I started off the morning sort of dreading today. Labor Day was this past Monday and so the past week in the deli was hell. I would come home exhausted, and would typically just collapse.
So. Many. Naps!!!!!
I swear, I slept through about half of the week when I wasn't at work....
Which meant not only did I not do any writing this week, but my inability to even remember yesterday means that any brainstorming I may have done over the week is completely gone. Can't recollect anything.
And then I woke up this morning, realizing I yet again had nothing to show for my week. I was ashamed to post one more "Excuses" update. "Oh man, guys, I didn't do anything, but I have this valid reason so that I don't feel like a loser!"
Yeah, because THAT truly shows dedication to a craft I wish to make in to a profession.
This guilt of letting another week slip by me actually kicked my butt in to gear. So I started my morning by FINALLY working on one of my in-queue snippets. Still not sure if it will end up in the official X-Future: Snippets, but it's at least some sort of writing.
It's the farewell conversation between Lia and Sasha. It's more for my own character-building knowledge than anything else. Better understand what Lia was up to over the summer time skip. Might even get back in to her head enough to work on the Lia In NYC snippet I need to legit write for the board.
Ironically, I wrote in Sasha's POV while trying to get in to Lia's head. Sasha isn't even my character! So the story is getting sent off to 2-feathers-and-a-stone to see if I kept the girl properly in character for this scene. Once I get approval on the snippet I may officially post it for you fine people to check out.
In the meantime, rejoice with me in the fact that I'm not as much of a bum as I thought! I can force myself to write! YAY!
Accountability and guilt does wonders for my motivation.
On a less formal note, Spink started role playing this past week. I couldn't find an organic reason for one of my girls to come across where she was, but Phfylburt sure as heck did. And it was fantastic! So her character Donna hid away in the laundry room, only for Hubby to have Deadpool find her. That interaction was fantastic as well.
After slacking off for a while, this morning I finally got Lia in on the action. Not nearly as fantastic as Deadpool or Nodya, but at least the girl is doing something. Sad to say, this was the first RPing I had her do since June!!! So stupid!
So, yay for finally having some roleplaying!
Hubby also set up a scene for Willow as well. She, Chayse, and another player who recently rejoined the board all stumbled upon a news report about the couple of students that went missing over the summer. Soooooo, there's that....
It also helps light a fire under me to write up what actually happened to those two. I've kind of been dragging my feet about it because the events are so epic I'm not entirely sure how I want it to officially go down. I sort of want to collab on it, but past events have proven that is sort of a bad idea. Either the other party is super excited and I drop the ball, or I'm super excited and the other party disappears from the internet.
Guess I just need to pull the trigger on that project.
In other Role Playing news, I'm back in moderately-regular contact with Neghya. We talked for a while last night about our respective online roleplaying groups. She added me to her Facebook-based group - I still need to try to catch up on that, but it's a bit of a daunting task with the FB formatting - and I in turn sent her X-Future: The Second Generation Begins as well as the link to X-Future. That way she can decide if she wanted to set up a "reading account" in order to see how things work there. She seems to love the concept behind X-Future, but sadly her two favorite characters - Beast and Storm - are already "taken". So I'm not too sure I can actually convince her to join. Still, if I can get her to read it, there will be one more person I can talk to about the board. That might get me excited enough to work on the next chapter of TSGB.
In fact, I was online specifically to work on said next chapter when Neghya and I started chatting last night. It's going to be a while before the chapter is ready for posting since I still have to sift through hundreds of posts, but at least I'm finally in motion again, right?
I focus too much on the end result sometimes. Then I see all the steps needed to get there and I become overwhelmed. I need to remember planning my wedding, and how I took things in bite-sized chunks in order to build up to such a major party/gathering. I was able to do so much with only my mom, sister, bestie, and fiance to really help me out. And even then I took the brunt of the work right up until a mental break down about 3 months before the wedding. That's when Mom called me a moron for not delegating more, and I truly let the others help me.
My point is that while I may not really have others to delegate to when it comes to my writing, I really need to start thinking the same way. Yes, it's a daunting task that seems too big and too overwhelming to tackle while looking at the big picture. That's what usually paralyzes me. That concept of time needed to accomplish such a massive undertaking. However, if I can change my POV to think in smaller bites, I may be able to conquer anything!
Ali Luke uses this concept a lot in her advice. Sure, the idea of writing a full novel in a year seems out of reach, but when you break it down to x-number of words per season, per month, per week, per weekend, or even per day, it seems achievable. Ali even figured out how to finish a roughly 81,000 word draft every 3 months; basically one a season. With Rachel Aaron's ability to write 10,000 words a day, she's capable of writing a full draft in a week or two, and then rework said draft multiple times before actually cranking out the finished product roughly every season or so. Hell, her editor probably works slower than she does. Then you have the idea of NaNo. Fifty-thousand word novel in just one month? However, even without Aaron's insane writing speed/availability, it's still achievable by a lot of people.
It's all about breaking it down.
50,000 words. Seems daunting and impossible for one month. Roughly 1666 words a day? Still a bit much, but definitely more do-able as long as you don't slack off. 81,000 every three months? Not as mind-boggling as NaNo's task, but still a bit overwhelming. Break that down to about 27,000 a month or - as Ali put it - about 900 a day? That seems manageable - at least for her - even with a toddler.
Now let's take someone like me who isn't as ambitious quite yet. What if I want to give myself the full year to write a 90,000 word novel? That's only 7500 words a month, 1875 words per week, or about 268 words a day. Heck, if we just divide 90,000 by 365 - to avoid the messiness of some months having more or less days, or the ones that have five weeks instead of four - that's even less! A simple 247 words per day will get me MORE than a 90,000 word manuscript within a year's time.
Heck, this blog post up to this point is roughly 1300 words and it only kept me 2hrs to write; which also includes taking time-outs for breakfast breaks, potty breaks, researching, and chatting with both celestialTyrant and my sister.
Not even 250 words a day!? That's essentially me just taking a daily half-hour time-out in order to write SOMETHING that would further my manuscript. THAT'S IT! If I'm inspired - or at least have the next part properly plotted out - I could write my daily amount in just ten minutes! Even if there is some sort of holiday or family gathering that prevents me from taking that 30minute writing break, I can easily bump up the next day's writing to a simple 500 words. If I get in to a good enough writing flow I could get the entire week's worth of writing done in one long session!
The only thing holding me back is motivation to try!
Still not sure how to beat that hurdle, but I'm working on it.
Which I guess is the best thing about this blog. I'm openly working on probably one of the hardest roadblocks in writing. I'm just laying my struggle out for the world to work through with me. I'm pointing out all the tactics I'm trying, and explaining whether or not they work and why. I'm figuring it all out publicly. So that maybe you - or some future writer who has yet to find my blog - can feel like someone else has your struggle. That you're not alone. That you're not a failure for having this problem. And maybe you'll try out new methods of conquering this beast with me. Maybe something won't work for me and I'll have to move on to the next trick, but something in that gauntlet of things I try will show you a method that is your golden key to motivation.
I have such insanely high hopes for this blog, don't I?
Regardless, I guess my latest task is to try to think of writing the NaNo way year long: one day's word count at a time. Simple, small bites. Who cares if it's bad? As long as it's completed. It can be edited later.
