What DID I Do This Past Month?

Well then. Seems Tuesday threw a LOT more at me than I was anticipating, and this blog post got kinda left on the wayside. I had most of it done, though, so I figured I'd just post late this week instead of skipping again. Because, well, come on. A blog post two weeks in a row!? It's amazing how much better I feel being able to do this. I truly missed being able to write ANYTHING, even if what I AM writing is basically just weekly journal entries. It's still a start, right? 

Speaking of, NaNoWriMo starts on Sunday. Part of me wants to participate, but another part doesn't want to add any more stress to a year that has already been a lot for me with regards to my writing confidence. So I haven't officially signed up for it. We'll see what I decide by Saturday.

There are three options I'm batting around should I decide to do NaNo. Four if you add in the option to just bounce between them all and focus on both word count and writing ANYTHING instead of the traditional version of "50,000 words for ONE story".

Option 1: Try to work on One and the Same yet again. This story has been in the making for 2 years, and I've had so many people finish Peeping Tomcat only to ask me where to find OatS. I always feel a touch embarrassed when I have to respond with "Uh... I'm... still working on that one...." Just call me the George R. R. Martin of fanfiction at this point. I may get the next story out.... eventually.... in the meantime, let me assure you - while I have a bunch of other projects released in the meantime - that I'm totally working on that sequel I mentioned years ago.... I did vow at the beginning of the year that I'd get at least the first chapter of OatS published before the conclusion of 2020, but considering I've barely even LOOKED at this story all year, I don't know if I should still hold myself to that. After a 2+ year wait, I REALLY don't want to rush out something subpar. Nor do I want to publish the first chapter just to say I did so, and then have people waiting for who knows how long until I can get the rest of the story written and polished.

Option 2: I'll touch more on this later, but I was heavily inspired by the Miraculous Ladybug special that came out at the end of September. Well, to be more accurate, I was heavily inspired by the confusion and salt the fandom threw around after watching the special. I don't know if I just know how to get into the heads of the writers better than a lot of fans, but I understood where they were going with just about all of scenes, whereas a great many of the fandom seemed blindsided. Or they felt what happened was a bit contrived. Or a character seemed to be written poorly. Et cetera.

So my thought was to help the fandom see what I did with regards to why the writers made the decisions they did. In a manner similar to my story Prescription for Love, I want to write the scenes that were skipped because they weren't necessarily crucial for plot progression. I want to write scenes we were shown, but in a different character's perspective than the one we saw on screen. I want to further flesh out the events of the special. In part, because these side scenarios are bouncing around in my head anyway, but also to maybe help the fandom see what I did and appreciate the special more.

While I feel guilty taking on another big project instead of working on OatS (again), I also kind of want to get this story done sooner rather than later since it's specifically focused on canon, and I'm already a month out from the special's premiere. 

Option 3: I had offered to help my mom out with something, and I have totally fallen off the horse on that. We talked about it, and we now have a new deadline of February to get it all sorted out, but I do hate holding up other people's projects like this. I've been in group projects where the rest of us are in limbo as we wait for someone to get their part of the project done. It sucks being those who are just on standby. So I may use November as a means to kick myself into gear for this project.

So, there we are. My three options for NaNo - should I decide to participate this week - as well as that fourth option of just bouncing between these projects wherever my inspiration takes me just to keep me moving forward.

Now, let's circle back to that ML special.

I absolutely adored it. The voice acting was a bit off - as in the VAs lost the tone they had established for these characters' voices, but the acting itself was spectacular - so that threw me, but after watching the special about a dozen times (thank you, DisneyNOW), I'm getting more and more used to it. I just hope the choice - either by the director or by Cristina Vee herself - to have Marinette deepen and mature her voice whenever she's Ladybug doesn't transition into the show. If they had made that choice at the start of the series it would be one thing, but after 3 seasons it seems weird for her to start that NOW when her voice hasn't been remotely close to a giveaway up until this point. 

Maybe you could explain it away as "after the event of 'Chat Blanc' she's making sure Chat Noir doesn't figure out who she is" but she didn't deepen her voice in the episodes following, so it doesn't really work. You could also possibly argue that "she's now the Guardian and feels she needs to work harder to hide her identity" but if no one figured out her identity before why would she feel like it's in danger of being discovered now? Maaaaaybe because Chloe knows that most of the Miraculous holders are her classmates, and the guy that's now pseudo-dating Marinette??? I dunno, the girl that's pseudo-dating Adrien was also a holder, so maybe Chloe won't put two-and-two together? 

Either way, I'm not a fan of the decision. I wouldn't mind if Bryce Papenbrook had decided to do something like that for Chat Noir because he already changes up his voice slightly between the two personas. It just feels weird to have Marinette randomly do it out of nowhere. Especially with how drastically different Cristina Vee goes with it. I think the issue I have the most with it is that she uses the same deeper and more mature voice she used for Nightmare Ladybug in the episode "Sandboy," and to have "evil" Ladybug's voice now be the real LB's vocal choice is just wrong to me.

Other than that, though, I LOVED this special. You can read my semi-live-blogging of the special here. Fair warning, there's spoilers as I react to the special.

As predicted though, as well as mentioned above, this ever-growingly-toxic fandom was all set to tear this special apart for every little thing. The largest victims being Adrien and Alya. This is where the idea for Option 2 above came from.

I mostly wanted to rewrite the Car Scene from Adrien's perspective, and possibly Alya's perspective as well. We see it via limited POV through Marinette's perspective, so I don't think there needs to be more there, but trying to understand Adrien and especially Alya during that scene seems to be both crucial and something that goes over a lot of fans' heads. In fact, the way Alya acted throughout the whole special I feel needs to be explained. 

