GO VOTE

Before doing anything else, I want to remind my fellow Americans that today - assuming you're reading this when it came out on Tuesday - is Election Day. If you haven't voted yet, go out and do that now. Seriously. Stop reading. Go! This blog will still be here when you're done.

Heck, depending on how long the polling lines are, bring me with you and read while you're queuing. Actually, no. Don't do that. Instead, brush up on your ballot if you haven't done so yet. Again, there are tons of resources online, but the one I've seen most frequently is vote411.org.

Also remember that your employer is LEGALLY OBLIGATED to give you adequate time to vote, so be sure to check in to double check on your rights. Don't delay though... if you're home in your PJs until your shift starts at 5pm you've had more than adequate time to vote. So... again... GO! NOW! Don't wait!

Also also... Uber and Lyft are joining forces to help get people to and from polling locations. Check to see if these services are in your area, and if they are, check to see if you qualify for a discounted or even FREE ride to the polls!

Today is not just "Thank god, now the political ads, phone calls, and mailers will stop" day. Today is your chance to affect this country. Today is your chance to make sure your voice is heard. And for the jaded and disenfranchised Millennials and Gen Zers - assuming you're 18+, are there 18+ Gen Zers? I don't know where the generation cut-off is - THIS IS OUR YEAR! If we go out and vote we are the MAJORITY of the population right now. We CAN affect change if we want it. We CAN form the country we want, not just one we inherit from previous generations.

Finally, just a friendly reminder to DOUBLE CHECK your ballot before you officially cast it. You may have slipped up and colored in/pressed/punched out the wrong candidate. You could have that glorious "hanging chad" situation. There could have been a glitch in the system which voted for out-of-party candidates even if you voted Straight Ticket. I've seen reports of that happening before, and apparently it's a known glitch that no one is bothering to fix???? So, yes. No matter how you vote, double check that you ARE voting for who you think you are.

Okay, I'll pack up my soap box now...

Instead, I.... guess.... I'll talk about NaNo? I kind of don't want to though.

I was all geared up for it for the past few months. I even had notes upon notes upon notes to try to help me get organized for this month.

Then November hits and....

My current total is 3504

I don't know why, but I just keep either avoiding writing when I have down time at work - instead obsessively playing one of my mobile games - or I run out of time to write outside of work. Sunday was my day off. Hubby was at work for about 8hrs. I had the whole day to write and catch up. I had every intention of doing that. Heck, the NY Giants had a bye-week, so it's not like I really had any of the football games to watch.

Instead, I did just that: watch football. Specifically the Miami Dolphins game. Mostly because that's Hubby's team and that way I could let him know how it was going; assuming it was going well.

I also cleaned. The apartment needed that badly. I scrubbed down the bathroom, and tried desperately to vacuum every inch of carpet I could. Mostly because Hubby had a neat idea for a Halloween pumpkin this year after seeing a kit for it: a unicorn.

I even painted the horn with glow-in-the-dark paint.

The problem though... well... take a look.

Yup. Hubby thought "wouldn't it be awesome if the unicorn sparkled with glitter!?"

Hubby really likes glitter.

He also got glitter all over our front porch as he tried to apply it to the pumpkin...

So sparkly!

Of course, we had to bring the pumpkin inside to let everything finish drying since it was raining all week.... which meant carrying said pumpkin - and the subsequent tracking from the front porch inside by more than just Hubby and I - brought these Crafting Herpes inside. I am fighting the best I can, but all I can hope for is that our apartment goes into remission. Lord knows we'll have another outbreak though. I mean, I'm STILL finding needles from our fake Christmas tree.... soooooo....

Anyway, my point being, I spent Sunday cleaning instead of catching up on my writing. By about 9pm I just waved the white flag and called it my one allotted "day off." Ignoring that I really shouldn't have taken it if I was so far behind my goal....

For those who might not be able to see since the font in that NaNo calendar is so small in the above image, I should have been at 6668 words on the 4th. Actually, using the 5-days-a-week goal, I should have been at 9088 words. Both should have been easy. I've written spur-of-the-moment one-shot stories longer!

Instead, I sat at 2650 words. Ooof. And I didn't even add another 900 yesterday. Just barely over 3500 words after five days!? Such a rough, ROUGH, slow start.

My only real consolations are:

1. At least I AM writing. That's something, I guess. And I still have the rest of the month to catch up. I mean, I lost my work TWICE last year and STILL managed to win. I have time. I'm not out yet.
2. Ali Luke, for various reasons, was only able to write about 30 words that first week, and then another 1700+ yesterday, so she was only at about 1800 when she called it a night on Monday. She's written novels before. She's PUBLISHED novels before. She's a PROFESSIONAL WRITER. If she can have a slow-start as well, then maybe it's not so bad. Life gets in the way, you just need to know how to overcome it and persevere.

You want to know who's kicking butt with NaNo though? Cyhyr. She has CLASSES and a child and she wasn't in the proper mindset for writing for a long time. Yet she fell in love with her story and her characters and she is killing it!

She blew past 2,000 words on the FIRST DAY. She has slowed down a bit since, and had to skip writing on Saturday for various reasons, but she's still at 5948 words. Sure, that's still technically behind where one should be to hit 50,000 words in 30 days, but she's not aiming for word count. She's aiming for x-hours of writing, and she's hitting that goal pretty well based on her posts.

We also have a NaNo game going where we post the last line we wrote for that day, without any context. Hers have been a lot more interesting than mine:

Day 1: "I just want to go home."
Day 2: "We fight together or not at all."
Day 4: "The daemons can be understood."

Comparatively, here's mine:

Day 1: It was the same thing since the day I became Chat Noir: mine and Ladybug's Miraculous jewels.
Day 2: I didn't wait for Chat Noir to react, I was out the door, on the patio, and throwing my yo-yo at the terrace house across the street.
Day 3: "They probably saw the video and are going to come rescue me soon.”

We're both slackers and haven't yet posted what our final line yesterday was.

We did also get ChibiSunnie unofficially involved as well. She's too busy to actually participate in NaNoWriMo, but she did have a plot bunny that wouldn't leave her alone, and so she decided to share her last line of the day with us as well: "We might be getting older in different stages, but we can still figure out getting old together."

Not quite content with just this little game, Cy decided she was going to go an extra mile on her Tumblr. A way to get us excited for her writing, and a way for her to stay excited as she picked out bits of her writing she loved. Each day that she writes, she posts her top three parts; mostly just a line or two. She also shares something she particularly loved about that day's writing. Something like working with a character she particularly loves or getting to learn more about an OC she created.

