Story Revivals and Master Classes

I oopsied, and I'm paying for it right now.

Once again, I lost track of what day of the week it was. So, while I was home alone for five hours while Hubby was at work last night, I neglected to write this post. Then, at about 10:30 last night, I remembered that today is Wednesday, and that I'm working 8-3:30. Whoops.

So, I forced myself up at 5am so I can make sure that you folks have a noon update. But my eyes are still half-closed, I'm yawning, and I don't have the time to edit this before heading in to work - yes, it takes my that long to write these things - so please forgive any typos and bad grammar.


Let's start off with the important part, the conclusion of my August Goal Challenge on Struggling Writers Society, and thus the end of my summer writing challenges. It was tough to try to squeak everything in, but Monday was my day off this week. Given that it was also the last day of August, I locked myself away in my Writing Nest I created last week and typed all morning.

Set this up in my library when I typed last week's post.

When all was said and done, I actually ended up with TWO chapters. The chapter I was originally intending was a little with Chayse and Lia at first, and then about 80% Chayse and Nix, concluding with Chayse getting in trouble with his mom as well as Nix and Annika heading out for a date.

While I'm not a fan of the majority of the chapter following Chayse's POV, only to hop over to 3rd Omniscient for the last 500-so words while sticking with Nix and Annika. However, them running off for a date seemed like a natural end, and a nice segue into their date chapter. At the same time, Chayse getting in trouble with his mom took on a bit of a life of its own as I embellished the solo role play Hubby had between Chayse and Kitty. Over 2000 words later, I decided it was probably best to break it off into its own chapter.

Plus, even though there's some POV-Hopping when Chayse leaves and I stay with Nix and Annika at the end of the intended chapter, for some reason it fits the flow to stay with them. Cutting back to Chayse for his solo thing felt disconnected even though the majority of the chapter was his POV anyway.

So, there are two back-to-back Chayse POV chapters now. Oh well.

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In the end, I finished off August with something shy of 9,000 words written. Not nearly as exciting as Cyhyr or Mouse hitting 30,000 words, but given that I haven't written actual prose since about April, I think it's a nice wing-stretcher.

Another snaffu that I hit is that FanFiction hasn't been allowing me to properly log in the past two days. I managed to post my chapters on August 31st perfectly fine, but now I can't get back in. I keep getting some error message about no servers available. I can still read stories - including my own - perfectly fine, I just can't get into my FF dashboard to upload, edit, or post anything that I write. Weird.

Anyway, the reason I realized that was because at about 10pm - apparently my realization hour - on Monday I remembered that I had posted the new X-Future: The Second Generation Begins chapters up on FanFiction, but I had neglected to post them to DeviantArt as well. I spent roughly the next forty-five minutes editing the chapter. See, I still haven't learned how to upload prose as if it were a picture file on to DeviantArt. A lot of authors have done this so that you scroll through a PDF or something. Very professional because it's like an ebook.

Like I said, I haven't figured that out yet. Mostly because I'm just computer literate enough to survive in this digital world and know a few tricks to impress my mother with, but I'm computer illiterate in most things beyond "basic". So, I haven't figured out how to save my Word Doc as a PDF that I can then upload to DA.

Because of this, I have to post things the hard way, by entering text into a box and then adding all of the formatting things - such as line breaks - via HTML. One of the most annoying formatting edits I have to do is redoing all the italics that I put into my story. They don't transfer over at all with a simple copy-and-paste. So I have to then re-read the whole story and try to find all the parts I had italicized.

I tried something new this past time. I scanned my story, stopped just before an italic, copied, pasted, put in the HTML, wrote the italicized word or sentence, and then copied the next section of text leading into another italic.

Since the first chapter had a LOT of Chayse thinking, it also had a lot of italics. It kept me roughly 45 minutes to get it all formatted.

And then I derped.

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I brought up the preview to make sure the edits worked the way I wanted them to, but when I went to close the preview, I hit the wrong box and closed out the entire document. It doesn't auto-save. It doesn't ask if you're sure you want to close. It doesn't warn you that you'll lose everything you didn't save. It just complies, and closes the window.

Nearly an hour, gone. Never to return, and with nothing to show.

I was kinda ticked at that point and gave up for the night.

Problem is, now I can't get back into FF so I can copy my chapters, since FF won't let you copy a story you're reading. A great way to prevent plagiarism, but an annoying feature right now. So, when I'm done with work today, I have to again unbury my external hard drive - I have one of the older "My Book" models that's about a pound or so, and kind of clunky; not an issue when it's forever still next to a desktop, but annoying when attached to a moving laptop - so I can access the original files that I had used to post to FF in the first place. At least I know I have access to them. I can even attempt to save as a PDF one more time before going through the stupid HTML edits again.

In the meantime, you can check out the latest chapters - as well as the rest of the story - on FanFiction.net:
 > Bro-Bonding
 > You're in Trouble, Son!

Yes, I'm well aware that I still suck at coming up with titles....

I'm also aware that my story's voice, style, and detail have all evolved since Chapter 1. It's a fanfiction I started over 2 years ago; I'm not worried about it. Just enjoy the evolution, I guess.


*cracks knuckles*
Alright, and now for some super exciting news. The news I meant to tell you guys last week, but COMPLETELY forgot until about 10minutes before I had to publish the update.

So, my awesome mother did a thing.

There is this site called MasterClass. It has all of these mini-courses about tons of different professions, and they're taught by professionals in said career. Right now, there are three available classes: Acting taught by Dustin Hoffman, Tennis by Serena Williams, and the one my mother found for me. Writing taught by James Patterson. In case my mother wasn't quite amazing enough for finding this for me, she also paid the sign-up fee as an early-anniversary/Super-Early Christmas gift for me.

So, the Monday before last week's blog, I excitedly watched the first four videos - as directed by the "class syllabus". I was just too excited to wait any longer to open my gift, so to speak.

These classes are awesome! Patterson is a really down-to-earth guy who is playful, funny, personable, a joy to listen to, and you can tell he really cares. Yes, I know there are skeptics out there that might think "Yeah, he's paid to care," but he also does donate millions of dollars towards literacy programs, such as funding libraries and book donations to schools and the like. I legitimately think this man cares about both literacy and the up-coming aspiring writers.

Plus, the guy is inspiring, and has so many great quotes!

Here's a few I made sure to copy, and then I posted them on my FB:

• "It took me into my forties before people really believed in the kind of fiction I was writing."
  This is actually really comforting for someone in her early 30s who hasn't even finished a manuscript yet.
• "When I got out of school, I started working at an ad agency... but I've been clean for twenty years now..."
  This one just made me chuckle. I absolutely loved my time at the production house right out of college. In fact, aside from maybe my brief stint at a movie theater, I think it's my favorite job I've ever had. I guess it just depends on the ad agency you fall into, and what sort of advertising you do...
• "If you had to tell me your story in ten minutes; fifteen minutes. Figure out a way to tell me that story in fifteen minutes, and that will be the core of your story.... There's the story. You should be able to tell that story, I would think, in ten or fifteen minutes, or less."
  I'm fairly certain - based on context surrounding this quote - that he meant verbally telling someone. Either way, it's a good rule of thumb; especially for someone long-winded like me.

