Trying Something New for 2025

Est. Read Time: 25 min
This Month's Font: Handlee

What a brilliant way to conclude my 2024 blog updates... posting my final one a week into 2025. Yup. That tracks.

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It seemed to have been the trend that year. I'd think that I'm going to go full-bore into that month's blog update at the start of the month. Only for me to just barely scrape something together at the end of the month, or I don't update until a week into the FOLLOWING month.

It's been a rough year for writing for me, is what I'm saying.

So, it should be of no surprise that I got sidetracked and delayed yet again in December. Seems a fitting close to that year....

The first week of December was spent with family out-of-state, celebrating Hubby's birthday, driving home from out-of-state, and dealing with snow. It's annoying, but I can't be mad at snow in December for Christmas. Hubby and I then had to transition back into working again after being off for about a week. I was too focused on my last blog update and all of that other stuff to even think about working on December's update at the time.

Then came a series of phone calls and texts I was not expecting.

We're all fine, but there was a medical scare in the family towards the start of December. Needless to say, that took up most of my mental focus for the better part of a week. There was no way I was thinking straight enough to work on writing in general, let alone updating this blog or trying to work out Seduce With Caution.

On top of that, one of my online friends has been having a rough time with it. Some suicide scares. Since I only really know her online, I came to the terrifying realization that if something DID happen to her I wouldn't know. I doubt anyone who knows her irl would think to reach out to me, and I don't have her personal info to reach out instead. I simply had to pray and check and wait. Thankfully, she's alright, and made a point to reach out to me to let me know.

It was.... kiiiiind of a stressful week for me....

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Edited by LycoRogue

I tried to destress a bit by getting back into playing on my Switch. I lucked out in discovering one of the games I've had on my Wish List for a while had a free full-game demo out. Much like the Animal Crossing games, this one - Cozy Grove - advances the game in real time. So, Nintendo went ahead and had the whole game unlocked for a week-long demo! If you liked the game, you could buy it, the data would transfer, and you could keep playing.

As the game name would suggest, it was the exact level of cozy I needed that week. You play as a Spirit Scout. Think Girl Scout/Boy Scout but you're tasked to help spirits move on. You're dropped off on a tiny, secluded, deserted island for your first solo camping trip. Unfortunately, your boat gets washed out to sea, and you're abandoned on the island! That's OK though. You come across a whole clan of friendly spirits who help you build up your campsite (complete with sentient camp fire Flamey - think Calcifer from Howl's Moving Castle).

The deserted island that you build up, in-game crafting, friendly co-habitants, and real-time game progression all gave off the same vibes as Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Then, the friendly and unique spirits that take the form of anthropomorphic animals, and your task to help them both remember their past lives and move on all reminded me a great deal of Spiritfarer. Especially since that game also has crafting and farming.

Finally, the game's graphics reminded me a little of the paper-art styling of, say, Don't Starve. Just, with a warm, cozy vibe... instead of Don't Starve's gothic Tim Burton vibe.

It was fun to run around for a few hours unlocking parts of the island, gathering trinkets to take to the seagull ship captain spirit (who claims he's a bear, just like all of the other spirits you encounter), and interact with these cuddly spirits. I love how each of them are designed to look like the key feature of their sense of self. The post master spirit looks like a package. The crafter looks like a tape measure. The eco-conscious one is covered in bark. As mentioned, the sea captain is a seagull (although he'll swear he's a bear-bird). The first spirit you meet, and who is your main guide, is dressed as a park ranger. The spirit that sells you things is a fox. You can buy trinkets from the fox spirit that then unlocks into pet birds.

The whole thing was so cozy. I knew I needed to just own this game. I did wait until after Christmas, in case someone got it - or a Nintendo eShop gift card - for me. The other day, though, I noticed that I still had enough funds on my account to buy the game while it was on sale (under $10!), so I scooped it up. I now have both that and ACNH for cozy chill games to vibe with.

Getting back to what I've been doing this December. The week following all of the health scares - after I confirmed that everyone was good - was focused on getting ready for Christmas. Shopping. Watching Christmas movies. Prepping for goodies-making. Hubby put up our tree (after I bought a replacement tree that was WAY smaller than I had anticipated, so we ended up using the old one with burnt out lights and needles falling off of it....).

Then we had an odd week with Christmas breaking it in half. The start of the week was spent in that Christmas Crunch as you rush to get the last bits organized for the holiday. Then you have Christmas itself. And then you finish the week in that mental holiday hangover, where you have to get back to Life As Normal, but you're still kinda feeling the Christmas mood? So you don't really feel like doing much outside of watching more holiday movies. And you have to scramble to figure out where you're putting the new stuff you might have gotten for Christmas.

Speaking of, check out this AWESOME gift from Hubby! I have ALWAYS loved the look of pocket watches. Always wanted one. 

Hubby knows how much I love pocket watches (especially with my love of Steampunk as well). We're also complete gamer nerds. So this was AH-MAZE-ING!

I have a mini dice carrier that looks like a pocket watch and its chain is long enough to be a necklace and I want to wear this EVERYWHERE and EVERY DAY and why can't I have more clothes that would match this aesthetic I am so mad that I can't wear this daily and AAAAAA~! I love it!

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Sprinkle in that, at work all month, I've actually had a series of projects to occupy my time. Which means I didn't have my normal downtime at work to do things like writing/plotting out stories. Granted, one of the projects I focused at work was something I came up with entirely on my own and is in no way pressing, but it was a crafting project that I've been meaning to do for at least a year now. Something that will help keep the store a bit more organized while giving a cleaner look than what we have been doing to keep the same things organized in the past. To be not so cryptic, I'm stitching together cloth holders for things that pair with some of our products. We have a lot of discontinued fabric that just keeps piling up, and I've wanted to make these holders for a while. So, might as well work my way through the discarded fabrics. Right? Buuuut, I can't bring in a whole sewing machine to sit on my desk. Instead, I'm hand-stitching everything. My manager is astounded. She's told me a few times that she can't believe I'm patient enough to keep working on this project of my own accord. It's fun, though. Relaxing. Allows me to do something with my hands besides typing on a keyboard or swiping on a phone. Breaks up my day a bit too since I can work on this project for however long I want.

I need to make something like 30 of these holders. I've completed 7. So this is going to be a LOOOOONG project, but it's been worth working on.

Long story short? I haven't touched my outline of Seduce with Caution all month. I haven't worked on the plot problems I've had for years. At best, I realized that I wanted to rework the first sex scene. It's fine. I might publish it on its own at some point. I just feel like, after working on You Pretended Not to Care, I have a better handle of a couple's first time together. Especially a couple like Marinette and Chat Noir.

So much for having the plot outline finalized so I could hit the ground running in 2025....