Well, okay, maybe THAT is my biggest fault. I get too excited about my projects and post them In Progress, and so each section has to be PERFECT before I can move on since I can't go back and edit later; it's already out for the world to see.
Me thinks I need to first master patience - not posting things until they're complete - and the art of sketching out full plotlines so writing each chapter moves faster and smoother....
I just gave myself so much homework, didn't I? Good thing the school year started again this week. And I WAS commenting on how I miss college...
A little while back I mentioned that
writing is very much like exercise. The long and the short of the
comparison was this: it takes effort to motivate yourself to do
either activity, but once you start you feel better and easily
continue for some time; feeling satisfied with your progress after
you're done. I have also pointed out over the course of this blog
that a lot of writing motivational tricks also work exceptionally
well when used for exercising.
Well, this Writing Is Exercise metaphor
continues today.
There was an arthritis medication
commercial that aired for a year or so. The basic premise of the
commercial was to use Newton's First Law of Motion as a selling
point: An object at rest will stay at rest; one in motion will stay
in motion. The commercial continued on by commenting on the Catch 22
of arthritis: you won't move because the arthritis hurts you to move,
but moving is actually the only way to ease the pain of arthritis.
So, this drug is supposed to help ease the pain of arthritis enough
that you can move to prevent further arthritic damage and pain.
In other words, people with arthritis
need to purposely keep moving the joint that is affected by
arthritis. They need to exercise to keep from getting worse. They
need to exercise to help ease the pain – after toughing through the
initial pain of starting the exercise – and to prevent further
damage. If they give up and not move because it's hard or it hurts
they'll just get worse.
Also, as an emotional side effect,
they'll get grumpier and sadder. They'll be angry with their body and
the pain. They'll be saddened by the fact that they can no longer do
what they love or join in on the social fun, or even keep their house
clean by themselves. They'll be stuck; arthritically forced to stay still.
On the flipside, if they can power
through the initial pain they can stop themselves from getting any
worse. They can still enjoy an autonomous life. They don't have to be
angry at their joints for forcing them to stay still. They can defy
their body and tell it that they're not quitting yet!
How does all of this relate to writing
though?
Well, at least for me, my brain is the
arthritic joint.
It's so hard to get it moving. So hard
for me to focus and think creatively. I get so frustrated with the
stories not flowing as easily as they did in my youth; just like a
joint acting up. It's a struggle to get going.
Most days I submit to this mental equivalent of arthritis and just sit here. I don't even do the most minor of
exercises to keep it from locking up. I just click away on Facebook
or absentmindedly watch TV.
That's when I get cranky. REALLY
cranky. Heck, even celestialTyrant has noticed. It's part “the world's dragging
me down, man” but it's also part frustration for caving in to my
Mental Arthritis. Annoyed that I haven't tried harder to push through
that initial strain so that I could do some writing.
I'm not entirely sure when – and I'm
not about to scan through over a hundred posts to try to find
something I may have only had as a Facebook status – but I once
posed a Chicken or Egg quandary about writing. Do I not write because
I'm frustrated, stressed, or depressed? Or am I frustrated, stressed,
or depressed because I'm not writing?
Now I'd like to state that it's all
about Mental Arthritis.
Life is hard. It's not nearly as hard
as it can be, but it's not all that easy either. All that stress and
strain of the everyday grind is like arthritis pain flaring up. I can
just succumb to it all, sit in my chair, and refuse to move. I can
let it all build up. I can not write – not move the arthritic joint
– and let the pain compound. I can blame the pain for not doing what I need to; want to. I can let myself get frustrated at the
Mental Arthritis for being there, as well as myself for not doing
anything about it. It can become a horrible downward spiral. I can
give in to despair and – much like someone with a bum knee who
decided she can no longer be a runner – hate that I missed my
opportunity to become a professional writer. I can sit and wonder
what turn I missed somewhere. I can hate all the up-and-coming
twenty-somethings who manage to write best sellers. I
can tell myself that I've been kidding myself this whole time in to
thinking I could ever write a published novel.
OR!
I can ignore the pain of my Mental
Arthritis. I can fight through it, and do my “exercising” by
going back to my No Zero Days. It will be a struggle at first – as
all exercise is, especially when battling an arthritic joint – and
I may not see results right away. If I stick with it though, I'll
become happier. I will feel like I've accomplished something. That
I've moved forward. Also, just like how exercising releases
endorphins that help someone destress and become happier, so does
writing. You can get lost in your words just as easily as you can in
your work out. Minutes can quickly become hours. You may be a bit
drained when all is said and done, but you're also strangely
energized at the same time. Even with that arthritis, you can see
yourself accomplishing your goals; and it will be an even sweeter
victory because you had to struggle to reach it.
It's super hard. Pushing through that
initial lock-up and strain is just really hard. Sometimes it feels
like it's not possible. This entire summer has more-or-less been just
me sitting on the couch yelling for my knees to work properly. I
signed up for “exercise classes” that I never went to: Ali's On Track program as well as the Writers’ Huddle Summer Challenge. Things
that worked wonders for me last year did nothing for me this summer.
I didn't have the push. I didn't have
the drive. I didn't have the discipline. I just didn't care to fight
any longer.
I want to fix that.
For months now I've sworn up and down
that my latest vampire character would be my last one; I'm just not
cut out to do at least the White Wolf Mind's Eye Theatre version of
LARPing. It frustrates me. Once this character was either killed off
or retired or whatever, that would be it. However, a new character
sprung herself at me a couple of weeks ago. So she's been joining me
at work the past few days.
It's not much, but I guess it would be
like some with arthritic hands squeezing a stress ball to try to
loosen up the joints.
I have no clue when Lottie will make
her appearance – it could be just a few games, or it could be over
a year from now – but it's fun to get those juices flowing again as
I get to know her.
Also, Spink finished her profile for
X-Future and is planing on starting up some soft role play later
today. Having fresh blood on the boards may not be enough to revive
the game as a whole, but it may be enough to get my writing flowing
again.
I also have a huge backlog of stories.
So I've got tons of exercise activities that I can chose from.
Music can be my arthritis medication;
it won't do too much on its own, but it's a start that helps ease the
pain enough for me to do the rest of the work.
Here's to hoping that having this epiphany about Mental Arthritis will help me actually accomplish some
writing this week.
Do you have Mental Arthritis too? Let
me know how you're fighting it in the comments below. Learning from
each other is a fantastic way to improve ourselves.
Man, is it ever easy to remember to work on my blog post when I'm NOT WORKING Wednesday mornings. Sheesh. Don't get me wrong, I love finally having a moderately routine schedule that has me done usually by 1pm, and sometimes by 3pm. It's nice to have work first thing in the morning and then have the rest of the day; instead of having my day interrupted by my shift.
However, over the months of working on my blog on Wednesday mornings, I've discovered that I really do write best first thing in the morning, and I can only do so now on my days off. So.... double-edged sword I guess.
Because I've been working during my optimal writing time, I have still been completely halted. I attempted to move forward with at least the set-up of the next X-Future: The Second Generation Begins chapter. In other words, I tried to go through the now two-year-old posts to try to organize what happened next in our over-all story line. It didn't go well. Internet bandwidth in the area is horrible over the summer when all the students are home and chewing it up. So my internet crashed on me multiple times. Frustrated, I gave up and haven't attempted again since. Maybe I should just wait until school starts up again.