I also want to state that I am dumbfounded by a factoid that Patterson threw out about himself. Apparently, when he was in college, he was reading 10-12 novels a week. A WEEK! NOVELS! I can't even get myself to read 10-12 novels a YEAR and he was doing so A WEEK! Geez! How the heck!? Speed-reader, much?

Anyway, back on topic...

The video classes are only about 10minutes long, and so it's real easy to tear through them. As I mentioned, there's a sort of "class schedule" that MasterClass posts. A suggested schedule on how many videos - and which ones - you should watch per week.

Yes, per WEEK. I'm assuming most who take the classes put 10minutes of their busy schedules aside three or four times a week in order to watch a class. Then, on their "off" days, they spend the 10minutes or so they would be watching a class, and use it for the "homework" provided with each lesson.

I was too eager and watched all four suggested for Week 1 in one sitting. Whoops.

On top of that, I've been so preoccupied with finishing up the August Goal writing challenge that I didn't bother with any of the assignments.

So, now that it's September, and the challenge is over, I'm bothering now.

Assignment #1: Create a writing schedule and fill it out on the week-long calendar provided.

Well, I intended on doing these classes Monday nights, which would mean the week would be Monday through Sunday. Given that it's Wednesday - which would be when NORMAL people would watch the second video - and I only came up with my schedule last night, I feel like I failed a bit. However, I did CREATE the schedule. It didn't say anything about actually following through with it.... #Loopholes.

Anyway, I'm writing now, first thing in the morning, to make up for not writing at all yesterday, and I wrote like the Dickens on Monday to finish up my challenge. So, maybe consider this first assignment only semi-failed?

For the rest of the week, at least - and hopefully spilled over into next week, I'll have to check my work schedule - in the hour between 5pm and 6pm I shall be writing every day, again, ignoring yesterday and Monday.

We'll see how a consistent writing schedule works for me. It hasn't in the past, and that has been one of my biggest pitfalls in the world of writing. I really REALLY need to learn how to discipline myself enough to get a steady writing schedule, even if it isn't a daily routine.

Alright. So, Assignment #1 is done; sort of.

Now on to Assignment #2: Create 3 raw ideas - either new, or ones I've been playing around with - and write them down somewhere.

In other words, I have to start physically creating a Plot Bunny Farm. The ideas have to be physically written down. Either by hand on some hardcopy - index cards, notebook, looseleaf in a folder, etc  - or digitally - word doc, folder names for future documents, spreadsheet, MS Paint Thought Maps, etc.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be trickier than I gave myself credit for. I have a few Works-In-Progress that I could use to build the Plot Bunny Farm, but it feels a little like cheating, I think. So, I figured I'd attempt some new ideas. It's hard to transition away from ideas you've been brewing for years in order to "magically" come up with some new ones for an assignment.

Worst part is I discovered I'm pretty good at coming up with a neat story environment/world, and I'm also pretty good at coming up with interesting characters. What I'm surprisingly bad at is coming up with actual PLOTS. Beginning, middle, and end. Done. *dusts off hands*

I have Amara. She's a D&D character that evolved into a High Fantasy story character that evolved into one of the many stories I have based in the world of Gyateara.

I have Amara's backstory, physical description, personality, and life goal all mapped out. What I DON'T have, is a specific story arc for her. "Amara does whatever she can to try to find a way to banish the human part of her soul so she can become fully Elvish." Great life goal to give her drive throughout a story, but that in and of itself isn't a plot.

Jump over to my Vampire: The Masquerade character that I attempted writing a story for this past NaNo. Same deal as with Amara: backstory, description, personality, life goal, but no plot. That's the main reason I abandoned the story. "Lottie is on three simultaneous quests: hunt down the vampire that killed her sire, as well as as many of his clansmen as she can; find out what happened to her husband when he went MIA in WWII; find a way to retain her humanity." Three great starts to books. I can write one based on any one of those goals, let alone all three at the same time. However, there's no PLOT there. What is the fighting force against her?

Then you have the idea I was going to attempt for Script Frenzy. A story similar to Pixar's "Inside Out", but instead of the "little people living in your head" being personified emotions, it was an author's characters literally living in her brain. Fun world concept, but there's no plot there.

Then you have X-Future - and it's reboot I've been working on - which is simply "Teenagers with powers struggle in a world both trying to co-exist with them as well as destroy them. Chaos ensues."

I can go on. This past week I thought of about four more characters like Amara and Lottie, and three more world concepts like the "Inside Out" one or X-Future.

You know what that probably means I'm good at? Serials.

I can probably write comics or TV series. I have characters with vaguely specific goals in life that they're working toward, and each strip/episode is a different little plot that either fights against that goal, or helps lead them to it. I have a fun world that readers/viewers might enjoy exploring, and they can with each new strip/episode which is another "slice of life" in that world.

However, my inability to come up with solid PLOTS does not bode well for me as a novelist....

So, I'm still working on that Plot Bunny assignment.

The final assignment I have for the next time I watch more classes is this.

Assignment #3: Write a plotline out - preferably based on one of the three Plot Bunnies from Assignment #2 - in 3-5 concise sentences. Once the plot is fleshed out, send it to a good, but brutally honest friend. If they want to know more about the story, then you have something you should commit to. If not? Then go back to the drawing board and see if you can tickle their fancy next time.

My NY Bestie Spink volunteered to be my "Brutally Honest Friend" for this assignment. Now to figure out what to tell her....

Well, that's it on my assignment list and my feelings on my writing MasterClass for the week. Plus, I need to wake up Hubby so we can get ready for work....

Keep an eye out for my list of Plot Bunnies, as well as my 3-5sentence plotline next week.

Prose Finally Written, But Not Done: Final Week of Summer Challenges

Well, I'm a ditz. I completely forgot that I was supposed to check out Inkitt.com a bit more and report back to you guys about it last week. I was so fixated on how behind I was with the August challenge over at Struggling Writers Society that I didn't even think about Inkitt.

It's a pretty neat site. There are a few "groups" that you can post in; they run essentially the same as a forum. A place to share and discuss. There's one section for generic writing and editing discussion, one for introducing yourself, another for tech support, one to discuss the current writing contests being held, and a final one for beta-reading.

The "Discover" tab allows you to pick what type of story you want to read, based on genre, Inkitt's staff picks, or whatever fandom's fanfiction you wish to read.

Finally, the part of the site that got me to join in the first place: Contests. They just opened up the fantasy genre one on Monday, and it's open until September 24th, in case anyone else wants to join in. I'm not sure if I'll be able to work on something soon enough for it to be ready by the 24th, but we'll see.

It seems that they rotate out contests, so if there isn't one for the genre you write right now, there might be one opening soon enough.

So, this definitely seems like a win of a find!

But what about my current challenge?

Well, I wasn't able to get the chapter done in time to share with this post, as predicted. However, I have a nice sized chunk taken out of it. Not as much as I would have liked, but I've been spending my non-working hours mostly catching up on cleaning and organizing the house.