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Instead of working on my own stories, I've been consuming more of other people's. For one, I'm still reading Intensity by Zenmisery. She also gave us a surprise update for Dressed to Confess (the story that inspired my smut ML story in the first place, despite DtC not being smut itself). That was a fun almost-Christmas surprise! Zen also wrote a ML crossover fanfic with the Fallout franchise. I haven't taken the time to read that yet, but it's on my To Read list. Speaking of, I do also have another crossover fic on my list. That one is a crossover of Harry Potter and the PV versions of Ladybug and Chat Noir - namely Felix and Bridgette. I know, I know. I normally stay away from Harry Potter content. However, this story is written by a friend (who posted it anonymously, so I won't say who). I trust them, so it is on my list.

Point being, I'm pretty well fed in the fanfic department. That doesn't even include the HUNDREDS of ML fic that is probably uploaded damn near daily on AO3.

On top of all that, I have a slew of new Webtoon stories that I started reading, along with the list of ones I was already reading. I now have something like 18 series I'm semi-actively reading (two are Canvas, and so they only update about 2x per month, and 2 of the Webtoon Original stories are on hiatus). Plus, there's 3 series on Comikey that I'm invested in, even if I haven't gone back to read them in a little bit.

Now, normally, this is the point where I'll talk to you about the five new series I started up. However, I also recently noticed how much of my blog updates in 2024 were just me talking about these comics. No shade. Writers SHOULD read. One of the three stories I wrote last year was fanfic for one of the Webtoon series I was reading, for Pete's sake! It makes sense that I'd talk about what I'm reading within my blog (that is supposed to be) about writing.

That said, I feel like these updates are pretty epic enough without people who may not care about each thing I read having to slog through such a huge chunk of my updates on the off chance that I have more to say unrelated to reading after I'm done. Especially if my recommendations mean little-to-nothing. Maybe my readers are incapable or uninterested in getting an account with AO3 or Webtoon or Comikey to read what I am. Maybe I truly do have blog readers who just kind of sigh and quick scroll through all of my reading recaps. I mean, yeah, it's become a bit much. Especially since I seem to be adding more stories weekly!

So, I've decided to try something new for 2025. Introducing LycoRogue's Reading Corner!

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I'll still give a broad overview of my reading in my normal updates, much like I did here. I'll also give a bit more detail as needed should a particular story influence my writing. However, the bulk of me gushing about my latest reads - be they Webtoons, Comikey, fanfic, or professionally published novels - will now be in a separate update. I'm aiming to publish LycoRogue's Reading Corner around the 15th of each month, and then my monthly generic/writing updates around the last day of each month.

I do spend a great deal of time gathering up links and screenshots and the like for those "what am I reading now" chunks of my blog. It also takes a surprising amount of HTML editing to get it the format I prefer. Maybe if I break all that time off of my main blog updates I can actually publish those updates in the month they're for! Imagine!

So, keep an eye out for my inaugural LRRC post later this month! And my official January (life) update close to the 30th/31st.

Speaking of new things for 2025, it's already January (duh). Which means it's time for New Year's Resolutions! I'm going to be straight with you all. I have a list for my personal/home life that I'm not going to share, and my writing-focused one is just me giving another crack at the resolutions I came up with for 2024. I've made a few improvements between 2023 and 2024. I know a bit more about myself. I've grown. I've seen some of my pitfalls. I'm taking action to hopefully correct them (such as creating LRRC). Maybe 2025 will see better success in these resolutions.

How about a recap of those resolutions, since I stopped touching base REAL QUICK:

1. Take another run at posting at least one blog update every month; 12 updates in total before the close of 2024
2. Read an average of 7.5hrs per month (that's the equivalent of 15min per day for a 30-day month)
3. Write Plagg-centric stories for the two Friday 13ths this year: September and December
4. Publish at least one narrative each quarter of the year: 4 stories total; once every 3 months.

How well did I do with those goals in 2024?

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Resolution 1: Twelve monthly blog updates

Weeeeeellllll.... I got... Nine. With the exception of 2022 - which I skipped entirely - this is the fewest blog updates I have had in a single year ever since I started this blog! Well, I mean, I only had FIVE updates my debut year (2010), but I also didn't start up this blog until September, sooooooo.... That's MORE than one per month in 2010.... oof.

Resolution 2: Read an average of 7.5hrs per month

Oh, this one I actually did AMAZING with! It was a slow go, at first. Even those 15min/day was a hard sell. Now? I'm probably easily hitting that 7.5hr quota before the week is out! I'll pat myself on the back for this one.

Resolution 3: Celebrate Plagg Appreciation Day!

Ummmmmmmmmmmmm.... yeah.....

There were two Friday the 13ths in 2024. I missed both of them. Didn't even BOTHER to think of anything. I really do feel like the way season 5 went for the show, along with the year-long break between seasons, has really killed my drive. I don't even actively try to find the series to rewatch. That fifth season.... big sigh....

There is but ONE Friday the 13th in 2024. It is in June. So.... let's see if I can get back into the swing of things by then? Season 6 drops at the end of January, so here's hoping it brings back my love for the show and helps with inspiration for that June story.

Resolution 4: Publish 4 stories

I'll give myself a B- on this one. I lose marks because I only got out 3 instead of 4. I also lose marks because I didn't publish one seasonally. I only published during the 2nd quarter of the year. Which, in and of itself, was kind of impressive! I go from barely writing anything to writing three 4500+ word stories in back-to-back-to-back months! And two of those stories were over 7200 words long!?! I definitely earn back some serious points for that!

Also, I am STILL getting nearly-daily love for two out of the three stories! I'll talk more about my updated story stats below.

OK, so, what are my adjusted resolutions for 2025?

1. Once more, I am trying for 12 updates before the conclusion of 2025. Plus my 12 LycoRogue's Reading Corner updates. Bringing me up to 24 in total! A big ask considering 2024's final record, but if I can at least get the monthly regular updates done then I'm good with not getting in all 12 LRRC updates.
• 1B - I'm also going to end each of my monthly updates with a blessing. Something I'm grateful for that month, or something that brought me joy. That way it will be easier for me to do an end-of-the-year recap and be able to keep it more positive. (speaking of, my 2024 recap is below)
2. I'm upping my reading goal to roughly 1hr per day: 30hrs total per month. I'm gonna need to do some extra reading in February, and, alternatively, I'll have a buffer day every 31-day month, but overall I think it's doable and fair.
• 2B - Read at least one professionally published novel. I have at least 5 by Rick Riordan and another 3 by Kristin Cashore on my To Read list. Plus, I still haven't finished Ready Player Two. Maybe third time's the charm????
3. Write a Plagg-centric story for Friday, June 13th.
• 3B - it felt weird having this one be the only resolution without a sub-resolution... so.... placeholder sub resolution!
4. Trying yet again to publish at least one narrative each quarter of the year: 4 stories total; once every 3 months.
• 4B - Get either Seduce with Caution or One and the Same plotted out and ready to FINALLY get a completed first draft written up! The first draft itself doesn't need to be done in 2025 (although that IS a nice stretch goal!). I just want the OUTLINE finally polished by Dec 31, 2025 so I can get these dang stories written and published before they become decade-old WIPs!

