World-building Counts as Writing, Right?

Well, here I am at the end of the first week of April. Seven days down, twenty-three to go. Want to know how much script-writing I've done? None. I haven't even unburied my external hard-drive that has the script on it. Haven't talked to ChibiSunnie yet. Haven't even rewatched episodes of "Hey, Arnold!" in order to get back into character. I forgot how crazed April has become.

It's not so bad this year since I don't have to worry about Easter - thanks to it coming stupid-early this year - but the month still starts off with my niece's birthday.

I wanted to have Disney's Rapunzel in this image since that was the party she had,
but apparently all other 3yr old girls are having Disney's Frozen parties still...

It was a chaotic weekend. Between work, the party, yet another unexpected Overnight shift, and Hubby and I getting sick, there was no time really to do anything. I even had to cancel my D&D session for the weekend. Worked out for me though, because I had nothing planned.

Still don't, really. That's the writing I've been doing this week instead of working on actual productive things like my Script Frenzy fanscript with Chibi, or just generic fictional prose. I mean, it serves a purpose, and I'll eventually use it for Gyateara, and I need to know this stuff for my game, and it's still being creative. Still, I wish I had advanced some story somewhere.

Instead, the best I have is further development of my original D&D merchant town of Ashitar. Although, I have to admit - while some facts were already established in my posting last week - I like how much of the background, particularly between Baron Gringroso and his lord Count Keenhale, I was able to come up with:

The Gringroso family were faithful bannermen for Count Keenhale and his family for generations. Due to duty, obligation, as a reward, or a way to keep the Gringrosos fealty - I haven't decided yet - Count Jarvine Keenhale gave Greggor Gringroso a bit of land in his county. It was deemed a bit of a slighting at first because the land wasn't previously populated due to how dangerous the surrounding terrain was. The treacherous Neergreve forest choked the west and south sides of the land. The deadly Razor Beast mountain range loomed along the east and north ends of the property. The plain in between was very nice, but the likelihood of survival was slim.

Still, the Gringroso prevailed. They were tough as nails, and set up their keep with a few faithful servants. They survived a few winters before the first brave travelers happened upon them. Merchants trying to get to and from the Outaka Sea had to cross the Razor Beast. Greggor Gringroso gave them shelter as they either prepared for the long journey, or recovered from it. As thanks, they not only sold the Gringroso's their wares as a discount, but also made sure to spread word of this way station.

Soon a few brave merchants - escorted by adventurers - traveled over the Razor Beast instead of around it; in order to cut their journey from sixteen days to a mere three. Greggor then commissioned for a travel route to be cut through Razor Beast in order to help more merchants brave the mountain with a straight path to the port town of Golden Shell.

Years past, and merchants crossed paths, sold their wares to each other, and soon realized how many truly stopped at the Gringroso estate for shelter. A thorp sprung up around the keep as merchants stayed in order to earn coin from the other travelers. The hamlet rapidly grew into a thriving merchant town, spiraling ever further outward as it expanded. Eventually, it ran smack into the Razor Beast along two sides.

Marauders and monsters threatened the town, as well as some of the more wealthy merchant houses. The six main houses thought themselves the true founders of Ashitar since it was their parents and grandparents settling below Gringroso's keep that allowed the town to form in the first place. They each wished to be the mayor of Ashitar, but the rightful landowners - the Gringrosos - were in the way. Each family - both separately, and as a pooled effort - attempted to assassinate Greggor's sons and grandsons, and this tradition continues to this day.

While trying to crush assassination attempts, Mikhail Gringroso - Greggor's eldest grandson and then-current mayoral baron of Ashitar - also had to deal with the town expanding so far out that it was enticing monsters to leave Neergreve and attack. He had a wall built around the forest boarder; using the natural expansion into Razor Beast as the other half of the wall. It didn't help much. Ashitar became too large, and too dangerous. The economy crumbled when travelers reverted back to their sixteen-day paths in order to avoid the dangerous Neergreve, Razor Beast, and Ashitar.