I thought that I had to do one of my pathetic "I haven't done anything, guys" slacker posts. Which would be doubly embarrassing considering I'd FINALLY be posting on time since who remembers when.
Then magic happened yesterday.
I completely zoned off at work. Not the most ideal situation, but making subs has become so monotonous a task that I really don't need to focus on it any more. After four years I think I might be able to literally make them in my sleep - if I were one to sleep walk, that is.
See, Hubby had to institute another time jump on X-Future. It's his way of catching everyone back up to the same time period and having a nice starting point for new characters. He did it when the forum started to fade originally, and we had three new recruits for playing. Sadly, only one out of those three still plays, and that's rarely.
Well, our numbers are pathetically small yet again. Ronoxym hasn't been on - let alone done anything - on the forums pretty much all summer, Phfylburt - as I mentioned last week - is finally focusing more on his own original stories than the forum, and so who knows how frequently he'll be on to play. This only really leaves MadDog24, who was only really ever on sporatically before anyway. I mean, the man does have two daughters under 26months old.
This means Hubby and I are probably going to be the only routine players. Kind of pathetic. I mean, I know we each run two or three main characters, but still.
Well, the time skip was a way to usher in a new player: Spink. She is a bit of an online text-based RPG veteran, and so we're hoping that she'll bring some life back to the boards. Problem would be trying to figure out how to remain entertaining with just the three of us though. The time skip will also open the door for MadDog's newest character(s) to come in, so maybe that will be incentive for him to be on more frequently too.
How does all of this relate to my zoning out yesterday, though?
Well, with the time skip Hubby weeded out a lot of characters to whittle down our "cast" to those with active players. A lot of characters just left the school for whatever reason. Others became background NPCs that Hubby will take over if/when our characters need to interact with them. Two got killed off.
So this is where the inspiration came from. Lia's been in a bit of a depressive funk since.... well.... she's been in a bit of a downward spiral since our last time skip. She's close to rock bottom and I needed the poor girl to have some closure. I couldn't get players to jump online in order to role play them out, and so that's what my mind did yesterday. I had Lia have conversations with certain characters before the characters left the board. I'll have to double check on a crucial tidbit with one of the characters' players to make sure I role played the character properly, but otherwise I think I made great progress. Once I know yay or nay on if that character truly felt how I THINK she felt, then I'm going to write out the conversation. It may not be entertaining enough to join with the X-Future: Snippets, but at least I'll have a reference point in order to role play Lia better once we start the game back up again.
Hubby also has me in charge of writing out what happened to a bunch of the characters over the time skips; in the meantime he has short briefings so people know roughly what happened. One couple journeyed to Japan. Another spent the summer in New York City. The final couple turned out to be among "the lost". There was a run-in with Trish and the duo has yet to return to the Institute.
Sooooooo I wrote a little bit of that too. Well, "write" is an overstatement. Nothing is down on paper yet. But I had shots of the scene and some of the closing dialogue more-or-less figured out in my head.
This gives me at least four things I need to write - on top of the stack I already had going - and three of them should make the cut to become Snippets. However, the Japan trip had a lot going based on Hubby's itinerary - it WAS a full summer out of country - and so that may become a companion story instead of a snippet.
Nothing to show for my efforts, but at least something with writing happened this week. That's a big step considering my dry-spell over the past month.
Ali Luke's final mini-challenge for the Writers’ Huddle summer challenge is to spend just five minutes to work on something we've been putting off. Even if it's not writing related. Especially if it's not writing related, but it's distracting us from our writing.
I think I need to take this challenge to heart. I need to stop putting things off. Once I have my life a bit more organized and a lot less procrastination-filled, perhaps I can finally get in to the right mindset to do this whole writing thing correctly.
I'm almost a month in to my third decade. Time to try YET AGAIN to start anew. Didn't work with New Years resolutions. Failed again with the Lunar/Chinese New Year. Third time was not the charm when my birthday rolled around. Yet it's the start of a new year for me. A new decade for me. There's still some time left in the year, perhaps I can make 2014 work for me after all.
Because, honestly, I've been noticing a pattern since 2011 that I get in to an awesome writing groove during odd-numbered years and dry spells during even-numbered years. I'd hate to think that would mean 2014 is pretty much a "shot" year simply because it's divisible by two. Also, what kind of career could I possibly have if I can only produce every other year!?
I need to break this pattern, and I think the first step is to really push with my writing community: Struggling Writers' Society.
I may have something for everyone to read next week, but right now I'm focusing on getting the community's website up and running.
*Scampers off to work on the forum*
Alright, it seems odd doing so considering there have been much more important people who have passed, but for some reason the fact that Robin Williams committed suicide this week really struck a cord with me. So, in honor of a great man, I wish to post this picture that has been floating around Facebook:
I am sorry that I do not know of any numbers outside of the United States,
but please PLEASE look for help if you or someone you know needs it.
I understand that if you are suffering from Depression that you must feel so terribly alone. Please know you are not. I am sure that there are people in your life who wish to help you, but most probably just don't know how, or they don't have the resources to. You may feel that no one loves or cares for you. Please know that this is also not true. I may not even know you, but know that I care and have concerns for you. I want you to feel and get better.
If a stranger can feel that passion for you, I'm sure you can find others. So please, PLEASE, I am begging you to look and reach out for help if you need it. You don't need to suffer alone. It may take a while to find the right grip out of the crushing darkness, but it can be found. Please, do not give up. Go to as many people as you can/need to. Call the above lifeline.
It is a tragedy when the only relief people can find is to end their lives. So even if you do not have Depression, or know someone who does, please help those strangers who do have it. Spread the word of where they can find help so the information can make its way to the people who need it. Advocate for companies, governments, and society as a whole to treat mental health as seriously as physical health. Plead for research to continue to find a way to treat and cure these painful struggles people have to deal with every day.
My father died of cancer, and so I am grateful for all the research and media attention cancer has received, but we need to think of those with mental health issues as well: Depression, Anxiety, ADHD, Bi-Polar, OCD, Schizophrenia, the list goes on. Most people have to fight against these illnesses a lot longer than those with physical health issues. Most people also have to do so while struggling silently and unknown to the world around them.
Help these people find solace. Help these people find peace. Help these people find hope. Help these people find cures or alternate ways to use their different mind to live a full life.
I didn't even notice that I missed last week's update. Then this one ended up being super late too!
Life has still been crazy since the big 3-0, so I guess I really need to figure out this whole "time management" thing before I become a parent. Otherwise there'd be no hope for me or my writing!
Although, even if I did have time the past few weeks, I don't know if it would help. I've been so fried lately that I'm struggling at doing anything that requires major brain power; or even the little bit of brain power required to remember what day of the week it is.
Normally I would unwind during work breaks by writing SOMETHING, but lately I've just been staring at the large computer monitor the managers use for teleconferences. It has a news ticker and clock that I watch. I would then normally decompress at home by either writing some more, posting on X-Future, playing video games, or playing puzzle games like Sudoku. Not since leaving my twenties.
I can't even play my beloved Legend of Zelda half the time now, unless what I'm doing is VERY straight forward. Any "puzzles" I have to figure out in A Link Between Worlds is usually met with me messing around for about five minutes before giving up and looking for our official game guide.
