MasterClass Week 3: Writers Block, Character Build, and First Lines

Wow, so, in the process of having to get up at 5am two Wednesdays in a row in order to get my blog written for the noon update, I completely blew past the fact that two weeks ago marked my 200th post! Go me!

I never realized what this blog would mean to me and how it would evolve when I first started it YEARS ago. It was going to be something where I simply would post "yeah, I was busy, I know you've been waiting for a while for my next chapter update. I'm such-and-such far along, so maybe by next week". Instead, these are insanely long posts all explaining my writing journey. Might be something fun to go back through and edit into a writing memoir once I'm famous.

Right now, though, I'm just so involved in what I'm doing that I just don't have the time to do any sort of "look through the years" recap like I did for the 100th post or for my year-in-review posts. Maybe I'll do that again at the end of December, but right now I'm just excited to keep telling you fine folks about my MasterClass program!

I was kind of disappointed in myself because I kept skipping out on my scheduled writing time last week. I would avoid writing - while still telling myself that I was being productive - by doing the "researching" portion of last week's assignments. Mostly I was going through Rick Riordan's works to see what myths of Artemis he established.

I also searched to see what country was most in power among the Western Civilization back in the 1600s. See, according to Riordan's world, the celestial portion of Mount Olympus - the portion that actually houses the Greek gods - shifts to be at the center of Western Civilization. So, it moved to Rome when the Romans came to power, and then shifted west again as Europe developed, ending up above NYC when the United Stated became a World Super Power. Since my female protagonist - the huntress of Artemis - was born about 1672, I wanted to know who was the center of civilization back then, so I would have a better idea of where Olympus would be stationed, and where Artemis would be most likely found. Granted, she could still hunt throughout the world, and the protagonist could be from Japan if I wanted. Still, I wanted Olympus to be "close to home" for her. I discovered that Spain was pretty big in the 1600s, but was on the decline around when she would be born. Later in the week I finally got some writing time with Spink, and she somehow came up with Switzerland becoming the new Super Power around 1670. So we spent nearly an hour going through Swedish names to find one that was around in that era. We're not entirely sure that it really was around - or popular - back then, but for the purposes of the class, it works. I'm also not sure I want her to be Swedish; I sort of already started picturing her as Spanish after my find. Maybe that's Lia's influence.

Anyway, the protagonist huntress of Artemis is now named Pernilla. YAY! A name! Still need to name her boyfriend, but I haven't even figured out what ethnicity I want him to be, and that might influence his name. Alternatively, he's 17 in my story, and so I can just check to see some of the most popular boy names in the United States in 1998. Name him off of that.

I also still need to figure out the gods that are each of their parents. Being a follower of Artemis, Pernilla would either be a demigod or some sort of mythical creature herself, such as a nymph. I like the idea of Pernilla being at least part human, and so demigod it is. I need to figure out if her parent is a major or minor god, and who it is. From there I could then figure out if her human parent was her mom or dad. I then have to figure out the same for the male protagonist. I don't think their godly parents are going to have much impact in the story, but it might bring something about their character, or impact some of the scenes throughout the tale. At the very least, their parentage influences the supernatural abilities they possess, which would influence their fighting and the journey.

To bring this back to the week's timeline, I was spending most of my daily writing hours researching this sort of stuff. Productive, but not what the hour should be used for, in my opinion. I needed to get back to writing prose. THAT was what the hour was supposed to be for. I kept postponing the second assignment - the one I SHOULD have been doing each daily writing hour - because I hadn't told Spink my idea yet. The last assignment from week one was to tell a brutally honest friend a story idea and see if they think it's worth writing. While I was pretty on board with the Huntress of Artemis tale, I didn't send the 5 - or, rather, 11 - sentence synopsis to see if she found it interesting. She just lives five minutes down the road! So I kept thinking "I'll meet up with her tomorrow and we can go over it."

