster that I just zone out on the couch when I am home.

There was really no way I would get my mind to work well enough for quality writing.

I DID manage to finally finish part 2 of my Meet My OCs series over on Tumblr. I had meant to post the first three in the series - all of the Real Life Inspirational Backstory stuff - on Sunday the 19th, when I posted the first part. When that didn't happen, I meant to post part 2 - the Real Life inspiration for all of my Gyateara main characters - on Monday or Tuesday. Some time relatively close to the original post. That also didn't happen.

So I figured, "I know! It will be a weekly series! I'll post part 2 on Sunday!"

Bitmoji

Missed that too. So yesterday I was DETERMINED to get this post done and published before it got any later. I hid out on the front porch, enjoying the sunshine for an hour or two after work, and COMPLETED PART 2! Yay!

Who Wants to Meet My OCs? (Part 2 - Gyateara)

In case you aren't sure what I'm talking about, what I started doing on Tumblr is give the background, and eventually I'll give the actual bios, of my original characters. I've wanted to do this since November, and I'm finally pulling the trigger on it. Part 1 talked about my inspiration for the two main story worlds I'm working with: Gyateara and "Glitches".

Part 2 talks about the real-world inspiration for each of my Gyateara characters. Things that wouldn't show up in their character bios. Things like Amara being my first D&D character and based off a mini Hubby had given me when we were dating. Or Natalie and Connor each being hodge-podge meshes of cliched anime protagonists. Or Jolene being my longest-running D&D character who also inspired my first winning NaNoWriMo story.

So, if you want the full details on those four lovely characters, check out my Part 2 of my Meet My OCs series. I'm going to try REALLY HARD to get Part 3 properly done for a Sunday update over on Tumblr, but I'll be sure to link here on next week's blog as well.

Biscuit Facebook sticker
by Ghostbot

I did manage to get more reading in this week, though. Taurus Pixie had her latest chapter of "Chat Vert" up yesterday, and I quickly devoured it. We finally get to see Adrien's perspective of what's happened so far. We also get to see his jealous, borderline possessive, tendencies whenever he sees Ladybug with another man. That man, of course, is the amazing Luka. So... his nervousness about losing Ladybug to Luka is quite justified. Just... not EXACTLY the way he's thinking.

Anyway... go check out the story!

In the meantime, I haven't written anything fictional all month. I've slacked off a touch once, I don't want to do so again. I guess that means this week's goal is to write up a nice one-shot to finish the month off with. Anyone have any suggestions?

Oh! And I used some of my "I'm doing brainless activities to zen out" time this past week to go through my Bitmoji app and save just about every image I could find that MIGHT be valid to use on this blog at some point or another. I think I have over 200 images. So, you'll be seeing a lot more of Cartoon Me from now on.

Bitmoji

Writing Them Scenes!

This week was a lot better than previous ones! I'm still completely slacking off with my reading, having gone nearly a full month now without reading anything.

Then again, I read Jowy's Pixie's 50,000+ fanfic a couple of weeks back, so maybe I'm not slacking as much as I claim.

Anyway, this past week finally saw me writing a significant amount of prose again. Yay! Well, sort of yay... Considering I'm writing "One and the Same" during NaNo this year. So I either have to re-write everything I've done this past week, or "cheat" during NaNo by utilizing it. I could do my age-old "surpass 50,000 words by the amount I've brought into NaNo" to make myself feel like I didn't cheat....

It's only an extra 8500 words... I can totally handle that... right?

I mean, OatS is probably going to be another 80,000+ story anyway. I should be fiiiiiiine.


So, let's talk about those 8500 words I'd be bringing with me into NaNo.

It all started when I was working on the chapter Announcement for "Peeping Tomcat." I had Adrien asking Alya for Marinette's phone number, but it just didn't work for the story I was currently telling. I realized it would be an adorable add to OatS, so I tucked it to the side and reworked that scene for PT.

The scene still has Adrien talking about the soup his friends gifted him, so I need to rewrite and rework a large portion of it, but as it stands, I'm bringing in 1126 words from that scene.

Then, only a few days after posting the last chapter of PT, I was haunted by the ending of OatS. Not the true ending, but the All Is Lost moment. The scene where Marinette finds out that Chat Noir was spying on her in "Peeping Tomcat" and he knows she's Ladybug. She did NOT handle it well. The scene is only dialogue right now, but it is still 1369 words! Wait until I get description and inner reflection into that baby!

