So, if this applies to you, then you be proud of who you are! If you broke firmly out of the closet, be loud and don't back down. There is nothing wrong with you.
If you are still closeted, maybe use this month to find the support you need to bust out and show the world who you really are. You don't need the stress of hiding and always wondering if someone else will out you. Come out on your terms.
Finally, if you're closeted, and prefer to stay that way, know that you're not weak, nor are you fighting against progress for equal rights. If anything, not being "out, proud, and loud" is MORE equal than anyone else. If I don't have to go around posting everywhere and telling everyone "I'm a cis-female who likes males" then why do you have to go around quantifying yourself? So, just chill in that closet if it makes you feel better. You can still be proud in there.
Also...
And now back to our regularly scheduled program.
I was in a bit of a funk over the weekend, which meant I pretty much read the entire time, instead of writing. Thankfully, a couple of days of moping, reading, snuggling the hubby, and sleeping - coupled with some really awesome reviews on "Peeping Tomcat" - helped perk me up. Although, it did leave me a bit behind on my editing.
Not that it really matters. First of all, I have the chapter at about 90% where I want it to be anyway. Secondly, apparently I'm a lazy bum that waits until the last second regardless.
Yeah, the latest chapter of PT was very much like the akuma attack in the previous one: working on the prep-work all week, but didn't start actually WRITING until Thursday. I even purposely neglected writing Wednesday by spending the whole evening playing Mario Odyssey with Hubby. We hadn't played a video game in a while; we needed a date night.
Waiting until Thursday - partially because I lost track of what day of the week I was on - meant another chapter where I wrote until I fell asleep at my laptop, woke up to go to bed, and then got up at like 6am Friday morning to get the finishing touches done. At least this week I had Friday off, so I could crash again once the story was up.
The major snafu this time was that Hubby needed a ride into work, and I needed to get some maintenance done on my car. My mechanic is basically in the same shopping plaza as Hubby's work, so I figured I'd drop him off, then the car.
Thing is, Hubby needed to be at work by 8am, and I really needed that extra half-hour until my normal 8:30am updating time in order to finish last-minute edits. I figured I could take my laptop with me, drop Hubby off, go into the store to use their wifi to finish updates and publish, and then drop the car off.
Which would have worked perfectly, and mostly did, if it weren't for the fact that the wifi randomly had Archive Of Our Own blocked. I could get onto FanFiction and DeviantArt easily enough to update the story there, but AO3 was just straight up blocked for some strange reason.
So I updated on FFN and DA before dropping off the car. I'd have to update on AO3 once I got home.
Thing is, the mechanic has a bit of a pathetic waiting area, no free wifi to connect to, and tends to get overwhelmed with the number of cars he has to get through, so he never knows how long anything is going to take.
In truth? He never touched my car on Friday. I had to grab it to do Friday evening runs - including going to a D&D session - and then drop it back off so he would have it first thing Saturday morning. Thankfully, Hubby was off Saturday, and I can walk to work.
The other issue was in regards to where the mechanic is in relation to my house. While Omnibladestrike agreed to follow us to the mechanic from our D&D session, so he could then bring us home after we dropped the car off, I didn't have anyone during the day who could follow me around.
So, after dropping the car off in the morning, I walked the mile home. Meaning it was a little after 9am before I had internet access again and could post the latest chapter of PT on AO3. And then I had to walk a mile back Friday evening to pick up my car for my evening errand runs.
I then had to walk back to the mechanic one last time on Saturday, while firmly in my funk, in order to pick the car up after work. FUN!
At least I got some exercise in, right? Gave me time to ponder the rest of the story and what I need to do to finish it up before getting to work on the sequel. Something I'll talk about more in a minute, but first, how about I share the latest chapter of "Peeping Tomcat" with you guys?
My original draft of the story had the latest chapter as the closing portion of the akuma attack chapter. However, Terravenger was running a bit long, and where I stopped just seemed fitting.
I was wondering if I should then inflate this 10th chapter to the normal 3000-word minimum the rest of my story has had thus far, but it didn't feel right. I didn't want to add fluff just for the sake of word counts. I mean, I re-hit my NaNo goal as it is. This chapter didn't even have 2000 words, and I am now up to 50,696 words overall. With five more chapters to go until I'm done. At LEAST five more; I might have to expand again depending on how the edits go.
So, to not add words just for the sake of adding words, I left this "baby" chapter. I had hoped those who had waited a week for an update and were used to a good 20-minute read would be alright with the short update and another week-long wait.
Based on the 24-hr stats, I did pretty decently with the "baby" chapter.