You can check out her NaNo posts on her Tumblr. She really does have some particularly intriguing lines. I'm not even in the Final Fantasy fandom, let alone FF XV specifically, and yet I can't wait for her to have the story polished enough that she's cool with me reading it.

Now to just get MYSELF that excited about my writing.

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

I really don't know what it is with this story. I have wanted to write it for over a year, and yet I'm completely stalling now. I just don't know what I want to do with it, really. I think. I'm not sure, really.

I've been sort of all over the place with it. Prior to NaNo starting I wrote three or four scenes that I really liked and was really driven to write. I'll be splicing them into the full story once I catch up with where I think they'd fit. Then, November 1st I just couldn't figure out how to start this darn story, so I just kind of jumped in half way through what I pictured as the first chapter. I still wasn't really feeling it - hence the small word count - so I jumped again to chapter two. I then thought I knew how I wanted to start the story, so November 2nd I backtracked and wrote until I caught up to the main drama of that first chapter. Yesterday I finally caught up to the part of chapter 1 I started on the 1st, and moved a touch past it. I know we're "not supposed" to edit, but I did slightly. I grabbed this paragraph and that sentence and the phrase over there that I wanted to shift as I wrote. Then I interjected some narration now that I knew more about the scene, and I deleted sentences that no longer made sense. It was quick edits, and I MOSTLY kept it the same - I think I deleted maybe 50 words? - so I'll call it fair game....

I just keep trying to follow what I'm inspired to write... I just... haven't been though.

I think I miiiiiight have figured out this morning why that is.

Before I get to that, I want to share something else real quick. I swear it's relevant.

At about 10pm last night, while I was scrolling through Tumblr, I saw an amusing ask:

A little context: Buggachat has, on occasion, been asked if she knew of a particular fanfic, or where to find it. Generally it's something like "I've been trying to find a fic where Marinette is a kleptomaniac. I know it was on AO3 somewhere, but I can't seem to find it again. Q^Q You wouldn't happen to know the name of it, would you?"

Bug would then either be like "Oh yeah! I know that story!" and drop a link - both answering the ask and promoting the story to everyone who follows her blog - or she'd pitch the question to her followers: "No, sorry, I've never heard of it, but it sounds amazing! If anyone knows the story Anon is asking about please drop a link." This way the word is again out there, and she's sort of crowd sourcing the question to try to find the story for the asker.

For whatever reason, most of the asks Bug has been posting lately seem to be these "please help me find this story" asks. Which is where the above Ask comes from. It's probably a joke, but that would be fantastic if Anon accidentally called someone out.

Anyway, thinking that would have indeed been a brilliant marketing strategy, I decided to reblog Buggachat's ask with a bit added to the bottom:

I still feel like it was a bit of a ballsy move on my part, hence "shameless plug" being my last hashtag. However, it seemed to have gotten some attention. Before working on this blog - so, about 8:30am - I checked in on Tumblr and saw this:

Otakuprincess15 is obviously talking about me since I'm tagged in their comment. And what a comment as well! I gushed. I thanked them. Amazing in all caps!?

Hacker Girl Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc

However, I'd also like to point out Didntwantanaccount right below Otakuprincess15. As far as I could tell, I'm the only one who commented about my story in an attempt to promote it. The original ask and answer said nothing about a particular story, and the previous comments didn't have anything to do with promoting their stories either. So, I think it's reasonable to assume “Peeping Tomcat” is the only story referenced in this post. So I'm pretty positive Didntwantanaccount was also complimenting my story!!!! EEEE. It's awesome to see people talk about it and compliment it.

And I think that's the source of my mental block.

I'm in this weird writing limbo where I worry my stuff isn't good enough because it's not very popular, but then I read my reviews and see people both promoting my work and commenting about how great it is. And both halves of this limbo keeps me stuck.

If I'm on that low swing of "what's the point? I'm not writing anything people want to read anyway" then I have no motivation to write. However, if I'm on the upswing of "It looks like everyone who's read my story loves it! This is amazing!" then I become terrified that lightning won't strike twice.

I might be there right now. That may be why nothing seems nearly as exciting with "One and the Same" as it was with "Peeping Tomcat." I'm frozen in the worry that OatS won't be as good. That people who enjoyed PT will be disappointed in OatS; that they'll see me as a sort of one-hit-wonder; that PT was a fluke.

A discussion with a friend pretty much solidified this fear. Hubby and I both LOVE reading Rick Riordan, if you couldn't tell before simply by following this blog. Now, I get that not everyone is going to like his writing. I don't like the writing of a lot of authors my friends love. It's just personal taste, so we weren't offended when the friend told us he wasn't a fan. He really enjoyed "Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief," but he felt like "Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters" was just a rehash of the first book. When he saw a similar formula used yet again in "Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse" he gave up before he hit the half-way point. He then decided to read the Kane Chronicles to see if a different series from the same author would be better.

All three of us agreed that the Kane Chronicles stories are the worst of Riordan's works. We're sorry for any who love these the most, but all three of us found the main characters bland and the "transcription of an audio recording" narration concept a bit jarring.

But that's the thing. Our friend enjoyed the first book he read from the author, but felt the others in the series were too similar and didn't enjoy them as much. He then chose a different narration styling by the author and HATED it to the point that he gave up completely on Riordan.

What if that happens to me? I already have so few readers, what if OatS feels too much like a rehashing of PT? What if the bounce back and forth between first-person Marinette and first-person Adrien is too much of a narration shift and also turns people away?

I feel like all of these fears are completely unwarranted, but it's still lingering there. And I think that's the block I have to work through. I just.... I don't know what I need to do, but I need to find a way to fall in love with this story again.

I need to get as excited by what I discover while writing as Cyhyr does.

You'd think watching the Miraculous season 2 finale would help with that. It just got me more excited about the show, but not exactly my story.

Add in the fact that I failed for the first time with my resolution to write something new every month. I couldn't figure out the time to write last week - obviously; check out my November count again.

So, here's that swing back into my writing funk. I was doing so well too! I don't know what it is about being 34, but I've noticed a distinct drop in my reading and writing since my birthday. I just got so overwhelmed with everything that week, and I don't think I've ever had the mental vacation to catch up. I really REALLY need to just take a week in December to be at home and let my mind recharge; get my home cleaned up again. I was going to take a week in November, but my manager put the schedule together faster than I could decide which week to take.