So many complained about how she's once again not being a good friend to Marinette - similar complaint as in the episode "Chameleon" - and since I had friends like Alya growing up, I feel like I understand her and her motivations. Are they healthy, intelligent, or helpful choices? No. Are they decisions a lot of teens her age would make because they don't have the maturity or perspective to understand why these decisions are bad? Hells yeah! Should writers abandon realism in telling a story in favor of "teaching" children better life choices? Maybe, but that's entirely up to the writers and what kind of story they're trying to tell. Is the story automatically bad because a writer decides to go with "realism because it adds better drama" instead of "teaching children so they are better prepared for the future"? No.

I could do a whole essay on this subject, but I won't get into it now.

So, yeah, I want to rewrite the Car Scene from these other character perspectives, along with what happened with Marinette and Adrien post-sewer scene, the Floating Scene, the flight from Paris to New York City, Alya's and/or Nino's POV during the museum attack, Alya and Marinette interacting post-attack on NYC, Adrien prepping for the trip to NYC, why Luka had to race a bus to drop Marinette off, possibly Adrien's trip back to Paris, and maybe a LadyNoir scene post-special when the two meet up again in Paris. There might be more there, but I'll have to go through the special again (woe is me) to decide if there's more scenes I want in this project.

I do already have some starter essays I wrote over on Tumblr to give me jumping off points for the narrative as a whole.

• Plagg being visible when the Cat Ring isn't in disguise mode
• Defending the Car Scene and Alya

Again, these are heavily spoilerific essays, just FYI.

I guess that does mean that I HAVE written this past month. Specifically the final week of September, but still. Yay.

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I wasn't the only one that was inspired by the special, which I completely expected to happen. I still haven't finished that project from over a month ago where I was trying to compile my list of fanfic recommendations. Instead I started reading all of the NY special inspired stories. Now I have even more stories to add to my rec list....

Whoops.

Worth it.

I've also been reading something out-of-fandom. Honestly, I've been trying to avoid doing precisely that because it's hard enough for me to get back into writing if I stay within the fandom and allow it to help inspire me. I didn't want to try to switch gears to a new fandom and hope it doesn't throw me off track of what limited progress I've made this year.

However, Taurus Pixie recently started up a new story for the Hellsing fandom. I'm not really feeling Halloween-y this year - which SUCKS because it's a Saturday, it's a full moon, it's a blue moon, etc etc etc, and yet... meh? - so I was hoping a story based on a vampire-centric fandom might help with that. Really get me in the spoopy mood. Plus, Pixie got a lot of rude and entitled reviews on her latest ML chapter, which caused her to decide to pull away from writing anything for this increasingly toxic fandom. I knew she needed some love after that ordeal, so I wanted to get in on the ground floor of her newest story.

Honestly, I'm surprised it kept her this long to write something for Hellsing. This anime/manga's aesthetic is right up her alley. The story follows Seras as she tries to figure out the nuance and political environment of the vampire world without the aid of Alucard. I'm only 2 chapters in - a 3rd was posted on the 22nd, but I haven't had a moment to read it yet - and I'm already loving the world build. I don't think she's ever played any form of White Wolf's World of Darkness, or, specifically, the Vampire: The Masquerade game. And yet, that environment is more-or-less what she's building. It's great  how multiple people just SENSE that idea of animalistic hierarchy and tension of turf wars happening within vampire culture. That structure of vampiric society seems as part of the myth as fangs, sunlight aversion, and hatred of garlic.

Anyway, if you want something dark, gritty, violent, and Halloween-y to read this week, why not give Pixie's story a go? Fair warning, being in the Hellsing fandom more-or-less means she has free rein with her writing so she has virtually every trigger warning slapped onto this thing. Like I said, this is violent and grotesque and dark and gritty as she focuses on Seras dealing with her own monstrous nature and surviving against other creatures that have all but fully submitted to their monstrous and feral nature. Also, it takes place post Hellsing Ultimate/the manga, so... spoilers as well.

Go and Conquer

Cast out by her master, Seras must try and make a new life for herself, despite knowing so little about the vampire way of life. But when a small coven takes her in, Seras finally begins to fully relise her true potential, falling more and more into the insanity of the vampire world. Meanwhile, Hellsing sends in Alucard to deal with this new and emerging threat...

Speaking of submitting to one's monstrous and feral nature, I've been playing Among Us, as I mentioned last week. This past Friday we actually managed to wrestle together enough people for there to be two impostors for a few games! That was exciting. Also, for whatever reason, this time *I* was the impostor seemingly more times than not. Man, I know most people prefer being the impostor and having the fun of sabotaging and killing without having to worry about working out who is the impostor. However, I am NOT one of those players. I HATE being the impostor. Yeah, it's fun, but it's also sooooo stressful. Trying to think of lies or alibis to keep the heat off of you? Trying to keep your tells in check so you don't give yourself away? I know I can't play with voice chat on because I giggle uncontrollably when I can't think of a way of talking myself out of suspicion. Trying to keep track of EVERYONE so you can get in a clean kill? Incidentally, I almost NEVER got a clean kill. Someone either spotted me or walked in RIGHT after the kill, and I couldn't think of a lie fast enough to self-report. 

The only really clean kill I had was when I sat in the vent in Electrical on the Skeld map, because I knew SOMEONE had to have a task in there at some point. The second I saw someone alone I jumped out of the vent, killed, then hopped back in before anyone could be the wiser. I then travelled via vent for a bit so no one could pin me near the room.

