Can I Have This In Triplicate?

Always save your work frequently. And always save it in multiple spots.

It's the 14th day of NaNo, and I'm not as far as I would like to be nor even as I should be, but I still had over 16,000 words written for “Peeping Tomcat.”

Then when I tried to work on it some more during lunch yesterday.....

Yes, I did tell it to repair. It just brings up a blank, single word
doc page with the word "repaired" in the file name. >_>

Yup. My old NaNo USB bracelet has failed me.

The actual USB portion was coming loose of the sleeve it sits in. Hubby, either at the end of last year or beginning of this one, was playing with my bracelet and accidentally pulled the USB completely out of the protective sleeve. The drive seemed to still be working well enough so, aside from being mildly upset, I just shrugged it off.

Problem is, now I can accidentally pull the bracelet portion away from my computer but leave the USB behind. Which means I have to pull it out with a very careful and precise grip in order to keep everything together. It also is super easy – specifically on my laptop; I haven't noticed this problem with my netbook or any other computer I've used the bracelet with – for me to barely bump the bracelet and the drive will disconnect from the port. I don't know if this is a port problem, or a result of the now faulty nature of the bracelet.

Well, it seems that it FINALLY bit me in the butt yesterday – or Sunday night when I disconnected the USB from my laptop, I'm not sure which. Somehow, in the process of saving endlessly over the weekend, and also accidentally disconnecting my drive and re-installing it while the file was still up, I managed to cross some wires.

I was intelligent enough to save on my laptop as well, once upon a time. It would mean I only had about 9000 words instead of 16,000, but it would be better than nothing. Except that file's gone too. I don't know what happened. It's just gone. 16,425 words are just gone. Lost to the ether. GONE! I wrote 11 out of the first 12 days of November. I even fought passing out on my laptop to force myself to write SOMETHING over the weekend. I only managed about 700 words combined between Saturday and Sunday, but it was SOMETHING. I still added to my overall word count. I wasn't giving up. But now nothing. All that time wasted. Lost.

Tanuki Facebook Sticker
by Yanare Ku

Obviously I'm devastated. I'm beside myself. I spent over an hour trying to find a way to recover the file, but nothing. I just get that single blank page with "repaired" in the file name. It's like the first half of the month didn't exist. Didn't happen. Like I didn't squirrel myself away or force myself to write or neglected cleaning my house so I could keep up with my word counts.

I'm tripping over stuff due to how terribly unorganized my house is right now, and it's because I've been neglecting anything outside of writing.... for nothing. NOTHING!

Tanuki Facebook Sticker
by Yanare Ku

Okay, so it's not for NOTHING. It was practice. Painful that I have no true fruits of it, but it was still practice. I struggled really hard the first half of the month, but I now know where I was going with it. I have things charted out. I worked through it. Also.... I learned this lesson.

Sure, it's easy enough to rewrite everything. If it were a normal novel situation I would be pissed, I would cry in the corner, I would mourn losing a fortnight's worth of work, but I would pull myself up by the bootstraps and rewrite what I wrote. It's still fresh enough in my memory that I could redo it. In fact, the few times something like this has happened in the past, I did exactly that: weep, throw things out of frustration, mourn the loss of all that work, and re-write. Want to know something? It came out better!

I only remembered the parts that I liked. I knew what parts I hated and went into the writing already concocting a better plan of attack. It was annoying, and I would never do so intentionally, but losing that work actually improved it.

And yeah, it still holds true now. As I mentioned, I figured out what was working and what wasn't. Do I hate that I don't have what was working and I have to pray I get it just as right this time? Yeah. Can I now go at it with a plan of how to improve what wasn't working? Sure. Did I already come up with ways to fix the "not working" parts and have been resisting the editing portion so I could get my work count first? Of course! So, this, under normal circumstances, would be bittersweet, but overall a "good" thing. Sorta. I'd be more capable to see the silver lining.