Last week I gave up on outlining techniques and just let Adrien recap PT for me in order to figure out where he was in his headspace. That scene is 2380 words long, but it's kind of wandering and needs to be tightened up.

Then there was what I wrote this past weekend.

I wasn't sure how Adrien was going to FINALLY figure out Marinette is boarderline obsessed with him, but I knew I was leaning towards the pictures in her room. Especially since I have the episode "Troublemaker" as a great reference on how he would react to such a discovery.

So... in short... I wrote the Crush Reveal from "Troublemaker" from the point of view of a Marinette and Chat Noir friendship taking an awkward turn one night when he visits her. It went kind of deep into their relationship, views of each other, and own self-esteem issues.

It ended up as 3666 words meandering through "Holy crow, she has a crush on me" to "No, I'm just studying the pictures because I like fashion" to "I'm nervous I'm not good at fashion, and I'm meeting my idol soon, and I'm afraid what he's going to tell me" to "You're amazing, Marinette, and these are just a few reasons why" bouncing back to "Ladybug is amazing, and this is why I love her; it's not just flirting" to "Why haven't you told Adrien you like him" to "I've tried, but I can't talk to him and when I tried writing a letter I forgot to sign it" to "Holy crow! Marinette wrote the unsigned valentine!?" to "Wait, so Marinette has had a crush on me since day one!? Me!?" and finally to "why not try telling him one last time you love him. I could help. *wink*"

It's all over the place, but I think I unpackaged quite a bit. I just need to find a way to spread it out throughout the story so it doesn't get completely dumped in this one 7-page scene.

It does help when I come across posts on Tumblr requesting for Adrien to freak out more when he figures out Marinette is Ladybug, and reasons why he should freak.

I mean, I had him freak, but not quite to the extreme as these requests. It makes me pause, and has me think that maybe poor Adrien needs to go through another freak out.

You can check out the great reasoning behind Adrien having an even bigger freak out than I gave him here. The long and short? Marinette is actually WAY more awesome and intimidating than Ladybug, and Adrien feels SHE is out of HIS league. The concept is amazing, and I'm a bit envious that I didn't think of it.

Point is, his initial "Oh, I'm so screwed now that I know my crush is on Marinette" freak out is done and over with. However, in the scene I wrote this weekend I did try to invert the freak out the Tumblr poster came up with. Instead of "Shoot, I like MARINETTE of all people!? How do I have a chance?" I gave Adrien a mini existential crisis when he finds out that she likes him back: "Like... WHY!? What's so special about ME that someone as amazing as Marinette would like me?" The kid's fatal flaw is his lack of self-esteem and lack of self-worth. Another Tumblr post actually went into great depth about how any and all of Adrien's and/or Chat Noir's bad behaviors can be traced back to his inability to come up with his own self-worth; he registers his value based on what others think of him. Anyway, I'm getting a bit off topic here....

I might go back and write a fanfic of my fanfic where I rewrite the chapter Crisis to better include the freak-out points from that original Tumblr post. Simply because they're beautiful and, as I said, I'm a bit mad at myself that I didn't think of them!

In the meantime, I think all of these scenes I've written has helped me figure out where I want to really go with "One and the Same." Ironically, writing out the scenes is helping me outline the story better.... I had a feeling it was going to work like that, which is why I started writing scenes in the first place. Get the major plot points I know I need to have in the story out of the way, then use the outline to figure out how they all fit together in the overall story.

Next up will be the birth of the MariChat friendship: Chat Noir finding Marinette at the Trocadero as she freaks out about her designs and future meet-up with Gabriel Agreste, which also ties in the conclusion of PT where Adrien is bringing some of her drawings to his dad.

I need to get a feel for how Chat Noir is going to organically work his way into Marinette's life while still keeping his promise to not spy on her anymore. This scene will be the tricky one. This one, and the actual conclusion when Marinette finds out Chat Noir is Adrien. Tricky, tricky scenes.