Eventually, Mikhail sent out a call for new adventurers to come to Ashitar to protect the city and the travelers, but first he needed to beg Javine's grandson Ronan for a loan in order to pay for the adventurers' fees. Over the years the Keenhale family grew bitter of their bannermen and baron. While they required the Gringrosos to pay taxes to them, the Keenhales wished they were the ones who were able to develop the bustling Ashitar. Part of Ronan wanted Ashitar and the Gringrosos to fall so he could have a kinsmen revive the city as their own. However, he knew how it would look to his other bannermen, and if no one were as successful as the Gringrosos the revenue from Ashitar would be lost. Begrudgingly, Ronan gave Mikhail the life-giving loan.

Mikhail was able to revive Ashitar to its once-before glory days. It swelled inside its walls again, and began to spill outside the protection of its barriers. Now it is Mikhail's son Edvard who is mayoral baron. And Edvard who has to now deal with the assassination attempts, the monster invasions, and the anger of Count Marcus Keenhale - Ronan's eldest - about his family's loan not being paid back yet. Edvard is trying to teach his young son about what makes a good baron, but the boy is only twelve and is quick to lose focus. Young Brianan can't imagine being in charge of over 3500 people, but he may have to figure it out sooner than he thought.

I've come up with some other stats about Ashitar, although I'm still tweaking them....

• Ashitar is about 3.3 square miles within the walls, with some of the newer businesses spilling out onto the sparse clearing between Ashitar and Neergreve.
• Ashitar is about to celebrate its 70th anniversary of its founding; although the Gringrosos owned it for another five years previous.
• The tight swelling of the large town created an insanely-tight population density, for medieval-style development, of about 1000 people per square mile, including elderly and children.
• The whole town population is 3,544 people including 2,356 able-bodied adults, about 154 elderly, and average of 50 sick.
• Men make up 53% of the adult population with 1249 able-bodied.
• There are also 983 children.
• The town is protected by a capable Captain of the Guard, his three lieutenants, 60 city guards, and a ready-militia of 177 additional men, making up 241 of the able-bodied adults.
• The Assassin's Guild - either named Shadow Knives, Nightwalkers, or TBD - has 27 members.
• The Thieve's Guild has 119 members. Name still TBD
• While still subject to change, the six main merchant houses are in charge of the following trade: Silks and other fine "orient" products, fur and game, grain, lumber, gemstones and ore, and the brothel manager who secretly does slave trading as well.
• The brothel has a few assassins within it's doors; black widow lovers. I'm still deciding if the brothel itself or just this sisterhood of assassins should be called Seducers of Purity.

So, as you can see, I have been doing a lot of research and world building. I just wish I had more actual writing to show for it. I also still have a long way to go before I'm ready for these sandbox-players to run around Ashitar on Sunday.

The largest bit of writing I've done this week was on the X-Future board. I finally got back to my Brotherhood character Trish, whom I hadn't played in about a year. Hubby set her up with an abandoned propane tanker left on an equally abandoned dock. She had fun spending an hour destroying the truck before exploding the tank. I'd share it, but Trish is a pyrophile, and so it definitely boarders soft-core as she.... er.... enjoys herself during the destruction. That, plus that woman's sailor-mouth gives her a firm Mature - and NSFW - rating. Either way, it was fun for me to write, and others seemed entertained in reading.... I mean, I'm no E.L. James, but still. I'm hoping the part of her destroying the truck, and not just the end paragraphs, were amusing as well. I'll have to ask for further feedback from the other players.

Well, it's creeping ever closer to noon, so I should probably wrap up. I might have some NPC character creation and other such D&D-related things to share next week. I'm hoping to also have added at least SOME pages to the fanscript Chibi and I started about four years ago.

Still Alive Over Here

Yup, still alive. Sorry about the unexpected mini-hiatus. It's been really crazy lately. As predicted - and to my one smart aleck cousin: it takes 3seconds to predict and 1hour to write so... there... - I didn't have any time to work on my blog either this past Sunday or the one previous.