But this is friggen NaNo! I only have 16 more days to get to 50,000 words, and starting completely from scratch is devastating. Especially because, as mentioned, the 16,425 words I already had are now little more than a waste of time. Sure, I can personally still count them, but when I go to verify at the end of the month the site isn't going to know to add those lost words back in.

So, now even if I do write 50,000+ words this month, even if I can catch up completely from this half-way point of the month, I still won't get all those fun "winner" benefits and recognition. Not unless I do one of two things: 1) write 66,000 words in the next 16 days so I still have 50,000 to verify, or 2) "cheat" and just copy and paste 16,000 words so the site acknowledges the count. I kind of hate both ideas.... but you need to do what you need to do. Eh, maybe I'll just copy and paste 16,000 words worth of this blog so I don't feel so bad. It isn't included in my original count, but they are still new words I wrote this month.

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

ALWAYS save in more than one location, and do so frequently. I should have learned my lesson after losing this darn USB bracelet last November. Boy was THAT a heart attack! I should have also learned my lesson when my former college roommate thought she lost HER novel and nearly died. It's just... it got too tedious for me to save to the laptop and then Save As to the USB and then Save As again up on Google Docs and then Save As one last time on my netbook so that I could make sure I have a copy everywhere.

Third time's the charm, right? Maybe NOW I'll truly learn my lesson. Tediousness needs to be tolerated in order to ensure I don't keep losing my darn NaNo projects each year! Gaaaaah!

For those concerned, I did eventually write about 950 words last night. I just continued where I left off. I'll attach the opening 3 chapters after everything else is done. Otherwise I don't know if I'll ever complete the actual story. I HAVE to press on, even with such a set-back! I won't give up! I can't. I also have it saved in four places this time....

On the upside, while it will be a pain to go through it again, prior to losing everything, I managed to complete my third chapter; struggling through it the whole time. I also came up with my Akuma Villain, at least the first one they go up against.

Even for the level of cheesiness that is standard for "Miraculous Ladybug," who I came up with is pretty bad, but she's the best I've got so far, so I'm going to have to run with her. Maybe I'll either think of how to improve her or figure out a replacement for her by the time I get to the fourth chapter again.

In the meantime, meet Louise Fabron, AKA: Ms. Popular.

She started off as inspired by Poison Ivy, hence the red hair and green bodysuit. Her outfit doesn't look even remotely close to any other Akumatized villains, but I'm running with it. Until there's a Miraculous Villains dollmaker for me to tinker with, this is the best I have for creating a visual.

She has a Medusa-like gaze power that petrifies women and enchants men. The female victims become "mall mannequins." In truth, I'm not really sure what this has to do with popularity. Fashion statements? I dunno, it matched the Medusa-eye-power concept, so I ran with it. As for the men, the male victims become protective and bodyguards for the villain. I started off thinking she'd blow them a kiss to entrance them, and I may go back to that, but it seemed too close to the canonical villain Princess Fragrance, and I wasn't sure how to work in the possessed item.

In the bit I wrote over the weekend, Ms. Popular can also use her optic powers to get women to fight amongst themselves. I honestly have no clue how her powers work or how any of it relates to either popularity in general, or making her more popular. I need to really workshop her....

Anyway, her Akuma-possessed item are the glasses used to block her gaze until she wants to attack. The glasses are actually replicas of Chloe's. The villain became Akumatized when she tried to win Chloe's favor by dressing EXACTLY like her, only for Chloe to call her a creepy stalker and tell her she's never going to be popular.

Always watch out for girls named Louise. Between Louise from Familiar of Zero and Louise from Bob's Burgers, people should maybe be wary around a Louise. If those two weren't enough, eh, I added a third one.

Louise is actually a year younger than Chloe. So, based on the English translation, she would be in 9th grade: a high school freshman, at least in the US. In season 1 of ML the character Alix turned 15, but in a season 2 episode Marinette turns 14. We weren't given Adrien's age during his birthday episode, which happened to be the first ever episode of the series. So I'm not entirely sure where to put Louise's age, but I'll say 13. Which means obviously she's not going to look as mature as the Doll Divine mock-up I did, but I don't see why Hawkmoth's Akuma couldn't "age" her a little at least.