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

Alternatively, yesterday morning I had a bizarre dream. I can't really recall much of it anymore, but it lingers right on the edge of my consciousness. Something about a wizard king and his consort, and the king needing to marry for alliance reasons, which makes his consort justifiably peeved, but she's not his wife anyway, and no one says they can't still be together after the Marriage of Convenience, so... fair game? Also, the male lead in my dream - not the king or his consort - grew up in the world of magic, so he knows how it works, but he can't wield magic for whatever reason. A theme that's been coming up in a lot of books I've been reading and/or shows I've been watching. Anyway, the king's consort is actually from a parallel world - our world - but she CAN wield magic, so the male lead has been training her.

It's a bit jumbled, but I do vaguely remember that much, so maybe there's something there for an original idea? Something that I might be able to tie into my Gyateara stories? So I might bounce around with that idea now and again as a bit of a palate cleanser whenever I'm stuck with OatS progress.

I should probably also get back into reading something other than Tumblr in order to get more ideas. On top of that, I do have those brainstorming sessions with Rozsavaria, so maybe something will pop there too. She seems to be making ground with her story, so that's cool. Having a bunch of friends and family ask her questions and try to poke holes in her world build seems to really help her figure out how to plug those holes, and the story keeps growing because of that. I'm excited she's making progress. Now I just need to do the same with my story.

Half way through September, let's get this NaNo-prep started!

Of course, I can't post today without wishing a happy b'day to my Wonder Twin! So here's hoping Ronoxym is enjoying his day, but knowing him he'll be a busy bee today zipping around doing errands or going to classes before heading off to work. Regardless, Happy Birthday, Bro!

But, as much as I love Ron, there's an even bigger b'day today! Can we all give a shout out to ChibiSunnie celebrating her big 3-0!? Huge happy birthday to you, hun! I hope you can find some rest and relaxation today, you deserve it. Sending all the love.

Have a super-duper awesome birthday, Chibi!
You've earned it. <3

These two are totally the same coin - must be the birth date - because they don't seem to know how to slow down between work, home obligations, and school. So I wish both of them at least a little bit of time today to just rest and enjoy their day. Love you both loads!

All the Reveal Stories!

It's.... been a trying week. I only managed 1800 words last week; only two writing days. I squeezed in a short burst before writing group, although I didn't end up reading anything. I then finished put-off errands on Wednesday, followed by a mad-dash on Thursday to try to clean my apartment at least a LITTLE before my mother's arrival.

She came up Friday, and we spent it going over her business. Saturday was a long, and I mean LONG, day organizing my dining room/secondary room. We have a few more last-minute things to do to finish, but it's mostly dropping off trash and donations. I should have it done by the end of today, so I'll be sure to post pictures next week. Anyway, after putting in my eight-plus hours of near-straight work, I finished the night trying to get more than 600 words in for the week.

Where I'm at, Adrien is wrestling with his feelings: does he love Marinette for Marinette, or does he only have feelings for Ladybug that spills over to Marinette? If he only has feelings for Marinette because she's Ladybug, does that mean he doesn't truly have feelings for Ladybug after all? The poor kid is so confused, but I couldn't get into the right mindset. Thankfully, a song that played at work gave me the spark of inspiration I needed.

Because of "Crush" by David Archuleta, I was able to knock out almost 1200 words before I had to call it quits Saturday night. It was a nice mini-spurt of writing, but I wasn't able to get any more in on Sunday.

While I was at work yesterday I did take some downtime to write some more, just to avoid all of these zero days piling up on me. I didn't continue telling the story, and I didn't really add all that much to the parts that I already wrote. All-in-all, my writing at work wasn't even 400 words, but it still was something. It wasn't a zero.

What I did accomplish was the start of editing the first half of the story. I decided that will be my goal while at work. It takes a little less effort, so it's easier to jump in and out of the process, depending on when I'm needed. It also really helps, as editing tends to be, because it allots me time to clean up some of the paragraphs that were clunky when I originally wrote them during the summer challenge; leaving my out-of-work writing time available for continuing the story. I'm also adding a bit more depth with these edits, now that I know this story needs it. I'm probably going to go over the story yet again to slow the pace further in order to add even more meat to the tale, and then break it into chapters.

For now, though, I'm just working on getting the main body of the story fleshed out. I'll chapter it later, once I have the first draft fully written.