Before getting to Jowy's review, I'd like to note that the one above with the hearts in it was on AO3, where I posted late, and that comment was posted at about 4:30 that same day. So "in about a day" was actually a span of 7-some hours, give or take, depending on when they found my story and/or if "about" a day meant they found it before the 1st and only just finished it at 4:30 on Friday.FFN: 617 views, 1 follower, and 3 reviews
AO3: 203 views, 7 kudos, 2 bookmarks, and 1 new review
DA: 18 views
Total Results: 838 views, 7 faves, 3 followers, and 4 reviews
Tumblr Notes: 1 like....
Reviews:
1. "Non-existent crush my left foot."
2. "Aw he gave her a hug... but poor Adrian! Also if he only knew how much Marinette actually watched him..." (another Cassy1994 comment)
3. "I love this fic so much right now! I tore thru all 10 chapters in about a day. ❤️❤️❤️ Can’t wait to see what happens next!"
4. See below for Jowy's review
Anyway, Jowy's review was as lovely as ever:
Jowy's really knows how to motivate a gal. The encouragement didn't end there. On Sunday I received two more reviews, but let's see how the week looks thus far.Jowy's Pixie: Awwww, poor Adrien. I just wanted to leap into the story and give him a huge hug. His mind is playing tricks on him, it wasn't his fault that he didn't make it to the akuma as things started heating up, but I can imagine as a superhero, he would feel responsible for not 'being there on time' and all that jazz. It must be extremely difficult for him. I can understand why he might feel inadequate compared to Ladybug and feel like he isn't needed and just gets in way, but it's still completely untrue. I just hope that he realises his worth soon.
It was a really touching moment when Ladybug dashed over to comfort him. They were so in character for that entire scene and it was amazing to read. Also, it was quite funny to read Chat Noir noticing the similarities between Ladybug and Marinette, especially with the freckles. I was screaming at him, "come on, Chat, you're smart, work it out!" I just hope Ladybug can help snap Chat Noir out of this feeling of inadequacy if he can't snap out of it by himself.
This chapter was awesome to read and I enjoyed every word. I can't believe there's only five chapters left now; that makes me sad. But still, I look forward to seeing how this story is going to end. I'm so excited for your next update! Keep up the great work!
I have to say that the AO3 review was another one of those gushy comments that makes my heart swell up!FFN: 1068 views, 2 faves, 6 followers, and 5 reviews
AO3: 279 views, 11 kudos, 3 bookmarks, and 2 reviews
DA: 21 views and one new fave
Total Results: 1368 views, 14 faves, 9 followers, and 7 reviews
Tumblr Notes: Still only that 1 like...
FFN reviews:
1. "uffff I feel so anguished while reading this, great fic, really good"
2. "Ohhhh so much pain!"
- See below for the longer AO3 review
They commented on the 6th chapter, so I'm not sure if they finished reading all 10, but still... EEEEEEEEEEEFlamboyantTurtledove: Okay wow...just wow...
I AM COMPLETELY WITHOUT A DOUBT IN LOVE WITH THIS FIC AAAHHHHH
No but seriously I can't stress how much I love it so far! Everything is just as it is on the show!! I love getting to listen in on Adrien’s inner thoughts. It’s rare that we get to see things from his perspective but you captured his personality perfectly! Alya once again playing match maker with Nino supporting her and her antics was executed flawlessly and omg Marinette’s rambling ugh I love her rambling in this so much it’s like I’m watching the actual show! Lastly I loved the Akuma scene it was so well done! their banter was absolutely spot on (no pun intended). I can’t wait to see where this goes! Have a great day!
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| Maki Natsuo from Love Lab by Ruri Miyahara |
I have some tweaking to do still now that I've thrown way more existential crisis and inner turmoil at Adrien. Namely, I realized that I solved the "do I chose Marinette or stick with Ladybug" crisis in my current draft, but I didn't touch:
- Adrien's sense of inadequacy as Chat Noir
- Adrien hiding from Marinette that he's been spying on her
- Adrien's offer to show Marinette's portfolio to his father
Soooo I should probably work on tying those lose ends up too.... Not all in the next chapter, obviously, but I need to set it up for the following chapters. It will be tricky to work them in somehow, but all of my chapters from here on out are struggling to hit my average 3000 word count anyway, so I have room to grow.
Then again, I've been getting probably the most love on this "baby" chapter, so maybe I DO write too-long chapters.
Do readers like quick 2000-words-or-fewer chapters that they can breeze through? Do they prefer nice, larger 4000-word chapters after waiting a week, so it feels "worth" the wait? Does the word count not matter and everyone is just in love with the low-point anguish?