The computer games I now play are mindless ones where I literally just click to do things. Heck, one of the games I play is called a ZRPG: Zero Role Play Game. I just sit back and read the exploits of my character doing things without me. For those curious, I'm "Almighty Lazy" on Godville:
Friend me. ^_^
I have found little to no passion/drive/mental capacity to write ANYTHING since my birthday. Super sad really, considering that I joined both the "On Track" course and the Summer Writing Challenge that Ali Luke set up. Haven't touched either.
I think - outside the "I'm burned out" bit - a large reason is that a lot of my writing motivation comes from the X-Future boards, and those have been halted for MONTHS now. Hubby just did another time skip to try to jumpstart role playing again, but he also just killed off two more characters - and sent a third "back home" - because no one has been on to play them since about April. Worst part about all of that - aside from the increasingly shrinking "cast" of characters - is that I personally thought at least one of those characters had a lot of story potential. Heck, I could think of a nice little character-growth/teen drama subplot arch for all three characters. I guess that just means I have yet ANOTHER thing to sort of reboot in the X-Future webcomic redux.
Man, that's something else I haven't been thinking about for a while. I should get back to the webcomic world building. Maybe it will respark my zest for writing. I'm just stuck on another roadblock of how to recreate the X-Men's "Danger Room". It's a training room that uses both physical and holographic elements to create realistic scenarios for the mutants at the Xavier mansion. I have a nice example in my chapter about Chayse trying to combat the Danger Room: "Rescues and Robots."
There is an earlier chapter - "Capture the Flag" - that also includes the Danger Room. At least three more events - one of them a main catalyst event - also take place within the Danger Room. It is just as crucial as the school itself. My thing is - just like the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters - how do I have the DR without it being blatantly obvious that was the source concept?
WHY DO I GET STUCK SO EASILY!?
It's so upsetting too because the beginning of the year held such promise. I was updating my blog regularly, I had at least two collab stories I would race home to work on, I was world building like a mad woman, and the forum had some momentum behind it.
Then everything sort of just died on me.
I need to find an internal way of getting that passion back. To not need outside sources to drive me to write.
This is actually one of the reasons why the board is so dead right now. While I've been pretty much ONLY been thinking about the boards and the characters that reside there, Phfylburt has all but forgotten it. He mastered the art of not needing an outside source to spark his writing; at least, as far as I could tell. He's in a really good writing groove apparently, and has been focusing on his original works.
I say good for him.
But bad for me. Now it seems it's just Hubby and me on X-Future...
So here's hoping we get a revival on the board with this time skip, or that I can finally find that internal spark. In the meantime, maybe I'll actually work on what I signed up to do for that Writers’ Huddle writing challenge: Work on my next X-Future chapter.
WOOOOOOOOW, I super suck at this! Once again I didn't even realize it was Wednesday... Monday felt like a Sunday. Yesterday felt like a Friday. Today? Well.... I'm not sure what day it felt like, but it certainly wasn't Wednesday. My mind must truly be going. Must be the age. I mean, my writing has been completely ceased since my birthday last Wednesday.
Yeah. That's right. I had a birthday last Wednesday.
Told you my mind must be going due to age. Last week I hit the big 3-0.
Alright, all of you over the age of thirty can hate me a little for that last joke.
What's worse is that I was originally going to post on time last week. I actually WANTED to post something SPECIFICALLY because it was my birthday; thought it would be a fun way to kick off the next decade.
Wellllllll.... then I just got lazy. My mom came up to visit for "the big day". We massively cleaned my house on Tuesday, we then slept in on Wednesday, and spent the full day out. I debated stopping at some point and posting, but I don't see Mom all that much anymore. So.... screw it.
I was then going to post something last Thursday after Mom went home. I started writing something, but I just zoned out after a long and hectic seventy-two hours.
My next thought was to work on something Friday, but it was my only "alone" day last week, and I had work on top of it. Sis came up for the weekend then. She had work when Mom visited during the week. Anyway, she, celestialTyrant, and I all had a "girls night" when he took us out to a little boutique strip by his house, then out to dinner, and finally back to my place to try out my new Zumba game for the Wii.
We died.
Monday I was so tired from my week of Birthday Celebration that I just zoned out until my evening shift. I passed out when I came home. It didn't matter. By then it was too late to bother.
Theeeeeeen I goofed again. As I mentioned, I lost track of the days of the week once more. Otherwise I would have worked on this yesterday so it was ready to go up at noon. Like it was supposed to.
I'm not sure if it makes it better or worse to mention that I was so screwed up today that I punched out at 1pm, only to see the clock tell me I was leaving early. I wandered back to my department, looked at the schedule again, and noticed that I was SUPPOSED to work until THREE today. Whoops.
So I punched back in and awkwardly slinked back in to my department.
I'm not sure what I'm more annoyed with: my inability to remember what day I'm on, or the fact that I signed up for the free On Track course AND Writers’ Huddle summer challenge only to NOT WRITE AT ALL since.
I really need to work on this, but I'm just drained. Constantly drained. And it isn't going to stop any time soon. I've got a full day on Saturday. Up at the crack of dawn, going in to work super early in order to set them up before cutting out early on them. Then The Bard is taking me and Hubby down to New Jersey for a combo 30th-birthday gift for the two of us. Once we're home we're going straight to our LARP! I'm going to be dead... again....
The first task in the On Track course is to actually schedule time to write. I'm guessing I'm going to have to do so.
Friday.
I have Friday off. I'll write on Friday. Mark my words!
Irony must be my stalker, because it's never far behind me wherever I go. Sleep, on the other hand, doesn't seem to like me as much....
I've been so burnt out lately. I legit forget what day of the week it is now. Which is why I missed last week's blog. Late Tuesday night I had that glorious light-bulb-moment when I went "Wait! TOMORROW is Wednesday! Shoot!" I worked first thing in the morning until after 1pm. Ya know, because IRONICALLY I started having things - work, for instance - to do first thing Wednesday mornings pretty much as soon as I decide to make Wednesdays my official update day. Funny how I had NOTHING to do Wednesday mornings prior to that decision.
Well, I obviously wouldn't have time to write a blog post before heading off to work, and when it dawned on me that it was Tuesday it was shortly before I wanted to go to bed. Too late to write a post then. Mildly ashamed, I decided to just leave it be and write a post after I was done with work; since I clearly wasn't going to be able to schedule one for my noon update.
Then 6pm chimed along and I STILL didn't have a post. Wasn't even sure what to write for it. I had updated the Friday before, and I had done nothing in regards to writing since then. The only progress I made was asking Writers’ Huddle for advice on my X-Future Reboot World conundrum. More on that later in the post.
I felt stumped and unmotivated and just dried up. I posted a Facebook status more-or-less stating just that. Lo and Behold, Irony wasn't too many paces behind. Of COURSE as soon as I post an "I'm not sure what to write" status THAT is when I finally have the juices flowing. Figures.