Like I said, I'm still kind of workshopping her as I'm writing. Speaking of, I should probably get back to that, I have quite a bit of ground to try to cover.... again.....

Kicking Off NaNo!

That's right! It's that time of year again! The month where I get excited about trying to write a 50,000-word novel for about a week, and then spend the rest of the month whining about how far behind I am....

Again, real quick for anyone not familiar with NaNo; the concept is to start writing a 50,000-word novel on November 1st, and complete it by November 30th. If you manage the 50,000-word novel within 30 days, you are considered a National Novel Writing Month "Winner." There's no real prize aside from a neat icon on your NaNo profile pic and the ability to download/use "NaNo Winner" icons for your online presence. Mostly, "winning" NaNo is for the bragging rights, the pride of completing a novel in such strained circumstances, and the realization that you CAN write a novel. You might want to stretch it out over a couple of months to not stress out, and that way you have time to edit and polish, but if you can write 50,000 words in one month, you can easily do it in a season, or six months, or even once a year. This is your jumping point. This is your motivation. This is your chance to stop postponing, and finally BECOME that writer you always knew you were.

It's also a great time to test what works best for you: plan or fly by the seat of your pants, write in the morning or at night or sometime in between, write a few minutes daily or one lump chunk once or twice a week, secluded area or bustling coffee house, edit the last chapter before writing the next one or wait and edit all at once, etc. I do have to stress, though, that the nature of NaNo is one where editing is placed on the backburner. You just don't have the time to go back and edit while still making enough progress to complete in a month. Get the novel written during NaNo; then edit. There's even a mantra for NaNo: "Take my inner editor." Basically, asking to shut down the part of the writing brain that sees what's wrong with the work and wants to fix it before the work is complete.

Anyway, except for last year, I have tried NaNo every year since my first attempt in 2012. I have failed miserably each year. I think my first attempt I managed close to 25,000 words, and haven't gotten close since. Over the course of four NaNo attempts I STILL haven't hit 50,000 words; total, among all of my novels. It's a kind of depressing thought, but I'm still excited about tackling this rival again.

Mostly because I'm trying to do a few things different this year. First: Jolene. I'm super excited about her and have been struggling to write anything NOT about her for nearly two months. I've been consistently writing, too. So, even if it isn't a complete story when all is said and done December 1st, I'm fairly confident that I'll at least hit the word-count goal. Second: I have a job that doesn't suck the life out of me, and, in fact, it allows me time to write WHILE at work. So I should be able to get my daily word count in AND still socialize/watch football. That will take a large load off of my stress-plate, and probably make it easier for me to stick with it this year. Third: I'm participating in write-ins with my writing group. At first I was bummed because they were every Thursday this month; while I'd normally be at work. Well, the Writing Fates aligned, or something, because I coincidentally have two out of the three Thursdays off. I'll miss next week's write-in, but I'll just go to the "early seating" for group.

See, not only did our writing group reserve a room in the library for our evening write-in sessions every Thursday this month - minus Thanksgiving, of course - but we also reserved our normal bi-weekly Tuesday room an hour earlier. That way NaNo-ers can come in to do a quick write sprint together before our meeting officially starts. For those that don't know, write-ins are pretty much exactly how they sound: a group of writers gather together to quietly do write sprints - writing continuously for a short time; say ten minutes - as well as talk about their progress in-between the sprints. With all this time specifically dedicated to writing, and then talking to others about my novel, I think I might actually stay on track! I will get pumped and excited about my story. And continuing to roleplay as Jolene each week will just help me stay in character more. I'll feed off of the games, and the writing will help me better evolve Jolene into a more concrete person.

I'm super psyched about this year's NaNo. I just hope this excitement lasts, because this week proved that it can snap and shrivel up on a dime.