Also, Hubby and I are those annoying players who like to pod-up so it's harder for the impostor to pick us off without the other(s) seeing it happen. More often than not we can't convince other players to join us in podding so we just partner up, but, if Ronoxym's Twitch stream from that night was any indication, it annoys the HECK out of the other players that they can't kill one of us without the other seeing because we're ALWAYS together. This playstyle is very helpful as a crewmate, but it's also suuuuuper difficult as an impostor. 

If Hubby and I are ALWAYS together, but one of us is the impostor, it's sooooo hard to get a clean kill without the other seeing it. Which means splitting off from each other, but if we're ALWAYS attached at the hip then the fact that one of us wanders from the other can be a bit suspicious. Alternatively, it means that our spouse is the first to go so we're free to roam around solo. Which also means we go from "partnering keeps us safe" to "partnering potentially makes us the first victim" as well as people getting suspicious that one of us is running around without the other.

We're actually surprised THAT wasn't the main give-away: "Hey, found Zalic's body. Lyco didn't report, but she's still alive. Lyco seems sus." Or, alternatively, "Zalic's alive and didn't report a dead Lyco? Seems sus."

Nope. No one managed to put those pieces together. They would grumble about us being attached at the hip, but never had any red flags go up when we WEREN'T together.

Hacker Girl Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc.

Although, now that I've pointed it out, looks like Hubby and I need to come up with a new strategy or we just gave ourselves away as impostors....

Anyway, for me at least, it's just so much easier when there's two impostors. Then I can focus on doing sabotages and hope O2 running out or the reactor melting down kills everyone for me, or at least thins people out enough for the other impostor to get in the kills.

We did recently got introduced to the Hide-and-Seek mod that people have been playing, and I'm all for playing in that mode! It's bound to be so much less stress to be the impostor when you don't have to worry about hiding it. It does seem a LOT more stressful to be the crewmates though....

Still excited to try it out!

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On a much sweeter side of things, Hubby swiped my Switch on me Saturday. For the majority of the month, he's had his character in Animal Crossing: New Horizons running around as Chat Noir whereas I've had either an all-pink outfit (for breast cancer awareness month) or a new Halloween costume on.

Well, since he had been running around as Chat Noir anyway, he decided to surprise me when I got home to play that day.

My glorious dork of a husband decided to go full-throttle, found a BUNCH of Adrien Agreste inspired shirts in the custom design kiosk, and even had my character send him the orange sneakers to finish the outfit. Wish the green eye color available was more emerald shading than jade, but it works.

Naturally, I had to make sure I matched.

I was able to find quite a lot of Marinette Dupain-Cheng inspired shirts via the custom design kiosk as well. As a whole, however, his outfit is way better than mine. I couldn't find pink slip-on shoes, so I went with low heels. I also don't have a pink round purse with a black strap. Some of the shirt designs had one drawn on the design, but I liked having the actual bag better. Finally, the blue hair is a bit too light of a shade, but it was either this or actual black, so I'm going with this. I'd also prefer if the pigtails were at the base of the head, much like the dual-braids, but I guess these work too.

We've been having fun roleplaying as these two adorable dorks.

I found "Adrien" playing on the piano while visiting Hubby's island.

The truest of roleplaying: Lovesick Marinette and totally clueless Adrien.

To finish up the Miraculous Ladybug deep dive to try to get re-inspired to write for this fandom, I had decided to make a new mask for this week. I doubt I'll dress up for Halloween much more than just an all-black outfit, but I do also have this mask now...

I tried a new mask design that accordions out vertically instead of the standard horizontal. Doing so is supposed to bevel the mask out away from your lips while still staying snug against the jawline and nose. This way your lips never touch the mask. It seems to work really well, however I DID cut the ear straps a touch too small, so, unless the elastic stretches out, I can only wear the mask in short trips, like to the grocery store or laundry. It's just too much tug on the ears otherwise.

I debated making a second one with longer ear loops, but without a sewing machine stitching this mask together took two days as is. Maybe some day in the future I'll try again, but for right now I'm content with this one mask.

How about everyone else? Have you been reading anything good? Any stories getting you in the mood for Halloween? Alternatively, if you want to hear out-of-copyright ghost stories from around the gothic/Victorian era, here is the playlist of ones Luke Westaway from OutsideXtra has been reading on his private channel this year. Do you have a Halloween costume this year? What are you dressing up as? Have you been playing Among Us as well? Do you prefer to be the impostor or a crewmate? Any pro strats to share? Are you going to participate in NaNoWriMo? Do you have a preference as to which option I should do, should I decide to join in?

I keep forgetting to share this, but I did set up a new Dream in ACNH this past week. I'll have to redo it now that I'm Marinette and my island is getting a bit more spoopy, but if you have the game and want a poke around my island, feel free to pop on by.

Dream Address, in case you can't quite read the image,
is DA-6983-1496-3456.
Enjoy your stay.

I know this is a strange year with strange circumstances, but I do hope everyone can enjoy their Halloween while still staying safe and healthy.

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Also also also also!!!!

If you are a United States citizen over the age of 18, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE remember your civic duty! You have LESS THAN A WEEK NOW!