Still, I was determined to have SOMETHING accomplished to post when we did our check-ins this past Saturday. I was NOT going to go another week of not doing anything for my writing!

So, I plopped myself down at the dining room table Friday night in order to write anything before going to bed. I could only spare about an hour before I had to go get some sleep for my early morning shift on Saturday, but at least I did it. I had done some writing before the end of the challenge week.

I had managed to write just over two pages - 1313 words - before crashing on Friday, and I also asked the SWS to keep me accountable by making sure I had posted a sample of my work before 10pm on Saturday.

Well, things went a bit awry, and so I didn't post until a bit after 10, but I still managed my deadline. Here's the sample I posted in the group:

“Lia, we fell asleep on the roof. You gotta wake up before anyone notices that we've been out here all night.”

“We fell asleep?” she groggily gargled back. As soon as the words left her mouth her brain figured out what they meant. Jumping on to her knees, she stared wide eyed at Chayse. “We fell asleep?” she yelled.

“Shhh, you're gonna wake everyone!” Chayse grabbed her arm to steady her as he covered her mouth.

She batted his hand away and continued to freak out. Thankfully, it was in a much softer tone this time. “Oh, my god, we fell asleep? We've been out here all night?”

Chayse slowly nodded his head; giving her a moment to finish waking up and comprehend what was going on.

“Crap! My dad is gonna kill me!” Her eyes widened farther – something Chayse didn't realize was possible – and stared him down. “He's gonna kill us. Oh, shit! We gotta get back to our dorms! Quick! Before he finds out. Oh, god! First the thing with the dress and now this? Shit. I'm gonna be in so much trouble. And he's gonna hate you. Geez. He's gonna think you're a bad influence on me or something, and then he won't let us see each other anymore, and since we both live here that means he'll be on patrol twenty-four-seven. And he can do that, ya know!”

“Lia,” Chayse tried to hide his chuckling, but it was just too cute listening to her ramble whenever she was nervous.

“I thought him watching me was bad before. He'll be like my shadow now. And what if he thinks all guys are bad influences because of this? What if you've ruined my chances with any guy? I'm never gonna get married. I'll grow old and alone, but instead of a crazy lady with forty cats, I'm gonna have forty copies of my father.”

“Lia!” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her briefly. “Calm down. They're not going to know, alright? You just need to relax.”

She punched him in the shoulder. “How could you let us fall asleep?”

He made a mental note to not make this girl legitimately angry. Even that playful punch kind of hurt. He guessed she had more strength than she realized; having to walk around with obsidian skin can add some real muscle strain otherwise. He rubbed where she connected and shrugged. “I know, I know. My bad.”

Accountability and disgust with one's self is sometimes a beautiful thing. It gets stuff done!

Apparently I didn't have quite enough disgust, though, because after hiding away for another four hours, I only managed to add another 1463 words. So, in nearly four times the amount of "writing time" I only managed to do a bit more than double my word count. Go me....

I then skipped two days; opting to clean and sleep instead. So, I tried to crank out the last of the chapter Tuesday morning before having to go to work. I still haven't figured out my writing rhythm, though, and don't allot nearly enough time to do the writing I need. So, no time to finish the chapter. Instead, I added yet another 920 words; barely anything in the grand scheme of things.

I then had more cleaning before work, work itself, and then house-invaders, sleep, and work once more before this noon update. Probably another reason why I ran out of time to get the chapter done and published; I had to write this post yesterday in order to get it published on time.

Still, having about seven pages written isn't terribly too bad. I do still have until this upcoming Monday to have the chapter done and published in order to meet my official August goal. I have time. I just need to really crack down on it. So, I'm adding accountability again.

I WILL have the chapter available to share in next week's post. Keep an eye out for that! And if I don't include it, shun me!

Hopefully I'll have another story to share next week as well. Seems Delaroux got bit by the writing bug yet again! She recently shared with the rest of SWS that she just finished a 13-chapter fanfiction about the anime Haikyuu. I told her to drop us the link to the story, but for all I know she hasn't posted it online. If she does get us a link, I'll be sure to pass it on to you folks.

Man, I had something else kind of major that I wanted to share this week, but this post is already getting long, and I'm in a bit of a time crunch. I'll have to hold on to it and share next week along with my chapter and possibly Delaroux's story.

Yay! Lots of stuff for you to look forward to for next week!

Spreadsheets Are My Friend, And I Have The Pictures To Prove It!

As anyone involved in my writing group Struggling Writers Society can attest, I was horribly disappointed in myself this past Saturday. It was the close of the second week of our August writing challenge - a challenge I'm HOSTING, by the way - and I didn't do ANYTHING involving writing the whole week; this blog being an exception.

The whole process of tracking down the posts was such a tedious one; I didn't want to do it anymore. I had started spreadsheets to help me out for future use, but it didn't save me time now.

Wide awake with my Sunday Insomnia, and sickened at the fact that I hadn't even THOUGHT about doing any writing this past week, I finally knuckled down. I wasn't going to allow myself to sleep until I had everything plotted out at least. I even went through and redid some of my spreadsheet; again, for ease later down the line.

I still have tons of threads to add to the sheet, but here it is right now:

Along with thread name, location, and date it was started, I added a column to determine if I wrote anything from that thread before. The most important one, in my opinion, is that last column. Smartest thing I did in regards to plotting this out. That last column lists the post number for the start of the next story segment from that thread. It also lists the date the next story segment is posted; that way I can find the posts I need that much easier.

Honestly, with that last column, I don't think I need the "Yes/No/Won't Be" column, nor the "date created" one. I feel all the info I need is really in that last section I created. Go me! I'm really proud of myself for coming up with listing that.

Alright, so that's semi-set for me for next time, now to return to NOW. What do I have done NOW to help me with my month-long goal to have another chapter posted of X-Future: The Second Generation Begins?

Well, as I stated last week, I started off the same way I did for the first eight chapters of TSGB. I was copying the posts and dumping them into Word. Well, since I don't have Microsoft Word on my laptop - nor can I GET it for my laptop - I ended up attempting to dump it into an OpenOffice document. It didn't work too well, and putting it into Google Docs wouldn't have helped. I wasn't even done with the day - maybe only 1/2 way - and I was already up to 51 pages. Mostly because the table cells get HUGE in comparison to the actual forum's layout.

Case and point, here are the same two panels; one from the forum and one in OpenOffice:
  

So, yeah, dropping them in Word was a really bad idea. I'm not sure why I didn't think of it before, but I had the lightbulb-moment to put everything into yet another spreadsheet; just copy and dump. I didn't need anything more than the action/dialogue and who the poster was.

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That 51+ page chaos soon became simplistic. Even better, I was able to categorize the posts easier. Now, instead of scrolling through endless posts in Word, I can jump to a new sheet. This meant I was also able to find appropriate break points in the story during that day or two of posting. So, I have distinctive starts and stops for the different story segments. I'm not going to just keep writing until I find that natural break; I know when it's coming!