While at work, I'm also cleaning up characterization. There have already been a few paragraphs scrapped and rewritten so Adrien and Marinette stay more in-character. I'll have to find time for another rewatch to solidify that I have them written right. That's the main issue of watching all these fancomic dubs: I'm being flooded by how others interpret the characters and the character's voices; which is overshadowing the canonical portrayals.

On the plus side, though, I'm really picking up on a lot of patterns that the fandom has thought of in regards to the Big Reveal of Chat Noir and Ladybug's true identities. There are some that I love and want to try to include - such as Adrien's confusion about his feelings, since us fans believes he has started to have a crush on Marinette anyway - as well as some I know I want to avoid - such as Marinette freaking out that Chat Noir is disappointed that she's Ladybug because she feels that she's a loser.

I kind of want to do something similar to "You've Got Mail" I think. Adrien will use Marinette's crush on him to convince her how great Chat Noir is so that she falls for the "true" version of him. I'm not 100% sold on this idea, and I still have to get past Adrien's shock over who Ladybug is, but it could be fun.

On the flipside, while messing with Adrien's head over his crush for Marinette is fun, the "You've Got Mail" thing works better if Marinette knew first. Mainly because Marinette already likes the civilian form, so him showing her he's Chat Noir by powering up, and her giving the iconic "I hoped it was you" line just seems odd and reversed. Meanwhile, since Adrien has been actively looking for Ladybug, having her de-power to her civilian form is a lot more analogous of the anonymity of a pen pal being revealed when meeting in person for the first time. "I hoped it was you" works so much better when the mask is REMOVED instead of added.

On the other hand, I also really liked the reveal in "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman." Spoilers for anyone who hasn't watched the series, but wants to: skip to the next paragraph if you want to avoid them. Anyway, Lois volunteers to let Superman flash-freeze her so she appears dead, under the assumption that Superman could then use his heat vision to revive her once the villain is thwarted. Lois is dating Clark at this point, so when Superman lovingly brushes her cheek before freezing her Lois recognizes it as the same move Clark does all the time. Then, when Superman revives her Lois hears his voice and recognizes it as Clark before she opens her eyes and realizes it's Superman.

I kind of want to do something like that. Marinette and Ladybug are so similar to each other that the personality Marinette showcases as Ladybug seems to be the main thing throwing the world off; kind of like original Superman with his glasses. Clark is too meek to possibly be Superman, which, along with something "covering his eyes," is his only real "mask" to hide who he really is. This is nearly an exact parallel for Marinette and Ladybug. Therefore, I kind of like the idea of something traumatic triggering Adrien "hearing" Marinette when Ladybug talks, and then realizing who she is.

On the flipside, Adrien changes up his personality, his hair shags into a mildly different style, and he does change up his vocal inflections a touch as well - a trick both superheros do unintentionally, I'm sure, but it CAN be enough to also fool people. Between the two of them, Adrien to Chat Noir is a much more drastic change, and so I could see how it would be harder for Marinette to figure out who he is. Plus, it's a lot easier to believe there are multiple teen males with shaggy blonde hair, since Adrien's eyes are also changed completely green to match the cat-look. It's a lot harder to rationalize that in Paris there are tons of teen girls wearing their black-hair in pigtails, while also having blue eyes. So, this might get us back to the original "You've Got Mail" situation of Chat Noir using his Adrien half to convince Marinette to love both sides of him.

I might have to write multiple Reveal fanfics and see which one the fans prefer.


Thanks to a college friend, I'm now part of a fanfiction group on Facebook, so I might have to see if any of them are into Miraculous. It is an 18+ group, but who knows? Maybe some wholesome child's cartoon fanfiction is just the palate cleanser they need.

Either way, with the second season coming out in November, I might have the readers regardless. I just hope they don't actually do a Big Reveal scene this upcoming season, because there's no way I'll have any of these stories done before November, and it's more fun to write these fanfics when it's still a mystery as to how the show will do it.

I mean, after how "Lois and Clark" did their reveal, it just seemed too perfect to mess with it. It wouldn't be fun to rewrite that story. It's much like the "Hey, Arnold!" fanscript I want to try to finish before November; it's a race to get my own vision out before the canonical version is revealed.

Who knows, though? I might win the race!