Here's to this week going better. I do have writing sprints tonight at my writing group anyway. Maybe it will be just what I need.

In the meantime, here's one last reminder to my American readers....

Did A Lot Of Thinking; That Counts, Right?

To start, sorry about the late post update. I got caught up on editing and lost track of time. I mean, on the plus side, it means that I have more for you fine folks to read. On the downside, aside from a late blog post, I'm still just editing stuff I wrote back in like March and April. I'll get to that though.

Let's start on that high note: two new stories for you to read. First up is that Lia story I was having issues with last week. Ended up being delayed for no reason. A whole week later and I still don't have the names figured out and updated, so aside from some minor sentence structure editing, this is exactly the same as it was last week. Whoops. Hubby and I are trying to brainstorm, though, and I did spend all week TRYING to come up with new names for everyone. So there's that. Don't know if it counts if I didn't succeed though. Either way, here's Lia's story. First thing starring her that I've written in about a year. Geez. Poor thing.

"Weirdo Among Misfits"

On DeviantArt           On FictionPress           On FanFiction too!

Next story probably isn't too much of a surprise coming off the heels of a Lia story: a Willow and Devon story. I mean, I was in an X-Future mood the day before, it just seems natural that it would continue into the next practice. Especially with the prompt: "Write about a sideways glance."

"Mutual Teasing"

On DeviantArt           On FictionPress           On FanFiction too!

I was nervous about that second story. In the past I've been a bit off when writing friends' original characters. And odd thing to admit when I'm a fanfiction writer, but I'd always be close yet still not quite right. I sent Ronoxym "Mutual Teasing" this morning to quickly read over, and I'm so excited by his response.

Ronoxym: "That was actually beautiful. It's nice to just look at the two of them and think about what might have been."

He went on to let me know that Devon was in-character. So... Yay! I win!

Now, if I could just win again by actually having something NEW written, not just polished before being upload to a few websites.

Anyway, as I mentioned, ironically after stating that I was going to take a mini-vacay from writing, I spent a great deal of last Tuesday trying to figure out the new names for everyone. I then realized that I never really rewrote Jamie Madrox to his Glitches version Cody. I put in a great deal of time trying to figure out how his powers worked, but nothing really on Cody himself. Even then, I didn't really solidify what I wanted to do with his powers. The simple way of explaining is that he can use fresh drops of his own blood to create temporary clones of himself. However, there has been a sort of head-canon about Lia that I wanted to bring to Glitches, and I don't know if Cody's way of duplicating himself would lead to that.

See, when I created Lia and luck of the dice decided that she was going to have the same exact powers as her mother, but none of her father's, I then unintentionally designed Lia so she looks like the spitting image of her mother. It happens. Some kids just pick up a lot of their looks from one parent, and barely any distinguishable traits from the other. However, the more I thought about it, the more appropriate it seemed. Jamie's mutation is the ability to duplicate himself. That's in his DNA. DNA he was now sharing with his daughter. The way that happens is that his DNA is mixed with Amara's. So.... why not having Lia accidentally be a clone of her mother? Birthed naturally? Jamie's DNA mixes with Amara and, instead of duplicating himself, Jamie's mutation actually duplicates Amara. Jamie's body doesn't recognize it as a duplicate since Lia has Amara's DNA, not Jamie's so he doesn't re-absorb her like his other dupes. Amara's body doesn't have the mutation that would have her re-absorb her duplicate. Er go, no one realizes the natural cloning.

I personally think it's a neat bit of trivia, however, if Cody's powers requires him to use blood to duplicate, can it still work? Could his mutation still mix with Keahi's DNA upon conception of Lia? Could maybe that mutation use Keahi's blood via the umbilical cord/placenta to accidentally turn her freshly fertilized egg into a naturally growing clone?

Fun thought exercise, but it brings me back to the same issue: I'm too focused on Cody's powers and not enough on his actual character. I also still need to figure out Neo-Mystique for Devon's mother. She most likely won't come up until much, much, MUCH later in the series, but basic information about her might pop up in the meantime.

So, that's what I've been doing this week. No writing, but a lot of thought exercises to try to figure out and lock down the last of the Marvel-property rewrites into originals. While I'm at it, I realized that a lot of Lucas Kinney that made him who he is consists of elements I'm not bringing over to "Glitches": a naturally conceived/born child of a clone, time travel, knowing how he's going to die thanks to the time travel, his toughening as a youth plus his establishing the institute as his home thanks to multiple organizations wanting to capture and experiment on him, and the fact that he's pseudo-related to Wolverine as the man's artificial grandson. I tried to fix some of it by having my version of Wolverine rescuing Lucas from government-sanctioned experimentation, and then being a surrogate father. Still, there was just too much characterization I couldn't bring over. So, I might do with Lucas Kinney what I did with Marvel's intellectual property: use it as a base as I create my own version. 

As much as it pains me to do so, because the catalyst for wanting to write "Glitches" in the first place was to revive him, but I might have to do the same with Phfylburt's other character Lincoln as well. Part of his confusion and feeling lost is because he was part mutant, part Inhuman, and part fairy. He didn't know what race he was because he was a mix of non-human races raised by humans. On top of that, he had a disembodied voice constantly with him that only he could hear, and yet the voice was adamant that it wasn't a split personality or Lincoln's imagination. Darwin was positive that he had a separate soul and was somehow locked within Lincoln's body, even if neither of them knew how or when that happened.

Lincoln is just such a beautiful character with such depth and complexity. It's no wonder I mourned for so long after Phfyl killed him off. I can only hope for readers to be as connected to my stories. Even so, things like mythical creatures being real and a race of half-human/half-alien hybrids is getting too close to the Marvel realm again for my comfort. "Glitches" is going to be INSPIRED by Marvel's X-Men, not a complete rip-off of it. So, how do I tweak Lincoln to ignore the Inhuman and fairy sides of him? How do I explain his confusion when he discovered that his powers and mutation wasn't simply because he was Inhuman, it was because he's also part mutant and part fairy? How do I explain his irregular upbringing due to his father being the mute leader of the Inhumans; a man forced to have multiple wives so that each of the different subraces of Inhumans felt properly represented within the royal family?