Once upon a time Sundays used to be the perfect day to update my blog. My husband does a once-a-week overnight shift from late Saturday in to Sunday morning, and I would typically have insomnia while he was at work. Something about him not being in the house when I tried to go to sleep.... So I'd stay up almost the full eight hours he was working. Awake in a quiet house, not wanting to leave my bed in case I could lull myself to sleep, and nothing to do but to stare blankly at the walls usually resulted in me working on something via my laptop.

If I couldn't get my blog done before Hubby came home - for whatever reason - I then had Sunday afternoon to write. The house was still quiet while Hubby finally crashed after his long day. Before I started working I would use Sundays to either write, clean, and/or play video games. This is how Sundays became my official "update day."

Over the past year situations have changed. With my laptop now dead I only had two options for Sunday Insomnia nights. Option one: stay up on the desktop; which wasn't ideal since it kept me from my bed and further prevented any sleep I might have gotten Plus I was killing my shoulders, back, and eyes straining to sit and type at a desktop while sleep slowly set in. Option two: Swipe Hubby's laptop; which is an older model so it's big, bulky, not as comfortable to type on while laying down, and has to be plugged in at all times since it is too old to hold power in its battery anymore. Neither option is the most ideal.

My insomnia is waning as well. I don't know if it's my body finally getting used to the routine or if I'm just so exhausted from the rest of the week, but I've been passing out only an hour, two, maybe three after Hubby goes in to work. Granted, that's still enough time to work on a blog post, but for me that's only BARELY enough time. Plus, if I can manage to fall asleep even FASTER so I can get a full night's rest in, I'd rather take that then push to get a blog post up.

Finally, with Hubby's work days getting later and later my window for not only posting before noon on Sundays, but posting at all before I go in to work myself is getting smaller. Most Sundays I just don't have time if I actually sleep. My routine has become: Take Hubby in to work, stay awake for another three hours tops, pass out until I get the "I'm done, come pick me up" call, fetch Hubby, have something to eat and snuggle for a little until he passes out, do some light cleaning, go to work, come home and crash.

WEDNESDAYS. Wednesdays on the other hand seem to be the new "perfect" day for blog updates. I'm sure things will change as soon as I put this out there - because that's how my life works - but for nearly a year now I've had Wednesdays off about 80% of the time, and when I do work Wednesdays it tends to be a closing shift.

Meanwhile, Hubby has his opening shifts on Wednesdays. I'm up and have him to work at 6am, and then I have four or five hours of a quiet house before I have to go pick him back up. Having roughly from 10:30am on to do whatever I need done that day, I am more than willing to use those four hours of alone time to work on my blog. It seems to have been good for my writing momentum in the past.

Maybe I've found my key "writing time": first thing in the morning for a few hours. That way I can justify that I have "the rest of the day" to do whatever else I need - cleaning, exercising, socializing, crafting project, hanging with the Hubby, etc - and I won't feel guilty about taking a few hours to write.

In the past, if I take a "time out" to write in the middle of the day I feel a touch guilty about it. Sure, I accomplished something that might push me further towards my goal of a professional writer, but at what cost? Is the house still a mess since I spent four hours writing instead of laundry, dishes, or dusting? Did I miss the small window of socializing with Hubby between his shift and mine? Could I have completed that crocheting project that I need done for a gift? No matter what, I always sort of feel like my time writing should have been spent doing something more productive. However, I don't have this guilt when I get the writing done first thing in the morning.

I'm also pretty creative later in the day, but I rarely get around to utilizing that time now that I'm figuratively shackled to my desktop. I either "run out of time" doing all the things I'd feel guilty "neglecting" while writing mid-day, or I get caught up in a movie/game and completely lose track of time until I'm about ready to pass out, or I'm suckered in to watching my normal prime-time shows instead of writing. It's rare that I have the discipline to stop whatever I'm doing at about 8pm, ignore the TV, and use the evenings to write.

So, yeah, I think first thing in the morning - if I'm not a slacker and can actually get out of bed prior to 8am on days I'm not opening - might be my "writing sweet spot". Add in Wednesdays Off and I think I have my new update days!