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Edited by LycoRogue

That all feels a touch daunting given my current track record. I still want to try though. I really don't care if I fail at New Year's Resolutions. I just care if I put in the effort to grow in order to reach them. Ya know? So, let's grow to meet those resolutions!

I think a great place to start is, I guess, ending this update on a high note. I know that I haven't had the most positive updates in 2024. Even this update started off with a little bit of a bummer. That said, there were still some good things to happen during this dumpster fire of a year.

For one, my sister got married! And bought a house!

Photo edited by LycoRogue
to protect the anonymity of my sister and brother-in-law

(Tee hee. Any excuse to reuse that edit. I spent so much time on it, and I kinda love it!)

For two, I was able to cross off a few Bucket List items this year, and saw the awesome musical Hadestown.

For three, despite those health scares, everyone I love is doing well. Now for me to send some good vibes and healing energy to everyone so their mental health improves as well!

My fourth 2024 highlight? Well, as I mentioned, I REALLY got back into reading this year. I still need the visuals to really lock me in because my brain is too burnt out to properly imagine things, but it's a start. I'm able to transition back to solely prose writing in bites whenever I switch over to reading fanfiction. I'll get there. I'm heading in the right direction at least.

Finally, I feel blessed with how well two out of the three stories I posted this year have been doing. Honestly, given how small and diminishing the Hailey's On It! fandom seems to be, I'm a bit bummed, but I'm not even mad at Scott's List Item not doing too well. It's a niche story, I guess. Along with my Enderverse and LoZ ones.

Back to the other two though! Going in reverse, we have the lone entry into the ML fandom I had this year. A fanfic of a fanfic.

I Think I Like You
(Maybe More Than I Should)

Read on:     AO3          FFN          DA          Tumblr

Previous Stats

AO3: 1361 hits, 148 kudos, 19 bookmarks, and 10 comments
FFN: 357 views, 11 faves, 5 follows, and 3 reviews
DA: 1100 views, but no other engagement

Total Results: 2818 hits/views, 159 kudos/faves, 24 bookmarks/follows, and 13 comments/reviews

Tumblr Notes: 12 total; 6 likes and 2 reblogs off of my post, plus 3 likes and 1 reblog off Ladynoir AO3 Feed's post

Current (at time of publishing) Stats

AO3: 1504 hits, 171 kudos, 19 bookmarks, and 10 comments
FFN: 391 views, 11 faves, 5 follows, and 3 reviews
DA: 1200 views, but no other engagement

Total Results: 3095 hits/views, 182 kudos/faves, 24 bookmarks/follows, and 13 comments/reviews

Tumblr Notes: 12 total; 6 likes and 2 reblogs off of my post, plus 3 likes and 1 reblog off Ladynoir AO3 Feed's post

Growth: 277 hits/views, 23 kudos/faves. No new bookmarks/follows, comments, or Tumblr notes

As you can see, this story is finally starting to wind down in popularity, I think. Getting buried under the hundreds of newer ML content. I mean, I don't know if there's a way to sort by content total on AO3 the way you can on FFN, but ML currently has nearly 75,000 different works on AO3!!!! I guess it can be understandable (although still a little depressing) that my stuff gets buried and rarely seen/never recommended.

I do also have to give a long side-eye to some of those stats. I hate how much the internet has become overrun by bots. I can't trust pretty much ANY of those 1200 views on DA since there is no other engagement outside of one comment telling me it's cute. Especially since I just liked (and quickly un-liked) a gorgeous image of Marinette at a New Years Masquerade party... which I then discovered was AI generated.... YOU CAN'T APPRECIATE ANYTHING AT FACE VALUE ANYMORE! IT'S ALL LIES! Screw the old joke that there's no females online. I'm beginning to wonder if there's even any people online anymore.....

Along those lines, I'm also squinting hard at those 268 new hits (mostly on AO3) and 23 new kudos (exclusively AO3) with no other new engagement. Especially since a LOT of my notifications for those kudos said that they were done by a "guest". Like, I REALLY want to keep my account unlocked so people without an AO3 account, such as my family, can still read my posts. But I can't keep wondering if I'm just popular among bots because the engagement with my works just isn't there.

Remember what I wrote last time about needing feedback and engagement? Yeah, this is another reason. Let me know you're not a bot, please. Consider leaving even a little heart emoji in the comments my way of putting up a captcha.

OH! Fun note! I googled "captcha" to make sure I spelled it correctly. In doing so, I discovered what the acronym stands for: Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart. How labored is that acronym? I love it! So ridiculous!

Back to ITILY. I actually wrote down which stories got kudos on a calendar. I was going to make a graphic to show here, but I was using up way too much time trying to format it so it was readable when most people will be reading this blog in a profile view as opposed to a landscape view. (Trying to sort out the graphic is probably one of the reasons this update is late...)

Long and short, I was getting notifications for both ITILY and You Pretended Not to Care so frequently still that I just straight up wrote those two stories down every day, and then just checked them off if I actually got a notification that they got a kudos. Between my last stats update (November 19th) and today, the longest time between ITILY getting kudos was only 9 days! The average was only 3 days before I got another kudos notification. I also got kudos back-to-back-to-back  on that fic between November 21st and 23rd. For a story within the ML fandom to still get noticed that frequently half-a-year later is truly a blessing. Thank you to everyone who has read this fic, as well as those still finding and reading it.

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Now for the greatest writing blessing for me this year:

You Pretended Not To Care

Read on:     AO3          DA          Tumblr

Previous Stats

AO3: 2477 hits, 217 kudos, 31 bookmarks, and 11 comments
DA: 208 views, but still no other engagement

Total Results: 2685 views, 217 kudos, 31 bookmarks, and 11 comments

Tumblr Notes: 26 total; 22 likes and 4 reblogs

Current (at time of publishing) Stats

AO3: 2946 hits, 245 kudos, 33 bookmarks, and 15* comments
DA: 246 views, but still no other engagement

Total Results: 3192 views, 245 kudos, 33 bookmarks, and 15* comments

Tumblr Notes: 30 total; 26 likes and 4 reblogs

Growth: 507 views, 28 kudos, 2 bookmarks, 4* comments, and 4 Tumblr likes

New AO3 Reviews:

1. 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚
2. I love this!!! I love their relationship so much!!!
3. Omg I loved this! Thank you for this. I enjoyed reading this, especially their inner monologues.
4. *[A review in someone else's comment section; see below]

See? That last portion there? Especially the one where it's just a line of green heart emojis? That's the stuff! Even though YPNTC has had more views than ITILY (despite YPNTC not being on FFN) I don't feel the need to side-eye it as much.

For one, while I would expect the smut story to be liked by a bunch of guest accounts (so that there's no record that they looked at smut), I actually get a surprising number of logged-in AO3 users leaving me kudos. Thank you, brave readers, for staying logged in while consuming my story, and leaving me love while still under your AO3 handle. I appreciate the gesture so much!