Even if I could figure any of that stuff out, I haven't spoken to Phfyl in over a year after he slipped off the grid. I wouldn't feel right unless I went over the changes to Lincoln with him. As it is, redesigning Lincoln - but keeping his wings, his anxiety, and Darwin - still feels a bit too close to comfort for me. I know that if one of my friends took Willow, Lia, Trish, Jolene, or Amara, tweaked them so they were slightly different than they are now, but kept them mostly whole, I'd feel weird if I didn't OK it. There's a reason why authors tend to hate the movie/TV show adaptations of their characters unless the author had a hand in the change. These are our babies. If you change one thing about them, it's no longer them.

This is why I'm so nervous about keeping people in-character. If I even had one glance, one gesture, one bit of dialogue, even one word wrong and out-of-character then it shakes the foundation of the character for the creator.

I have time to figure out the Lincoln situation though, so I have some more brain exercises to do. Perhaps when I'm closer to being ready to roll Neo-Lincoln out I'll get back in touch with Phfyl.

OK. Enough X-Future/Glitches stuff. You pretty much have the idea of what I was doing this week in regards to that. However, since I really DIDN'T do any writing this week, I decided to use my break to finish my reading.

I didn't manage to complete "The Dark Prophecy" by Rick Riordan before the end of May, but I did complete it on Sunday, so I guess that's something. Only three days late. I also started up my June book already. It can either bump "Ready. Set. Novel!" off the "Red on the Cover" category, or it can fulfill the "Takes place in the UK" category. But first, let's check out my challenge thus far:

Challenge by Reading Books Like a Boss

OK, so, real quick before talking about my latest book read, a reflection on "The Dark Prophecy." All-in-all, I am enjoying the book series, but it's closer to "The Kane Chronicles" than Riordan's other works in regard to over-all enjoyment.

He did so well with the Percy Jackson series, and Heroes of Olympus. He's doing amazing with the Magnus Chase series. I don't know why he seemed off his game with the Kane Chronicles or Trials of Apollo. I think it's kind of the same issue though.

In The Kane Chronicles, you have Sadie and Carter Kane. They are practically polar opposites of each other despite being siblings. Sadie is arrogant, but has some redeeming qualities. However her magical prowess makes her seem a bit overpowered despite Riordan's attempt to explain the restrictions Sadie has on her magical reserves. Then there's Carter who can have random bursts of power but mostly tries to use his brain to strategize ways to conquer their problem. While I liked Carter more than Sadie, and they are both fully developed characters, for me, Carter seemed a bit underwhelming. I mean, these two didn't really leave much of an impact on me. I had to look up their names to make sure I remembered them correctly. When I put the book down, I could go days without going back to the story, and when I did I'd have to start the reading session by re-reading the last page or so of the previous chapter to remind myself where I stopped. I could barely put down any of the other book series Riordan wrote....

Then there's the Trials of Apollo. Apollo basically is Sadie's arrogance in Carter's lackluster build. Apollo was transformed into a hero, so he can't really do much of anything unless he has random blasts of godly power, so he mostly whines about how things were when he was still a god, pine over his multitude of lost loves, and strategize to try to find a non-combative way to solve problems. Then there's Apollo's companion and human master during his trials to regain his godhood: Meg. Meg is Carter's soft-spoken, near-forgetability wrapped in Sadie's near deus ex machina power set. Somehow these characters are likable, but I'm not passionate about them like I am with all of Riordan's other characters.

Heck, half the time I like Magnus Chase's sword Jack more than Apollo and Meg. This breed of hero just doesn't work for me, but that's not to say they aren't lovable to others. Like I said, they are well-rounded, and Apollo is redeeming his arrogant ways as he quickly realizes how hard it is to be a human, let alone a demigod.

Still, I liked the Egyptian gods Anubis, Bast, and Bes far more than I like Sadie and Carter. I liked the Karpoi Peaches more than Apollo and Peaches' owner Meg. I couldn't really see much difference between Josephine and Emmie in "The Dark Prophecy," and had to frequently go back and re-read to figure out who said what and who was where, because the women blended together for me.

The biggest disappointment for me? Leo. He was totally my boy in the Heroes of Olympus, and even after my week of feeling gross ended I still felt like Leo wasn't "himself" anymore. It was like someone was ghostwriting Leo for Riordan, and didn't quite hit the mark. As I mentioned above, the slightest change to a character can completely change the character, which is why I'm so nervous about Lincoln.

I don't want to discourage anyone, though. Like I said, some characters speak to me because of my own personality and upbringing, and others just don't click. It's the same to other readers as well. I might find Meg lackluster, while you might find her the most beautifully written character with a quiet strength holding her up against an emotional trauma that would normally crumble other 12yr olds. On the flipside, you might find Jack the sword from the Magnus Chase series an unnecessary and annoying plot device.

Now, as for my new book for June, well? I'm not sure about it yet. The dust jacket makes the story sound promising, which is why I picked it up in the first place, but then I started reading it.....

"Half Bad" by Sally Green is the first of a trilogy; very first novel that Green ever wrote. You can read the jacket copy on the linked site, but the overview of even that is that Nathan is a witch trying to find his father, but his father is dangerous and Nathan is caged and watched. Like I said, the concept seems so cool.

Still not sure about the actual writing of it though. Each chapter is short. Super short. Like a scene. The very first chapter barely fills a page, the second is only three paragraphs. The thing that threw me off the most though was that the entire book is in second person. An odd choice that brought Green lots of praise for her skilled use of it.

It's too odd for me, though. It's weird, having everything make ME the main character - the point of the "you" pronoun in second-person - is actually disconnecting me from the book. I'm not Nathan. It's hard for me to suspend disbelief far enough to get past the fact that I'm not Nathan. However, if the book was in first person or even third, my extreme empathy would let me connect with Nathan so much easier.

I'm an odd duck.

Four chapters in, sixteen pages, nearly done with the first part out of a six-part novel, and Nathan's hand was nearly burned off by acid. You'd think that would be enough of a hook. Yet, I'm like "alright, well, let's see this through...." I'll keep you posted on my progress. I'm hoping I can get over the weird narrative POV, because the story, if it were in a more traditional 1st or 3rd person, would have gripped me hard by now.

OK, well, it's now WELL past when I would normally post my blog update, so I should probably start prepping for writing group now. Save something to say for next week.

Bleeeck. Sick.

It. Has. Not. Been. A. Good. Week.