Alright, I'm going to make it official now:

THE ROGUE'S SCRIBE WILL NOW BE UPDATED ON WEDNESDAYS AT NOON!

Moving along....

So, what is up with the hiatus?

Well, as mentioned, Sundays have flipped from "perfect day" to write a blog post to "no way in hell am I getting this done".... So, that explains why I wasn't able to update on March 30th or April 6th. What about this past Wednesday? Well, I missed out on utilizing last week's Wednesday Off because I spent it on two other slightly more crucial things.

April 5th is now a jam-packed Birthday Extravaganza day! Not only is it my one aunt's birthday, but it is also celestialTyrant's birthday - who might as well be the brother I never had - and more importantly, it happens to be the day my niece was born!

So this past Saturday Hubby and I got to celebrate our niece's first birthday!

Once we were done with the early-day celebrations, we then had CT crash for the night in order to celebrate HIS birthday too - kind of a big deal since B'day celebrating isn't high on his family's to-do list. They wish happy birthday and have a special dinner and whatnot, but they never really have a blow-out. So that's what Hubby and I are for!

Terrific, but that was all on SATURDAY. How does this explain the lack of updating on WEDNESDAY?

Well, we had some major prepping to do for Saturday. For those who have been a reader since at least Christmas might recall my crazy-long crocheting project. I made a baby blanket for my niece. Owls are her nursery theme and so I made a tree with owls sitting on a branch.

Sadly, I didn't plot everything out quite right, and so I didn't have enough space for two "adult" owls and one "baby" owl. I unoffically decreed that the baby owl was my niece and the larger owl was my sister-in-law. I felt bad about not having Hubby's brother-in-law represented in owl form since he dotes on his little girl. Therefore, before I even finished the blanket I decided I needed to make a companion pillow that has just "baby" and "Daddy" owl together.

I wanted it done for my niece's first birthday, but I once again miscalculated how long it would take me to make the thing. Especially when I have to hand-stitch the backing to it, hem it, and then stitch the hem as a boarder.

Even after forsaking my blog update on Wednesday I still only managed to finish two out of the four sides by Saturday.... So I brought the pillow back home to complete. If only I had those extra two days that it kept me to finish - or if only I thought far enough ahead to start two days sooner...

Now to get started on the stuffed bunny I'm making for my bestie's newborn boy...

Anyway, last Wednesday wasn't completely used to work on a pillow. This place was a disaster due to my neglecting to do chores in favor of working on the gift. I had laundry and dishes piled up. I couldn't see my diningroom table. The living room was a maze of snack tables and other displaced items. It was a mess. So Hubby and I rolled up our sleeves and cleaned house. There went the rest of my writing opportunity last week.

I was debating working on the blog leading up to my Wednesday Off and even leading up to this past Sunday. That way I just needed to do some quick proofreading/editing before posting. I was even going to do so this past Monday and Tuesday to get the update ready for today. Work, cleaning, celebrating CT's birthday, and finishing that darn pillow took up pretty much every free minute.

Thus, the unexpected hiatus.

This also explains why ChibiSunnie is back to waiting around for me to beta-read the rest of her stories, why I haven't been able to really give Omnibladestrike more input on his story, why I haven't really focused on the local writing group, and why I've finally hit a string of Zero Days.

Hopefully today starts a new string of Non-Zero Days. Perhaps I should put up a sign somewhere - a small one - that has the ongoing count of Non-Zero Days in a row. Kind of like what companies do for "Days without an accident." That way I can see how long my streak has been going, and in the corner I can write down my previous "longest run"; a goal for me to attempt to beat.

I kind of like that idea... I just might have to do that....

Anyway, I haven't been COMPLETELY slacking off since my last update. As I stated two weeks ago, I was working on the Creation Story of Gyateara. This post is getting insanely long as is, so I'll save the details on my writings over the past two weeks for another post that I'm actually working on right now.

So, I hope this Double Post Day is the start of my new Wednesday Noon Updates schedule. A schedule I can keep... in theory.

Until next week!