It really doesn't matter what the answers are, because I'm going to write how the story needs me to write, but it would be interesting to know.
Also, fun side note, my average weekly review count is about four or five, with two of them being my repeat readers cassy1994 and Jowy's Pixie. The only time I surpassed five reviews for the week was when I had nine that first week. I'm already up to seven reviews for the week. We'll see how much more love I get between now and the next chapter going up on Friday.
OH! Speaking of love. The fanfic that Omni's been working on to help him rework his writing muscles is up. We finished the edits on Sunday, so if you see any typos you can blame me as his beta-reader....
It's within the Touhou Project fandom, but I was intrigued even without knowing much about the games. Go give the man some love.
Now, I don't know if he's going to read that at group tonight, but I know for certain that I have no clue what I'm going to read. My chapters are super long, and so I take up so much time if I read off my chapters. Besides, the chapters I'd read to keep the group up-to-date have all been published already, so their comments would be a bit moot. I have already read the upcoming chapter to them before posting it back in September, so even though I've edited it, have I done so enough to bother re-reading? Especially since it was apparently so impactful the first time that one of the members gets confused that everything else I've read since then have been precursors to that chapter. She just keeps focusing on what I read in September.
So... win?
Also, no one seems all that invested in hearing fanfiction if they aren't in the fandom. As evidenced by one of our newest members reading off his Star Trek fanfiction. He got pretty much the same reaction as me: "um... yup.... that was good..."
I tried branching out a bit by reading off "Stranger in a White Dress" last time, but everyone picked up pretty quickly that it was a Miraculous Ladybug fanfic even though a) I didn't tell them it was, and b) neither Ladybug nor Cat Noir showed up anywhere in the story. In fact, the story takes place years before either are born.
So, do I just say "screw it" and read off the two other shorts I wrote for Tumblr? Or maybe the one writing practice I did during a writing date with Omni about a month ago?
Oh, and speaking of my other Tumblr exclusive shorts, pretty much since I've published it, "Kisses" has been my number one liked/commented on/reblogged post.
That is, until a couple of days ago.
Disney Channel created an original movie a few months back called "Z-O-M-B-I-E-S." It's a cute movie where, through technology I won't get into here, zombies are capable of living like normal humans, and so they are doing a trial integration run: the neighborhood zombie teens going to the human high school. Zed the zombie football player and Addison the human cheerleader have a sort of star-crossed love while zombies struggle to become accepted. Mixed within all this chaos is the football coach, who is probably my favorite character in the whole movie.
The lines this guy has are all gold, and the actor's delivery is beautiful. The whole thing just reeks with Millennial Life Struggles, and it is beautiful. Here's just a taste in probably the best scene this man has:
I guess I have to up my game and come out with a new exclusive short to dethrown my ZOMBIES post. I'll add it to the list of Writing To-Dos.
Speaking of... I signed up for July's Camp NaNoWriMo. I'm going to use it to really lock down the sequel to "Peeping Tomcat" so it could be ready for release by end of August/beginning of September.
In truth, I really wanted to have a seamless flow from PT to OatS. Posting the conclusion of "Peeping Tomcat" on July 6th, and then the first chapter of "One and the Same" on July 13th. Huh, another Friday the 13th....
Anyway...
I haven't even started writing the sequel though. Getting PT ready to publish has taken more time and effort than I originally thought. Besides, having six months anticipation since I posted the teaser for PT seemed to have really gotten hype up, so maybe having to wait a couple of months for the sequel will do the story good. Build up anticipation.
Point being, I'm going to try to use Camp NaNo to really get myself teed up for that sequel. July is probably more chaotic than November though. Between Independence Day, summer get-togethers, my birthday, and my nephew's birthday, I'm going to be on socializing overload in July. Especially since a cousin who lives on the other side of the country, and I've literally only seen about 3x my whole life, is coming out to visit his East Coast family. So my week vacation will pretty much consist of me driving to Pennsylvania, spending time with the cuz and his fam, celebrating my birthday with my mom and sister, whom I haven't seen in person since January, visiting my PA bestie and my godson, both of whom I haven't seen in close to a year, driving home, visiting our nephew for his birthday, and doing any socializing my friends here at home want to do for my birthday. Not to mention that two of my friends have their wedding anniversary at the end of the month, and another two of my friends have their daughter's birthday, although I don't know how involved in those celebrations I'll be....
There will be chaos, but I'm going to try to use Camp as a reason to hide in the corner and write at least for an hour or two each day.
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| Ending lines of the editing project Bright Wolf. A lot of production students have to go through editing this trash. XD |