Wednesday - Wanted to kill my coworker. Vegged on the couch to prevent myself from punching things.
Thursday - Spent all day of the gorgeous weather doing as much super delayed Spring Cleaning as possible.
Friday - Coworker I wanted to murder just decides not to show up to work. It's more involved than that, but that's the long and short of it. Had to call my manager in from her day off enjoying the weather riding her horse and visiting with her daughter who drove 8hrs to visit her mom for Mother's Day weekend. On top of that, I got hit with a bug and ended up passing out at about 8:30 while reading in bed. Yes, I FINALLY got around to reading my next book.
Saturday - Still sick and just dragged all day. My head was too in a fog to write a cohesive sentence.
Sunday - Lethargic at work. Manager again had to give up a day with her daughter because coworker no-call/no-show for the third day in a row. No customers even showed up, because, ya know, MOTHER'S DAY. Had a house-full of guests the rest of the day when I got home.
Yesterday - Still drained from this blasted cold. I spent the day, both the downtime at work and after I got home, reading to play catch-up on my reading challenge. Quickly typed up and edited one of my January writing practices.

I've been so out of it, I didn't even think about my "keep track of your hours" project I talked about last week. At least, I didn't think about it until I went to type up this blog. Whoops.

Tuesday started promisingly enough. Sorta. I wrote my blog post. I did my normal errand-running-around and cleaning for my day off. I went to writers' group a bit bummed about not having anything new. I decided to read my first story about Jynna: The Future is Bright.

I think I have a true fan in my group. I know that most, if not all, of the members enjoy my stories, but one in particular always seemed especially satisfied after my readings. She talks about chills and asks about my characters and the worlds. She's just amazed with my fantasy writing. I threw her off the previous group because I read a slice-of-life story. She enjoyed it, but it was unexpected for me to read something realistic. When I read about the Numenera she just was like "That's you. We're home now." Which is cool.

Then, with a couple minutes left before the library closed, DFL pitched a writing prompt to us. Write something to do. Anything. Doesn't have to be writing related. Go on vacation. Clean the house. Go grocery shopping. Read that book finally. Binge watch a show. Whatever. Then write something NOT to do. Gain weight. Skip leg day. Binge all weekend long. Stay inside on a sunny day. Avoid the dishes. Anything. Next, write something you love when it happens: Hubby cleaning instead of me; a warm, but not hot, sunny day when I have it off; my favorite treat being on sale; finding lost change; the Muse strikes when I have free time to write; etc. Finally, write something you hate when it happens: I'm sick on my day off; I spend the whole day cleaning instead of hanging out with friends; it's rainy on a day I want to do things outside; I try to meet up with people because I'm actually free, but now they're all busy; etc.

After writing out your To Do, Do Not Do, Love When, and Hate When, you're supposed to pick one of them and write a short story about it. Bonus points if you somehow bring in elements from the other categories. DFL said "go" and I was flying. Sadly, I only got about five sentences in before we were told that the library was closing and we had to leave. I meant to keep going with it once I was at the laundromat, but the magic was gone. Hubby and I watched our weekly shows instead. That was the last and only time I attempted to write something this week.

It's been a bad week.

As I mentioned, though, I did finally crack open my new book. I'm twelve chapters in. I'm still not loving the Trials of Apollo series as much as I do the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series, but it's an enjoyable series nonetheless. Plus, one of my favorite characters from the Heroes of Olympus series is back as a main supporting character in this second book. He just doesn't seem to have that same "OMG, I want to hug him so tight" factor though. Not sure where the magic went. He's still adorable and fun to read, but... I dunno. Maybe it's the cold. Maybe he's just not as enjoyable because I'm so "meh" myself this week.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I also typed up another prompt. I'm 15 writing practices in. Only kept me the first 136 days of the year.....

"Price of Memories"

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Now to try to rest up, get better, and at least do my hourly tracking if I'm not going to do actual writing. Finally, a quick shout out to Mouse for poking me throughout the week and at least attempting to push me back onto the writing path. Thank you.

Trotting Around a Bit

While not as fully back on the horse as I'd like, I have the saddle on and trotted around the yard a little bit. As I mentioned last week, the clean house helping relieve some stress at home, as well as finding my free-time rhythm again at work, has really helped open me back up to writing.

In truth, I spent most of the week just reading as fast and as much as I could to try to finish "Heat Rises" before the end of the month so I could be back on track for the reading challenge. Managed to read the whole thing in about 11 days. Still fairly slow for most people, but it got the job done.

Challenge by Reading Books Like a Boss

As I've mentioned a few times already in regards to this list and the Nikki Heat books, each book title is purposely a play on the detective's last name. So, I caved and finally put the third book in the series in the "name in the title" slot. There are 8 books to the series thus far, and an ninth one apparently dropped today! Also available today are two of Rick Riordan's latest works. "The Dark Prophecy", the second book in the Trials of Apollo series, along with the companion book "Camp Half-Blood Confidential." So, it's both a great day for me in Book World, as well as a crappy day for my wallet.

I'm most likely going to jump off the Nikki Heat train for a little bit as I switch over to "The Dark Prophecy" for this month's read. I'll drop that book either in the released in 2017 or favorite author category. I also have my father-in-law's copy of "Atlas Shrugged" that he wants me to read. On top of that, I've become so addicted to "13 Reasons Why" on Netflix that I feel I should give that story a read. Then there's an even longer list of "to read" backlogging, as virtually every person I meet demands that I "need to" read this book or that one. I'm not even touching my already extensive home library anymore!

I really need to get more reading time in, but I'm fairly slow at reading as I try to fully absorb the story. With my already limited time to read as is, plus not having much spare time to write, clean, or even touch a video game in close to a year, I really don't see myself reading any faster than I already am, nor do I see myself having more time to read. The world is just going to have to live with the fact that, aside from a few author's I'm dedicated to, such as Riordan, I'm going to be years behind the reading curve with new stories.

Kind of pathetic, though. I want to be a writer. I want people to read my stuff. Yet I can only do so well with reading what others have written. Oh, the great ironies that rule my life.

Speaking of my writing, ya know, the reason I'm sure you all are here, well, as I mentioned at the very beginning, I'm doing better.

Month didn't start off great, but finished fairly strong.

Look at all those smileys - or sorta smileys - that last week! YAY!

I didn't manage to do any further writing or editing on Please, Let Me Explain, so when it came to writing group, I went back to reading one of my polished writing prompts. Ended up reading "Nature Can Bite Me." People seemed amused by it. I threw most of them off though because I wrote a slice-of-life story instead of something fantastical. I just chuckled and reminded them that I can write non-fantasy as well.