A month or two ago I started sending ChibiSunnie the super abridged version of what was going on with the X-Future boards. This way she could get a sort of speed-run of the story the role play acted out so far. This way she could better her ability to beta for me, as well as get those silly spoilers out of the way so she could finally get around to reading the X-Future: Snippets. Honestly, she was more afraid of being lost by not having the necessary background info for the snippet than she was afraid of spoilers. Anyway, my point is that I didn't get very far before I fell off the face of the planet. With my writing well being dried up I figured telling her more about the X-Future plot might be the kickstart I needed.
That's when I noticed that I had a backlog of messages from Chibi that I've read but never responded to. I was getting started on that - each of us writes about 8pgs worth to each other; so we take a little bit to reply - when Phfylburt sent me an IM. As per usual lately, he read my blog post from Independence Day and it sparked a new world idea.
What if they didn't have those pesky powers that was tripping us up? No one would bat an eye about a story centered around teens at a boarding school. The "rival gang" could just be a group of street thugs, students from the local public school, or even a rival boarding school. The "big villain" of the Challengers of Heaven could simply be an extremist group that focuses on the main cast due to their wealth and the pull their parents have.
We then spent three hours talking about this. A lot. I transferred it to a Word document the next day so I wouldn't lose our work; destined to be buried under other long discussions. Said Word document is about 13pages long! Phfyl and I talk just as much as I do with Chibi; the difference is that Phfyl and I speak in real-time while Chibi and I are essentially pen-pals.
Anyway, we were able to whittle our RP cast from nearly forty down to about nineteen; this includes Brotherhood and Challengers members as well as a few Marvel canon characters that would have to be reworked as originals.
For those curious we have:
Chayse, Lia, Willow, Ripley, Devon, Nys, Trish, Zeke, Shawn, Kinney, Lincoln, Blastzone, and Liam - although he's a bit reworked. Phfyl and I actually thought of a cool twist for Liam that ends up combining characters; which helps a lot too. We also have the two heads of the Challengers of Heaven in our reboot cast. The Marvel characters we need to create original versions of are Lia's parents "Multiple Man" and "Magma", Chayse's father "Gambit", and Trish's love interest "Pyro".
We have another grouping of ten background characters to fill in the ranks of both the X-Men and the Brotherhood - as well as two more members of the Challengers - but they're in the "maybe" pile for now. On top of ALL of that, we STILL have another four characters we'd like to include, but they don't really work without their powers.
While trying to figure out the best plan of action when it comes to which universe to build for this cast, I decided that two characters - Sebastian and Brianne - are best suited staying in a distopian cyberpunk world. The idea that Hubby came up with a few months ago would actually be an awesome setting for them. So they're going to get their own story. The four characters that won't work without their powers are most likely going to be bumped in to Sebastian and Brianne's tale, but we'll see what happens.
So, here I am, presumably stuck in a dried up creativity well, and suddenly I'm a geyser of ideas thanks to brainstorming with Phfyl. Admittedly, I'm still not the biggest fan of dropping the powers - to me that's a nice chunk of both the story and the character builds - but he does have valid arguments for the drastic change.
For one, there is NO possibility that it can be thought of as an X-Men fanfic. The characters would be completely original. We wouldn't have to figure out an original take on the holographic training area: The Danger Room. We wouldn't have to struggle to figure out how to make the powers, Xavier Institute, or The Brotherhood original. The things we love about the characters are the personalities themselves; not necessarily the powers. Sure, some major things would have to be tweaked with some of them, but the essence is still there.
It seemed the best solution, and Phfyl is so onboard with this idea that he's struggling to see the story any other way. I feel the same, only with the "we need powers" bias. I needed some outside advice to help figure out the best solution: Glitches, Mages, or Non-Powers?
As I mentioned at the top of the post, I went to Writers' Huddle for help. I had never asked a question like this of the group, but I trusted their judgment. So I wrote up a LOOOOOOOONG post explaining my predicament as well as the three possibilities. I explained what I loved about each option, and what the main concern for each would be. I was surprised at the resulting responses.
They all must have honed in on my love of the Glitches concept - difficulties be damned! - because they all told me to "follow my writing drive; which seems to be with the Glitches". Guess I couldn't write unbiased when describing the three environment possibilities. Even though the Glitches concept clearly had the most concerns, it seems I wrote the most passionately about that scenario. And they all told me to run with that passion.
On top of that, DarkAngel1326 chimed in about a week ago too. Right when I was in the depth of my struggling to figure out the best route to take. She sent me a quote she found that seems to have hit my problem right on the head. Coincidentally - and I didn't pick up on it until after reading through the quote a second time - she sent me a quote from another author that I follow.
I discovered this woman via Writers Huddle when someone else mentioned a blog post she wrote and later turned in to an instructional novel: 2,000 to 10,000: How to write faster, write better, and write more of what you love
She has also written a great many novels; nearly one per season. The works of hers that I read the most, however, would be her blog Pretentious Title. Thanks to DA's find on Tumblr, Aaron was able to inspire me yet again.
"If you are a writer, and you have a novel idea that you are excited about writing, write it. Don’t go on message boards and ask random Internet denizens whether or not something is allowed. … Who is the writer here? YOU ARE. Whose book is it? YOUR BOOK. There are no writing police. No one is going to arrest you if you write a teen vampire novel post Twilight. No one is going to send you off to a desert island to live a wretched life of worm eating and regret because your book includes things that could be seen as cliché.
If you have a book that you want to write, just write the damn thing. Don’t worry about selling it; that comes later. Instead, worry about making your book good. Worry about the best way to order your scenes to create maximum tension, worry about if your character’s actions are actually in character; worry about your grammar. DON’T worry about which of your stylistic choices some potential future editor will use to reject you, and for the love of My Little Ponies don’t worry about trends. Trying to catching a trend is like trying to catch a falling knife—dangerous, foolhardy, and often ending in tears, usually yours.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t pay attention to what’s getting published; keeping an eye on what’s going on in your market is part of being a smart and savvy writer. But remember that every book you see hitting the shelves today was sold over a year ago, maybe two. Even if you do hit a trend, there’s no guarantee the world won’t be totally different by the time that book comes out. The only certainty you have is your own enthusiasm and love for your work. …
If your YA urban fantasy features fairies, vampires, and selkies and you decide halfway through that the vampires are over-complicating the plot, that is an appropriate time to ax the bloodsuckers. If you decide to cut them because you’re worried there are too many vampire books out right now, then you are betraying yourself, your dreams, and your art.
If you’re like pretty much every other author in the world, you became a writer because you had stories you wanted to tell. Those are your stories, and no one can tell them better than you can. So write your stories, and then edit your stories until you have something you can be proud of. Write the stories that excite you, stories you can’t wait to share with the world because they’re just so amazing. If you want to write Murder She Wrote in space with anime-style mecha driven by cats, go for it. Nothing is off limits unless you do it badly.
And if you must obsess over something, obsess over stuff like tension and pacing and creating believable characters. You know, the shit that matters. There are no writing police. This is your story, no one else’s. Tell it like you want to.”
— Rachel Aaron
I love how she - unknowingly - called me out with the whole "Don’t go on message boards and ask random Internet denizens whether or not something is allowed," line. I mean, two sentences in and it's a suckerpunch to the gut. I also got a great chuckle out of "for the love of My Little Ponies don’t worry about trends."