Thanks to the massive hard work my mother put in over the weekend, I now have my library back, so I have my writing hide-away again. I also have much easier access to my journals for all my notes. On top of that, I can now get to the binders I have set up for Gyateara's world creation, and the outline for What Is Truly Meant To Be. So I might be able to get back to working on each of those starting in January, after the projects I already have planned are completed.

It is WORLDS easier to find what I need, and know where everything should go, after my mother re-arranged and re-organized this place, which also means I SHOULD need to dedicate less time in cleaning every week. Want to guess what I might do with that new free time? Anyone guess more writing? Okay, maybe some video game playing again.... but mainly MORE WRITING AVAILABILITY!

2017 may have been a slow-start/sucky year, but 2018 already is shaping up to be promising. It's always the even years....

I'm A Camper!

Is it weird that it sounds weird to call it "Independence Day"?

Sorry for the day-late update. Took a lazy day, so I slept in a bit. It was an American holiday - THE American holiday - it was the first week in months that we have enough people at work for us to have TWO days off a week, I got today off as well, creating a rare "weekend" for me, plus, I actually wrote this week. I think I earned my delayed post. Plus, we had Shadow surprise us late yesterday morning - Hubby had invited him over for festivities, but we were expecting around 1pm - and then we took an impromptu trip to Ronoxym and Cyhyr's home for a grill-out get-together. Yesterday just didn't offer itself to be a good "stop and write something" day.

But let's talk about the day I DID write. It's not much, and I slacked off the rest of the week thus far, but on Sunday I buckled down and wrote out the startings of a story.

Well, technically I started out on the ending of a story. I'll get to that later. First, how I FINALLY got out of my slump.

Mouse commented on Facebook about a week or two ago how she was prepping for a month-long challenge she put forth to herself. She then mentioned that coincidentally it's the same month as Camp NaNoWriMo. She was also a bit shocked because she didn't know that Camp NaNoWriMo is a thing.

It was created in 2011 and was, I believe, originally designed as a way to encourage young writers to keep writing during the summer months outside of school. There were two monthly sessions: July and August. The following year it was June and August. Then, in 2013, they decided to spread out the NaNo months to November being the main event, then Camp in April and July. This was partially to fill the void in April left behind by the not-as-successful Script Frenzy event while still having one Camp in the summer.

Thing is, I was still stuck in the mindset of the first two years where Camp NaNoWriMo was in August, so I didn't even realize Camp time was upon us.

Much like NaNo, I have known of their Camp version for years, but I've never actually participated. So, when Mouse commented that it would occur in July, coinciding with her own private month-long writing challenge, I was tempted to give it a whirl.

Maybe a challenge would be my push to get me back into writing? It's always helped when Ali Luke ran challenges over at Writers’ Huddle. I wasn't sure I was ready for a NaNo challenge, though, because I really had no clue what to write. I had no new story idea to start. No desire to continue an existing one. Yes, Camp was a much simpler version of NaNo. It's sometimes considered "NaNo Lite" because there are no forums - although there are mini-forums called "cabins" where 19 participants are gathered as "cabin mates" and can talk among themselves - and there isn't that 50,000 word goal. Participants set their own writing goals, be it the normal 50,000 or as little as 31 - one word a day just to get yourself writing ANYTHING.

Mouse poked me a couple of times the last few days of June. With her encouragement, I bit the bullet and signed up. I had no clue what to write, and I still had no desire for anything. Still, I went with a modest 10,000 words this month. It's not much, but it's a heck of a lot more than what I've written the entirety of spring. The trick then was to figure out what to write this month. All I knew was that, regardless what I decided on, I had committed myself to 10,000 words.

I started off with the idea of getting back into world building. I've been kind of stalled with "Glitches" so maybe go back to Gyateara? I haven't done much with The Divine Legends in years. Maybe I could do another legend per day throughout the month. Thirty-one new deity myths each running only about 300 words each. Heck, I knew I wouldn't be able to write that succinctly, so why not make it 15 deities at about 600 words each?  Or 10 at 1000 words? Then the world-build stall settled in. I still had no clue what to even come up with for the legends. Creation of the world? The reason certain laws are in place? What happened when the deities didn't keep their truce about staying isolated within the realms they created? The possibilities were so endless I was overwhelmed. Then I thought "I should probably work backwards: create the world first and come up with the legends when needed."