For two, people are still bookmarking my story or liking it on Tumblr. Even if they don't leave a comment, the fact that they bookmarked my story proves to me that they're not a bot, and gives me extra butterflies that they want to make sure they can go back and re-find my story at any time. As for Tumblr? Sure, there's bots there. Sure, they frequently like posts as a way of tricking people into believing they're real. But to only have 26 likes - 2 from my friends, and 3 more also reblogging my story after liking it - that feels too small of an interaction pool to attract bots. I could be wrong, but it feels like these stats are more reliable for those reasons.

Third, COMMENTS! People are still COMMENTING! The story is over seven months old, and yet I'm STILL getting love in the comments! Granted, this fandom has maybe 30 stories in it, so people are probably starving for content. But still, that doesn't guarantee the starving readers are going to leave a comment after.

I dunno, just, all-in-all, these stats for YPNTC feel more reliably "real" than the ones for ITILY. 

Also, side note on the whole "for reals, comments mean THE WORLD" thing. One of the things that both MostLovedGirl and zenmisery have repetitively told me is how much they look forward to my comments. I think my comments - and then me replying to their replies to my comments - is what really opened the door to us becoming friends. Along those lines, I recently got this author reply from PeachesOfZenith for a comment I had left on their story Killian's Passion:

Oh my god thank you so so much! This comment made my day! I have reread this comment like 5 times already and I can't stop grinning and blushing like an idiot (my sister is looking at me like I am crazy 😅)
I am so glad that this was more than just smut to you and my attempt at understanding his character development actually came through.
[Redacted for story spoilers]
Your comment made me soo happy! 😭
I love your feedback and will keep it in mind!
Also I haven't stopped writing, it is just on hold because life I guess 😅
But I am working on some Under The Oak Tree fan fiction!
If you have any ideas for this fandom or any other fandom, please let me know! I will always appreciate any ideas or feedback!

Thanks again! May this new year be happy and healthy for you and your loved ones! ❤️

Like, wow! I never would have imagined that my comments would make such a huge impact, and I'm someone who believes in leaving comments SPECIFICALLY because it truly helps encourage the writer. I am now the one grinning like an idiot because it made my day that something I said lifted someone else up that much.

THAT CAN BE YOU! YOU CAN BE THAT PERSON LIFTING OTHERS! JUST LEAVE A COMMENT WHEN YOU READ ONLINE FICTION! PLEASE!

Naturally, I had to respond to PeachesOfZenith's reply. How could I NOT after THAT!? We have a bit of a back-and-forth going on now. While I won't go so far as to say that Peaches and I are now online friends, it is very reminiscent of how I became friends with MLG, Zenmisery, Taurus Pixie, and MalcomReynolds. So, that's fun! Anyway, in one of Peaches' replies they unofficially left ME a review!

Also I read your fic (although I didn't know it was you until now)
It was great and made sense, you know? I loved that it wasn't just Killian being amazing right off the bat, but instead him learning as he goes forward. It was good! I have read it more than a couple of times already! 😆
Also I really like the past[sic] where [Redacted due to mild spoiler]. Kinda felt a tiny bit sadistic from his side lol. Loved that!

EEEEEEE! How cool is this!?! Man! I love how much love this story is getting!

Along those lines, between November 19th and December 16th I never went more then 2 days without a new kudos notification for YPNTC! In total, since November 19th, I've received at least one new kudos for this story on 17 different days. Granted, that means it HAS slowed down from "nearly daily" since mid-December. Even so, getting a kudos notification 17 days out of 48 is still a 35% rate! And I got 27 new kudos within those 17 days, which means, on multiple occasions, multiple people were leaving me a kudos on the same day. Again, not too shabby of stats given the story is 7 months old.

That said, my story is also hands down the longest one-shot within the fandom and the 3rd-longest overall, at least on AO3. It's also the one with the most bookmarks, the most kudos, and the most comments within this small fandom on AO3.

Maybe my problem really IS that the Miraculous fandom is just too large????

The only story within the Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story fandom on AO3 that has more hits is a story I haven't read yet because it claims it has spoilers, and I don't know how far into the overall story I'd need to be for this fanfic to not spoil anything. They apparently use the name "Rhyse" instead of "Lizé" in the fic, which seems to imply that they are using the Webtoon adaptation for the naming cues (as opposed to the English translations of the webnovel, which use "Lizé"). That doesn't mean the author didn't write with knowledge of the completed novel and therefore would be giving novel spoilers to us manhwa readers.... Sooo, yeah, long story short, I'm avoiding the story that surpasses mine in hits: identidem by Musky_Potato. At least, for now. I may loop back to it once NYTRS concludes on Webtoon.

Anyway, the stats for YPNTC are just as awesome if you simply look at MY writing!

You Pretended Not to Care is my 5th most viewed story (out of 52)! The ones that have more AO3 hits?

1. Peeping Tomcat
• 14,937 hits
• ML fic with 17 chapters (and each chapter would add a new hit for each reader), is over 84k words long, and was published over six years ago!
• (Oh, lord, that means One and the Same has been in the works for nearly 7 years!?!)
2. Could Your Paradise Also Be Your Hell?
• 8,532 hits
• A one-shot fanfic of a fanfic. ML fandom, based off of MLG's chaptered fic Remember That Time When... (which has over 66k hits!), was published nearly 4yrs ago, and is one of my shorter stories - for people who can't dedicate hours to reading fanfic.
3. Woven Heartstrings
• 6,948 hits
• Christmas ML fic (that is surprisingly popular OUTSIDE of the holiday season) with 8 chapters, is 32k words long, and was published just shy of 6yrs ago
4. Prescription for Love
• 3,413 hits
• Yet another ML fanfic. It has 9 chapters and is 19k words long. It's a companion story of an episode, and was published 5yrs ago.

Those stories are in a huge fandom (as I lamented earlier), and have had YEARS to build up views! YPNTC is less than 500 views shy of Prescription for Love!

In case that wasn't impressive enough, YPNTC also has the 5th highest kudos count! You may recognize the only other stories above it:

1. Woven Heartstrings
• 555 kudos
2. Could Your Paradise Also Be Your Hell?
• A nice, even 500 kudos!
3. Peeping Tomcat
• 435 kudos
4. I Was Thinking Of You
• 312 kudos
• A newcomer in this line-up
• ML fandom yet again. Only 3500 words. Published 5yrs ago

At less than a year old, YPNTC is only 68 kudos shy of matching I Was Thinking of You. Again, a story that has had FIVE YEARS to get as many kudos!

YPNTC does dip a touch when it comes to number of comments, but is still in the top 15! Also, while you can only leave one kudos per story, you can leave one new comment (if not more) per chapter. So, chaptered stories are going to have higher opportunities to have more comments.