Yet when "tomorrow" arrived there was always something keeping us from getting together. Finally, it was Friday and becoming "crunch time". So I asked her if I could meet up for some Writing Talk while her fiance was at work and Hubby was off playing in a MTG tournament. Sadly, even THEN I didn't manage to relay my story over. As soon as I mentioned that none of my original characters had names yet, she asked me why and then went off on her own research. I appreciate the help, and she was the one who picked out Pernilla, but she was so fixated on the characters needing names - and then focus shifted to their parentage, but we didn't get as far with that task - that she derailed me whenever I tried to talk more about the actual story plot.

Eventually I gave up. I was determined to get these assignments done before I watched the next set of videos, and it was 1:30am on Sunday morning. I was up anyway with my normal Sunday Insomnia - added to by massive back pain and some nausea - and so I decided it was time to tackle the outline problem.

Before I knew it, it was 7am and I had TEN PAGES of outline; roughly 24 plotted out chapters. The originally perceived climatic battle with Artemis is actually around chapter 14.... so, a little more than half-way. I'm not sure how I feel about that since it now sort of feels like two books merging together as one, but at the same time, the end of the battle with Artemis doesn't seem like a good stopping point.

I dropped the outline in the critique section of Writers’ Huddle last night. We'll see what some of the fellow Huddlers think of the story outline. In the meantime, I'm off to this week's list of assignments.

From the "Writer's Block" class, my assignment is to figure out the best way for me to concentrate and focus on my writing. To do this, I'm supposed to set an alarm for half-hour and just write about my day so far. Of course, being the insanely detail-oriented writer that I am - and because I somehow thought I'd run out of things to talk about before the 30min was up - I wrote down EVERYTHING I could remember. In that 30min writing sprint I only managed to talk about the first four hours of my day! And I did this exercise at 6pm! Whoops. Guess that explains why writing diaries always failed for me. I had four journal attempts over my lifetime; my most recent one being a journal to keep track of my wedding planning. I only ever got a couple months in before it was too cumbersome to keep up with, and I'd drop the project. Shame. So many journals wasted and so much of my life lost to my horrible memory.

BACK ON TOPIC!

In that half-hour writing session I managed a little more than 1400 words and almost two full pages. Honestly, considering that it took so little effort to figure out what to write - same with this blog - I have no clue if those are good stats. I'm thinking "no", but it explains why it takes me HOURS to write this blog.

Also, is it weird that it was hard for me to NOT save all that work? I mean, what would I need it for? It would just take up space on my computer. It's not like I'd really want to bring it up and reread it. Especially since I wasn't even half-way through my day when I stopped. It's just, not saving it feels like a waste of effort. I spent a half-hour typing all of that up, and no one else will ever see it? Yes, it was for practice, and so it was worth something, but it was still almost painful to click "discard" when I closed out the file.

So it will be interesting to have to go through that again later today when I again have to spend a half-hour writing about my day and then not save any of that work. See, the full assignment is to write about our day because it wouldn't really take too much focus to do. That way most of our concentration is on what BREAKS it. At the end of the 30mins, we were supposed to write down what distracted us, so we can attempt to avoid it in the future.

Since I already pretty much know what distracts me - the TV and my friends talking around me because I want to be part of the conversation - it was fairly easy going. Granted, other things that distract me are Facebook when I haven't been on it for hours, and simple research becoming hour-long-involved-read-every-Wiki-page-available research, and going back through my writings to try to find one specific thing, but it results in me rereading the whole thing. None of those distractions were an issue because of the short time span and the lack of researching necessity.

What DID distract me was pain. My job isn't the best environment for my back - although it's improved a little now that I'm in a new department - and I don't have very supportive furniture. Sprinkle in that I was on said furniture pretty much all of Sunday - Yay, Football! - and you can probably see why I now have the spine of an 80-yr-old woman.