And if THAT wasn't enough, good old Chibi joined in with her stating that people will ALWAYS find connections that may not even be there. Ask the internet and Frozen and The Lion King have the same plot. ANYTHING can have the same plot if you paint broad enough strokes, so who cares if those strokes don't need to be as broad to connect X-Future back to X-Men? Having that similarity still there could actually bring in more readers. People who enjoy X-Men, and would therefore enjoy X-Future because of the similar concept. We'd be like that "People who liked this also liked..." option that nearly every friggen website has now.
Well, DA, Rachel, Phfyl, Chibi, and everyone over at WH, I think you helped me officially decide.
Although I do greatly value Phfyl's input - I wouldn't have asked him to be my co-writer if that weren't true - I think my gut is telling me that I just HAVE to at least attempt to write this reboot using the Glitches and near-future cyberpunk universe. If I crash and burn, I have two other worlds that I can fall back on.
Besides, even Ali Luke states on multiple occasions that she feels like the worlds she writes are already there; she's just uncovering them. I have to say that I feel the same way. Maybe that's why I feel so strongly towards the Glitch universe; it's already there and I'm just uncovering it.
Either way, that struggle is over. Now begins the struggle of converting things in to original takes. Although, I think Ali may have given me a bit of a breakthrough on that one. She suggested an orphanage or group foster home instead of a boarding school. Since Chayse's mom was the school's headmistress, she can remain the founder of the group home, which would be why he's there even with both loving parents still raising him. Lia and Devon are a bit trickier. Lia's dad is the smothering type. There's no way she'd be abandoned to an orphanage/foster care without drastic change to her background; and thus her character development. Then there's Devon, who has already run away from the orphanage he was left at as an infant. He lived on the streets as well as in and out of Juvenile Detention Halls before the institute scooped him up as sort of a Second Chance school. So what makes this new group home any different than the orphanage he already ran away from? Is it simply because he's accepted as a Glitch in this one?
Actually, I think that MIGHT be the solution, and perhaps Chayse's parents called in a favor with Jamie for some help, which is why Lia is there now...
Did I just figure out some plot issues by blogging!?
I... I think I did! I'm tempted to go back and just delete all of that.
You know what, I'm leaving it there because it might be helpful for other writers to see brainstorming in progress! Sometimes just writing out the issue and all the reasons why it won't work helps you discover the one reason it WILL work....
Moving on.
So here I am, Wednesday night, still no clue what to do for a blog post since I haven't done any sort of writing progress since the previous Friday. I post an "I'm stuck" status, and get flooded with assistance from all corners. Even a friend of the family whom I didn't realize had any sort of writing advice chimed in! Heck yeah, support group! They are all such win.
I'm gonna pause here a moment to stress how awesome this was to have so many people swoop in with advice to try to keep me going; not a single person tore me down and told me it was proof I should stop attempting to write. It's equally awesome when people totally get why I have to hide away in order to write; again not criticizing my lack of socializing - or doing chores... EVERYONE SHOULD HAVE A SUPPORT GROUP LIKE THIS ONE!!!!
I don't care if it's about writing, drawing, running, becoming a professional wrestler, sky diving, eating your way around the world, or even being a parent. Whatever your passion is, you NEED to make sure you surround yourself with a support group. You NEED people who will pick you up when you're down, give you advice to help you move forward, and NEVER tell you that you're wrong to have the passion that burns inside you. If you don't have that support group, FIND IT. I don't care if you have to hang up fliers to find like-minded people or if you have to search the internet. FIND THAT GROUP! You're gonna need them.
You might also be surprised as to how many people you already have in your life make up that support group. Remember, I JUST stated that someone jumped in with some advice, and I NEVER would have pegged him as part of my writing support group before. Heck, if you flash back to a few Thanksgivings ago I was surprised to discover that my uncle writes. Last year I was humbled to discover my eldest cousin reads this blog - even though he gets lost in all my nerd-jargon.
So you may very well already have that support group, and you just don't know it. MAKE SURE YOU KNOW IT. I cannot stress how important this is. It is fantastic! Find those people and love them with all you got; because they're showing you the same love, even if it is only for that like-minded passion.
AAAAaaaaaaand now back to me.
Thursday morning I woke up re-energized to write. I had a new world concept to ponder - no powers - and a drive to just type my little heart out during my day off. I was geared up to finish writing my response to Chibi - since it was interrupted by the brainstorming session with Phfyl - and then work on this post. Sure, it would be a day late, but I had so much to talk about I figured "what's one day gonna hurt?"
I then saw something else that just screamed that THIS was my time to get cracking on writing. Ali had posted on both her wall and her blog that she's giving away a free e-course that she had set up for Writers' Huddle.
If anyone else wants to jump in on this, the course is called "On Track" and helps exactly that: keeping a project on track.
I had even MORE drive to work on this post after signing up. Just reading those first two modules got me pumped because it was like Ali wrote to me specifically. Both that feeling and the knowledge that she clearly didn't - meaning TONS of authors go through the same struggle - really got me energized.
Which quote hit home the most? This one of course:
The thing is, you’ll never feel quite ready to write. You’ll always think that there’ll be a better time – when you’ve got more energy, when life isn’t quite so hectic, when chores have been ticked off. Writing is hard work – emotionally, mentally – and there’ll always be a great excuse not to write.
There'll Always Be A Great Excuse Not To Write.....
Boy, have I fallen in to that pattern. I KNOW you have noticed that. Chibi had pointed it out to me last summer. So, how about I break out of that rut, huh?
Another great quote?
One of the reasons we get stuck is because we don’t know where to begin. It’s hard to get going if you’re not even sure that you’re starting in the right place.... If you have a huge project with no obvious beginning, start with whatever feels easiest.
That is for sure in regards to Gyateara, but I'm still not sure what point really is the "easiest." Do I keep going with just building the physical world itself? Do I bother re-naming the planet? Do I continue with building the pantheon? How do I even go about building a pantheon? Maybe I should work on backstories of the gods? What about deciding the countries and where they fit? Is it easier to figure out the culture and build the gods around that, or the other way around? So many options and no compass pointing me where to start my journey. It's daunting and overwhelming. It's good to know that this e-course can help with that.
For now though I'm going to ignore that this could be an awesome way to make some progress on Gyateara; it will have to wait until a second go at this course. Simply because I'd be lying if I didn't admit that my mind is completely consumed by thoughts of X-Future at the moment. Needless to say, I'm using On Track to keep going with X-Future; especially now that I have a few things pegged down.
However, the best part is that I'm not taking this journey alone!
As of this morning - thanks to some help from Cyhyr - I was able to go live with my own online writing group. All those people that came to my aid, they'll eventually need some themselves. I love Writers' Huddle, but I still feel like I'm missing something by not being able to include the people I've become such close friends with thanks to writing. People like Chibi and DA.
I attempted once before to have a local writing group, but life gets messy. So now I have this online group for my writing buddies - original local group included - and I'm excited to see it grow. We have twelve members right now, and we all seem to be at that "I WANNA WRITE" phase. So I threw the challenge out to them: sign up for On Track with me, and we'll do it together. I already have two people signed up at least. Let's see if I can snag a few more for this ride.
I feel like there's so much more to talk about - like how IRONICALLY, once I finally got in to the drive to write THAT is when I'm flooded with spontaneous social gatherings, which is why this post was just ignored all week long - but I'm already at epic levels again.