The breakdown is:

1. Peeping Tomcat
• 39 comments
2. Woven Heartstrings
• 37 comments
3. Perfect Doesn't Need to be Perfect
• 35 comments
• Another ML Christmas fic, but also a fanfic of a fanfic. It's 12 chapters and 37k words long. Published 4yrs ago
4. Prescription for Love
• 31 comments
5. Hearts Together
• 25 comments
• Fanfic in the Fruits Basket fandom this time; 7 chapters, and 11k words. Published 5yrs ago
6. Love Square Fluff Week 2020
• 20 comments
• Abandoned ML fic that still managed 5 chapters and 18k words. Published shy of 5yrs ago
7. Marinette's Song
• 18 comments
• ML fanfic Valentine's Day exchange; 7 chapters and just shy of 11k words long. Published shy of 5yrs ago
8. I Was Thinking of You
• 17 comments
• First one-shot on this list
9. Forever in Darkness
• 15 comments
• ML one-shot that's 4700 words long and published 5yrs ago
10. Could Your Paradise Also Be Your Hell?
• also 15 comments
11. Is It True?
• another 15 comments story
• ML one-shot with only 937 words that was published shy of 4yrs ago
12. You Pretended Not to Care
• 14 comments
13. Rolling Thunder
• 11 comments
• ML one-shot of another MLG fanfic. It's 4600 words long and was published a little over 2 years ago.

Yeah! Check that out! Could your Paradise Also Be Your Hell?, Forever in Darkness, and Is It True? all had YEARS to build up those comments, and I'm just 1 away from YPNTC matching them! Conversely, Rolling Thunder had roughly 18 months more than YPNTC to garner comments, and yet it is 3 shy. On top of all that, only four one-shots have more comments than YPNTC! I'm floored!

Comparatively, I Think I Like You (Maybe More Than I Should) is the 11th highest for my kudos count, 16th most-viewed, and 18th with regards to comments. It was also posted a month after YPNTC and has to compete with over 70K other fanfics within the ML fandom. Not too shabby there either. 

I mean, you could see above that my numbers aren't over-all impressive. My most-viewed story hasn't even reached 20k hits, but MLG's story is already over 66k! And she's not even one of the Big Creators that everyone follows and reads! Only 14k hits for me? Pssh, drop in a bucket!

Still, I'm impressed with how well my stories are doing anyway. ESPECIALLY You Pretended Not to Care. I just need to get more eyes on my work as a whole, somehow... 

Now, to finish up, my blessing for December. I did recap 2024, but this will be for December specifically.

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• My family member is perfectly fine now (which is a blessing in and of itself), but her health scare did help lead me and Hubby towards being more serious about our own health goals.
• We also got to spend time with our niece and nephew (and hubby's sister) even if briefly over Christmas.
• My online friend is still with us, and she made sure to check in with me to let me know that she's alright. I hope her road to recovery is relatively smooth and short.

And, with that, I will leave you for a week or two. I hope to see you again on the 15th for LycoRogue's Reading Corner!

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Prepping for the Winter Challenge

I was so close, guys! I almost had two chapters re-written and edited within a week!

Well.... technically it is two chapters. However, it WAS one chapter before this week..... I don't know if that's a win or a fail.....

After last week's post, I attempted to finish chapter 3 of  Peeping Tomcat. The problem is that in Ali's attempt to rescue my corrupted NaNo file, she, sadly, couldn't do anything for chapters two and three. I had completely lost them when I lost my novel half-way through November. I did manage to remember enough of what I had written to quickly bullet the plot points I wanted to hit again, but the magic was gone.

So, while the majority of the rest of the story will be revisions and edits, chapters two and three had to be from scratch. I did manage to get chapter two done last week. I think it works, but I also don't think it had the same draw of the original. I feel the same way with chapter three. I'm hoping any who never read my original version - which is everyone but me - will really like the chapter, and that I'm just a debbie downer for no reason.

Aside from the magic not quite being there the second go, chapter three created another hurtle.

Originally, the chapter had Adrien, Marinette, Alya, and Nino taking the subway to the mall in order to watch a movie. On the subway, Adrien attempts a conversation with Marinette, which results in him offering to show her drawings to his father to see if he had any advice for a promising novice designer. The chapter originally concluded with the group at the movie theater, a few fluffy Adrienette moments, and a big Adrienette moment interrupted by an akuma attack.

Chapter four was then the attack itself, and Ladybug and Cat Noir taking the akuma down.

Well, in my attempt to add in more action and dialog the second go, chapter three went on for quite some time. Just passing 3000 words, I decided to end the chapter with Adrien's offer to show Marinette's drawings to his father.

This meant that all the Adrienette movie watching scenes and the lead into the akuma attack didn't make the cut.

So, I realized I needed one more chapter between three and four. My full project is now set at fifteen chapters instead of fourteen, but who knows if I'll have to split more chapters like I did to three? This thing could be twenty chapters when I'm done....

Well, I decided that if the Adrienette movie moments were going to be their own chapter, I had better make sure the chapter was properly filled out. My first run at this story introduced an original character - Louise Fabron - as an original akuma design. Problem was, she was an OC. No one knows who Louise is, what she looks like, how old she is, what her deal is, etc. Plus, the way she gets akumatized is that Chloe teases her about copying Chloe's style in a vain attempt to try to be popular. There was no way of Adrien knowing this without witnessing it, and if he witnessed it, why would he then just go about his day to watch the movie with his friends?

I had to find a way to set up Louise, introduce her to the reader, set up what Chloe was about to do, and hint at why Louise was going to be akumatized without it being obvious to the characters. I think I did it alright. We'll see if my betas will have any advice once I pass it over to them.

Either way, it introduced the new character, established a potential reason why she goes after Chloe once akumatized, didn't throw up any real red flags telling the characters they should be ready for an akuma attack, and filled out the chapter a bit.

And yet, perhaps it filled a bit too much. I tried, I really did. I hid in my room from about 9pm until a little after 1am, but I just couldn't finish the chapter. Mostly it was because I was looking up reference pics and reading the Miraculous Wiki to make sure my facts lined up with canon. I also stopped for a half-hour to watch the new episode that aired on Sunday. The rest of the time was spent writing, and editing as I went. I wrote out a sentence, didn't like how it worked, went back and rewrote the action. I then went about a paragraph in, didn't like the direction it was going, and started that paragraph over. Rinse and repeat.

I'm now at the tail end of the chapter. If I really pushed, I probably could have finished it last night. However, it WAS after 1am, and my eyes were burning. I haven't even looked at what I wrote yet. Who knows if it's even comprehensible? So, that's my task for today: finish chapter four, and start my rework of Ms. Popular so I can get through chapter five.

Yeaaaaah, that chapter is probably going to be a complete rewrite, but we'll see how much of it I can keep.

To try to help me motivate myself to stay on top of my edits, I joined Ali's winter challenge over at Writers’ Huddle. For those unfamiliar, it's a six-week personal challenge. You set up your own six-week goal to try to hit, and then check in each week with your progress. As a reward for continuously striving for that goal - succeed or fail - any who check in go into a drawing for an Amazon gift card. The reward is nice and all, but the accountability of people knowing what I'm trying to do, and watching for me to check in with progress does really help push me to keep on top of things.