I started off decently enough. I managed another flash fiction for Ronoxym's writing challenge. I had to cheat this time, though. One of my rules is that I'm not allowed to use a pre-existing character that I created. Well.... I did. I used Jolene. As I already mentioned, I can't think of anything to write EXCEPT for something dealing with her. Especially with NaNo, I HAVE to be laser focused on her, or I lose my momentum.

I considered it part of my prep-work to make up for the rule-break. Last Tuesday I had spent a great deal of time working with Jolene's timeline some more. I figured out when Jolene got pregnant, discovered her pregnancy, as well as when the pregnancy ended each time. Still not sure how she REACTED to each ending, nor do I know why she gave up her daughter, but I have a start. I also know that the beau she had while with the Thieves Guild was more outwardly hurt by Jolene's stillborn son than she was.

This is where the flash fiction came in. I just had this quiet moment between Jolene and Sandy pop into my head, and not leave me alone for about three days. I eventually caved and wrote it for this week's challenge entry; rule-break be damned! At least I'm still writing and keeping these brief. I'm still not sure if I'm "getting" the concept of flash-fiction, though. These seem more like scenes than mini-stories. Is that how it's supposed to be?

Anyway, if you want to read about Jolene and Sandalah while having a quiet moment near the end of her pregnancy, feel free to check it out:

"My Little Thief"

On DeviantArt           On FictionPress

Things went quickly awry shortly after publishing that story.

Namely: I lost my flash drive. A few years back, to commemorate my first attempt at NaNo - even if I did fail pathetically - I bought one of their flash drives that is embedded into a plastic wrap bracelet. The cover for the drive is the closing connector of the bracelet. It even has "My Novel" and the NaNo crest printed on it:

Point being; it's a cool flash drive!

That's not really why I was upset, though. I'm sure I could still find and purchase another one online. The real kicker is that - after four years of having the thing and only using it to transfer things from one computer to another - this year I was actually using it as a hard drive. All of my prep work I had been doing was on that drive. My images of Jolene's past loves and lovers, along with all of their names. The backstories of each romance. The time frame for each romance. Jolene's timeline I was painstakingly working on for a couple of weeks. The detailed reason why each romance ended. Notes on more to research and figure out. All of it. Everything I had been building throughout October was just gone.

That happened Thursday. I tried to move past it on Friday. I tried to remember that I had most of it in my head, and I just needed to recreate it, or add to it on my netbook with the hope of finding the drive before today. I opened up my netbook Friday; Saturday; Sunday. Each time with the call to just move on and write more so I was prepared for November. Each time I was stuck in an "I can't believe I lost it all!" writing funk. I couldn't work at all on my writing. I was too depressed, and so not a single word came to mind.

I did manage to find the drive again while revisiting a friend on Sunday. Crisis averted, I was once more excited for this month. However, there was still four days lost to writing funk. I'm now backing up all this info, and then backing up the back-up. I'm going to make sure I can have SOME way of reaccessing this stuff if something like this happens again. No more writing funks due to lost work!

I did manage to get a bunch of reading in during those lost four days, however.

I haven't really updated you guys on my reading progress in a while, have I? I keep meaning to include it in a weekly double-post to make up for missing two weeks, and yet the week runs away from me before I get a chance to write the second post.

I'm going to once again attempt a double post this week, especially since NaNo will still be fresh, and my word-count should still be on-par. In the meantime, I'll at least leave you with an updated checklist for you to see where I am at.

I'm currently working on "a book published this year" by reading Rick Riordan's "The Hidden Oracle"; the first book in his new series "The Trials of Apollo."

I think I'm also borrowing "1984" for my banned book; still need to figure out a book I should have read in school. I may just sub with a second "published this year" and read Riordan's "Hammer of Thor"; the second book in his "Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard" series. Either way, I need to write my own novel while reading two books this month - or next month - in order to complete this challenge on time. About a week or so in and I'm about 70% done reading "The Hidden Oracle" so I probably can get another book in this month.

Anyway, here's my updated checklist. Anyone else working on this challenge? How are you doing with it? Did you beat it already? Getting close? Let me know in the comments.

Challenge created by ModernMrsDarcy