NEXT TUESDAY is election day. An overwhelming amount of citizens seem to have already voted via mail-in ballots, drop-off ballot boxes, early voting, etc. Keep it up! Keep yourself safe whenever possible. Remember that you can always hand deliver to your elections office if you don't want to chance going to the poles, but also don't trust either mailing or ballot boxes. If you don't know where that is, this site can help you find your local elections office. Please make a plan if you haven't already voted. Make your voice heard. Don't let anyone convince you that your vote isn't going to matter or count. Don't allow yourself to think that you shouldn't bother because you know your area is going to vote for the opposing party anyway. Don't think that it doesn't matter because your area typically votes the same way as you regardless. 

GET. OUT. THERE. AND. VOTE.

Safely.

Resolutions and Amazing Gifts

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

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

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

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

Dear lord, I'm going to die when I go back....

NuaNia Facebook sticker
by PRANEAT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

With the chaos of frantic cleaning for my mom and sister to visit, I somehow packed my planner in a "safe spot" that I cannot find right now, so I don't have the stats for January through June of 2019. I vaguely remember them being fairly good with keeping to this resolution. I also did fairly well in July, working on One and the Same during my Camp NaNoWriMo. The rest of the year, though????

• Aug: This was the start of me slipping with my time audits. I only have 13 days marked as having written; 4 of those were my weekly blog posts.
• Sept: Even worse, I only have 11 days marked as having any writing progress.
• Oct: Thanks to Kyoru week and trying to finish my original story gift to Ronoxym, I have marked that I wrote every day for the first 18 days of October - minus Monday the 14th. I don't have any days after the 18th marked though, so I think I only wrote my blog for the rest of the month? Totaling in 19 writing days. Still not very good.
• Nov: Ironically, I only have 3 days marked on my calendar, but I also did the worst with keeping up with my time audits in November. I know I at least worked on my blog, and then on my story at Group, every Tuesday, and I have a single Thursday marked as having written something, so I know at least 5 days were spent writing. I know I was stressed in November, and certainly didn't write daily, but I feel like I wrote more often than 5 days....
• Dec: Ug. December was the worst offender for forgetting to do my time audits. I only have 2 days marked on my calendar, but I know I wrote a blog post for 4 out of the 5 Tuesdays, and I wrote my Plagg one-shot on the 13th. I also got my ML Secret Santa exchange done by the 24th, and had worked on that for a couple of days. I want to give myself the benefit of the doubt, and say I wrote at least 10 days out of the month???

So, yeah... didn't do too well with this resolution during the back half of the year. I'm hoping I can get myself into a much better routine so that I don't slip around July again, when life starts to get more and more frantic for me.

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

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

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

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

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

2019 Resolution #4: Win NaNoWriMo again this November

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

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

2019 Resolution #5: Continue my weekly blog post routine

I was so close! I had gone MONTHS without missing a post. I may have been days late, but I got it done before the week was out. Then, in June, I tripped and missed a week. I was going to make up for it by writing my normal blog post, as well as writing up my feelings about the novels Graceling and Bitterblue that I had read over the summer as a bonus. I wanted to wait until I finished the trilogy, and never did get a chance to read Fire, so that bonus post was never written. I tripped again in November. While I also kinda-sorta tripped last week by having it be my first post of the new year instead of the last of 2019, I'll leave it to you to decide if I was down 2 or 3 posts in 2019. Either way, 50 posts out of the year is fairly consistent. It seems to be my norm: out of the nearly-ten years that I've had this blog, I started writing in it weekly back in 2012. Since then, I have written 50 posts/year 3 times - including 2019 - and more than 50 posts also 3 times. I have only managed to write once per week in 2017, but even for that year I missed weeks and then double-posted later so....

As for that "reading challenge" I was going to write up, and post later? The one that became "Meh, I'm reading a lot of fanfic this year; I'll just try to track the words read"? Yeah. That ended up going virtually nowhere, sadly. I did read a lot of fanfic - especially in December - and I did manage to read at least three professionally published novels. All-in-all, though, I feel like I slacked off in my reading.

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

Which brings me to....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I. Am. Determined!

I have lived with this story for so long, and I've had TWO WHOLE SERIES SEASONS to give me new fodder to work with. My readers have patiently waited for an extra YEAR past what I promised them. I can't keep delaying this story. I'm going to try to be realistic though. So here is my sub-goal breakdown:

• Jan: Get my bearings. Re-read what I have of OatS. Re-read PT to get back into the feel of the story. Re-read and re-tweak my outline.
• Feb: Get back into a writing rhythm. Refine the outline using the notes I took in January. Refine what I've already written for OatS, again using the notes I took in January.
• March: Now that I'm back in rhythm, and no longer distracted by other writing projects, start working on figuring out the dang akuma attacks, as well as other "middle bits" that have been halting my progress on this story.
• April: Use Camp NaNoWriMo to finish the rough draft of this dang story!
• May: My manager's daughter is getting married in May, so I might be working extra hours the last week of April. If this hinders my writing, use May to finish the rough draft. Otherwise, use it to recoup from Camp, and work on other projects. Let OatS sit.
• June: Polish OatS. Go through and edit what needs to be edited so that the "rough draft" is in its nearly-polished form at the very least, and the first chapter is as good as I'm going to be able to make it.
• July: Spend Camp editing OatS so that I can post a new chapter every week, just as I did with PT.
• Aug: Finish polishing up OatS in order to get ahead of my posting schedule; having the whole thing as perfect as I can make it before the end of the month. Keep publishing new chapters weekly.
• Sept: I will most likely be publishing weekly chapters still. Use this time for any catch-up spill-over from August, and focus on the next big writing project; whatever that is.

We'll see how well I stick to this scheduling. Encouraging words and gentle pokes/prods to stay on track are appreciated.