So, my challenge is to have "Peeping Tomcat" done and sent to my beautiful beta volunteers by the end of the six weeks, which happens to be my sister's birthday. So technically I have to finish before that weekend so I can have time to visit her, and also peek in on my godson to wish him a happy birthday as well.

Yes, this also means that my betas get PT mid-March instead of mid/end of February like I wanted. However, it's clear that I'm taking longer with this project than I anticipated. Plus, if they can get me notes by the end of March, and I can get revisions/edits done for at least the first chapter in a week or so, I could start posting at the beginning of April, which is still within my predicted schedule. I could do this. Hopefully.

Right now my break down is like this:

• Finish up chapter 4 today
• Get the akuma attack figured out so I could get chapter 5 done by the end of the week.
• Monday is the start of the challenge. I'm aiming to have chapters 6 and 7 done by the close of the first challenge week: February 4th. At least chapter 6 is a fun one of Cat spying on Marinette yet again, so that one should be quick to revise/edit.
• Week 2 of the challenge will be chapters 8 and 9. The problem there is that chapter 9 is a second akuma attack. During NaNo I had nothing planned for the akuma, so I skipped over the chapter, only jotting down bulleted notes on key things that needed to happen. Which means the hardest part of writing Miraculous fanfics still needs to be figured out and written. I might not be able to complete that the same week I edit another chapter.
• Week 3 I want to make sure chapter 9 is done, if I couldn't complete it the week before. Thankfully, chapter 10 is what I used as the teaser preview chapter of this whole project, so that shouldn't need too much editing. I aimed to also have chapter 11 edited, and possibly started on chapter 12.
• Week 4 needs chapter 12 done, and then chapter 13. This should be my "catch-up" week if I haven't made it to chapter 13 by then.
• Week 5 will be when I edit the last two chapters of Peeping Tomcat, assuming I haven't had to split any other chapters in the rewrite process. Then it's off to the betas!
• Week 6 will be "catch-up week" to make sure PT makes it to the betas if I hadn't sent it yet. I'm assuming I'll fall a bit behind. Mainly because I'm a slacker despite my best efforts, but also because my re-write projects always seem to be bigger than I give them credit for. Finally, I do have that resolution to post something new at least once a month, and I haven't even THOUGHT of writing anything but PT this month. I need to pause and work on a nice prompt or something this month, and again next month. That will probably slow my editing progress down a bit.

So that's my challenge. What do you think? Is it challenging enough? Is it too daunting? Do you think I'll make it? I'm really hoping to push so that I can. Deadlines. I have such a love-hate with them. At least I'm better at them now than I was in school. Trying to write a 50,000+ word novel the night before wouldn't go well.....

The other thing that might slow my writing progress, though, is the fact that I still have to finish up Ender's Game. This week I've kind of put the book on pause. In part it was so I could spend the time writing to try to catch up. In part it was because I got to the point where Ender and Bean interact, and I want to sit with both books and read the same scenes twice - once in Ender's Game, and once in Ender's Shadow - in order to see in real-time the differences a POV change makes.

I have to admit, though, that part of the reason I stepped away from the book is because it was annoying me. Ender's Game annoyed me the first time I read it too, but for a different reason. Originally, it was because, in order to make sure Ender was at his peak when they most needed him, the adult military used as teachers at Battle School and Command School did cruel things to Ender that no kid should have to endure. I was pissed for Ender and wanted to smack the teachers, even if I understood why they had to do what they did.

This go, though, I'm annoyed because of a pet peeve of mine: chronology. I'm huge on timelines and timing; making sure things line up like they would if it were real life. Not so much anachronisms. I don't pay enough attention to when things came about, unless it's glaringly obvious like a digital watch in the 1920s. For me it's literal timing.

Does a story claim that a trip took way longer than it should without explanation as to why? Did a character reference something that happened months ago as if it was only a week or two? Does it take one character longer to do something than another character claimed it took? Can the characters not agree on what day of the week it was? That sort of thing.

You may have noticed me complaining about stuff like this in the past.

In "Ready Player One," I was pulled from the story a couple of times when the narrator stated that it was a different day of the week than it should have based on context clues. Something like Wednesday being only three days after Friday if you put the in between events in order.

In an episode of "The Office," which takes place in Scranton, PA, a pregnant character comments about driving to Allentown, PA for a Lamaze class. However, if anyone has ever driven from Scranton to Allentown, they would know that even on the turnpike it's at least a forty-five minute drive. Was there really no closer Lamaze classes? Did the writers just go "the only PA cities people know of are Scranton, Philly, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and Allentown"?

In Miraculous Ladybug, the heroes only have five minutes after using their powers before they are forced to transform back into their civilian selves. And yet it seems to be five minutes real time instead of show time. For instance, in one episode, Ladybug is on the roof of a hotel that's about twenty stories tall, and she has one minute left before she transforms. She somehow manages to race down the stairs to the ground floor and still have time to briefly talk to Cat Noir before hiding in a closet so he wouldn't see who she really was. This is possible because in real time there's a cut between Ladybug running through the roof exit door and her running out of the ground floor stairwell. From her realizing she had a minute left and the actual transformation change it was almost exactly one minute real time. There is no way, even with her super powers, she was able to get down the stairs in the split-second needed for her to also hold a conversation with Cat before her minute was up, in her time.

In Ender's Game, things seemed fine for the most part. The only real hiccup thus far is that at the beginning of a chapter two of the teachers are discussing the fact that Ender had been in the program for a year and a half. Later that same chapter, presumably within days of the earlier conversation, Ender's older sister Valentine mentions that Ender had been in the program for two years. It's easy enough to explain that away though, since Valentine is ten or eleven at the time, and even though she has the mind of an adult, it's easy for a child to just roll the years over; if it's past the half-way mark it's closer to two years than one, so he's been gone two years.

The snaffu comes from Card's inability to properly link Ender's Game and Ender's Shadow within the same timeline.

I specifically took longer to read Ender's Shadow so I could take notes on the main elements from Ender's Game that were referenced. That way I could know where Bean was in relation to Ender when I re-read Ender's Game. Going back through my notes, Bean was placed in Battle School just before an attack on Ender. In Ender's Game, the attack referenced happened a day or two after his seventh birthday. Then it jumps to Valentine celebrating Ender's eighth birthday, which meant clearly nothing of any note happened to Ender for a solid year, even though the first six chapters or so covered only a year in Battle School. Cut back to Ender and he's now about nine and a half and is getting control of Dragon Army. Again, it's odd that nothing of note happened to the kid now for 30 months when something major happened to him nearly daily the first year he was in Battle School....

Anyway, if Bean did arrive just before the attack on Ender, as it's implied, then Bean turned five right around the same time Ender turned seven, making them only two years apart. Yet, Bean is only six, having been at Battle School barely a year, when he was asked to put together the roster that eventually became Dragon Army. It's strongly implied in Ender's Shadow that Dragon Army was then formed, and Ender given control, within weeks - at the longest - after Bean created the roster, which he gave to the teachers only a day or so after being given the assignment.

