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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But what about my current challenge?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hacker Girl Facebook Sticker
by Birdman Inc

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Cassie Jean, Writer; A Work in Progress

Anyway, yay progress for my fellow SWS writer!

Now to focus on some of my own.

TO WRITING!!!!!

    

NuaNia Facebook Sticker
by PRANEAT

    

Hacker Boy Facebook Sticker
by Birdman Inc

Tedious Actions, Mangas, and a New Writing Site

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AAAAAAAANYWAY.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NEATO!!!!!

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

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

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

*sniffle*
Anyway....

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

One last thing of note for the week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

2015 Summer Writing Challenge Final Week - Multiple Man

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's to a more productive writing week again.

2015 Summer Writing Challenge Week 5 - Shadowcat

This wasn't a very productive week for me.

I knew it was going to be crazy since my birthday was this week, and my mom and sister would be up to visit. So I purposely saved the easiest character conversion for this hectic week. Kitty "Shadowcat" Pryde was all but done already through my previous months of brainstorming. I knew what she looks like. I knew what her powers were going to be. Thanks to her tie-ins with the characters Ryder and Dom, I already knew a great deal of her backstory as well. I literally needed to only figure out 4 things: a new name, her life leading up to college, what type of company was she working at when Ryder crashed the office Christmas party, and what catalyst made her start up an orphanage in Upstate New York. Then just type it up on Sunday. Simple. I pondered the catalyst thing over the week. In regards to her backstory, with so much already figured out I knew I just needed to figure out one piece and the rest of the backstory would fall into place. If I knew her youth I could figure out what major she went for which would lead me to the business she was working at. If I knew the business, I could deduce the major and then events in her youth that would point her down that path. If I knew the major, I could figure out why she chose it and what business she'd work for. Simple!

Well, I wasn't taking into consideration that my sister-in-law was going to give birth to my nephew this past week. I also vastly underestimated the amount of time it would take to organize my apartment so there was space for my mom and sister's queen-sized air mattress to fit....

Most importantly, I was thrown off by the need to help a grieving friend. Sadly, one of my friends had to deal with her sister committing suicide. Considering all the focus on suicide prevention nearly a year ago after Robin Williams died, I figured I should honor my friends' sister by reprinting part of my post from last August.

Excerpt from Mind's Going Already

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.

So, my brain was fried and I didn't even THINK about this writing challenge until 10pm Sunday. Even so, that was more-or-less when I started working on Ryder the first week, Dom the next week, and Iggy the week after that. However, I just couldn't do the normal brainstorming with Hubby again; just like the previous week with Keahi. We were just too burnt out with everything.

Trying on my own, the farthest I got is that her new name is Emily. I've also come up with the idea that she inherited the acreage of land that she put the orphanage on, that way I don't have to try to figure out where she got the money from. I'm not 100% convinced I like this idea, though, since Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters - what the orphanage is based off of - was set up on Xavier's family estate that had been passed down for generations. So, do I want the orphanage to be inherited land as well?

The only other part of Emily that I was able to "figure out" is maybe where she worked when she met Ryder. I keep picturing a law office for the Christmas party, so maybe she was a paralegal? Maybe that's why she and Dom's sister - who went for pre-law - were paired up as roommates? It wasn't because they were Glitches, but because they were both pre-law students? It would make sense that Emily would want to legally "fight the system" to get equal rights for Glitches, but why would she no longer work in a law firm then? Why run an orphanage if you could do just as much - if not more help - as a lawyer?

My one friend is part of a temp program at a college; she works for a department for a few weeks to help them catch up with work or cover vacation/medical leave/maternal leave/etc, and then gets transferred to a different department, so on and so forth. Maybe that's what Emily did? So that caring for kids and/or starting a school isn't so far-fetched? But why would a con-artist crash a school faculty Christmas party? I mean, for the most part, teachers are only paid well if they have their doctorate and are professors for an Ivy League school....

Anyway, here it is, three days later, and I'm literally writing the bio as I go...

New Name: Emily
Basic Info: 40yrs old, 5' 6", 132lbs, Brunette hair, and Magenta eyes

Powers: Norm-Beast Evoker Hybrid; Sub-category: Energy Charmer
Emily's Beast quality is her magenta eyes. The eye color is actually connected to her Evoker ability, and so whenever she transfers energy between kinetic and potential, that object glows the same magenta as her eyes. The same goes for Chayse, except with neon lime green. Another connection between the Evoker and Norm-Beast mutations is that when using her power the magenta from the irises of her eyes "bleeds out" to fill her whole eye; making it look like a pupil-less solid magenta orb is in her eye sockets. Again, same for Chayse, but with the green.
Emily's Evoker ability focuses on energy; namely the ability to manipulate the kinetic energy in the atoms around her. Unlike just about all other Evoker types, since energy cannot be created or destroyed, there is no such tier as "Summoner." Since Emily cannot transform herself into energy, she is a Charmer.
Emily's ability allows her to shift an object between kinetic and potential energy. She can add to the kinetic energy that something already has, allowing it to move faster or have more force on impact. She can also cause an object to power with kinetic energy; waiting to be released. This causes the object to explode. The intensity of the explosion is based on how much energy she builds in it. She can also allot herself time to escape the blast because she can add energy "remotely." As long as the object is within 50ft of her and she has a clear line-of-sight, she can focus on the object to add kinetic energy.
Same goes for potential energy. She can diminish the impact of an object, or cause it to stop completely by converting the kinetic energy back into potential as long as it is within 50ft and in a clear line of sight. This isn't instantaneous, and if an object is physically incapable of stopping - such as rolling down a hill - she can only slow it; not stop it.
Her powers are stronger the closer the object is, and so she usually focuses on things she can touch. She also focuses on using her powers defensively; so usually kinetic to potential energy instead of the other way around.
While she is not a Mind-hybrid at all, her powers have a side-effect that gives her a strong resistance to Mind Glitches. The constant change between kinetic and potential energy around her causes a sort of "static" that messes with the mental waves Mind Glitches use to manipulate their victims. This is why Ryder's Silver Tongue didn't work on her like it did all the other women he easily seduced. This is just a resistance and not an immunity. A strong enough Mind Glitch can navigate the "static" to still affect her. She can also concentrate on keeping the energy around her at it's natural state; removing the "Static" completely. Helpful for when she actively wishes for telepaths to reach her mind for whatever reason.

Physical Appearance: Emily has a very basic, blend-into-the-background, "Mom" look. She's simple and low-maintenance.
She's tone, but fairly slender with minimal curves, similar to that of a runner. Her Welsh heritage makes her fairly pale with a few freckles scattered down her arms and a little on her upper chest. Ryder loves teasing her "addiction" to sunscreen.
She keeps her medium-length brown hair in classic, professional cuts so she can dress up when the need arises. However, she typically has it thrown back in a ponytail or hair clip so it's out of her way while doing housework and/or handling the children. She also wears minimal make-up. Typically just a little mascara, maybe a quick application of eyeshadow, and tinted lip gloss.
When she dresses casual - lounging at home, housework, yard work, playing in the yard with the children, exercising, etc - she lives in deep blue jeans and a loose-fitted tanktop or sweatshirt. When she's professional - at work prior to starting the orphanage, having business talks about Glitch equality, teaching classes at the orphanage, running the location as a headmistress, etc - she's almost always in knee-length skirts, fashionable blouse, blazer, and heals. There is a distinct change in her attitude depending on the clothes she's wearing. When she's casual, she's playful and laid back. When she's professional she is serious and strict.
While she always has a Classic Black professional outfit - and "date clothes" - Emily's wardrobe has no real color scheme to it. She's too pale for orange or yellow clothes, but the rest of the rainbow is in her wardrobe, and typically in vibrant shades that match the intensity of her eyes. Speaking of which, when walking around in public she tries to wear sunglasses to hide her eye color whenever she wants to avoid being caught as a Glitch.
Unfortunately, it was hard for me to find pictures of non-celebrity brunettes online. I got frustrated and gave up. So the only reference picture I have is of her magenta eyes:

Where Chayse gets his unnatural eye color from.
However, Chayse's eyes are a neon-lime green.

Personality: She's very maternal; obviously, she started and runs an orphanage/school. She does her best to make sure everyone starts on equal footing. She is a firm believer of Neo-Xavier's teachings about Glitch/Norms co-existence. However, unlike Dom's interpretation, Emily feels that Neo-Xavier calls for peaceful negotiations that focus more on demonstrating that "not all Glitches are bad." She teaches the Glitches in her care to be patient and to use their powers to protect Norms. They can't defend themselves, and it will show them that Glitches are a great ally in Humanity.
She has two distinct sides to her, as briefly discussed above. She is usually a very playful person. Very loving and nurturing. She has a little bit of a wild side herself, and - as long as the mischief isn't illegal - she doesn't mind turning her head to some pranks on occasion; knowing it's all in good fun. She has a soft spot for the unwanted Glitch teenagers. Partially because Chayse is the same age and she couldn't bare to think of him in the same situation, but mostly because she knows how confusing it is to be a teenager; let alone one trying to figure out powers and how to survive alone.
The other side of her is what makes her a great headmistress. She's tough, strict, and serious when the need calls for it. She can put her foot down and people will listen. It doesn't hurt that she can make things blow up to grab peoples' attention. She keeps a firm enough hand on the Glitches in her care to keep them well-grounded and give them a structured, secure home. She also uses this Shark attitude to fight for all Glitch rights. It was this stern and stubborn attitude that keeps Dom at bay.
She is far from naive, and so she can easily keep Ryder in his place as well. He can't pull the wool over her eyes, and he enjoys that. It's hard for anyone to really get away with anything around her, unless she allows it.

General History:I don't have a specific California town or city picked out quite yet for Emily's hometown. I'm thinking maybe San Francisco, but a LOT of major X-Men plots center around San-Fran and/or Alcatraz island. So I might want to avoid it. There are other places to live in California besides San Francisco, Burbank, or Los Angeles. Either way, she's from California. I kind of see her as being from around the Pacific Mountain Range.
I'm still not sure about her youth, but I see a fairly simple one. California tends to be more accepting of controversial things such as interracial relationships mid-1900s, homosexuals in the 90s and early 2000s, and so fast-forwarding to the mid-2000s and I can see California being more accepting of Glitches. Perhaps that's another reason why Emily started up an orphanage on the East Coast, there would be more orphans there? Then again, the South tends to be the most conservative and unaccepting, so THAT should be where most of the orphans would be... Shoot, I need to figure this out more....
Even though I'm apparently establishing that California is more accepting of Glitches - which would logically mean at least some California colleges would allow Glitch students - Emily decided to fly across the country in order to go to school at NYU. She met Dom's sister Cecilia when they were matched up as roommates. The two quickly became best friends. It wasn't financially sound for Emily to go all the way back home in California for short school breaks, and so she spent them with Cecilia and Dom. The Glitch Slum they were forced to live in was a bit of a shock to her system; having lived in a normal suburbia grown up. While she loved how close-knit the neighborhood was, she hated that anyone had to live in such a dangerous, overpopulated, and rundown environment. She became determined to build enough acceptance in the world that slums like that one were at least well-maintained if not completely closed down; allowing Glitches to live wherever they wished.
While home in California, she was informed that Cecilia had gone missing, and was then found dead at a government lab. This broke Dom. His life driving force was to expose the government and take them down so labs like that didn't exist anymore. It was all that Emily could do to keep him from going on a rampage. She also had a hard time convincing him to let her to go home to California on longer school breaks. He became almost obsessively protective of her. He couldn't protect his sister, but he WAS going to protect Emily.
Since he was protectively hovering anyway, Emily convinced Dom to study with her so he could get himself to a better place than where he was with the gang. She also convinced him that he would be a better role model for the two Glitches he saved from the lab if Dom had some education. In doing so, Emily unintentionally created the rift between her and Dom. When she was studying the teachings of Neo-Xavier, her views on his writing drastically differed from Dom's, who saw it more as a call for violence so Glitches can forcefully take their place alongside Humanity.
While still loving each other like siblings, the connection between them wasn't as close. Emily moved back to California after graduating, and only kept occasional contact with Dom and his wards over the years. The one she kept closest contact with was Geoffrey, who didn't interact with people all that much, but took a strong liking to her "mothering" of him.
About a year after graduating from college, Ryder crashed an office Christmas party she was at. He tried using his Silver Tongue powers to seduce her; like many women before. She turned him down, and he started his legitimate courtship of her. They officially started dating a year later, and they married when she was 24.
Chayse ended up being their "Honeymoon Gift". Shortly after giving birth to him, Emily inherited multiple acres of land in Upstate New York. Keeping in contact with Geoff reminded Emily of the slums Dom and Cecilia grew up in; the slums Geoff and Lucas were growing up in. Then she realized that those slums were actually one of the best and most stable places for Glitches to be in that area. She then thought about Chayse ever being in that situation. She convinced Ryder to move to the estate in New York and establish an orphanage. That way those orphaned Glitches had a stable and safe environment. A place where they won't feel forgotten, and a place where they don't have to fear being abducted by the GPS.
She named it after Cecilia to honor her friend, and to always remind herself why she started the orphanage in the first place: so no one else ended up with the same fate as she did.
Obviously, especially with it named after his sister, Dom wanted to be a part of the orphanage, but their differing interpretations of how Glitches should get to equality was still too drastic. Dom wanted to teach the kids how to defend themselves against Glitch haters, and how to prove their worth via force. Emily was too afraid that doing so would confirm in the minds of Norms that Glitches are dangerous and need to be exterminated. Either that, or that the government would see the orphanage as a terrorist cell and attack it. She refused to work with him. Still, his heart was in the right place - wanting to protect the kids - and so he set up an arcade nearby so he can keep an eye on everyone.
Shortly after establishing the orphanage Emily expanded to include a school as well. This way her kids could also feel safe while learning both typical education, and how to handle their powers. Within the next five years word got out that there was a safe location for Glitch teens. The orphanage slowly became part boarding-school as well since it was currently the only place where there were people who knew how to train Glitches as they discovered how to control their powers.
The amount of children housed in the orphanage became so many that Emily and Ryder had to start hiring other adult Glitches to help run the facility.

So, still some holes, but the main parts that I figured out a month or so ago is there.

Now to work on my last character redo for the writing challenge.

Originally, this was going to be the week that I finally come up with my rework of Charles Xavier. However, it occurred to me about a week or two ago that I don't really need to know much about Xavier. I need to rename him still, but he makes little to no appearance in the comic. What is more important is his WORK, which I need to figure out more, but I have time for that. So, instead I'm going to work on another character. One that was about 90% done anyway, which is why I didn't include him originally. My rework of Jamie "Multiple Man" Maddrox.

So, that's my project for this week. I also need to figure out what I'm planning on doing throughout August. See, the mini-challenge for the last week is to explain how to keep up with the momentum of the writing challenge. Coincidentally, I had already set something up with Struggling Writers Society.

Back in November, no one was able to participate in NaNo because the month is typically too hectic with holiday preparations and the end of college semesters around the corner. So, we had a poll asking when our group would prefer to do our own version of NaNo. Not many voted, but the few that did agreed that August was probably the safest bet.

Well, August is creeping up on us, and so I asked if people were ready for our own version of NaNo. I had a resounding "no" as a response. People were still way too busy. Still, I knew that a lot of the members wanted to do something similar to the writing challenges I kept getting from Writers’ Huddle. They needed a push - as did I - to keep writing from constantly being pushed behind "more important things."

So, I decided to do something very similar to what I'm finishing up now. A 4-week instead of 6-week writing challenge, but one that focused on a goal. No matter how big or small. The point is for everyone to set their own writing goal to keep writing in the forefront of their lives for at least a month. Granted, a lot of participants are also keeping "OMG, my life is crazy right now!" in mind and are planning simple goals such as "at least one short story before the end of the month." Still, it's better than letting the ability to write a short story slip by. There's a push for them to focus.

The same push that Ali Luke gave us at the Huddle when asking us what we were going to do with the writing momentum we built up.

Still, I have no clue what I'm doing with it. After Cody's done I have my cast of characters fleshed out. Aside from going back and filling in the holes in their backstories. I could continue to world-build, but really the only thing I have left there too is to come up with the official name for the orphanage, now that I know "Cecilia" is somewhere in it, as well as the name for Dom's arcade and trained squad used to protect the orphanage.

Neither seem like a good "month long goal" option.

I'd like to get Please, Let Me Explain finished, or at least the next chapter to the point where I can publish it. However, I overwhelmed Ronoxym a little bit with all the pages I added to his story. He's slowly chipping away at his edits for it.

Part of me wants to stick with X-Men since I'm in that flow. Maybe finally write the companion stories I was supposed to, such as the fight between Trish and Devon, or Lia's summer with Ripley in NYC, or Chayse and Willow's trip to Japan. I could also attempt to finish off some of the one-shots I was working on and abandoned because I couldn't get them to work: Trish building a Devon fight practice dummy or Ripley arguing with Lia about how she needs to give up on Chayse. I also abandoned my effort to rework the forum itself into straight prose. Mainly because it was so much effort to filter through everything to figure out what happened when. I may continue this project, though.

Then there's the idea of changing gears completely. I hate that I have so many open projects, and I hate abandoning stories that people are reading. When drama exploded in the "Hey, Arnold!" fandom I stepped away and focused on X-Men. With that, I abandoned What Is Truly Meant To Be. I may have to start my month marathoning the few HA season DVDs I didn't lose in my moves, but perhaps I'll pick this up...

I think those are my top two: Go back to the Hey Arnold fanfic, or go back to converting the board into prose... Now to decide on which one....

2015 Summer Writing Challenge Week 4 - Magma

I have a nephew! My sister-in-law gave birth yesterday of a healthy and LONG baby boy. I can't wait to get a chance to meet him. It will also be fun to celebrate my nephew's birthday a few days before my own.

Speaking of which, my birthday is tomorrow. It's weird to think that I'll be 31. I don't feel old enough to be out of my 20s, and I have been for a year. My life isn't where I was expecting it to be at this point. However, I do feel like - at least in writing - I'm improving. I'm becoming more determined and disciplined while building an original story.

That being said, ironically I wasn't as successful with reworking Magma as I would have liked. While I didn't have Dom's whole background written down by the deadline a few weeks back, I at least had it all figured out in my head. Neo-Amara? It's three days later and I STILL have holes in her backstory.

Granted, it's not really all that crucial since she won't actually be in the comic all that much, but the real reason I even bothered reworking her is because of Lia. The girl always compares herself to her mother, and so I needed Magma reworked as much as possible so I have something for Lia to compare herself to.

I'm also a bit mad because I was actually on a good routine with rebuilding her. I did a little bit each day. I had the name picked out a few weeks ago. Her physical appearance was fairly quick to type up since Lia is practically a carbon copy of her mom. I knew more-or-less what I wanted her personality to be like. The real things I needed to buckle down and focus on were her powers and backstory.

I had the powers pretty set as of Friday, but I just couldn't figure out the backstory over the weekend. Which makes me nervous about my writing ability yet again, since I think the main reason I couldn't figure it out is due to the fact that I barely saw my husband this weekend. He's my main sounding board and at 10pm on a Sunday night we usually chat about the character backstory until I'm confident in what we came up with. The fact that I apparently can't think of much of anything on my own is a bit discouraging.

I'm also a bit wary of the new power set I gave Neo-Amara. The big thing on X-Future is when Hubby rolled to see what powers Lia inherited she JUST got Amara's. Which means her power set is exactly the same as her mother's; one of the many reasons she's constantly measuring herself to her mom. Well, it was hard for me to keep Lia's exact powers for her mom since the description of her powers is literally copied from the Amara "Magma" Aquilla Marvel Wikia page. The only difference is that Lia's lava/fire form has an obsidian skin coating.

I didn't think that just changing her name and making her Hawaiian would be enough of a change. I needed to switch the powers up a bit more.

To try to figure things out, I started up one of the many X-Men/Marvel themed games that we own. The character that I picked has the mutant ability to instantaneously grow obsidian around his fists to add force to his punches. His powers then evolve to be able to do things such as throw obsidian shards, create an obsidian wall to block attackers, and coat himself in obsidian armor.

Naturally, I picked this mutation because of Lia. However, it did help inspire Keahi's power set. I didn't out-right rip off these powers and go "see? Both obsidian! Done!" However, I did focus mostly on the obsidian armor and being able to throw shards.

I thought about Magma's powers at their core. She's a geokinetic. She can manipulate the ground; typically by moving the magma under the Earth's crust. This can create mini-volcanoes and geysers. She can attack with the lava itself in fireball form. Most importantly, shifting the magma that the crust sits on also shifts the ground itself; creating mini earthquakes.

So, I started off looking up another X-Men character that - fittingly, considering what birthed X-Future in the first place - was a main character in X-Men: Evolution. Namely, Avalanche. If I focused on Magma's earthquake ability using magma, then I could also use some of Avalanche's powers as her core set.

Hubby then pitched that I also use some of the powers he created for the X-Future OC Oswald. He started off as a random background character that Hubby made, and then Ronoxym took him over. Like I did with Willow. Anyway, Oswald's powers revolve around basalt rock creation. He can create a war hammer made out of basalt; that forms out of thin air. He can also cover himself in basalt armor. There was my link back to the obsidian character in the video game.

So, Keahi can manipulate the ground, form rock, and coat herself in a stone armor. There's more to it than that; but I'll get to that when I put the bio in below. Point is, it's drastically different than Magma's powers. Also important, it's believable that Lia's powers are an evolved form. Lia also creates a stone armor, but hers is because she BECOMES the stone, not covers herself in it. Lia can create rock like her mother, but that's because she can manifest lava and then cool it in to the stone she desires. She made a statue to a fallen X-Future character that way. Lia can also manipulate the ground like her mother, but this is based on Magma's original power of using the molten rock to shift the Earth's surface. Lia can also create lava-based fire balls - like the original Magma - as an evolved form of her mother creating rock weapons.

Sure, Lia can't really compare herself TOO much to her mother in the same way now. A big part of her dynamic was that she couldn't form lava bridges or shoot fireballs as far or whatever else Amara could do with the same power set and at the same age. So Lia felt inferior since she was perceptionally behind her mother with power development. Still, there's enough there that Lia could do similarly to her mother because Keahi's powers are technically a downgrade of Lia's. So she may focus on that. "Come on! My mother could do this at my age, and I'm supposed to be more powerful than her!"

The other kicker is that Keahi seemed like the PERFECT name for Neo-Amara because it was the only name I found that was Hawaiian for "Fire." A Hawaiian lava manipulator named "fire"? Perfect! A ROCK manipulator named "fire"? Eh... not so much. Still, I kept it. First, because it's a nice nod back to the original character. Second, it's bad enough I have one pyromancer named Ignatius. Did I really need two people with names blatantly stating what their powers were?

Anyway, below is my still spotty bio for Neo-Magma:

New Name: Keahi (pronounced Key-ah-hee)
Basic Info: Haven't Quite Figured Out Age, 5' 6", 148lbs, Deep cocoa brown hair, and warm honey brown eyes
Powers: Norm-Beast Mind Evoker Hybrid; Sub-category: Earth Summoner
Norm-Beasts have a physical mutation since birth, but can still pass as a regular human; or "Norm." Keahi's Beast quality is her muscles' ability to handle the strain of carrying the extra weight of the granite armor. Her skin can withstand much higher temperatures before burning; causing her almost completely immune to the typical heat of a fire. Her eyes have extra coating to be able to withstand the heat of an active volcano. Her lungs can filter out the toxic fumes and ash of a volcanic eruption. While she’s encased in her graphite armor she can actually stand in lava for up to 30-minutes without harm.
I went over this last week, but as a refresher, evokers can manipulate parts of nature; usually the elements. Evokers have three sub-categories: Charmers, Summoners, and Avatars. Charmers can manipulate their element as long as it's already present. Summoners can cause that element to come into existence. Avatars are technically Tweaker Evoker hybrids because they can transform their bodies into the element.
Keahi is in the Summoner category. Her most basic power is her ability to encase herself in an armor of bluish gray granite. She can cover herself so entirely that it is almost instantaneous full body armor. She can also form up to 50lbs worth of granite that she can manipulate and use however she wishes: ladders, doors, weapons, etc. She can dissipate any granite she forms if she wishes, but she cannot cause naturally occurring granite to disappear. She can manipulate naturally occurring granite to form however she wishes; regardless if it’s more than 50lbs worth.
Her Mind powers come about as moderate telekinetic abilities in regards to manipulating stone; causing the granite to hover or fly to her will. However, she can only manipulate something that has at least a 30% granite component. She can also cause minor earth tremors by either shifting naturally occurring granite already in the ground, or by summoning granite in to the ground and then shifting that. The intensity of the tremor is reliant on both her intention and the amount of granite in that area.
Her powers are also closely tied to her proximity to the earth’s surface. She is most powerful when she’s either barefoot or - better yet - actually has her feet dug into the ground. The farther away from the ground she is, the weaker her control gets. For instance, if she were on a plane she could still form her armor, but it would have to be a conscious act instead of a reflex, and she would have to concentrate to manipulate pre-existing granite. She wouldn’t be able to affect the earth’s surface, nor would she be able to materialize granite. Because of this weakening of her power and detachment from the earth, she gets very airsick if she has to be away from the ground for more than an hour. Depending on the depth of the body of water, the same applies when she’s on a ship for over an hour as well. Mile high; mile deep.
Physical Appearance: Slightly more muscular build than the average woman her age due to the strain of the granite armor she typically wears. Her skin is a dark Hawaiian tan and she wears her hair straight and long; usually between mid-back and waist. She parts it straight down the center and with no bangs. She’ll only pull it back in a ponytail when she’s preparing to fight; to keep it out of her way. She has a round face with full lips. Both ears are double pierced, but she wears simple earrings.
She wears subdued versions of every color of the rainbow, but the most basic form of it: red, but not pink or maroon; blue, but not aqua or teal; purple, but not magenta or violet; etc. Even with more subdued tones, the clothes are heavily influenced by her Hawaiian culture. She typically has nature prints, such as hibiscus or ilima, ivy, or oceanscapes. They also have tribal-like patterns. The clothes are either form-fitted shirts and jeans, or light, flowing, loose dresses. She also wears sandals as much as possible to keep her feet close to the ground. When sandals are impractical to wear, she’ll always choose sneakers or flats to again stay closely connected to the earth. Barefoot is her preferred if it’s acceptable.
She is simple with her jewelry. She wears small hoops and studs in her ears, a watch, no more than two bracelets - usually made from granite - her wedding band with a possible one or two more rings for fancy occasions, and two necklaces: a white puka-shell choker she never removes and a fancier necklace when she dresses up.
This is the image I found to help inspire the appearance of Keahi beyond an adult version of Lia:

I wish she wasn't in a hula-dancing costume,
but this could be a good indication of Keahi's face.

Personality: A bit of a tomboy, but when the time calls for her to dress up she loves it and lavishes in glamorizing herself. She has always been very protective and maternal; even as a child in regards to her friends. She is very optimistic. She looks for the good in people, situations, and the world. She knows that bad things will happen, people will do horrible things, and the world will have dark places. However, she also trusts that good things are around the corner, people will right wrongs, and that each generation will bring more light to the world until the shady darkness is nearly vanquished.
She’s cheerful and welcoming; it’s hard not to be drawn in and love her almost instantly. She’s empathetic and knows the happy balance between being goofy to cheer someone up and being silent so they can just cry. She speaks her mind, but also knows the crucial times to hold her tongue and see where the situation is going. She’s strong and determined, and a leader most would gladly follow.
She refuses to fail completely. Even if she has failed at something, she will give it another try and another and another until she succeeds. She also won’t abandon anyone. It is her flaw. She refuses to believe in sacrificing the few to save the many unless that few is her. There is always a way for her to save everyone, she just has to figure out how.
General History: She was raised on the Windward edge of O’ahu. She always stood up for “the little guys”, and was able to do so by maintaining a popularity in school. She was an athlete, top of her class, and sweet. Most people wanted to hate her for being “so perfect”, but she was just too nice; they couldn’t find it in them to truly hate her.
That is, until her powers kicked in when she was a junior in high school. She took a nasty fall and would have broken some bones, except the point of impact quickly covered in granite. She couldn’t shake the shielded body part off, and when the crowd saw that she was a Glitch, tides turned. While there were a lot that still stood beside her; stating that she proves not all Glitches are bad or scum of humanity. More shunned her and shut her out. She was home schooled the rest of her high school career. She missed walking at graduation or going to her senior prom or senior trip. Always the optimist, she threw her own Glitch-friendly prom for other Glitches in the area and their allies. They then did a weekend surfing trip. As for graduation, her mother got out her old college cap and gown and printed out the diploma. She had all her friends and family around as she gave her valedictorian speech, accepted her diploma, and got pictures taken.
While very intelligent and wanting to advance her education, she was unsure of continuing on to college; worried she’d be kicked out again for being a Glitch. She also debated trade schools for the same reason. Although she had a few good options right in Hawaii, she opted to take a few online courses; in hopes that the schools wouldn’t do a background check and find out she’s a Glitch. In the meantime, she worked one of the beach side bistros that didn’t care if she was a Glitch, or if business suffered because he hired one.
When Keahi was about 19 she met Cody. This is where I go hazy. I still need to figure out this part a bit more. Either way, Keahi and Cody eventually marry and for some reason settle in Long Island. They somehow have a connection to Neo-Kitty and/or Ryder which is why Cody works at the orphanage/school and Lia lives there with him.
Lia is born when Keahi is about mid-twenties? I'm not entirely sure with this too, which is why I'm not positive of her age either...
When Lia was 7 the Ring of Fire became unusually active with earthquakes - resulting in tsunamis - and volcanic eruptions. Other Earth and Fire Evoker Glitches rallied together to try to calm the seismic activity, and Keahi decided to join the cause. Cody begged for her to not get involved, but she couldn’t just let people suffer when she could help somehow. Besides, Neo-Kitty’s family was still in California along with Ryder's friends, and Keahi’s family was still back in Hawaii. She had to find a way to protect them. Cody finally submitted, but wanted to go with her in order to keep her safe; both from natural disasters and anti-Glitches that may attack the group. For some reason they couldn’t leave Lia with anyone or Keahi convinced Cody that it wouldn't be in Lia’s best interest to be without both parents right. Cody stayed with Lia for whatever reason, but sent a copy of himself with Keahi to still protect her like he would. Having a copy on the other side of the country affected his personality slightly, but not enough to impact his parenting.
The Glitches attempting to calm the activity were attacked, but not by Anti-Glitch factions. The copy was killed while Keahi was still fighting. It’s memories returned to Cody; letting him know what was going on while it was with Keahi, but leaving him worried about his wife. He left Lia with a copy this time after deciding he needed most of himself in order to find Keahi. He stayed in the Ring of Fire - although I'm not entirely sure what PART of the area - for a full month searching for her. Eventually he just missed Lia too much, and begrudgingly called off the search.
Keahi is still MIA, and Cody makes an annual pilgrimage back to the Ring of Fire in search for any clues.

I am a bit bummed that I can't figure out more of her backstory, but I trust it will come along eventually.

In the meantime, I'm using my birthday week to finish up work on Neo-Kitty. Still need to decide on a name and sort through the pre-college years of her backstory. Haven't really touched on any of that yet. I better get cracking.