So instead I'm just going to leave you with this parody Weird Al posted on Tuesday to promote the launch of his latest album. Although he'll be posting a new song every day this week - started this past Monday with a parody of "Happy" by Pharrell Williams - and I'm excited by that, I can't help but love that this video has ALREADY gone viral. Hubby and I argue it's one of his best songs of all time.
For all of my writing/English major buddies. Enjoy Weird Al's parody of the Robin Thicke song "Blurred Lines," lord knows the internet needed this.
Soooooooo, this week has been so crazy I legit lost track of what day of the week it was. Wednesday came and went without my notice....
I feel like I've been non-stop for over two weeks now. The days have flown by so quickly I didn't even really have time to write. Thankfully, I changed that yesterday, but I'll get to that later.
Obviously, I didn't manage to write a blog post to replace that placeholder. Which means I'll have more to talk about today, right?
Let's start with why I even had a placeholder last week: the concert and my work presentation.
Let's start with Hubby's early 30th birthday gift for me. We went to the Monumentour with Paramore and Fall Out Boy. It was fantastic. I had such a blast, but I also worked the morning of the concert so I was on the go from about 6am until 1:30 am the next day. CRAZINESS! I was so tired I was NOT in the mindset to write a post in time for my normal noon update. I debated writing later in the day - after I woke up - in order to get SOMETHING posted. However, I had work that evening and I was still zoned out, so the placeholder was written.
The other reason I had no time was that work presentation. Not entirely sure how well we did. The way these presentations work is that each year a group of employees spend an extra hour a week trying to find ways to improve their individual store, or come up with an idea that could help better the chain as a whole. The first year I was a part of this project, we created a safety video to show during job orientation. Last year I BSed my way through raising employee morale. This year we threw together a last-minute presentation about what I have done throughout the year to improve wellness in the store's employees. Things such as moving the employee smoking section further from the store to keep non-smoking employees/customers from second-hand smoke, providing sunscreen for the employees that spend the majority of their shifts outside, providing things such as puzzle/activity books in the break room to help destress employees, and talking to the new-hires about the wellness program so that they know it's available.
So what I was doing since that last actual update was figuring out how to present these changes: taking photos, making a power point, writing out a script for MadDog24 to read off at the presentation, making hand-outs, etc. All while working long days at the store. By the time last Wednesday hit I was - as mentioned - exhausted and still needed to put on the finishing touches on everything to make sure we were ready.
Thursday was the presentation. We had to get up fairly early so that we could make the hour-plus trek to the building where the presentation was being held. We then watched other presentations - which were unbelievably boring compared to the previous two years; it was insanity - before giving our own. Once all the stores gave their presentations the managers in the sectioned off zone - so this would be about 15 stores - would then vote on who they think did the best job both on the presentation itself and with the improvements they did for their store. The winner is announced and said winning store moves on to present to the region and then possibly move on further to present to corporate.
The safety video went on to present to corporate, but we didn't win over-all. It was nice to win our zone though. Last year's pulling-this-out-of-my-butt presentation ended up getting us second place in our zone. This year we weren't informed where we were in the standings; we just know we didn't win. Oh well, at least it's over, our manager is happy with what we did, and we can move on.
Hubby already has a fantastic idea for this upcoming year, and we're going full-steam right out of the gate. Considering the previous three years more-or-less consisted of "[Lyco] throws something together in about three days before the presentation while [Hubby] plays tech-support so she doesn't throw the computer out the window," we're already off to a great start.
Now, once we were done with the presentation and we knew we weren't moving on to the "next round" - as it were - I had every intention of writing my actual blog update for the week. However, it was also the first day I could just sit and mellow out. So I did. Total zone out.
Then came Friday, and the start of Hell Week as the store dealt with the chaos that is "Preparing for the Fourth of July" shopping craze. We were non-stop! My manager's favorite word was "brutal". Every time I turned around he'd be muttering that word. Heck, this past Wednesday I went in to work and literally the first thing he said to me was "Brutal" as he shook his head.
Work. Has not. Been fun.
Everyone's hot and cranky and overworked and the customers are rushed.... it's just bad all around.
So whenever I wasn't at work I was pretty much asleep, or staring blankly at whatever was in front of me. Even now, after having a two-day "vacation" from work, I still have to focus on keeping my eyes focused. It's pathetic.
Want to know what helps with the focusing?
I HAVE MY NETBOOK BACK!!!!!!
My father-in-law is awesome. He totally Frankensteined the thing back to life. Actually, he had it set for me a few months ago, but he needed money from us in order to buy a few more components. Eventually he gave up. He knew how much I needed this thing back and how hard-up we've been, so he used some of his own scratch and we'll pay him back. Unfortunately, he didn't have enough extra to buy a new battery for the darn thing, so I have to keep it plugged in at all times. I can't let it off charge for even a second without it instantly shutting down. It's like a teeny desktop that way.
Still, I have it back and that means I'm writing this while lounging on the couch! Whoot! Perhaps this means I can actually get my butt in gear and get back to things like Writers’ Huddle or beta reading.
OOOO speaking of which. I'm redoing the writing group thing. Originally I was trying to keep it local in order to keep it off-computer; save my eyes and all that. Plus, I already have an online writing community with the Writers' Huddle. However, the local group didn't last long for a handful of reasons. True, I still have the Writers' Huddle, and so having another online community seems a bit silly, but this is with all of my online besties; none of which really have the spare change to join in Writers' Huddle.
So we're off to start up our own mini-group. Obviously the local peeps are free to join in, but this go around it will be me right along side ChibiSunnie, DarkAngel1326, AngelBlood666, Chopfe, Delaroux, Phfylburt, and introducing my one buddy from high school. I haven't found an online-presence for her yet, so I'm gonna use her Girl Scouts nickname for the time being. Everyone wave to Stargazer!
She's so excited. As far as I know she never really thought about writing too much before, but she recently took a writing course and loved it. She enthusiastically sent me a message about how she's now thinking about attempting to write a novel. I instantly threw out that I was trying to start up this online group and asked if she wanted to join. She happily accepted.
Now, to get my butt in gear and start up the group.
The only other writing update I have is that after over a week of the board being stalled out, I finally got around to getting Willow to do something. It's not much, but at least it's SOMETHING, right? I also went a bit hard-core on world building the X-Future reboot. Still haven't locked on to a definite environment idea, but I'm still coming up with possibilities; seeing which one works best.
Forgive me if I've mentioned this before, but I don't recall touching upon my latest roadblock. Although the actual world that surrounds X-Future isn't all that important - as long as the teens can somehow have these powers in some shape or form it doesn't matter if it's fantasy, sci-fi, horror, historical, futuristic, etc - but what IS important is the Xavier Institute. The fact that these kids with powers are all together in one closed environment away from normal humans. The fact that there's a rival "gang" as the main antagonists, and the fact that each group wants to get to potential "new recruits" first.
However, I fear that even if we do call them "glitches" instead of mutants, having a boarding school for these glitches to voluntarily be at just screams "this is blatantly the Xavier Institute and these guys are clearly X-men-like mutants." Even with terms changed and not really using any of the Marvel-owned characters, there's that real fear that Marvel could pick up on the "rip-off" and try to shut the story down. Either that, or any readers will be turned off by the fact that this is "fake X-Men".