This also means that I know how many chapters I can get out of that day of posting, that spilled into a second day to finish up the role play.

Check that out! Three! Three new chapters! Well, and a "random event" that no one really reacted to, but it still greatly affects the story world, and so I have to include it somewhere. I just need to figure out where, and fabricate reactions from characters....

Anyway, point is, I have three new chapters plotted out. All that headache set me up for three chapters! I think that evens things out a bit. That also means that TSGB is indeed going to be an epic. I'm not even a week into the role play and I'm already going to have 11 chapters; possibly more once the role play week is done!

I haven't yet, but I need to get cracking on actually WRITING the thing now. It's the fun part, but I haven't had time until today. So, I guess I know what I'm doing while Hubby's at work. I am determined to not let this week slip by like last week did; Sunday and now not included. I WILL have a sample for you folks next week. With any luck, I'll have a full chapter, but I'm not getting my hopes up.

In the meantime, there IS someone who managed to get a chapter done. Although I would love to say it was Ronoxym getting back into writing, sadly I think he's become too preoccupied lately. He has a really big career opportunity coming up, and so his focus is justifiably on that.

Instead, the person who got some major writing accomplished is someone I don't think I've mentioned yet in this blog.

Yesterday, one of my college buddies very proudly posted the chapter she had been working on for a little while. Although I don't recall her actively participating in SWS's writing challenge this month, I still consider this as one of the challenge's victories. The whole point of me starting up the challenge is to help shake the dust off some people. A lot of us have let writing - something we all expressed a passion for; simply by signing up for my group - slip into a nearly-forgotten hobby. I wanted to bring it back to the forefront; back to us proving to ourselves how important it is for us. Cassie hadn't written in a while - or, at least, she didn't post online about it - and so her giddily sharing that she was back to writing was exciting.

Better yet, she was trying out something new. Most writers are instructed to write what we know, that's mostly because it's super hard to believably write what we DON'T know. Granted, through practice, study, and interviewing we can write what we don't know, but it's a struggle. One that Cassie bravely took on.

She wrote in a male's perspective. She was nervous about making it seem realistic, and probably still is unsure of herself. She even admits that it isn't her best work; yet. Still, she went outside her comfort zone, and shared it with the world on top of that.

So, why not hit up the post, and then let her know what you think, especially if you're a guy. She'd gladly accept the criticism: Chpt 2 - Caleb

And, while she seems to be still figuring out who she is as a blogger, her posts are entertaining. Give them all a check, and you might as well add her to your reading list while you're there.

Cassie Jean, Writer; A Work in Progress

Anyway, yay progress for my fellow SWS writer!

Now to focus on some of my own.

TO WRITING!!!!!

    

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by PRANEAT

    

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Tedious Actions, Mangas, and a New Writing Site

The summer challenge over at Writers’ Huddle is done, and we're about half-way through week 2 of the Struggling Writers Society's August Writing Challenge. I have to admit, I got a bit lost this week.

I'm trying to get back to working on X-Future: The Second Generation Begins for this month's challenge. I abandoned the project nearly two years ago, and I really need to start closing up projects.

Granted, considering the fact that I'm something like 8-chapters long already and still haven't finished adapting the first week of role play, this project will take YEARS before it's "closed". However, I can at least work towards that first time jump that Hubby created when the game starting to die down around the holidays. Consider that "volume one" or whatever. Then I can close out some other projects. Eventually I can work my way back to the board and create both the Devon spin-off - following him on his journey - as well as work on "volume two". Basically, writing up until the three-month time skip. I can again take a break, return, and do the next portion that leads up to the summer break time skip.

The whole process will still take me years, I'm sure, but maybe with a little bit of discipline, I can get this accomplished in a year or two. By then I'll either have more material to work with, or - as it seems to be going these days; sadly - the board will be dead, and I'll be completely caught up.

Of course, I'll still be working on my comic reboot throughout this whole process, but it's still nice to have a plan mapped out. Perhaps I'll even have some more material to add more chapters to X-Future: Snippets. I mean, with getting back into character to rework all of this role playing into prose, I may start really hearing The Girls in my head again. Stories might unfold. It would be nice to write prose again. I haven't done so in months.

It's getting to the point where I'm a bit envious of a couple of participants in the SWS writing challenge. Mouse posted on Facebook last Thursday: "I'm about 17,000 words in..." She also added on Monday: "Another chapter drafted! Woooo!" So. Much. Progress.

Then, even with play practices and whatnot, you have stupidly disciplined Cyhyr. When doing our weekly check-in on Saturday, she was "up to 19,698 words and [has] a general idea of the next few scenes."

I am so proud of these girls, and everyone else who's participating in the challenge, but at the same time, I'm so darn envious of them! So much work accomplished! And in such a short span too. I'm curious if I'm ever going to be able to accomplish that.

Granted, the project I gave myself does take a LOT of prep-work before I can actually get around to writing, so it's partially my own fault. Still, the tediousness is so overwhelming that I found myself BALANCING OUR FINANCES the past two days during the minimal amount of hours I had outside work. That's right. I would rather figure out finances and set up a budget than work on this project....

Not including the section for the Brotherhood role plays, there are 161 - that's ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY ONE - different topics in the X-Future board. Each topic is a different room or mission or off-campus excursion or character diary or "general world information" post, etc. MOST of these posts were started months, even years, after the part of the story I'm currently working on. So, I can weed out these topics as threads I don't need to re-read quite yet. The trick is weeding through them all to see which topics I DO need to go back through.

To try to help with that, I started up a spreadsheet listing the threads, the direct link for each of them, what date they were created on, and which topic folder to find them in. So far, I'm not even half-way through the full list of topic folders, and I'm already up to about 60 threads. Whoot! Only 100 more to sift through.

Trying to list all the topics would be a great help to myself later down the road, but it's currently taking far too long for my current challenge. So I decided to go back to my original way of sifting through everything. Namely, look up Hubby's account and select "all posts from this month". I then select "June 2012" and scroll to the date I want. It's convoluted, but it works. Mainly because Hubby was involved - either with his character Chayse, or as the narrator - in nearly every role play at the very beginning of the game. I then bring up my posts as Lia for any role playing that Hubby wasn't involved in, and finally I bring up any posts that celestialTyrant had as Nix.

We were the Main Three posters at the start of the game, and so anything that was going on at the time typically had at least one of us three involved somehow. Once I gather up everything that the three of us role played in, I then go back through thread by thread, and double check that there weren't any additional role plays in that time frame. For instance, Phfylburt might have had a solo-play with his character Lucas Kinney.

THAT is the most time-consuming. Going back through, thread by thread, and checking "was this thread started on/before June 23, 2012?" If it wasn't, I can quickly forget about it since any role play in it was obviously done after the section I'm currently adapting. If it was started on or before the date I'm currently working on, then I have to read through and see if there's anything there I need to grab. The real fun ones are when it's something like Willow's bedroom - both pre-time-skip when she was bunking with Penumbra, and post-time-skip when she was bunking with Lia - where there's about 20pages worth of role playing, and I have to try to guess where the "June 23rd" role playing can be found.