This means Bean is six when he joins Dragon Army.... but Ender's nine and a half.... which means there's now a three-plus year difference between the two. Not only that, but Bean being asked to create Dragon happened about a year after he started Battle School. If he joined right around Ender's seventh birthday, then when Valentine was celebrating Ender's eighth birthday it would roughly be Bean's year anniversary with the school, and he'd be asked to create Dragon. What happened to the other year between Valentine's celebration and Ender being nine and a half and given command?

The whole thing makes my head hurt. How did Card miss this!? He obviously went back through Ender's Game in order to pick out the scenes where Ender and Bean interacted in order to get the dialog and actions right. It would make sense that he just re-read Ender's Game in order to take notes on what he wanted to include in Ender's Shadow. So how did he lose a year in the process!?

While I calculated that Bean was pushing eight by the end of Ender's Shadow, even the teachers called him six, to which Bean responded "I think I'm seven..." So, Ender's Shadow covered two, maybe three years. And yet it covers three, possibly four, years in Ender's Game for the same points: the attack on Ender through the end of the Bugger war.

HELP!!!! I can't seem to push past this and get back into the story. However, the month is drawing to a close, and I need to get this story done in order to still try to get a book a month read. Plus, it's due back at the library on the 27th, so either I have to renew it or I have to be done by Saturday. Technically, I have to have it done by Friday since I won't be able to get it to the library on Saturday, and I don't know if it will be considered late if it's in the overnight box the evening it's due....

Oh, and in other news, it seems I'm back to my "normal" readership of about 20-some hits per post. The previous couple of months of 500+ hits per post was most likely people looking for Miraculous season 2 info. They probably realized I don't have it and gave up. I haven't had more than 30 hits per post all month. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted, and I know that the 20-30 of you who do keep popping in genuinely want to know what I have to say.

So thank you.

Hacker Girl Facebook Sticker
by Birdman, Inc.

Fall Into the World of Varekai

I wrote more words last week than I have the previous two weeks of the Writers’ Huddle Summer Writing Challenge. However, I have also increased my weekly goal from 2500 to 3500, so even with more words last week I still ended up missing my writing goal.

I wanted to increase my challenge during the over-all six weeks, but I may have broken too soon. As a reminder, I was trying to write at least 500 words per day for five days a week. This would result in a weekly word goal of 2500 words. However, after two weeks of the challenge, I just barely squeaked out the 2500 the first week, and I was one writing session behind the second week. In both cases I also neglected to write for five days out of the week.

Yet my self-challenge dictated that last week was time to push harder: 700 words per day for five days a week; totaling in 3500 words. Since I hadn't mastered five days a week, or even at least 500 words per day, adding another 200 words per session, 1000 over all, didn't work out well.

It's like Life knows I have this challenge set in front of me, and purposely hands me other things I must do so that my writing time vaporizes. I really need to get back into tracking my hourly time spent so I know what trials pop up and prevent me from writing.

I'm sure they're not valid distractions.

This week would be the week of valid distractions. My mother came to visit in order to help me re-arrange and organize my apartment before I snap and just burn the thing to the ground. Well, in truth, it isn't so much a "visit" as it's a promotion for her organizational business; a work in trade. She does what she does, organizing wise, and I help her figure out how to promote herself on social media. Since we're talking about her new-found career, I can't treat this as a social visit. She has a job to do, and I have a great need for that job. No messing around. Only small breaks - mostly for eating - during her work day. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like her work day ever ends.

I had to really put my foot down to have this time to blog. Much like my paying job, I WILL NOT miss this blog update if I can help it. I might have to do the same thing with an hour of writing each day to make sure I don't fall further behind. Thankfully, my mother is super supportive of my writing, usually resulting in her yelling at me for not making it a career yet, so she was fine with the delayed start. Mom used my blog-time to exercise and other such morning routines, so it worked out. Still, I don't want to waste anyone's time by stealing more than a couple hours to write per day, and I feel I've already done that with this post.

We'll see if I make enough progress throughout the day that she'll allot me more time for writing without me feeling guilty about it.

As it is, I managed to sneak in time on Sunday to write. It wasn't enough to catch up on my over-all weekly word count, but it was enough to satisfy my daily goal of at least 700 words. Plus, it wasn't a Zero Day, so there's that. I just didn't want to take up any more time to play catch-up, especially after killing a couple hours when Cyhyr and Ronoxym dropped Hubby off after a day outing together. They stuck around so I could get some socializing in as well; especially with their baby girl.

Whoops. Sorry, Mom.

Pandadog and Friends
Facebook Sticker
by Funnyeve.com

Anyway, back to my Sunday writing. I know I should have waited for NaNoWriMo to start, but I figured I'd bend the rules for two reasons: one, to create a teaser to keep my readers and myself excited for this project, and two, because I was inspired and sometimes you can't ignore the Muse poking at you. Especially when said Muse is poking at you to write about another Ancient Greek myth. The added bonus is that I now have something for you fine folks to read, and it also can be another short to add to Ronoxym's Flash Fiction Challenge. Yes, I'm still periodically doing this, although not really actively trying.

The important thing though, is that my Sunday writing also means that I have something for writing group tonight. However, I already explained that the trick is to push myself hard enough to warrant a two-hour break in order to go to the meeting. I may have to miss a week and work extra hard on having something good and edited by the next group on the 29th. With time and dedication, I should have the Trish/Devon story critiqued by Mouse and edited - possibly critiqued again just to be sure - in time for that group. I sure hope I can accomplish this side-goal in order to keep my promise that I'll have it posted for you fine folks to read by the end of the month.

In the meantime, enjoy my teaser for my Varekai fan-novelization.

"Icarus' Descent"

On DeviantArt       On FictionPress       And Even On FanFiction

Fun side note, in case anyone was wondering. I have been obsessively listening to the song "Vocea" while writing this post, as well as while writing the above story. It is the song sung during the act "Flight of Icarus" where the acrobat playing Icarus descends from the sky with his wings before doing a performance in an aerial net. As the press release for Varekai likes to describe it: "With agility, deftness and sensitivity, a young man performs astounding dives and contortions in the net that holds him captive."

It's just such a bittersweet, soothing song, and really does set the perfect mood. Feel free to listen to it as well while reading my above short.

To REALLY get the feeling, you can also see the performance, as filmed with the original cast for the DVD:

Now I'm off to see if I can weasel my way to going to actually SEE Varekai in person during November as a NaNo motivational pick-me-up....

Thus Ends 2016

I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to manage it, since this is my last day off before the conclusion of the year, but along with this post I do have two others now started for me to publish this week. It should help me get back up to 52 posts by the end of 2016. Not exactly one per week due to two missed ones, but same amount of effort, I think.

I'd call it good.

I'm also going to have to go back to my NaNo strict mindset this week. I need to be able to say "I'm going to go write" and hide away so I can get these posts done. I'm going to go from my Post-NaNo writing recovery hiatus right back to ALL THE WRITING!