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

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

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

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

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

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

2020 Resolution #4: Plagg Appreciation Days

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

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

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

2020 Resolution #5: Continue my weekly blog post routine

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

2020 Resolution #6: Track my reading

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

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

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

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

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

I did intend to spend last night starting this blog post, as an attempt to get the post written Monday nights, and simply edited Tuesday mornings; making it easier to publish on time.

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With laundry caught up on, I don't have to do that tonight, and with Hubby and I doing our shopping last night, that's another chore I usually do on Tuesdays and don't have to. I also don't have writing group tonight, so that's two extra hours in the evening. Perhaps I can use all of that newly found time to get back to writing. I'd love to give you an update on that next week.

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

Hubby had given me the SOFTEST throw blanket in the shape and style of the Hylian Shield from the Legend of Zelda franchise.

Found on Amazon

He also got me a set of Steampunk D&D dice that are brown and yellow with gear designs on each side. There was also a bunch of "little things" sprinkled throughout December, but those were the two "main gifts" from him.

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

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

Then there was my mom! I got two new bracelets with encouraging inscriptions on them and other such positive meanings behind them. She also got me an assortment of books to help me with writing prompts, and world building, and even map drawing! Whoot! Then there was also the friggen Ocarina!

Found on Amazon

I've wanted one pretty much ever since I found out they recreated the Ocarina of Time from the Zelda game of the same name. I kept delaying my purchase for whatever reason, but Mom swooped in and got one for me. Now to try it out and see if I can actually learn how to play the thing. It didn't really go well when I tried learning the alto horn and trumpet in middle school, but that was MIDDLE SCHOOL. I'm much older, more mature, and more determined to learn now.

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

I also got a message from ChibiSunnie last week, wishing me a happy new year, and to digitally gift me my annual Christmas card. Look at how amazing it looks!!!!

Christmas card created by Chibisunnie
See the full-sized image on her art blog

EEEEEE, it's steampunk Kyoru! I love it! You can see how much I love it in my reblog of it. I'll spare those of you who didn't click that link by simplifying my feelings to: LOOK HOW PRETTY! EVERYONE GIVE IT LOVE!!!!


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

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

A little while later, my sister also asked for the file. I found it odd that she needed her own copy, but I ran with it. For her, I sent the Word document as well as the PDF. About a month or so later, she asked me about the image I used for the PT cover:

The official cover art I used for
my FFN and AO3 postings

The banner image I used for promotions
since it took up less space.
I also used this for each of the AO3 chapter titles.

My "spidey-sense" was tingling when she asked for the cover art images. I had suspected that she was planning on doing something with them to help commemorate my first novel-length bit of writing.

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

Until Saturday, when I opened my sister's gift, and saw this.

I flipped open the book and....

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

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

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

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

My copy still has - I think she counted six? - formatting errors in the text itself, but the gloss finish cover and size were closer to what she wanted to get for me, so that's the version I now own. I don't mind the errors. As Hubby joked, it's probably fewer than what appears in most professionally published work. I'm just so friggen excited about having a physical copy of my work like this!

Maki Natsuo from the anime Love Lab

So, super duper humungo thanks, Sis, for the gift. It is suuuuch a motivational boost for my writing! Plus, it's further incentive to get that re-read of PT done so I can better get a feel for OatS.

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

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

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Chaotic Thanksgiving Vacation

Free FB Cover art by CoverMyTimeline.com

Well, I guess, happy super belated Thanksgiving by now. Whoops.

Last week... did not go according to plan.

I had taken the weekend off to visit family for Thanksgiving. It's an annual tradition and I make sure I maintain it. Because of the weekend off, however, I ended up working last Tuesday. I knew this. I had meant to work on my blog post that Monday so I was prepared for my weekly noon update. I was not feeling well though, so I ended up just zoning out Monday night; not remembering my blog until I was ready to go to bed at like 11pm.

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So I didn't have my post set like it should have been. Big surprise there, right? Okay. Not that big of a deal. I would just write it while at work and post it late that day. At least, that was the back-up plan. I forgot that we had our weekly deliveries on Tuesdays, considering I'm almost never there for them. So I spent the morning running around with that and taking care of customers, and Hubby still got off of work at noon, as he does nearly every Tuesday. The morning ended up zipping by. Okay, no problem. I still had the afternoon to write and post, right?

Wellllllllllll....

Black Friday was obviously this past weekend. For any outside the US who might not know what this means, it's the "first day" of the Christmas shopping frenzy. I say "first day" in quotes, because lots of people start their shopping early, and a lot of stores are starting up their "Black Friday" specials earlier and earlier in the month each year. Point is, the term "Black Friday" is a reference to so may people buying that stores' ledgers are always "in the black." It's become a bit of a crazed tradition as people scramble to get most of their Christmas shopping - if not their "big ticket items" - purchased the Friday after Thanksgiving... or... ON Thanksgiving as most stores have started up.

I'm sidetracking myself. Point is that, with our store closed on Thanksgiving itself, I had to make sure the sales tags were scanned, printed, and prepped to be put up late Wednesday so they were good to go when my co-workers opened Friday morning. In order to have enough time to do so, I- I couldn't write Tuesday afternoon because I was busy scanning the store. Whoops again.

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After work then? Nope. It was November, which meant a writing group meeting every Tuesday from 6pm until 8pm. So, right after work I raced to get to my meeting. Didn't even had time to stop for dinner, so Hubby intelligently sent me to work with a frozen meal to heat up and eat while we were doing our first writing sprint. I COULD have used our sprints to work on my blog post, but that wasn't the point. The point was to work on One and the Same, which had been such a fail all month.