As per usual for me, since I had a once-and-done instead of an on-going project, not much was said about my story, how to improve it, what was great about it, nothing. While I understand more and more each go that we probably should dedicate more time to the people with ongoing projects, it still irritates me slightly. I mean, these writing practices are just that: practice. A way for me to hone my skills so that I'm a better author when I am working on my WIPs. Yet, if I don't get any praises for a particularly good turn-of-phrase, nor am I critiqued on something I should improve upon, then what good are the practices? How are they helping me do more than simply fall into a steady writing rhythm? I don't know if I should start going into group with a small questionnaire to encourage feedback, but I feel I need to do something. Otherwise I'll only get assistance when I bring in on-going projects like everyone else.

The strange thing is that there are one or two other authors in the group that purposely only do short one-offs or personal essays. There is no intention of doing a long, on-going project that needs help. People seem to comment on their particularly good phrasing, or where they could strengthen something.

Wonder why I'm so different within the group....

Anyway. Still no progress on PLME, although Ronoxym did make a... few... comments in response to my multitude of notes. It's not much, but it's a start. Silly goose didn't comment on the stuff towards the start of the story though. So there goes editing.

I've filled my time though with reading, as I mentioned, as well as trying to at least not fall further behind with the writing prompts. Last week I wrote four prompts. Two of which were on the same day, which was exciting. I also started the week with my edit notes to Ron about PLME - the "smiley" on Monday.

Monday must be "bring netbook to work so I can edit" day, because I did the same thing yesterday. DFL was concerned about a choppy start to a scene she read to us. There were a lot of critiques and suggestions for improvement, but I feel the poor woman was overwhelmed. She ended up emailing us her slight update of the scene opening and asked for thoughts. Well, given that I was purposely waiting for the books to drop today and I had finished "Heat Rises," I decided I'd read other people's works to fill the void.

Besides, I've failed at virtually all of my other New Years Resolutions. I was going to hold firm for my beta reading one. I ended up giving her notes on her page-long rewrite. I hope I didn't overwhelm her. I tend to do that in group without meaning to. I give her a different perspective on her story, but I don't know if she takes my suggestions. I might not be the demographic she's looking for. It's her story, and it's her prerogative to decide whether or not to take my suggestions to heart. For all I know, she won't even look at what I sent back to her. Still, she asked for thoughts, and so I was going to give mine. Take them or leave them.

I also did some beta reading for ChibiSunnie. She's in an animation class, or something to that extent, and so she is using the class assignments to finally make headway on the cartoon she's been playing with over the past two years or so. For her final project, she had to sketch out the storyboard for an episode, or something like that, so she decided to tackle the hardest episode she's had in mind over the past few years. She didn't have the time to give me a polished version of the story prior to her needing to start storyboarding it, so my insight isn't going to help much on her final project. Still, I wanted to give it a read, if she wanted me to, so that she could take my critiques along with those of her classmates as a way of better improving the episode for when she can make it an actual show.

I cut it close on that week deadline though. She gave me the script last Tuesday. I gave her my notes last night. Still. She appreciated my effort, is pondering over my questions, and I kept true to my resolution to get beta notes back within a fortnight. I'm proud I actually managed to give notes on two projects back within a week! Granted, both were short reads which made it easier to go through them.

Going back to my writing though, I'm still not past the January prompts, but I now see the light at the end of the tunnel. I also managed to type up and edit one of my past prompts prior to this morning! Yay, progress! Still forgot to upload the darn thing until this morning, but as long as I can get this blog done on time I guess I could let that slide.

I went back to my Numenera character Jynna for this prompt. I also fell back into scenes instead of stories. I'll figure this out eventually.

"Pressing Forward"

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In all honesty, I don't foresee myself doing much more with PLME until Ron's done with school at the end of this month. Might surprise myself, but it's a long shot. Instead, I'll have to pull myself away from my latest book long enough to continue with the writing prompts. At the very least, I could type more than one up a week for your reading pleasure. We'll see what happens.

There We Are!

I have some smiley faces on my pocket calendar. They're pretty much every other day, so I still don't have a week with no more than 3 zero days. However, I'm off to a good start this week. I wrote SOMETHING the past three days. I think I'm finally getting my footing; getting my rhythm.

I even have something to share with you folks, but I'll get to that at the end of the post.

I started to really hold myself accountable this week. Not only did I finally start marking my calendar with the days I did and didn't write, but in the individual dates sections I even noted what I wrote, when, for how long, where I was, and in some cases how many words. I started to do the same with reading as well.

The :-/ faces are days where I did research or outlining.
Technically still counts, but I didn't write a narrative.

Ah, my glorious handwriting.... >_>

When I know that I have to record it, I'm less likely to let my mind wander, and I'm less likely to let a day go by without SOMETHING being done. I mean, look at Thursday, that silly blank day. No writing. No reading. Pathetic. 

It also occurred to me last night that I have two instructional books that I'm working through, but if I haven't completed the exercises in the chapter I'm hard pressed to want to keep reading. So, I'll need a fictional book to read this month too!

ALL THE READING!!!!

"X all the Y" meme
Originally created by Allie Brosh

Yeah, I actually have THREE books going at once! Geez! At least only one of them is a narrative. One of the other two I'm going to slowly read throughout the entire year. I think it's manageable....

Anyway, the narrative is going to knock out another one of the book challenge components: Finish a series I started. Granted, this could be a cheeky way of getting multiple books read, depending how far into the series one is compared to how many are left in the series. I could go with the Enderverse and have something like one story left in the "Speaker Trilogy," or two more stories to finish Ender's storyline, or seven if I were to finish up Ender and then go into the Shadow Saga, or eleven if I'm also including the four books about the Formic Wars. That's not even including the six books Orson Scott Card has planned. You can see how this challenge point can give me a year's worth of reading just by itself....

Me? I went the easy route. I've been very slowly chugging away at the Kane Chronicles by Rick Riordan. It's basically "read one book, read other things, read the next book about two years later" for the three-book series. Not the best way to do it, since I have a hard time remembering what happened in the previous book. Riordan does have his narrators give a broad overview of the key points from previous books that the readers need to know. Still, I feel a bit lost the first couple of chapters until I get my footing again. Especially when there's a returning character that is supposed to be impactful and I go "Wait.... who is this again?"

I still say that, for some reason that Hubby and I can't put our fingers on, the Kane Chronicle books just aren't as engaging to us as just about every other book Riordan has written. Still, I started this series, and by gum, this challenge is going to have me finish it!