So, Legends wasn't really an option. It was closing in on midnight on June 30th; I didn't have the time to figure out my map or any of the other stuff in order to have enough to build legends around.

I was signed up. It was July 1st. I still had no desire to write anything. My one idea quickly petered out. What was I going to do?

Then I remembered Mouse's challenge to me. I had told her that I'm becoming more and more like my Wonder Twin Ronoxym; I was distracted by shiny new story ideas and never seemed to END any story. Even with my short stories, they were always scenes. Completed scenes, but not ones with "endings." More story could be told about any of these tales.

So, now back to what I started this update with: "Well, technically I started out on the ending of a story."

This is thanks to Mouse's encouragement again. I was commenting about how I was on the edge about joining Camp NaNo, but my wavering was because didn't know what to write. My inner editor was stopping each idea I had.

Mouse: You should try! Keep the goal realistic based off your schedule! Maybe it would spark something. And punch your inner critic in the face. If this is what you want and what you love, then you just gotta run forward! Even if you give yourself like....a five page goal for the month, I bet you would feel a little better....
I have a challenge then. Write backwards! Start with some kind of conclusion first. 

So, now that I am signed up and couldn't think of a story, I went back to her challenge. Start with the ending. What did I want for an ending, though? I ended up missing July 1st because I still didn't know.

Then, as I was falling asleep after dropping Hubby off at work I had my idea. Apparently my muse only shows up after midnight....

And apparently the muse comes in the shape of Devon....

A few years back - late 2012/early 2013 - Hubby came up with a time skip on the X-Future board to try to jumpstart the game again. At the time, Ron wasn't very active, and so, since it seemed he was done playing, Hubby actually "killed off" Devon to sort of thin out the character list. After the fact, Ron stated he was still interested in the game. So, Hubby revived Devon, however, he still "died" first. It was an epic battle between Devon and his hated enemy Trish. I was supposed to write the actual story, but slacked off at the time. I've tried multiple times over the years to write the showdown, but nothing seemed quite right. I then paused to see if Ron wanted to co-write with me, and that never came to fruition. In the meantime, Hubby just had a generic "Devon and Nyssa went to this place, and presumably met their demise. Two Brotherhood members that appeared to be Lighter and Agony were seen fleeing the scene." He then also had a scene with the revived Devon where his throat was cut, he nearly died, he collapsed due to loss of blood, and was found by the mutant Kira, and became an amnesiac.

I think this challenge is the perfect time for me to finish this story, or rather, write it in the first place. I know where it ends: Devon's throat slit, Nyssa stuck inside a burning building, Trish thinking she's victorious in her defeat of her rival, and Agony there as back-up. Now, to work backwards.

I only wrote on the 2nd, but I'm already almost 1000 words in. Ron seems excited to see how things turn out. I might have him beta and edit for me before posting though, we'll see how it goes.

While I'm working on that this month, though, I promised you two writing practices to make up for me not finding my journal last week. I probably should have added a third story to also make up for the day-late update, but I didn't want to postpone any longer so I could type up and edit one more piece. Next week, guys!

This first story is under 500 words. It was when I first fell into my writing funk this spring. I went outside to re-embrace sunshine, listened to my wind chimes, and jotted this down. You could tell I was rusty. Whoo-boy, you should have seen the misspellings and "typos" in the journal. There were a couple of sentences there where I had no clue what I was trying to say. It was like my mind was trying to write three sentences at the same time! Hopefully I managed to clean it up to something readable though.

"Mountain Man"

On DeviantArt           On FictionPress

And for another treat, I'm back again with X-Future, and another Lia story at that. When I wrote this Lia put herself up on the roof of the mansion, and the story flowed fairly well, although Ripley seemed a touch out-of-character. Problem is, canonically speaking, Lia probably wouldn't run away to the roof because she gets sick the further she is from the ground.... soooooo, I had to figure out a new venue for the story. In doing so, I also had to rework how I introduced that they were at the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters. I also reworked Ripley a touch. When all was said and done, I basically rewrote the entire opening and ending to this story.

"Late Night"

On DeviantArt      On FictionPress       Also On FanFiction

Alright, well, again, a day belated, but to all Americans who read my blog:

Thus Ends 2016

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

I'd call it good.

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

So, what am I planning, anyway?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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