Well, there was only four of us at group last week, and one member actually cut out shortly after I got there. Her son sprung it on her that he was actually going to be spending the week out of town to celebrate Thanksgiving with his friends instead, so she wanted to get home to spend some holiday time with him first. Out of the remaining three of us, no one had anything we felt was ready to read to the group, and we didn't have much to discuss about our writing.

I had attempted that the previous week. I waved the white flag and told everyone what was bothering me about OatS; why it's kept me about two years to write as opposed to the one year for Peeping Tomcat. Namely that I had Important Scene A and Important Scene C, but it would be too jarring if they were back-to-back, and I couldn't figure out what Scene B should be to bridge between the two. I gave an example of one of those gaps I needed to bridge over and... well... they tried, but it was less than helpful.

They tried giving me the age-old advice to breaking through writer's block: 1) try killing off a character and see how the others react, and 2) try switching POV. Admittedly, I did attempt the POV switch when working on PT, resulting in the companion story A Plan Forms. I'll get back to this bit advice in a minute. First up, I had to try to explain to the group - in almost painstakingly simple terms - why "just kill off a character" doesn't work for fanfiction unless you're purposely working with an AU, and even so, you have to be careful as to who you kill off and why. It's a tricky thing to do without having your readers kind of rebel against you.

Plus. Ya know. OatS is supposed to be a mostly light-hearted love story? I feel like it would take quite the dramatic turn if I'm suddenly killing off characters. Especially since doing so still wouldn't necessarily help me bridge between the scenes. It would be too large of a tonal shift. And yet, I couldn't just be like "nope. Thanks, but that wouldn't work," because they kept pressing me as to why. "Because it's too much of a tonal shift" didn't seem to be a "valid" answer for them????

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As for the "change POV" thing, part of the problem was I wasn't sure whose POV I needed/wanted to be in, so I was already writing scenes in both Adrien's and Marinette's perspective, and that seemed to be confusing me even further. Their solution? Hand the bridging chapters over to one of the kwamis or another side character.

Huh!?

I stressed to them that my pattern would then be something to the effect of:

• Marinette chapter
• Adrien chapter
• Marinette
• Adrien
• Random character, potentially a kwami?
• Marinette
• Adrien
• Marinette
• Random character again; either the same as before or a random fourth POV
• Adrien
• Marinette
• Adrien
• Marinette
• Adrien
• Random character again; either repeating previous non-Adrienette POV or yet ANOTHER new perspective
• Marinette
• Adrien
• Marinette
• Adrien
• Marinette
• Tag-team between Marinette and Adrien during the climax of the story

And the group was like "Yeah. Why not?"

Why not? They were really cool with having a random third, or fourth, or fifth POV popped in? Seriously?

I wasn't even entirely sure where to begin with explaining why that wouldn't work; why that would potentially be jarring for the readers. But, maybe I'm the one that's in the wrong? Maybe I'm too rigid in my views of how POV should be presented in books?

Or, the more likely take, they figured "it's fanfiction; not something professionally written, so what's the harm?"

Thoughts? If I'm the one who's over-thinking this and if I'm the one who's too rigid in storytelling structure, please let me know in the comments section. If the group was right, I need to hear that.

Anyway, my overall point was that, two weeks ago, when I tried to ask for help on my story, and I couldn't utilize the main tricks other writers - who were working on original stories and had much more free rein - would be able to use, I just... I dunno. I guess I felt frustrated and isolated? Like, after doing this with them for, I think about three years now - maybe four? - they still aren't getting the core differences between fanfiction and original writing. It's almost like going to them for help on a script versus prose. There are things fundamentally different in how one writes one style of fiction over another, and yet I still get advice as if I were writing original content. In fact, I'm also kind of herded towards writing original content, as if my talents are wasted on fanfiction.

It may be true, but still, that's... not what I'm doing right now? So... that's not helping me?

Long and short, while I was still struggling last Tuesday, I didn't feel like my further talking with the remaining members - who happened to also be the ones who understood fanfiction the least out of the group - wouldn't do me much good. So I remained silent, and so did the other two ladies.

We decided to not do the sprints, and instead just utilize the 90 or so minutes the library was still open in order to just have a mini writing retreat.

Maybe THAT was what I needed. I didn't write as fast as I normally do, but I did manage to knock out 1368 words! Granted, about 60 of them is a sort of "note to self: I need these bits figured out and written into the chapter" sidebar, but still, that's over 1300 new words of prose. I'll take that. Better than what I had been doing lately.

I was now up to 3946 words on this attempt for the project. This officially keeps my disastrously pathetic attempt to write about my vampire character back in 2014 as my worst NaNo attempt! Whoo???

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After writing group, I COULD have finally settled in to work on my blog post for Wednesday morning, but at that point I hadn't seen my husband for 12hrs, minus the brief time I spent with him when I picked him up from work before I had to scurry back to mine. I waved the white flag and spent the evening catching up with him and trying to get some chores done.

Wednesday I did try to put in an effort to get this blog post done while I was at work. We couldn't really put up the Black Friday tags until closer to 3pm so that people weren't trying to take advantage of the sales early. However, other work projects came down the pipeline, and since I had taken this week off for a much-needed Staycation, I wanted to make sure those projects were set before I headed out.