So, I now have my "A Writer's Book of Days" writing book filled with prompts for the year, and I have "Ready. Set. Novel!" as my "book with red on the cover" as well as a workbook for me to figure out an actual manuscript to write and complete. Finally, I have "The Serpent's Shadow" as my narrative to read. I got this....

I have to say, "Ready. Set. Novel!" was such a great gift! Well, all of my writing books were, but right now I'm focusing on this one. It is written so humorously, and the exercises are fun and exciting. I actually look forward to opening the book and going over the next exercise. I never had that before. Not with all the other "improvement" books nor with the MasterClasses. Those exercises felt like actual homework. These, though, are definitely an enjoyable part of my day to work towards.

I mean, check out this opening passage:

YOU ARE HERE!
   Hi and welcome! We're so glad you made it. We were just hanging out and chatting with your new novel. Have you met your book yet? Really interesting! Great storyteller! And good-looking too!
   You've clearly got a winner on your hands, and we're excited to spend the next month helping you two get to know each other a little better. As part of that process, we'll take field trips, block out opening scenes, stalk some characters, brainstorm intriguing twists, draw maps, and forge a majestic plot cannon that will launch you headlong into novel-land. By the time you've filled this journal, you and your novel will have a complete blueprint for your new life together.
   You'll also have a very nicely colored picture of Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

And yes, there is indeed an actual coloring page of Dostoyevsky in the back of the book.

Author of "Crime and Punishment"

Yes, they do also have coloring pages of "Frankenstein" author Mary Shelley, the renowned Jane Austen, and Gustave Flaubert, who is probably best known for penning "Madame Bovary."

Also in the back of the workbook is a page to give yourself high fives when you need encouragement:

"Come back and high five this page to
celebrate all your noveling triumphs!"

Be wary, though, because on the very next page is a boot to kick yourself in the pants if you start slacking.

"Turn to this page anytime you're in need
of a good old-fashioned pants kicking."

How can I NOT have fun with this book!? Heck, part of me wants to call it quits on this post right now so I can get back to working though it.

I do have more to say, though, so I won't jump ship on this post. However, if you haven't figured it out yet, I'm giving "Ready. Set. Novel!" rave reviews already. If you need writing help, I highly suggest you pick this book up. Even if you find it at your local library and do what I do: write in a separate journal instead of in the workbook itself.

This way I can reuse "Ready. Set. Novel!" however much I want
without having to buy a new copy every time I want to write a new novel.
Not that I would mind giving NaNoWriMo more money....

I've also decided to follow the advice from "A Writer's Book of Days" and try writing long-hand again, instead of doing all of my daily writing practices on the computer. I'm still not much of a fan since I then have to take the time to transfer all of my long-hand writing onto the computer if I want to post it anywhere. Plus my carpal tunnel acts up when I write by hand too long; my fingers lock, my wrist throbs, and the tips of my fingers get stupid cold from the reduced circulation. In other words, it's probably not the healthiest option for me, considering how tightly I grip pens, no matter how hard I concentrate on loosening my grip.

Still, Judy Reeves claims there's something textual about writing in a journal that people just don't get when tapping at a keyboard. There's a slowing of the mind since most can't write as fast as they type. However, I attempt to keep that hurried pace, hence the terrible handwriting, and probably the tight grip of my pen to make sure it doesn't go flinging across the table.

Another reason why I'm caving in and trying to write long-hand for this workbook: I kind of like the idea of these 365 prompts as journal entries that I can go back and look upon. I mean, I can do the same with the computer, but there's something organic about flipping through actual pages; seeing the horrendous handwriting; not relying on technology; having something even more portable than my laptops.

I already have about 30 untouched journals, so, naturally,
I had to make a Walmart run to pick these up. The purple
one on the bottom is my "Ready. Set. Novel!" journal.

Granted, I've only done the January 13th prompt thus far, so I haven't really written anything in the actual journals yet. I'm going to backtrack and start at January 1st, and then work my way through the journals one date at a time, like a true diary. However, since I am so far behind, if I write from a prompt I didn't reach yet in the diaries, I'm going to go back to my computer.

It's what I did already with the one prompt I did do thus far. I actually even cleaned it up a bit, and that's the new story I have to share today, both with you and with my writing group tonight.

"Survive the Night"

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OK, I REALLY have an itch to get back to writing, so I'll hope to have something, or a few somethings, new for next week. My focus really needs to be a flash-fiction to fit Ronoxym's challenge, since I still haven't written a narrative less than 1000 words....

NaNo Winner!

That's right! I did it! I finally did it! Six years after I attempted my first NaNo, after five attempts, after a year hiatus from the challenge: I did it!

Pardon me for puffing my chest up a bit, but this is such an accomplishment! It'd be an even bigger one had I actually finished the book. Nope. Jolene has a much more epic back story than I thought; at least, in the first draft form. Over 50,000 words into the story, and I'm only about 60% of the way, if that. It's a lot more of an undertaking than I thought.

Back to the important part, though. I completed NaNo finally! Conquered that beast. It was a bit of a struggle. I had to write my fingers off to accomplish it. The last two days I wrote 13,745 words! I think that's the most I've written in such a short time. If it isn't, it's in the top three. I was actually nervous about finishing on time.

I mean, technically, I didn't. Five minutes til midnight, and I still had 1100-some words to write. I ended up cheating: I took last week's blog post, and added it to my word count in order to surpass 50,000 words. A lot of people do that: literally count all the narratives they write; even if they're non-fiction. To make up for it, and to make sure the NOVEL had over 50,000 words, I stayed up until nearly 2am sleepily typing away. I ended up with 50,883 words! That surpassed what I had when I cheated with my blog post, which was only about 50,100-something.

That's when I majorly screwed up.

See, I wanted an accurate count on my novel for posterity sake. So, here it was, 2am on December 1st, and I couldn't re-validate my novel. I already had all the "winner" bragging rights posted everywhere on my NaNo profile. I had the purple "winner" banner. The 2016 medallion on my author info page was also a pretty purple and said "winner" instead of "participant." I could download a winner certificate, could save the pretty "Winner" banners for both this blog and my Facebook profile. I could get access to the NaNoWriMo 2016 Winner profile picture too. Not to mention access to all the discounts winners receive as "goodies"; discounts to a bunch of cool writing-related programs and instructors that sponsor NaNoWriMo.

Fun side note: the only fully free goodie - the rest are large discounts - was the James Patterson MasterClass lesson on editing. I had a nice chuckle about that since I already have that class, thanks to my Mommy buying me the full class series for my birthday two years ago.