So, what am I planning, anyway?

Well, for starters, for a while now I've wanted to recap the books I've read, since I dropped the ball on that back over the summer. My first post will be a fairly lengthy one as I reflect on the sixteen books I've read this year.

When I commented in writing group that I've read sixteen books this year, Keaton seemed shocked. She's the type of person who either reads or listens to an audiobook about once a week; maybe even twice so she gets about 100 books in a year. So, I can understand that to her 16 books annually doesn't sound like much. She may even be as appalled as a lot of professional writers who swear that reading is just as important for an author as writing itself. Still, considering I haven't really read more than two or three books a year - and last year barely managed ONE - since college; a leap to sixteen books is a VAST improvement.

Anyway, I'll talk more about that in that post. My next supplemental post will be my new annual tradition of recapping the year. It's a nice way for me to look back on past years and see my growth. Same for other writers who might feel like they'll never get anywhere with their writing, or my fans who just like to see me improve. Having these yearly recaps turns my progress into a single post proving that I'm evolving as a writer, and that others can as well.

Writing used to be a passionate hobby of mine. That's it. A HOBBY. Something to do when I'm bored, excited, or need to work something out. Something to do when I felt like it, and only when inspiration struck.

Writing may be a calling of mine, but I never treated it as such. Now? Now there's some weight to it. Writing is a priority, sometimes over even cleaning my home, which I'm sure my mother appreciates....

I'm still nowhere near where I need to be to consider myself "serious" about writing. I'm still a year or so away from actually earning money with my writing. But it is definitely more than a "hobby" now. It is a commitment. It is a driving force. It is a life choice. It is as important as exercising, eating healthy, or socializing. It is how I keep well.

I just need to work on focus a bit more. I feel like if I can just laser-focus on a project, and follow it through for once, then I might finally be on the right path.

Between my passion for Jolene, and the fact that my backstory for the never-introduced Kizar doesn't fit Bear's world, I have been thinking a lot about Gyateara again. There hasn't really been much actual advancement in the world build, but I've been picking up a few ideas here and there that I might incorporate. I want to be able to finish building the playground that Jolene and her past can play on. I'd have to come up with a new love interest to replace Rensin, though, so I can keep it original once I transition Jolene from Laerrnesse to Gyateara. But once Gyateara's built, I can have so much fun!

I can redo my original NaNo story, hopefully whittling down the Legend of Zelda, Fable, and InuYasha heavy-handed fanfiction elements until they are either original, or unrecognizable as influences. I could finally run around with Natalie and Connor again. I could then "hop the pond" to the mainland continent for Jolene, and finally put Amara's story to paper. I might even play some more with Elymoxa, in a world where gnome-hate is uncalled for. Sliding down the southern coast, I can get to the desert lands for Kizar.

Each character could have their own mini-series of books, and then combined they could make up the Gyateara Chronicles - or something like that.

Then I could switch gears from high-fantasy to cyberpunk with "Glitches."

But for me to do either, I HAVE to finish world-building. I've been failing at so many of my writing-themed New Years Resolutions the past few years, but I think my main three for this upcoming year will be:

1. Write a new blog post every week; ACTUALLY hitting 52 weekly posts instead of this catch-up at the end of the year.
2. Continue reading; the exact challenge I'll talk about in that post.
3. Finish world building either Gyateara or the Glitches future.

Perhaps I should actually add a fourth resolution. One I tease Ronoxym about frequently:

• FINISH A FRIGGEN STORY FOR ONCE!!!!!

Obviously, "Lost Loves and Paramours" is my front-runner. I'm going to go back to Jolene's story in January, after I had time to really rest up from NaNo and the holidays. I'm going to aim to finish her story by March at the latest, and then edit over April and May. Come June, I should have a polished second draft that I can post for everyone to FINALLY read. In the meantime, maybe I'll post teaser chapters.

I think that's the trick. I did a lot better as a "plantser" than as a planner or "pantser" for NaNo. I needed a rough outline that I could then work with. I still listened as Jolene told me her tale, and it got a little side-tracked for a chapter or two, but I knew where I needed the story to go, so I could bring it back to center. Having that roadmap helped keep me focused; helped me keep writing; helped me win NaNo finally.

So, maybe 2017 needs to be thought of the same way: a story that I need an outline for, so that when I get sidetracked I know how to get back to center.

I won't plan out my day-to-day or weekly per se, but a monthly breakdown of what I want to accomplish - a visualization of my goals - should help. All the self-help time-management books and articles I read say to do that. Perhaps this will be the year that I listen. Knowing that I had a goal of 50,000 words in 30 days, and how many words I had to write daily - with weekends "free" - and knowing that it only takes up about an hour or two each day to hit that goal; it all helped me focus.

Focus is the main name of the game this upcoming year. I now have the discipline and drive. I'm reading more. I'm writing more. I'm established in my writing group. I have people who will hold me accountable. I now need to learn how to be FOCUSED. True, that means Ron's challenge to write a completely new story every week won't really help with that, but at the same time, maybe it will....

On the one hand, it ruins my focus, because I'm spending each week trying to think of something original. On the other hand, it refreshes my mind because I can take a break from whatever block I'm most likely fixated on. It also helps me learn to finish something, and in a short amount of words to boot.

So, I think I'm going to roll over Ron's challenge, but with some leniencies:

• Write a flash fiction or vignette of 1000 words or less every week. Bring these to writing group to read as well as post weekly here on the blog.
• Professionally owned intellectual property is not to be used for fanfiction. In other words, no fanfiction about books, shows, movies, songs, etc. However, if the X-Future boards or Bear's D&D campaigns inspire me to write side-stories, while technically fanfiction, they are fair game. This allows me to expand on my characters and help me better play those games.
• The stories can be in the same universe, but cannot be straight continuations of each other. No cheating by making the flash or vignette "complete" by writing another one or two in chapter form. Each 1000 words must be a self-contained story. However, if I want to write another vignette or flash about the same character, unrelated to any previous ones, or if I want to write another story within the same world/universe, I'm going to allow it. This way I can use this challenge for the main reason I'm rolling it over into 2017: World Building

See, I figured I can keep myself on track by forcing myself to write a 1000 word mini-story about either Gyateara or Glitches every week; building the world up with these stories. They can be more myths, or social studies of the different cultures, or explanations of the deities, or Slice of Life to get an in-depth look at the world from the perspective of different characters, etc.

I feel like the spirit of Ron's challenge - frequent writing not necessarily related to each other, and with a more succinct writing goal - is still there, but with enough wiggle room that it is still testing and growing my writing without flat out stressing and deterring me when I get a complete writers block. I'm sure Ron will say something if he thinks I need to tighten my belt with this challenge of his....

I'll talk more about my resolutions next week when I post my first blog of the new year, and I have two more blog posts I need to write this week. So I'm just going to say that 2016 as a whole majorly sucked for the entire world, and here's hoping 2017 makes up for it.....