I did manage to edit and drop in all the images you have seen - and will see - in this post. Those usually take up the most amount of time anyway. Especially when trying to track down original artists of images I find on Google so I can properly credit them. That takes a lot of time if they've been reposted and re-uploaded over and over and over again online. I also focused on the other semi-time-consuming bit: figuring out that word count for NaNo. I had figured out what I had written last Tuesday, added it to my grand total for the month, and then made sure to dump it here as a reference point to work into my post.

In fact, I did a lot of vague skeleton work for this post on Wednesday: dropping phrases or simple sentences about what I wanted to talk about and in what order. I then spent today working my way up to those bits in order to flesh out the actual post. So... valiant effort on Wednesday? But not nearly enough.

Post-work I was going to work on my post, but I got sidetracked again. I can't recall what sidetracked me though, and I've been trash with my time audits the past month or so. THIS IS WHY I NEED TO REMEMBER TO DO THEM! I'm better at work when I can just have the calendar out on my desk and in my face. I don't really have a place at home where it's readily in my face for whenever I switch up my tasks, and so I forget to go back to it. This is something I need to work on this month so I have a better routine next year.

Anyway. Point is. Clearly my blog post wasn't written Wednesday either.

THURSDAY! Thursday was Thanksgiving, and the unofficial start of my vacation since the store was closed and I had taken Friday off. Hubby had volunteered to work Thanksgiving in order to have the weekend off as well. His store closed at 3pm, so it was too late for us to really join his family for their Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, for those outside the US, on Big Meal holidays such as Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Easter, "dinner" is at like 1pm and lasts for hours before having dessert at like 5pm and then grumbling about being "stuffed" the rest of the evening. Also, since we'd be gone all weekend, and would most likely bring home leftovers from the Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday, we didn't want to put in the effort to make our own Thanksgiving feast. This meant I didn't have to spend the morning and early afternoon slaving away in the kitchen.

This also meant I had until about 2:30pm to just sit and write, if I wanted to. I could finally write my blog post. I could try to squeak in some last-minute word-count for NaNo. I had time.

Instead? Well... First of all, I started the day off with some chores. Okay. I was adulting. That's fine. Good use of my time. Buuuuuut then I watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. It's tradition, but also a bit distracting for me to write at the same time.

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Another distraction was another tradition I had slacked on the entire month. Long-time readers of this blog probably knows what I'm talking about. It's a tradition my mom started when I was a kid, and one I actually forgot about this year until I watched Bob's Burgers on Sunday, November 24th.

In that episode, the eldest Belcher kid Tina had a b-storyline where she tried to include a new Thanksgiving Day tradition that she read about in her Thundergirls - their version of the Girl Scouts of America - handbook.

She called it a Gratitude Tree.

From Bob's Burgers season 10 episode 8 "Now We're Not Cooking With Gas"

You can check out the full clip about Tina's attempt to initiate this new family tradition here:

This hit close to home to me because this is EXACTLY that tradition Mom came up with when I was a kid. Instead of a self-standing cardboard tree, Mom had covered the attic door with a cardboard tree poster. Also, while Tina was giving out eight leaves to each family member, in order to fill out and post all on Thanksgiving, Mom gave each family member THIRTY leaves, and we were to write something new each day of November, and post them as we worked our way to Thanksgiving.

Full disclosure: when I was a kid I LOVED when Thanksgiving was early, because it meant fewer leaves to fill out, since we never seemed to remember to continue the leaves past Thanksgiving.

Anyway, the only other difference is that my mom titled her tree the "Giving Thanks" tree instead of the simplified "Gratitude Tree" that Bob's Burgers used. Regardless; same basic concept, and I LOVE that one of the writers clearly had this tradition as well.

The double-edged sword was that this episode reminded me that I hadn't done my Giving Thanks Tree this year; which had turned into a simple list of 30 things I am grateful for after I went to college and no longer had a physical cardboard tree to attack leaves to. On the one hand, I was happy that I was reminded of this tradition, since I don't recall missing a year since Mom started it with us, but on the other hand, I was stressed that I now had to rush to try to get all of my bits of gratitude done on time.

So, guess what I did during the Macy's parade instead of working on this post or OatS.

Over 2600-words later, I had my list. I went into great length as to why I was grateful for each bit, but again, that's over 2600 words long. So instead, here's just the things I'm grateful for; no explanation included, and probably not even needed. This is how they would appear on my leaves if I still had physical paper ones to fill out.

1. My mom
2. My hubby
3. A stable roof over my head/having a home
4. I don't have to worry where my next meal is coming from
5. My job
6. My ability to practice my passion for writing so frequently
7. My readers
8. ChibiSunnie
9. Taurus Pixie
10. I live in a relatively safe town
11. I have filled my life with respectful males that have made me feel safe around them
12. Tumblr
13. My minimal-drama orbit on Tumblr; the people I follow are awesome
14. Miraculous Ladybug
15. I don't have to hide who I am; personality wise
16. My sister is finally realizing her own self-worth and demanding that higher standard in potential S/Os
17. My writing group; despite what I said above about my struggles with them, I still love them and they have helped me quite a bit in their own way.
18. My weekly Anime Day to help me connect more with my friends
19. My friendship with Cyhyr seemingly strengthening
20. My new friendship with Pixie's boyfriend Jowy Avilon
21. My new car
22. My year-long struggle with my car insurance issues are potentially coming to a close
23. Frozen 2 and Disney movies in general
24. The tradition of my mom's extended family coming together every post-Thanksgiving Saturday for our own Thanksgiving gathering
25. Zumba
26. This tradition of coming up with 30 things I'm grateful for each November/Thanksgiving.
27. OutsideXbox, Outside Xtra, and the Oxventure campaign videos
28. Official YouTube uploads from late night talk shows such as The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Daily Show with Trevor Noah, Late Night with Seth Meyers, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.
29. People see me as a safe person to talk to and be around; that I'm a good ally
30. That I could come up with 30 things to be grateful for, and can easily keep going if I wanted to

So, there's my list. Do you have one? I'd love a taste of it if you'd like to share. It's a great tradition, but boy did it eat up my morning as I took time to take stock of my blessings and figure out the ones I wanted to include this year.