So, I'm laid up in bed since the foam mattress topper is pretty much the only form of support we have in the entire apartment. Even so, my lower back would spasm, my hands would lock up, and my legs would stiffen from being extended straight out most of the writing time. Having a mostly quiet apartment also means that the new upstairs neighbors moving in was pretty distracting. I've also been a buffet for bugs this summer no matter what I do. So, random itch attacks threw me every few minutes. The final distraction for me was that I was listening to music off of YouTube and was thrown by a commercial before nearly every video. Kind of jarring, especially when the music itself did such a great job at being background noise. I could attempt to stream radio instead, but it will have the same issue with commercials. I guess I'm either sticking with Noisli or popping on the iPod. My only issue with the iPod is that we're cheap and haven't bought any new music for it in years. So the music isn't what I'm feeling when I write. Oh well, better than commercial interruptions, I guess.

I can't really do to much with the pain and itch thing, but we'll see if I can weed out my other distractions for part two of this assignment tonight.

For me, I think the interesting assignment will be the second one presented for this week. Character building. Fantastic, because I know virtually nothing about my main characters. We're supposed to come up with 20 character traits, and then cross out 17 of them to see if the final three traits are still compelling for the character. Narrowing it down to the Top Three - as it were - will be tricky. We'll see how that goes, and I'll be sure to post the results here next week.

My final assignment for the week is to write five first lines for a book. Now, I guess this could either be interpreted as "Five individual and independent first lines as if writing five different books" or "Five sentences that make up the opening paragraph of a story". I personally read it as the first interpretation - as did the two males whose work is showcased in the workbook as examples - but the two females that were showcased in the workbook interpreted it as the paragraph. I find it interesting that the difference in interpretation is seemingly gender-based. I'm not sure if I'd be the exception, because I've always had more of a masculine mindset. Yay, androgyny!

Anyway, I'll have to check out Patterson's critiques on the opening lines and see if he says one way or the other how the assignment SHOULD be interpreted. I may try the assignment with both interpretations though. Mostly because I feel the men interpreted it correctly - especially because the Patterson examples posted above the assignment are all literally just the opening sentence of his books - however, then the assignment devolves into simply "come up with interesting sentences"; I mean, you don't necessarily need to go anywhere with them, you just need it interesting enough for someone to want more of the story.

For example, Hubby suggested that one of my opening lines should just be: "Boom". That should grab a reader's attention. Was that a large footstep? Was it a minor explosion in chemistry class? Was it a building being demolished? Was it a landmine going off in a war zone? Stupidly simple to come up with interesting sentences, even if they don't need to go anywhere. For instance, who isn't confused and intrigued by this next sentence? "The magical pepperoni mobile that was fueled by mozzarella sticks was surprisingly roomy."

I mean, I do NOT have a story to go with that, but it does tickle some fancies. Is the story in a magical realm? Is this just a random bit of magic in the real world? Is it a dream sequence? Is the narrator on the set of a movie or children's show and the "magical" pepperoni mobile is just a prop?

Anyway, so the assignment seems stupidly easy if you interpret it as simply "five opening sentences independent from each other". So, even though I think it's a misinterpretation of the assignment, I might follow the women's lead and write a five-sentence opening paragraph too; see where that takes me.

Probably to Frustration Town. Starting stories is always so hard. Knowing to how to write that hook. But, if it were easy, Patterson wouldn't have to spend 14minutes on it in one of his video classes.

So, those are my assignments. I'll be sure to share the results next week. Along with the DeviantArt link to X-Future: The Second Generation Begins.

Yup, forgot again. Sort of. I DID manage to remember to post the chapter "Bro-Bonding" on DeviantArt, but it kept so long to format it that I ran out of time to do the same for "You're In Trouble, Son!" I then completely forgot until JUST NOW that I didn't go back and post that second chapter. Derp.

Well, at least I have the one up. So, for anyone who was waiting for the chapter on DeviantArt, here you are: Bro-Bonding

Alright, well, I need to start getting ready for work now. I also might have to rethink my weekly updating day if I'm now on every Wednesday morning. Probably won't switch it back to Sundays since those are still pretty crazy, but I'll keep you posted on that too.