Tiring work. Boring work. Tedious work. I really need to get that spreadsheet finished so it's a bit faster for me to get through the "planning" stage of these chapters. Man, it would be so much easier if I could just type in a search bar on the forum "All posts from [insert date here]". Save me the trouble of trying to find them all manually.

I wish I knew where this came from/the artist.
I use this "sigh" graphic all the time. It just works perfectly.
If you know the source, please let me know in the comments.

AAAAAAAANYWAY.

So, I go through the whole board. I gather up all of the role play posts from a specific date. THEN I have to organize them. Sure, it's easy to go through from start to finish on one role play session, but what about the ones that are happening on different threads? I have to use the time stamps to figure out which posts happened when, and if they occurred at the same time, I have to decide - narratively - if it's worth breaking up one role play to insert the other so the times line up. Do I break up this action by bringing in this other one, and then bounce back to the first? Do I write out the entire first session and then comment that across campus at the same time this other action was going on? Do I take some creative liberty and say that the shorter of the two sessions happened after the first, instead of at the same time?

Then comes one of the most frustrating portions of translating the role play into prose. The actual timeline of the story. We were testing the waters when we first started. We weren't sure about formatting or how to state what time we were picturing while writing. We didn't even have a way to state which DATE we were on. So we have two different characters interacting with each other on two different days; seemingly.

For instance, Lia goes off and has a heart-to-heart with her dad after her first date with Chayse. Right after Jamie leaves her, Lia watches the footage from the Danger Room session that put Chayse in the infirmary in the first place. Shocked by what she saw, Lia rushes from the room in order to find Chayse. So, based on how I role played Lia, this is MAYBE about 3pm the day after her first date.

MEANWHILE, right after getting in from his date with Lia, Hubby had Chayse chat with Nix, and then head out to the campus pond to showcase a new trick he learned while in the DR session Lia ended up watching. So, in my head, I'm picturing Chayse showing off his new "trick" to Nix about the same time - maybe a little earlier - as Lia and Jamie's talk. Then Chayse heads inside to grab food and change, only to see a note on his door telling him his parents wish to see him. At this point, Chayse is probably talking with his parents about the same time that Lia is either chatting with her own father, or is already watching the footage of Chayse's DR session.

Now, here's the trick, after having Chayse talk to his parents, Hubby stepped away from role playing for a few hours while the rest of us finished up stuff: me having Lia watch the footage; Nix and Annika finish role playing their date, etc. So, when he came back to role play as Chayse again, it's heavily implied that it's the next day, and Gambit is knocking on Chayse's door to remind the kid that he has a tournament to get to. Chayse races out the door and is gone for a few hours - more like half a day, probably - before returning home a champion. Lia - who was racing to see Chayse after watching the footage - meets up with Chayse right as he returns home. He's established as still wearing his martial arts gi and holding his latest medal. Lia even comments on both. In fact, most of the conversation revolves around Lia's discovery that Chayse does martial arts, and is super good at it. So, I can't really IGNORE that she finds him after his tournament. However, Lia - the way I wrote it - is still on the day after their date. Where as, Hubby strongly implied that Chayse's tournament was two days after the date; one day after showing his new power discovery to Nix.

It's going to be fun to try to figure out THAT timeline. And most of the role playing for the first few months is like that. Oh, the joys....

It's no wonder I abandoned this project nearly two years ago....

Another distraction - aside from work and figuring out finances; as I already stated - was that I'm rereading a manga series.

I don't even really recall when I started it - around 2005, I think - or who introduced me to the series - because I rarely just go "hmm, this one looks good" - but around a decade ago I got into the manga series "Fruits Basket." For one reason or another, volume 21, out of the 23-book series, was NEVER available for me. I tried multiple times for months on end to find this "elusive" book; purchasing the final two volumes when I found them so they wouldn't "disappear" on me too.

After about a year of searching with no success, I ended up forgetting about the incomplete series - mainly because I didn't have the disposable income to buy it any longer. So, I read up to volume 20, and volumes 22 and 23 remained untouched. Fast forward until this past Friday, when I realized that one of my friends had a lonely volume of "Fruits Basket" on her bookshelf. Her fiance's sister had left him a random assortment of mangas, and this ONE book from late in the series was one of the hodge-podge. Lo, and behold! It was "elusive" Volume 21!

Well, since it was silly for her to have just the ONE book, and since neither of them bothered even reading it since it was so late in the series, it was gifted to me so I could complete my collection!

NEATO!!!!!

I tried just re-reading Volume 20 to remind myself what happened before tearing through the last three volumes of the series. Except, I didn't recall ANYTHING from that book! I know I read it, but the whole thing seemed new to me. So, I backtracked again and read Volume 19, only to realize I still couldn't recall some of the things they were referencing. I kept backtracking like that until I got to Volume 16.

Oh. I remember this one! I've read it about five times already. My favorite book in the whole series so far; mostly because about half of it is the love story between the main character Tohru's parents. You had references throughout the series about how madly in love they were, and how opposite they seemed to be, personality wise. However, Volume 16 gave you the whole story. There's even a panel in that book - just one panel - that makes me sob EVERY. FRIGGEN. TIME.

Vol 16; Chap 92; Vol pg 91/chp pg 19
Every. Friggen. Time!
I think it's because I think of Hubby holding
our future child, and it melts me.
Or it's just because of the Father/Daughter thing.

*sniffle*
Anyway....

Point is; I CLEARLY recall Volume 16, parts of Volume 17, and nearly nothing after that. Sooooo, I've been rereading these books so I can FINALLY finish the series. On the one hand, it's a bummer because it means I'm NOT writing. On the other hand, I wanted to read a book a month throughout 2015, and I've only read one book; back in February! So, it's nice to be reading again. However, I think I'll consider reading Volumes 17 through 23 "one book" in regards to my reading goal; since graphic novels - by their nature - are easier and faster to read.

One last thing of note for the week.

Last night I randomly received a message on my FictionPress account. I was informed of a fantasy-themed free writing competition, and a strong encouragement to participate. Now, part of me is thinking that it's probably some sort of spam; this info was sent to anyone on FictionPress that has a submission in the Fantasy genre. However, another part of me kinda likes thinking that this person did read my work, and honestly thinks I'd do well in the contest.

Either way, I noticed the email this morning, and so I have yet to look up the contest; I'll do that once I'm done here. I also haven't had a terribly good look at the site the contest is being held on, but it looks very promising.

It's called Inkitt. From what I can gather, it's basically a more professional version of FictionPress. Anyone can submit their original writing there for free; so it seems, again, I haven't had time to really look to see if there's fees. Then, the group that runs the site has editors read the work to make sure it's publishable; is the grammar and spelling correct, no typos, formatting correct, no "author's notes" to bog the reading down, etc. I don't think work is ever rejected based on the quality of the writing/story, just on the actual grasp of the English language. Sort of like how a teacher won't grade your paper based on how much she enjoyed the story, just on whether or not the basics are done correctly.