Free FB Cover art by CoverMyTimeline.com

By the time I was done with that list I had to get ready for the day, head to Hubby's work to pick him up, and then spent the rest of the holiday with him.

Friday was spent getting ready, packing, and driving down to my mom's for the weekend. Then I was socializing with them, even though I knew I still needed to work on this post, and I did pack up my laptop. Oh well. Family is priority.

Saturday I probably could have cracked open the laptop in the morning to work on my blog post since we didn't need to head out for the Thanksgiving gathering until nearly 2pm. However, I've been so drained lately, so Hubby and I actually slept until like... 10am I think?! There goes the morning writing, but the sleep was well needed so, oh well.

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We spent the afternoon and evening with my extended family, and I wasn't going to be so rude as to bring my laptop with me to work on my writing while hanging out with people I only see about once a year. By the time we got back to my mom's it was about 10pm and I was ready to just crash.

Sunday I slept in a touch again, but woke up early enough to go with my mom and sister to church with them, as a sort of gift to my mom who always wants me to join them. We then had tickets to watch Frozen 2 right after church, so I wasn't going to get onto the road until about 4pm, nor would I have time to write before heading out. The Nor'easter started coming through the area by the time I got back from church, so despite my mom's concerns, I figured "I'm not going to get ahead of this storm anyway; might as well give the plow/salt trucks time to get the roads cleaned" and went to the movie after all.

Post movie - which I enjoyed, by the way - we again wondered if we should head out or stay another night. We wanted to be home for Hubby's birthday yesterday, needed to hit up the DMV yesterday, and weren't sure if the storm would ease up prior to this morning anyway. So I shrugged, again put my faith in the plow and salting trucks, and braved the storm.

Dumb idea.

The roads were terrible. The standard speed limits of 65mph (~105kph) were dropped to 45mph (~72kph), and even then, a lot of the second half of the trip I had to drive little more than 30mph (~48kph)! That changed a 4hr trip into a little more than a 7hr one, made even LONGER when I... well... I slid off the road a little more than an hour away from home!

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I'm fine. Hubby's fine. The car is fine. The left overs and luggage packed in the trunk were fine. It was just frustrating. I was doing soooooo good with the weather, but I had to shift to the barely-used left lane to give space for a car coming off the on-ramp to the highway. Clearly no one is using this lane because who the heck is trying to pass cars in that weather!? So it wasn't plowed. It wasn't salted. It was bad, but the cars are now keeping pace with me, so I couldn't get back over to the better-traveled right lane for the better part of a mile. The highway turned slightly, and it was enough for me to lose traction, and off we went. The hill wasn't that bad where we were; but the snow and ice pile-up was too much for me to go anywhere. Fast forward about thirty/forty minutes - and a call to the state troopers for help - and the tow truck got me back up on the road and on my way.

There's $130-some well spent.

Needed to give Hubby one last adventure before his birthday, I guess.

The treads in my tires were fairly clogged with snow and ice at that point though, hence having to go about 30mph on the highway to avoid slipping again. We got home at about 11:30pm. I emptied the car while Hubby tried to quickly shovel the foot of snow out of my way to the garage. I then got stuck trying to make a K-turn in the road since our apartment is past the driveway to the complex's parking lot. Hubby dug me out, and I got stuck again making a turn into the garage, and again Hubby had to dig me out.

By the time we both made it inside it was nearly midnight. It was an exhausting day.

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Listen to your parents when they tell you not to drive in poor weather, folks.

Yesterday was Hubby's birthday, plus, I figured it would be silly to work on last week's blog post the day before this week's was set to go up, so I waved the white flag. I'm now down two weeks worth of posts this year. Whoops.

The weather was still crappy, and we got snowed in, along with all of Hubby's friends, so sadly we didn't manage to get to the DMV after all, nor did Hubby get to really celebrate his birthday with anyone. I'm hoping to make up for that some time this week while we're on vacation.

I should have at least worked on this week's post last night so I could have this morning to sleep in and snuggle Hubby. Instead I still slept in and snuggled, but that's why this post is still late.

So, yeah. November kind of sucked. I was behind on nearly everything all that month. I had the second-worst NaNo despite it being My Jam when it came to the year's theme. Mental health wise, the month also sucked. I'm so glad that month is over.

Although... with that storm on Sunday, December didn't start off much better. I hope I can turn the month, and the remainder of the year, around.

OatS isn't done, which is what I was aiming for this past November, but I have to change gears because I signed up for the Miraculous Ladybug Secret Santa exchange within the fandom. I have the person I'm to gift something to, and I have until Christmas to write the a story using the preferences they listed. So that's my new focus for the month. We'll see how this goes, and if I'll have any left-over time to also write gifts for my friends. I'll keep you posted, of course.

It's the Holiday Season now, so we'll see how chaotic life will be this month. Wish me luck.

Also, it was kind of a sucky day for him, but I'd like to send my Hubby a Happy Birthday anyway.

Take care, everyone, and if you're dealing with poor weather as well, please stay safe. Catch you next week.