Will the fact that the most basic environment structure is more-or-less straight out of X-Men turn away readers, or bring more in due to the familiarity of it all? Will it be obvious that it started off as an X-Men fanstory/role play? Will that matter?
I mean, I got drawn in to Order of the Stick because it was obviously a D&D campaign. Rich Burlew still makes TONS of D&D references throughout the strip. Do I feel cheated that he didn't completely create his own world? No. However, he also isn't pretending that he did, where as us changing everything except for the basic concept of "a school for mutants and the rival group they battle" feels like we are trying to pass our story as entirely original when it isn't.
So I'm stumped, do I just go for it and re-name the institute and be done with it? Or do I try something different?
I thought that maybe humanity forced these kids in to mutant-only schools; getting back to the X-Men social commentary roots about segregation. Phfyl threw out the idea that they're all together because of refugee/internment camps or reservations; again creating a social commentary on the American treatment of Japanese Americans in WWII or Native Americans throughout our country's history. The only real problem with these segregation/racism concepts is the idea of recruitments. There wouldn't be any X-Men vs Brotherhood recruitments. Everyone would be forced to go to these places, so a nice chunk of story would be lost, while a whole new one would emerge. Said new story would mostly have people rooting for the Brotherhood over the X-Men. The Brotherhood would be the group fighting back against this oppression while the X-Men would patiently bide their time while trying to show normal humans that not all of them are dangerous; that they can be just as productive parts of society as anyone else. I would think more people would cheer on the Brotherhood for trying to stand up for their kins' rights, and get irritated with the X-Men for not doing anything; content with their lot in life.
No go.
I then thought back to recruitment. If I wasn't going to use a school because it would be too obvious, what other options would I have for children to have a choice in whether or not they wanted to join one group or another; or any at all? Where else do children come together in groups?
That's when I looked to Rick Riordan and the Percy Jackson universe. He used "summer camps." Most of the demi-gods in his stories would still live at home and go to school like a normal teen; spending their school year trying to stay under the radar, but also knowing enough to fend off monsters if need be. Then they would all come back to Camp Halfblood for more survival training over the summers. There were even some demi-gods who either had no place else to go or were so powerful they couldn't go a day without a monster harassing them. These teens just stayed at camp year-round.
It was a fantastic idea and a great twist on the Xavier Institute problem. However, it would still be a blatant rip-off if we turned the institute in to a summer camp. Sure, it may not be AS noticeable with the rest of the world having a vague X-Men feel, but you still have teens with specific powers and facing daily dangers all gathered at a camp. Anyone NOT thinking X-Men going in to the story will most likely think Demi-gods. We now have the same issue as we did with the school idea.
But how else do teens gather in one place and live together? I was thinking "mutant slums; they all just live near each other" but this then goes back to the segregation issue.
I bounced back to the fantasy idea that Phfyl had a little while back. As much as I love the cyberpunk world we were creating - and I loved the idea of mutants being called glitches, and they were each categorized in a pseudo-cyberpunk category - the fantasy world just seemed like a better fit.
We could go back to the idea of the schools, but have it be mage guilds instead. It was enough of a trope inside magical stories for it to just feel natural instead of stolen. Teens going to a guild/school to learn how to master their birth-given powers? That could be any number of things. That could be D&D. It could be the animes Fairy Tail or The Familiar of Zero. It could be Harry Potter. It could be the video game Fable. The list goes on, but those are the things that first pop in to my head when I think "school for mages".
Sure, since it's a trope it's a bit played out and "safe"/"expected", but at least it won't jar our readers by having them go "wait a minute... isn't this like...?"
Yesterday I pitched the following idea to Hubby and Phfyl as a way to have a fantasy/steam/cyberpunk world where the "mutants" are now all mages.
The mages started off as a small few for whatever reason (TBD) and were praised as heroes and saviors against the dangerous creatures (insert generic fantasy creature here; ie - dragon, goblin, ogre, etc). Citadels were built as homes for these mages and the cities sprung up around them so that the mages were at the center of the communities and capable of saving the city at a moment's notice.
As the threat of creatures waned and the reliance of the mages simply became a generational norm, the mages became power hungry. They became tyrannical rulers over the non-magic citizens and warred among themselves.
An industrial revolution became necessary for the non-magics to be able to compete at all with the mages. In the end, they were able to dethrone their magical dictators.
Mages were cast out of society and they created communal homes for themselves by way of guilds hidden in wooded areas surrounded by the few remaining creatures that they once saved the non-magics from.
Humanity still feared mages, but more and more were being born among them. Some were slaughtered instantly when their powers were discovered. Some were cast away, letting fate decide if they could survive the creatures of the woods in order to get to the mage guilds. Some were found out by wandering mages; undercover and unknown to be magical among their neighbors. These sleeper mages were tasked to whisk the newly discovered mages safely away to the guilds.
Some mage guilds were embittered by how their ancestors were cast out, and how their kind is currently treated. Their goal is to make mages the supreme rulers once more. (Brotherhood)
Other guilds wish to just be left alone; to live in peace away from the humans. (Morlocks)
Then there is at least one guild who wishes to show non-magics that mages are the same as them. Just as some humans are just "evil" and do things like kill and fall to corruption, so do mages. However, just as most humans are NOT inherently cruel and evil, neither are mages. Therefore, mages should be treated just as non-magics (I really need to think of a muggle-like term). Most are decent human beings, but discipline and punish those who deserve it. (Obviously this is the X-Men)
Finally, you have the guild that just wants to see the world burn. (Challengers of Heaven)
The actual world will be based as a fantasy world. However, instead of the typical medieval England atmosphere that most fantasy takes place in, the world will have a cyberpunk look. Now, I'd like to still restrict human technological advancement a touch, so this fantasy cyberpunk world has one more twist: Steampunk technology.
So, this is a fantasy world with Steampunk technology but a Cyberpunk look.
These tightly packed cities around abandoned mage citadels are dark, gritty, and filled with corruption in order to fill the power vacuum.
However, this overpopulated environment just screams out to the youth to not just become another number. They struggle to show that they're still an individual, not just a member of the human herd. So they wear bright, vibrant colors to stand out against the dark, gritty environment. They stylize their hair and dye it bright, unnatural colors. The advertisements are the same. Businesses struggle just as much to stand out against their competition, and so the billboards and other advertisements are just as bright, and vibrant.
Hubby's a bit hesitant on the cyberpunk still sneaking in. He thinks just the fantasy/steampunk will be enough. Phfyl hasn't commented yet.
If we do decide to go this route, it changes the way Devon does a crucial bit of research before setting off on his own. Plus I still need to figure out the rough mechanics of the magic. So I'm still trying to figure out the whole "teens grouped together" thing in order to keep them mutants instead of mages.
If you have any advice on the subject, feel free to drop it in the comments below.
And now to conclude I'd like to throw out that Chibi has started up her own blog a few weeks ago! She's still nervous about her writing, so I'm sure I'm going to get a response along the lines of "How sweet of you to promote my blog, but now I'm super nervous about what I post..."
Fret not, dear Chibi. My readers are kind, and I'm sure they'll enjoy your work as much as I do.
So, go ahead and check out her work. Don't forget to let her know what you think of it. Even if it's constructive criticism, us writers love the feedback so we know how to improve.