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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2015 Writing Challenge Week 2 - Wolverine Part 2

Alright, following the pattern I've set so far, this week's title should be "Week 3..." but it occurred to me how silly that is. Yes, I'm already three-days into the third week of the Summer Writing Challenge, but I don't TELL you about it until NEXT Wednesday. So, for instance, last week's title was misleading since it had Wolverine in the title, but the bio was for Neo-Gambit.

Anyway, starting next week, the title will be about the PREVIOUS challenge week and the character I reworked. I couldn't very well use the same exact title two weeks in a row in order to set that up, though. Hence, the "Part 2" to make it a LITTLE different. Anyway, enough of that.

Whoo-boy this week! Fourth of July was CRAZY! We were all expecting the week leading up to it to be nuts, but figured the Fourth itself would be dead because everyone would be at their parties/BBQs/Picnics. Instead, it rained nearly all day and everyone decided to shop for non-barbecue back-up food.

I'm so tired. On top of that, my aunt-by-marriage unfortunately lost her mom to cancer this past weekend. Sadly, I couldn't attend the funeral in support of her, but my mother did. Which meant no weekend visit from Mom. It was a sad reason to not get a visit, and it would have been cool to see Mom again so soon.

On the flipside, though, I DID just see my mom, I'll see her for my birthday later this month, and that meant I could concentrate on writing instead of frantic "Mom's Coming to Visit!" cleaning.

That didn't work out as planned. I tried. I really did. All week I went over pictures to try to figure out what Neo-Wolverine would look like. I watched shows and movies - Inside Out is FANTASTIC, by the way - and I played video games in an attempt to be inspired like how Mikoto from "K" inspired Neo-Pyro. I even used my Sunday Insomnia to stay up and customize a wrestler in the Xbox game WWE '13. I was hoping SOMETHING would strike me.

Months back, I sent a long list of names to Phfylburt. Name options for Neo-Wolverine once I decided I wanted him to be Latino. We narrowed it down to a name I had only heard once or twice before: Mateo. For months Neo-Wolverine was Mateo. While I enjoyed the name, something about it seemed off to me. It didn't seem to have that same gruff punch as Logan - the name Wolverine goes by - or James - the name revealed to be Wolverine's birth-name. As I'll show in the character bio below, I even used the Cowboy Bebop character Jet as a starting reference. And even Jet had that umph that Mateo just didn't seem to have. On top of that, ever since I decided on Mateo - mostly for the originality of the name in fiction - the name's been popping up everywhere.

While the name is Spanish in origin, most of the characters with the name were African American. A good sign since Phfyl really wanted me to have Neo-Wolverine be half-black so Lucas would be more likely to bond with him. The not-so-good sign? Most of these black kids were these lanky nerds. That pretty much confirmed it for me. Neo-Wolverine needed a new name.

Which is why I focused so much on the appearance of him first. If I could figure out what I wanted him to look like, I could call him Mateo and see if the two fit. Eventually - and by that I mean about 5pm on Sunday - I did figure out what he looked like, and Mateo did NOT fit. I then went through my list of about 20 other names; spending HOURS on babynames.com to try to figure out which names I liked, which names I liked the meanings to, and which names fit this new image of Wolverine.

Eventually, Hubby and I decided that Dominic fit the look and that gruff punch feel that I wanted. The only snag is that the one main character in the Fast and the Furious franchise is named Dominic and also goes by Dom. On top of that, both that Dom and Neo-Wolverine have younger sisters they're super protective of, AND they both work outside the law. Do I want people to think "Vin Diesel" whenever the character comes up? There really weren't any other names that I liked as much, though. So, I'm hoping the character is different enough that people won't think "Fast and the Furious" or "X-Men" when they see Neo-Wolverine.

The next hardest bit was to figure out his powers. I wanted him to have the core-power of an enhanced healing factor so that he can remain a badass. I wasn't sure about the others though. I knew he couldn't have the bone-claws. That's blatant Wolverine. Same with giving him a metallic skeleton. Hubby and I also agreed that - for the same reason as the lack of metal bones - Neo-Wolverine can't be one of the Glitches that was once experimented on, even if it did give him and Lucas some sort of bonding topic.

We did agree that he should keep his heightened senses as well, but tweak them a bit. Hubby came up with the idea that instead of being able to see clearer and father, that Neo-Wolverine can see more of the color spectrum; namely Infrared. Hubby suggested that just his right eye could switch to infrared, but I'm trying to figure out why both eyes wouldn't. It is a cool image though. Hubby equated it to the X-Men character Cable:

Strangely, even though I'm focused on reworking X-Men characters, when Hubby suggested just one eye glowed - especially the right one - I didn't think of Cable. My mind instead went to the ReBoot character Matrix:

Whose eye glows red when he uses it to lock on to a target with his gun:

Both characters have artificial eyes, though. Cable was infected with a techno-organic virus as a baby and lost his left eye, arm, and leg to it. Matrix lost his eye in a Mortal-Kombat-like fighting game. That's why only one of their eyes glow: it's fake.

So why would Dominic only be able to switch one eye in to infrared? We also postulated that perhaps he was born with one eye that saw only in infrared and the other saw the rest of the color spectrum. He then would wear an eye patch similarly to how pirates legitimately wore them: one for "day seeing" and the one kept under the eye patch was set for "night vision".

Not really sure yet. There's still some bugs to work out of this character build, but the main skeleton is set enough for me to be satisfied that I hit my two-week goal of character reworking.

So, here is basically what I have for Neo-Wolverine:

New Name: Dominic "Dom"
Basic Info: 42yrs old, 6' 1", 240lbs, Deep Brown, almost black hair and stormy grey eyes
Powers: Norm-Beast Glitch with Elevated Senses and Healing
He can heal at an elevated rate - although I'm not sure yet HOW much faster he heals compared to normal humans - and he has heightened senses. Being a Beast-class Glitch, his powers developed in the womb, instead of manifesting at puberty. He has always had the elevated senses and healing. He can pick up scents like an animal, he can hear more clearly and further - again, like an animal - and his elevated touch allows him to pick up vibrations easier. For instance, when a person touches railroad tracks to determine if a train is out of sight down the line. Elevated taste; I haven't really thought of a cool feature for that one, aside from him being a great chef. With a literal blink of an eye, he can switch his sight over in to infrared. I still have a little tweaking to do for the power-set, especially since I want to come up with a name for someone with elevated senses and healing at the same time. All the terms I come up with don't seem to work: biomechanics - because of how his body works comparatively - biofunction, bioreaction, bioreception, etc.
Physical Appearance: Even though he's an inch shorter and 60lbs heavier than Ryder, Dom is all muscle. He's a bit blocky in stature, but he's ripped. His hair is feathered and slicked back. He keeps a scruffy beard because it's too much effort to shave every day or groom a full beard. He has mostly Latino features, but his skin color is a bit darker; like creamy hot chocolate.
He's casual; wearing jeans and work boots typically. He also favors tank-tops and t-shirts; ones that are formfitting enough to show off his muscles underneath, but also loose enough that he's comfortable in them and can easily move. He also enjoys wearing either loose vests, or open shirts and he rolls the sleeves up to his shoulders. When it's colder out he wears denim cover shirts and leather jackets. He doesn't really have much of a typical color palette to his wardrobe, but he is finicky about the material he wears/sleeps on due to the heightened touch. More often than not, he wears second-hand clothes because they've been "worn in" and they're softer.
He attempted piercings when he was younger, but his healing closed up the holes almost as soon as he took the piercings out. As an adult, no one can even tell he had piercings in the first place. I'm still debating if his healing would have the same effect on tattoos, but if he can keep a tattoo, it would be his sister's name in her handwriting across his right peck.
These were the images I found to help inspire the appearance of Dom:

Jet Black from Cowboy Bebop

Spanish actor Javier Bardem

Personality: He has a hard time expressing his feelings - aside from rage - and has always been that way. The only ones he ever truly showed his affection towards were his mom and sister. He rarely smiles, but when he does it generally means he's about ready to kick some serious ass. It's been years since someone has heard him laugh. He does generally snort a laugh if the situation is humorous enough. His "resting face" is typically the boarder-line scowl seen in the above pictures.
This isn't to say that he's dead inside. He does feel the full range of emotions, he just has a reserved way of expressing them. For example, if he's sad he'll avoid eye contact, slouch, and keep quiet. If he's happy he'll be talkative and energetic, have a twinkle in his eye, and have a hint of a grin. If he's proud he'll give a hardy slap on the back and say something encouraging, but not TOO encouraging: e.g. - "Hey, you managed to do the whole obstacle course without falling flat on your face that time." If he's disappointed he'll give the cold shoulder and typically state something demoralizing, but with a hint of a challenge to prove him wrong: e.g. - "And here I thought I was getting somewhere with you, I guess you are a hopeless cause." If he's feeling protective he pretty much resembles a mother bear protecting her cubs; scoops the protectee behind him and literally growls at the attacker.
He's a private guy that keeps to himself. Not too many people know much about him. He's a mystery to people he doesn't let in, and those he does let in only know what they witness.
Not-so-brief History: Born and raised in a Glitch Slum right outside the New York City boroughs. His father was out of the picture since Dom was about 2; probably left once they realized Dom and his younger sister Cecilia were both Glitches, but I haven't quite decided on that yet. Whatever the reason, Dom didn't have a father figure, which is why he's so closed off. He needed to be the tough Man of the House. He coasted through school and got into a lot of trouble. He ended up joining a street gang, and his powers allowed him to climb the ranks fairly quickly. Cecilia - whom Dom called Cici - was the polar opposite. She did well in school and focused on extra-curricular activities and after-school jobs to keep her out of trouble. She still knew the neighborhood was bad, and so one of the extra-curricular activities was martial arts. She was a black-belt karate master, knew kickboxing, and started a women's self-defense course in high school. As much as Cici didn't want her activities funded by dirty money, nearly all that Dom brought home from the gang went towards her education.
Cici ended up going to one of the few colleges that allowed Glitches to enter their prelaw program: NYU. She met "Neo-Kitty" there as her roommate. They became instant best friends, and since Neo-Kitty lived on the West Coast, she was welcome at Cici and Dom's home for short school breaks: Homecoming, Thanksgiving, Easter, and Spring Break. Neo-Kitty became a surrogate second sister to Dom.
Over winter break Cici's sophomore year, Dom was in the middle of taking down a rival drug distributor when Cici was abducted. Using his Underground contacts, Dom found out that she was taken by the government agency GPS - Glitch Placement Services. They were the ones responsible for setting up the Glitch Slums and relocating known Glitches into these "reserved neighborhoods". GPS had a secondary, hidden agenda that not even all GPS officers knew about. The most secretive branch of GPS was in charge of "placing" Glitches into experimental labs. GPS mostly focused on "cleaning up the streets" of abandoned and/or orphaned Glitches so that no one would notice them missing. I'm still trying to figure out why GPS picked up Cecilia.
It kept him a couple weeks, but Dom was able to use his Underground channels to find the GPS lab in a closed off former NY subway tunnel. He broke in, but found his sister dead. He helped a handful of Glitches escape, among them were Lucas Kinney and Geoffrey "Fidget" Wilkins. After destroying the facility - a) so no one can be experimented there ever again, b) out of pure anger, and c) so that no one can trace the government attack back to him - he took in Lucas and Geoff.
Somehow - I haven't figured it out yet - Dom was able to get out of the gang so that he could dedicate his time to protecting the boys, as well as Neo-Kitty, from the GPS and all others that would wish harm on Glitches. While keeping a watchful eye on Neo-Kitty, the two studied together, and both learned of the teachings of Neo-Xavier; a strong Glitch advocate. While Neo-Kitty saw the teachings as ones similar to Martin Luther King, Jr., Dom saw them in a more Malcolm X aggressive light. This differing view of how Glitches and Norms should co-exist made it easier for Dom to let Neo-Kitty move back home after graduation, and without a bodyguard any longer.
In California Neo-Kitty met Ryder and married him. Then the couple moved to Upstate New York where she built a Glitch orphanage and school in honor of Cecilia. Dom wanted to help at the school, but their differing views of Neo-Xavier's teachings still caused friction. Dom instead bought nearby property and - with Geoff's help as a Techno Glitch - built "The Arcade". He trains any of the orphanage's students that wish to learn self-defense against Glitch-Haters. He also trains adult Glitches with the sole purpose of using them as a team to guard Neo-Kitty and her school/orphanage.
Much to Neo-Kitty's equal-parts delight and dismay, Dom is a mentor and psuedo-uncle-figure to Chayse.

Whoo! Sundays seem to be my super productive days. Either that, or Deadline Crunch Time is my most productive, considering all the above was figured out more-or-less between 5pm and 11pm Sunday night. Thanks to some soundboarding with Hubby.

Either way, it got done and again posted MOSTLY on time. I think I posted in the Writers’ Huddle at about 1am my time. It just frustrates me that it kept me about two hours to type up a rough skeleton and then post on the forum because my computer kept lagging hard-core.

This week I am actually working MORE than the standard part-time max of 35hrs. So, it's been a crazy work-week already. I knew I wasn't going to have much time to focus on character creation this week, and so I didn't want to really focus on either Neo-Charles Xavier or reworking Magma. I'm going to need a full week for those two.

My birthday is this month, and my family is visiting - for realsies this time - and so I knew I wanted to save a low-brain-power rework for that week; especially since I most likely won't have my normal Sunday Crunch Time to work.

Well, out of the four remaining - Xavier, Magma, Pyro, and Shaldowcat - two require a lot of work; as I already mentioned. Pyro and Shadowcat, on the other hand, are already started. So, I wanted to use one for this week - due to the lack of non-work time - and one for my birthday week.

Out of those two, Shadowcat is pretty much finished. I mean, thanks to Ryder and Dominic's backstories, hers is mostly written already. I also more-or-less have her powers figured out, and I've always had a mental image of her in my head that is JUUUUST different enough from the comics and X-Men: Evolution that I can solidify it as an "original" look. Really, the only things I need to do to finish her off is FINALLY decide on a name, write backstory leading up to her going to NYU, finish off any tweaking of her powers, and decide on her family-life. Honestly, the hardest part will probably be choosing a new name for her.

So, Kitty is on reserve for the week of July 20th. Which means I'm working on finishing up Iggy's build this week! It's been a bit challenging so far since I haven't really had the brainpower to do much. I'm foreseeing another Sunday Crunch Session, but I'm hoping to at least have him done by midnight this time.

Who should I work on next week? Both are important, but minor background characters that won't get much "book time". Still, they ARE crucial to the development of the other characters. So, who will be next week, and who should be the last week of the challenge?

Xavier and Magma, who would you like me to work on next? Drop me your suggestion in the comment section.

Moving Forward with Collaborative Writings

Once again I find myself with no motivation to write. Normally I have all of these ideas, and I'm just geared up first thing in the morning. That's the main reason I chose to shift my updating to Wednesdays - a day which I can write in the morning. However, I'm just so drained and sore from work lately. All I want to do is curl up in bed and forget there's anything outside of it. No dishes. No laundry. No cooking. No cleaning. No bills. No work. And, sadly, no writing either. Mainly because that requires sitting at the desktop, which is killing my back right now.

Yet, here I am. Once again using the "just write a little" method to push me along. Using that drive of having SOMETHING posted every week for you fine folks to get my butt moving. Now, to do the same with my non-blog writing.

To be fair. I DID do so yesterday. After literally two full months of not knowing what to do with her, I FINALLY role played as Lia. I didn't do anything major, but I did get the girl out of her damn room finally! No one is really on the boards anymore, and so who knows if I'll actually have anyone besides Hubby to interact with, but it's out there. We can start to move on.

Speaking of which, Ronoxym finally moved on with our collab - sorta. As I had mentioned last week, I had finished re-reading the first two-thirds of our story and had tons of notes. So many that I felt it would just be easier to restart the story with the typos and missed punctuation fixed, and then reposted up on Google Docs as something we could both edit.

Although, honestly, I think it would be better if we just mailed the file back and forth to each other so we could actually SEE what we each other edited, and decide if we thought it was a good idea or not. This way we don't have all these notes back and forth debating if we should use this word over that word, or whether or not there should be a comma somewhere. I'll have to check if the "track edits" feature in Microsoft Word is also in Google Docs. The closest thing I could find - which is only available for those who can edit - is a revision history.

By the way, quick shout out to ChibiSunnie for showing me the editing feature in Word in the first place. Made my work as a beta-reader so much easier!

Alright, back to the collab.

So, I'm in the midst of updating the 13-page story, but I take long breaks due to how tedious a task it is. Plus, the whole sitting at my computer thing. Well, in the meantime, Ron finally decides to go through my epic amounts of notes on our Doc file - which isn't even all of them, all of my notes in the middle I never typed up - and edits the document to fix my concerns.

Surprised the crap out of me, actually. I was even excited Saturday night to see him logged in to the story and editing. I figured I'd have more to read during my normal Sunday insomnia.

Well, seems editing was indeed a daunting task, because he didn't update the story after working on editing the second draft. So now I have the version I was editing merged with his edited version. I have notes EVERYWHERE of portions deleted or inserted between the two. My fun task is to now go through all those edits and have a coherent draft to post up for us both to edit from now on.

Maybe Ron editing what we did so far has resparked his interest in the project that had taken such a strong hold of him back in January. Perhaps within the next week or so he'll move the story forward. That would be awesome, and might even kickstart my own drive to once again write.

Although, I do have another collab story in the works. Well, in the very beginning, researching stages. Way back in 2012 I had the fantastic idea of doing a Hey Arnold parody of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. This idea must have struck a cord with AngelBlood666, because this past week he asked me if I wanted to work together in actually writing that parody. It's a story I keep absentmindedly drifting back to, but haven't done anything with in over two years. Perhaps having a co-writer on the project is just the push I need.

So we're both re-reading the play and taking notes so that we know what we wish to do with the concept. Heck, I spent an hour this morning just jotting down plot notes on the FIRST SCENE OF THE PLAY! Act one. Scene one. I ended up with TWO looseleaf pages filled FRONT AND BACK with notes. Now to type them up so that AB666 can see them too.

This could prove so much fun!

I've also been casually working on more research for world building both Gyateara and the X-Future reworking. Not too much advancement with either one, but it's better than completely forgetting about them.

Speaking of which, as much as it's grown on me, the placeholder name of Gyateara does seem a bit heavy-handed and lazy: "Eh, I'll just mesh Gaia and Terra together, tweak the spelling, and voila, a planet name!" I'm still not 100% convinced I'll be keeping it when I eventually get to officially writing stories about it; although I might keep the name for D&D sessions. So I'm thinking of using Hubby's suggestion of rearranging the letters until I get something a bit more original, but also keeping the basis of "my planet's name is based off of Greco-Roman terms for Earth". We'll see if I can come up with anything better.

Yay, naming things....


Honestly, if I'm not at work I'm either crashed on the couch or frantically cleaning the otherwise neglected apartment. So I'm not entirely sure I'll be making much progress in writing until either a) the apartment is actually clean and I just need to do maintainence every day, or b) work becomes less frantic. I'll try though.

Until next week... let's just focus on the "try a little and hope for a lot" mode of productivity every day.