Point being, that anyone can post there, but those who go to read the stories don't have to weed through ones that aren't properly polished first. Like I said, a more professional version of FictionPress.

Speaking of readers, apparently there's also a way for the site to custom-pick stories that you would like. I'll have to play around with that too in order to figure out that feature, and then get back to you folks next week.

Have any of you used Inkitt before? Either as readers or authors? Feel free to let us know more about it, as well as how you liked using it, in the comments. In the meantime, I'm off to play with a new site.

2015 Summer Writing Challenge Final Week - Multiple Man

This past week was even more pathetic than the one before. Shortly after publishing last week's post I attempted to drive out to my sister-in-law's to meet my nephew. Sadly, my car died on me while making the trek. It's been an annoying week of getting to and from work while also attempting to revive my car. We managed it - it takes a bit, but it starts up now; won't be taking it out of town, though - and so hopefully the next month won't be as stressful.

However, added chaos and nearly hitting my breaking point at work put a complete halt on my writing. I was so embarrassed to check in on this last week of the challenge. I had to let people know that while I did attempt to work on Multiple Man's rework this week - just like with Shadowcat last week - I didn't really get much further than what I had already come up with a few months ago.

Because of that - again, just like with Emily last week - a lot of what you're seeing in the below bio I thought up as I was writing it here. For instance, I had a fairly strong idea of what I wanted Cody to look like, but I didn't get around to writing it before Sunday, and as I wrote it out here different little things popped up. Such as the fact that he has scars, freckles - and Keahi's reaction to them - always wears sneakers, and that he needs reading glasses. Most of the backstory was created this morning as I was writing this, as well as Cody's hobby of gardening.

New Name: Cody
Basic Info: Age Not Figured Out Yet, 5' 11", 155lbs, Brunette, and green eyes
Powers: Tweaker Glitch; Sub-category: Soul-Splitter/Cloning
Cody is capable of converting a fresh drop of his blood into an exact copy of himself. These can be mindless drones with “hive mind”, but Cody has to spend all of his mental ability “remotely” controlling them. So, he usually defaults to the “Soul Splitting” part of his powers. This means that when he makes a copy he can make it autonomous by “gifting” it some of his consciousness.
The clone has the knowledge and personality that Cody selects - usually subconsciously via deciding what he wants the clone to do - and it is “locked” away from him while the clone exists. He can still “remotely” tap into that knowledge and personality as long as the clone is close. Cody’s ability to tap into the part of him birthed into the clone diminishes with distance. It completely “locks away” if the clone is ever 200 or more miles away; basic knowledge learned is a default that Cody would never have to “gift” to a clone and therefore will never lose it. If the clone is ever killed, that part of Cody’s consciousness returns to him; along with any new knowledge it may have picked up while away from him. However, the trauma of the clone's death gives Cody a migraine. He can also reabsorb a clone to get rid of it without causing that trauma. To do so, Cody needs skin-to-skin contact.
The almost instinctual reabsorption of the clones is due to his "soul" craving to be whole again; it's almost a gravitational pull. To prevent himself from accidentally absorbing a clone before he wants to, Cody tends to wear gloves and as much other clothing as possible while he has a clone nearby. Also because of this pull to be whole again, the closer the clones are to Cody the more mental control over them he has; allowing him to dictate their actions with little to no argument from them. Cody has had a few clones that wandered far enough from him to feel true autonomy, and it was a struggle to bring them back into the fold.
I may or may not create a story arc centering around Cody's darker side of his personality splitting off as a runaway clone that Cody was never able to track down and reabsorb. This would explain why he's so cheerful most of the time, and it would be fun to see the interaction once the runaway clone finally returns - or runs into Lia.
He can create multiple clones at the same time via multiple drops of blood. In turn, each of the clones may use their own blood to create clones of their own; breaking off some of the personality Cody gave them to put into the clones they make. So on and so forth. Cody can also decide how much or how little of himself to give each clone. The amount of himself he inputs into each clone determines both how many clones he can create in any given time, and how many clones the clones can create. The death of any clones Cody's clones create will give the clones migraines, just like Cody. If more than three of Cody's direct clones die and return to him within a half-an-hour his migraine gets so bad that he is completely immobilized. If six or more are killed within a half-an-hour of each other the trauma is so severe that Cody falls into a coma that lasts an hour for each clone past the initial six that were killed.
To prevent losing himself completely, he caps his clones at 25 clones of himself. There is further restrictions on the cloning. The actual mechanics are still being ironed out, but the fewer clones Cody makes, the more clones his clones can make; and the more generations of clones can be made before the only thing left are Hive Mind clones. The more clones Cody spawns, the smaller portion of his “soul” goes into each one, which means less personality to split into other clones. Generation chains are shortened. At 25 clones from Cody, each clone can only make Hive Mind copies because it doesn’t have enough of Cody’s core to split into other clones.
While it still hurts - and always will hurt - to draw blood in order to use his power, much like a diabetic who has to prick their finger constantly to test their blood, Cody has become used to the pain of blood draw from his fingers.

Physical Appearance: He keeps himself in good physical condition for a man his age, but he's not nearly as strong or buff as the other adult Glitches around the orphanage. He exercises to stay fit, not to be strong. He has light brown hair that he keeps in a short cut; just long enough to run your fingers through. His light green eyes are vibrant and have a sparkle to them; it's one of the first things that attracted Keahi. He keeps himself clean-shaven, and his face is a little round.
He doesn't have any piercings or tattoos, but he does have a bunch of little scars scattered throughout his body - mostly around his joints; wrists, knees, elbows, fingers - both from his klutzy childhood and from use of his powers later in life. He has a tiny scar just under his lip from when he bit through it in his youth.
He has a few freckles under his eyes and across the bridge of his nose. They've faded over time, but they become prominent in the summer when he has more sun exposure. Keahi thought they were adorable and would love to stroke ones on his nose like he was a cat.
He has a typical "dad" look to him. He wears casual slacks most of the time, but switches into worn jeans whenever he's doing an activity where he might get dirty: playing with Lia outside, doing yard work, construction/maintenance on the house, camping, etc. In the summer he's particularly embarrassing to Lia by wearing shorts; showing off his "pale, chicken legs" as Lia complains. Thankfully, he's not QUITE dorky enough to attempt the socks and sandals, but he does wear sneakers with white tube socks fully extended about half-way up his calf; almost as embarrassing. When he wants to take Lia to the beach or public pool - a rare occurrence, especially after Lia's powers manifested - Cody "dresses up" by putting on good old Bermuda shorts. Lia is NOT pleased with those. He'd probably even wear corduroy in winter if he could find any for sale anywhere.
As for his tops, Cody wears faded band or sports t-shirts with his jeans and shorts. The rest of the time that he's in his slacks he goes for light polo shirts, casual button-downs, or sweaters. In the spring and fall - or mild winters - when it's just a little chilly, he's been known to throw on sweater vests; argyle ones most often. Regardless of how casual or fancy he dresses, unless he's going to a formal event where dress shoes are expected, Cody will always be in sneakers. Being a single father for the majority of Lia's life proved that one should almost ALWAYS be in sneakers and ready to run after the child.
Not quite embarrassing, "Stereotypical Dad" enough yet, Cody's eyes are starting to fade. The guy has to whip out reading glasses. At least Lia convinced him to make THOSE a bit more fashionable. Simple, thin, black frames that fit his rounded face well to make him appear more sophisticated. All he needs is house shoes and a glass of Scotch after work and he'd probably be a typical 50's father.
Cody's color scheme has earthy spring-like tones. Light brown - typically just his pants, but brown accent in his shirts as well - and green, with a splash of yellow and blue.
Because his power is blood-based, he wanted a way to always be able to draw blood if the need arose. Before meeting Keahi, he would have a pin on him at all times. It would take a moment to undo it from his collar and prick himself, but it was otherwise fairly efficient. Although Keahi wasn't a fan of her husband having to injure himself, she wanted to make sure he could draw blood a lot faster if needed, and so they customized his wedding band. It's a bit thicker than a typical ring, and there's a secret latch that's hard to accidentally open, but one he can easily flick open with his thumb. He then can prick himself on the needle point of the latch.

The cartoonish nature of Chibis probably won't make this very useful to anyone besides me, but this is how I picture Cody:

Chibi Cody is so adorable and unthreatening... <3 data-blogger-escaped-td="">

The inspiration for Cody's ring; from the anime "Attack on Titan."

While not as impressive,
a Real World version of the above ring.

Personality: While it's not exactly a personality trait, Cody's klutziness and accident-prone youth made him very awkward as a kid. He was generally very friendly and outgoing, which helped him forge tight friendships and had him be likable by most of his classmates, but his awkwardness kept him from really connecting with too many people. His spontaneous cloning whenever he injured himself made him even more of a target for teasing and shunning, but even so, he kept a fairly positive outlook throughout most of elementary and early middle school.
When he was a young teenager the fact that his powers only manifested via blood, coupled with the knowledge that Glitches were considered second-class citizens and his very small friend circle, put him into a typical "gothic teenager" phase. While he never went so far as to purposely cut himself, he did become obsessed with blood and dark imagery.
Just before graduating high school - after nearly mastering his powers - the gothic phase ended and he returned to a cheerful, friendly, outgoing person. He was still a bit awkward, especially around women. This awkwardness was another winning trait in Keahi's eyes.
He remained optimistic and playful, losing most, but not all, of his awkwardness while with Keahi. Even now, especially around Lia, he tries to remain that person.
After Keahi's disappearance, the "helicopter parenting" that he learned from his own parents kicked in. He was terrified of losing Lia as well, and now he didn't have Keahi around to reign him back from the only type of parenting he knew. On top of that, his powers allowed him to take "helicopter parenting" to the extreme: ALWAYS having either himself or a clone with Lia at ALL times except for when she was at school; the school wouldn't allow him to hover.
He is EXTREMELY protective of those he cares about, and has no problem bringing out a terrifyingly dark version of himself to do whatever needs to be done to keep his loved one safe. While he doesn't get angry easily, he can become very scary when he gets frustrated.

General History: Cody used to be a huge klutz and very awkward when he was young. He was constantly injuring himself accidentally. Because of this, his parents were a bit overprotective of their accident-prone child. This helped instill the idea of "helicopter parenting" in Cody. It also kept him a bit on the outskirts of his class's social circle. He had friends growing up, but it was a tight-knit group of five. While he was liked well enough that kids wouldn't go out of their way to tease or bully him, he was still awkward enough that they had no problem teasing or laughing whenever he tripped up.
Cody's powers manifested when he was about 10, and that made things even more awkward for him. Now, whenever he would draw blood - which was fairly often given how accident-prone he was - at least one clone would spontaneously appear. Now people would tease him for the clones. This teasing was added to the intensity of the knowledge of his powers and what it meant to be a Glitch. He became Gothic between the ages of 13 and 17. He re-invented himself over Christmas break his senior year of high school - finally coming to terms with everything - and became his normal bubbly self. Not to many students liked him though, despite his attempts to befriend and help others. Mostly because he had his powers under control and used his clones to help himself study: allowing himself to study all of his subjects at the same time and then reabsorb the clones to get the information. He skyrocketed to the head of the class, but everyone called him out on the "unfair advantage" of having almost infinite amount of time compared to everyone else. Even though he was the top of his class when he graduated, this "unfair advantage" resulted in him simply being able to walk and receive his diploma, with no other acknowledgement of his GPA or the multitude of extra-curricular activities - clubs and sports - he participated in.
It stung to be shunned like that, but it helped him connect more with Keahi - who was actually kicked out of school due to her being a Glitch - and help her become courageous enough to attempt college after all. Plus, the Glitch-friendly Hawaii Pacific University appreciated both the vast array of extra-curricular and top GPA. They saw it as proof that even if he were to use his powers, it would be for positive development.
Cody and Keahi had a typical college relationship after he convinced her to go to HPU with him. He proposed to her when she was a senior at the college, and they got married shortly after graduating. Using his powers to absorb as much as he could while in college, he was able to quickly climb to the top of his field. Although I'm still not entirely sure what "field" that is.
While this is still subject to change, as of right now I have it set up that Keahi and Cody end up moving to Colorado to be closer to his family. The trick with this - which is why the location may change - is that Colorado is a great distance out of Cody's clone-range, and I wanted him to leave a clone at the family home while he's working at the orphanage. That way Lia has her childhood home to go back to if she ever wanted to return to a public school and/or after graduating from Emily's school. Having the family home be in Colorado would mean either
A) Cody sells the home which will be a huge shock to Lia's system since she was expecting Emily's school to just be a boarding school and she could come home during holiday breaks,
B) Cody either leaves the home with family with the understanding that he and Lia can take it back at any time, or he leaves it unattended completely over the years, or finally
C) Cody locks away a piece of himself as the clone lives it's own life out of Cody's home.
I'm rambling...
Cody started up gardening as a means of meditation, as well as further training of his powers. It is incredibly easy to prick one's self while gardening, and it's incredibly helpful to be able to clone one's self while doing yard work. Anyway, Keahi got pregnant with Lia a couple years into the marriage. They were a loving, playful, happy family for about seven years. Then Keahi heared about the environmental turmoil in the Ring of Fire portion of the Pacific, and wanted to join other Evoker Glitches in helping calm the area. After much debate, Cody agreed to her helping with one of his clones as her guardian. It changed his personality slightly to be without that part of him while it was with Keahi, but he tried to not let it affect Lia.
When his clone was killed, he created a new clone out of all of his compassion and paternal instincts in order to leave the best guardian he could for Lia, and then raced off to where Keahi was when she was attacked. He spent a little over a month attempting to find her, but even with his paternal self locked away in his guardian for Lia, he still desperately missed his daughter. He eventually gave up his search and returned home. He still makes a week-long annual pilgrimage to Keahi's last known location in attempt to find more clues about her disappearance.
Terrified of losing his daughter too, he vowed to NEVER let her out of his sight; a slightly empty vow since her schools wouldn't allow him to hover over her. He did debate homeschooling her so he could be around her 24/7, but he realized how much she needed the socialization and normalcy. The rest of the time, however, even when on his pilgrimages or at work, he always left a clone behind to be able to watch over his daughter. His own over protective parents didn't really see much wrong with what he was doing, and so without Keahi around to tease him about being ridiculous, no one reigned him in.
Lia's powers actually manifested when she was yelling at her father about not allowing her to grow up and be independent.
Due to being at the top of his field, Emily and Ryder reached out to him to assist with the orphanage and school when it evolved into a boarding school to help Glitches learn to control their powers. He turned them down originally, wanting to stay in his family home in case Keahi found her way back. He also wanted to keep his focus on his own child, not split it with children of other people; as noble as that is.
When Lia's powers became too much for him to train her alone, he called Emily up to see if their offer still stood. When she gladly welcomed him to join their staff, he sent Lia ahead to start her training while he tied up loose ends at home. Lia was ecstatic at first - thinking she was finally getting some independence - only to be mortified by her father's sudden appearance at the school as part of the faculty.

Boy, I'm good at writing backstory on the fly when I'm typing it here. Why can't that work the rest of the week when I'm writing the bios for the challenge?

Well, ironically, the week that I feel I did the least amount of work towards the writing challenge happens to also be the week that I win the random draw of a $10 Amazon voucher for participating. So, that's a positive for the week!

I don't have an e-reader, and so I downloaded the PC version of Kindle, and then purchased the three e-book short stories that Rick Riordan wrote as Percy Jackson/Kane Chronicles cross-over tales. He wrote them as incentive to buy the paperback versions of some of his books, but knew that some people won't buy the paperback since they already had the hardcover - me and Hubby being such people - and so he later released the stories as e-books, and I had been meaning to buy them for a while now. So, thanks, Ali Luke, for the voucher prize, and the ability to finally have these stories!

The only thing I really did this week for the challenge was Ali's Mini-Challenge for the week; figure out what I'll be doing with the momentum from this challenge. As I mentioned last week, I had already decided a few weeks ago that my writing group - Struggling Writers Society - would be doing its own month-long writing challenge in August.

Well, it kept me until about 11pm on the first to finally decide on what my challenge would be, and post on the group's event page. In the end, I decided that I was going to keep the momentum going with X-Men.

I haven't touched X-Future: The Second Generation Begins in almost two years. Mostly because of how tedious it is to sort through all the posts in order to come up with the plot I'd translate into prose. Well, that's my challenge this month. I want to get at least one new chapter up before August 31st.

Not really off to a good start. It's the fifth and I have yet to even open up the forum to start cataloging the posts I'd be translating. I'm hoping to whip my butt in gear now that the car is running and the Writers’ Huddle challenge is finally done. I'm hoping to at the very least have the posts figured out by Sunday, and the posts I'll be reworking into prose sorted by my next post next week.

I'm also thinking of letting you folks know how I did with the other mini-challenges Ali pitched our way.

Here's to a more productive writing week again.

2015 Summer Writing Challenge: Week 1 - Gambit

Third day of Ali's Summer Writing Challenge over at Writers’ Huddle.

I had until Sunday to figure out what I was going to do for the challenge. I had so many different options and it was really hard to figure out which one to go with. AngelBlood666 suggested using the challenge for a fresh start on my writing. A way to let my brain recharge by chomping down on something new. ChibiSunnie added that I should consider the six-week challenge as an extended NaNo. When I put up the options I was considering on Struggling Writers Society's Facebook page Phfylburt agreed with AB666 and Chibi.

That nearly sold me. Three people thought I should try a completely new project for the challenge. Maybe that was the way to go.

On the other hand, Cyhyr liked my idea of using the challenge to finish up reworking the X-Men characters into originals. Then Hubby chimed in. He knew that I've been working on X-Future a lot lately, and while it may be good to put it on the back burner so my brain could take a vacation from the world build, he also knew it would be dangerous to kill my momentum while I had it. So, he agreed with Cy: that I should stick with X-Future for the challenge.

I had three people suggest I do something knew, but I didn't have any ideas I could write about. I would have had to either use some sort of writing prompt(s) or I'd be spending this first week just trying to figure out what to write. On the flipside, I only had two people say I should work on X-Future more, and I felt it was justification. Sure, I put it to a vote at SWS and X-Future lost, but I just couldn't let it go.

I followed my heart; much like how I decided to put X-Future in a pseudo-cyberpunk futuristic setting. Go where the muse tugs you.

Which means that my challenge for the summer will be to finish up my list of canon characters that I need to rework into original characters.

Via random selection, this week's challenge is finishing up my redo of Remy "Gambit" LeBeau. I have a nice start on him. I have the powers more-or-less redone and I decided that he'll be Australian now instead of Cajun. A bit of a shame since Chayse's X-Men code name is Cajun, and when we first started the game his nickname was Cage. Lia also teased him a bit using the Cajun reference. Things like "Bayou Brain." So, it's a little upsetting that I lose all of that, but even with a lot of other things switched out for Gambit, keeping him Cajun may be too similar to the original. I mean, even if people don't see Neo-Gambit as a knockoff of his inspiration, if Chayse were half-Cajun he would DEFINITELY seem like a Gambit rip-off.

Anyway, picking Gambit does seem like a bit of a blessing. I don't have much free time this week to really work on a character from scratch like I would for say Charles Xavier. The fact that I have so much already figured out for Gambit means I can ease my way in to this challenge. The main things I need are a rough backstory - which I have semi-started - a new name, and a physical description. Now to find the time to figure those things out by Sunday.

By the nature of this blog's mid-week postings, I won't be far enough along in that week's challenge to post here until a few days after the week is done. So next week I'll let you know Gambit's new character work as well as show off this week's mini-challenge: a writing selfie. One of the members of WH already posted hers, and the mug she's drinking from is fantastic!

While this isn't the exact mug she was holding, this was the only one I found that was close:

Found on Zazzle.com

There's also a more stylized one that I found on RedBubble.com

Personally, my favorite is this one:

Also found on Zazzle.com

Alright, time to get back on track. And by that I mean, time to fill up one of the writing mugs I actually own and start thinking about how to finish reworking Remy.

If you have a preference on who I should work on next week, let me know in the comments. Otherwise, it's another roll of the dice to choose between:

1. Kitty "Shadowcat" Pryde
   • Chayse's mom, Gambit's wife, and the founder of the orphanage
2. James "Wolverine" Howlett, AKA Logan
   • Lucas' guardian and founder of the arcade training facility
   • He also has some kids on the board, but I don't know if I'll be bringing any of them over
3. Amara "Magma" Aquilla
   • Lia's mom and Jamie's wife
4. St. John "Pyro" Allerdyce
   • Devon's dad and leader of "The Brotherhood" - which I also need to rework and rename
   • Love interest of an obsessive and possessive Trish
5. Professor Charles Xavier
   • Glitch whose essays and speeches and other such teachings inspired Kitty and Logan to create the orphanage and arcade in the first place