Anyway, I already had all the fun stuff and bragging rights. I knew that while I extended the deadline by two hours, I figured it countered the original cheat of adding 1700 words not involved in my novel. I had actually won it! I could have left things alone, but noooooo, I had to have that accurate word count of my novel. So I manually overrode the November 30th word count; except my touchpad jumped, and I accidentally saved the new word count without all the digits. I had unintentionally dropped my word count below 50,000 words, which had the site recant all the "winner" benefits; putting me back to "participant" status. Even when I fixed the word count to my 50,885 close count, since I couldn't verify the count any longer, the site wouldn't give me back my hard-earned winnings.

The whole thing really deflated me, and killed all the excitement I had for surpassing 50,000 words in a month. A bit depressed, I tried writing to the Office of Letters and Light; the non-profit that runs NaNo.

I'm happy to report that yesterday I received an email stating that they had reverified my word count on their end, and reinstated my winner status for this year! YAY!

Hacker Girl Facebook Sticker
by Birdman Inc

So, let's talk a bit about this challenge. First off, I want to show everyone more-or-less my day-by-day progress.

First up, what my stats screen actually looks like over at NaNoWriMo.org
Look at those pretty purple "Winner" icons!
Isn't it cool to see those spikes in my writing?

My completed NaNoWriMo 2016 calendar. Even with seven sad faces of nothingness, I made it!
14,025 words in three days! Nuts!
Calendar created by Dave Seah

So cool, right? After that craziness on the 30th, I just had to take a rest. So, I've been spending the past week FINALLY reading "The Hammer of Thor" by Rick Riordan.

I have to say, I'm somehow shocked at how topical and kind of progressive this man is. In the Heroes of Olympus he's had openly gay characters. In "The Hidden Oracle" he not only has the gay characters as an adorable couple, but has a blatantly pan-sexual character; constantly talking about his two greatest lost loves: one male; one female. In "Hammer of Thor" we're introduced to a transgender/gender-fluid character. He even tried to have his main character Magnus try to empathize with the concept of trangender by remembering a time that he was forced to write with his right hand for a school year, even though he's naturally left-handed. Magnus admitted it's a poor analogy, but I give Riordan props for trying to find a way to explain this experience to his middle-grade target demographic.

When I haven't been working or reading, I've been spending the rest of my now opened up free time to celebrate two birthdays!

Old man is 33 now. :D

We finished last week celebrating my Hubby's birthday with Cards Against Humanity and booze. It was a fun time that included finally officially meeting Ronoxym and Cyhyr's baby girl. I mean, they popped in with her when she was only a month old or so, but she was asleep, and I was busy running a D&D session, so I didn't really get to MEET her. She was so smiley. Apparently she takes after Daddy, and loves meeting new people.

The other birthday celebration included more booze, but a movie this time as I crashed over at Spink's place.

Happy 24th, Spink!

It was fun to cram in so much socializing after semi-neglecting it....

And now, because I'm still a proud little peacock, I'm going to finish up with a few stats that at least I found interesting about my book. You can just stop here if you don't care.

I wrote 26 chapters ranging from as little as 1051 words to as many as 3105 words. My average word count per chapter was 1957 words, even though not a single chapter actually had 1900-some words. Oh, the glory of math.... In contrast, my MEDIAN chapter length was 1804 words per chapter. The official breakdown is as follows:

• One chapter finishing with 1000 and change
• One chapter at 1100+ words
• One chapter each as well for 1200 and 1300 ranges
• Two chapters ended in the 1470s
• Three chapters had 1500-some words
• Three chapters were also within the 1600s
• One chapter - on the lower end of the median - had 1740 words.
• Two chapters had 1800+ words
• Eight different chapters had over 2000 words in them: one each in the 2000, 2100, 2200, and 2300 ranges; two chapters were 2400+ words long; two had over 2500 words.
• Two chapters - one dealing with Jolene's cheating boyfriend, and the other when she met the brothel madam - had over 3000 words.
• One chapter had Jolene tackle a dungeon, and that was my longest one at 3105 words.

I even think I slightly improved on my chapter titles! I started off kind of blah and straight forward, but I feel like I got more intriguing as I went:

1. Finding a Place to Belong
2. Growing Attached
3. Falling in Love
4. First Heartbreak
5. Rediscovered
6. Moving on
7. LIAR!
8. Meeting the Fox
9. Winter Smiles
10. Fox in the Chicken Coup
11. Life as an Adventurer
12. Stargazer
13. Tale of Myrica
14. Love, Despite Yourself
15. Here to Stay
16. Running Away
17. Remind Me of Someone
18. Always Forward
19. A Night to Remember
20. Harrowing Caverns
21. Who Are You?
22. Wine Ruins Everything
23. Let Me be Your Friend
24. Breaking Her In
25. Breaking the Illusion
26. Parasite

Another stat that amused me was the inconsistent "screen time" of each of Jolene's loves. I originally thought that Jacob - the first and strongest love of Jolene's life; the ruler all others are measured against - would have the most chapters. She loved him the most. She was with him the longest. He was the most important to her. Yet, Searl, a man she's all but forgotten, has the most chapters dedicated to him. Here's the breakdown:

• Jacob: four chapters;  8543 words covering a NINE YEAR relationship. Jolene was five, and Jacob was seven when they first became friends; Jolene was ten and Jacob was twelve when they realized they had romantic feelings for each other; when Jacob turned thirteen he unofficially proposed to Jolene; right after her fourteenth birthday he announced his engagement to another woman.
• Teo: three chapters; 5427 words; roughly six-month relationship
• Parvil: three chapters again, but 5714 words covering the feverously short six-week relationship. There was also about two months of friendship building first, though....
• Jesan: five chapters; 9006 words. In truth, 1389 of those words were an impromptu chapter telling the mythilogical story behind a constellation, but the remaining 7617 words covered their four-month relationship.
• Searl: whopping six chapters and 11,815 words. Not too shabby for someone Jolene dated for five months, and really couldn't give two-shits about anymore. I guess he gets extra time because he was her first lover.

While I tried to limit my writing to weekdays only, giving myself weekends off for socializing, I seemed to write fairly close to writing daily anyway. The 50,883 words was actually written within 23 words once you take out the days I failed to write anything for the story. Not to say I didn't write anything at all; just not for the story. Pretty impressive; only missing seven days, and managing an average daily word count of 2212. Of course, with days only having 200-some words; that meant I had to pick up the slack a LOT on other days. End result is still the same, though: