I'm hoping everyone is finding ways to stay cool, because where I am I'm currently melting into my couch. God bless the person who invented air conditioners. I don't know how much worse it would be if I didn't have the A/C.
Which reminds me. If you ARE in a high heat index area, please be sure to check in on any elderly, ailing, or extremely young family members/friends/neighbors to make sure everyone is safe.
Okay, and now back to me....
In all actuality, the heat wave the past three days has only been a small reason why this week as a whole has been a bit trying when it comes to comfort. Last Wednesday I randomly got hit with a head cold. My throat was sore and scratchy. My nose was a faucet. I was light headed and fatigued. I also was set to drive down to visit my mom for her anniversary of beating her cancer.
I managed to drug myself up - Alka-seltzer coupled with Zicam is an amazing combo - enough to make the drive and actually socialize while visiting. However, said socializing, and then the need to rest up when I wasn't socializing, left me with no time to finish up my rewrites for the latest "Peeping Tomcat" chapter.
Come Friday morning, I was so stressed. I wasn't close to having the chapter where I wanted it to be. It was done. It was written. It just didn't feel like the right direction. I had already piece-mealed together the second and third drafts of the last two chapters. I then rewrote pieces, and shifted others, and added a few components. I STILL wasn't happy.
Then Hubby told me to take a breath, and just start over again. Actually, he told me to rest up and enjoy the visit with my family. He reassured me that my readers - who are amazing people, by the way - would understand, and actually appreciate me missing an update if it meant I was healthy and they would get a much better chapter for it.
Of course Hubby was right.
I didn't want to leave everyone hanging, so I went to the three sites and posted an explanation as to why my chapter wasn't ready and published:
I actually received a few comments and DMs within just a few hours.AUTHOR'S NOTES: I'd like to apologize to everyone for not updating today. I'm visiting my mother out of state AND I got hit with a nasty head cold. I am resting up right now and enjoying my visit. I'll try to get the next chapter up by Independence Day (July 4th) at the latest. Thank you for understanding.
Please note, I will replace this A/N with the actual chapter once I update. Thank you again. I love you all!
- "we love u 2"
- "Hope you'll get better soon! Also have a nice time at your mother's."
- "Hope you feel better!"
- "Take care and enjoy time with family."
- "Hey, I just wanted to say I enjoy reading your story very much. Don't worry about not updating today or even tomorrow, I'd rather have the story become a small masterpiece instead."
Well, to all of you who support me, read my stuff, and/or have the patience of a saint as I fall off my regular publishing schedule - or, those who have been with me for YEARS and I stopped updating a work you enjoy - I want to give all of you a huge hug!
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| Hacker Girl Facebook sticker by Birdman, Inc |
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| Hacker Girl Facebook sticker by Birdman, Inc |
I did have two cute scenes though. In the first one Adrien kept trying to talk to Marinette as class is starting, but Miss Bustier kept interrupting him; demanding he stops interrupting the class and pay attention. Whoops. The other had Adrien asking Alya for Marinette's number, and of COURSE Alya had to tease him about his sudden desire for it. Poor kid can't catch a break.
I think I'm going to have to recycle that phone number scene for "One and the Same." And that, dear fans, is why you NEVER delete anything you write, even if it's trash. You never know if it's actually a gem for another story. Or a fertile seed for a fantastic story/scene idea.
Anyway, regardless of the two cute scenes, the chapter just was NOT working. Then I decided to come at it from another angle.
*Writing Tip: If you hit writers block, try writing the scene/chapter in another character's POV. You may not keep that POV switch, but it could clear up some things by having you look at the story from another perspective.
Naturally, I decided to flip over to Marinette. Both Adrien and Chat Noir have been acting weird around her in the last 24-hours or so. It was probably time to check in and see what was going on in her head.
It was an interesting experiment, and it did start the creativity flowing again. Feeling guilty that it has been over a week since I posted anything new, I figured I'd give my readers this little experiment.
If you'd like to read it too, I have it posted on all three sites.
I have to say I am amazed by this little story. Not even 12hrs later and I already have the following stats:
I won't get into the AO3 comments here because they are all LONG! I mean, these are highly thought out fantheories on how the conclusion of PT is going to be based on this story. It's really cool to see. It's also neat to note what similar theories pop up, and how close they are to what I actually wrote for the next chapter.FFN: 167 views, 2 faves, and 4 followers
AO3: 74 views, 9 kudos, and 7 comments!
DA: 5 views and 1 fave
Total Results: 246 views, 12 faves, 4 followers, and 7 reviews
Tumblr Notes: 2 likes
I also got a random influx of new faves and follows for PT. Perhaps I drew new readers in after they read this side story. I know for a fact that at least one person hopped over from "A Plan Forms." They liked the companion short first, and then both liked and followed PT.
Neat!
Going back to "Peeping Tomcat" though. After I had my momentum back via "A Plan Forms" I was able to attack the latest chapter of PT. It kept me until a little after midnight this morning, but I have it written. I just needed it to sit before I go back to proofread.
It was hard to do, but I managed to finish edits just a little while ago, allowing me to post just before this blog went live! You can check out the chapter in the usual spots.
Now comes the mad dash to try to get the final chapter written so it can go up on Friday. I don't think I'll make it, but I do have tomorrow and Thursday off, so.... maybe?
The thing is, with all of this writing to finish up PT, I have yet to even START on "One and the Same" for Camp NaNo. It hurts to have 6448 words written for the month, and know that none of them go towards your 50,000 word goal.
According to Cyhyr, it doesn't matter. It's fiction writing during July. It counts. If she says it counts, then I guess I'll allow it. I'll just have to think about surpassing my word goal by this extra amount later; make up for the "cheat."
Meh, at least I've got a good head start on that word count. I'm at about 13% done with my work count. Also, my 6448 words, plus Cy's 2050 words, and the 250 words of one of our random new cabinmates, all adds up to about 4% of our cabin's overall goal. Not too bad for the first two days of Camp.
The stats are a bit wonky now that I posted the last chapter late and missed the most recent one, but let's give it a whirl, huh?
Had I posted at 8:30am on Friday to get back onto my normal publishing schedule, these would have been my end-of-the-week stats for the 13th week:
So, uh, yeah... apparently I lost a Tumblr like somewhere... Other than that, though, this was my most-read week! Second place goes to the previous week with 1791 overall views! It also brought in the third-most followers; second most if you ignore the 66 followers I got the first week PT went live. The only other chapter to beat this one was the 6th chapter - Parallels - which brought in 19 new followers.FFN: 1449 views, 10 faves, 14 followers, and 3 reviews
AO3: 472 views, 18 kudos, 3 bookmarks, and 1 comment
DA: 15 views, 1 fave, and 1 comment
Total Results: 1936 views, 29 faves, 17 followers, and 5 reviews
Tumblr Notes: 2 likes
That all said, though, thanks to both my author's note "chapter" and "A Plan Forms," I now have even MORE views, faves, and follows.
As of 9:15 this morning, here are the stats for "Peeping Tomcat" since I posted my Author's Note about the chapter delay on Friday. Exactly 96hrs ago.
Not too bad for a non-update week. I'm now at over 20,000 total views across all three sites from day one of my posting PT up until now. My FFN view count is also over 15,000 hits! How awesome is that?FFN: 1139 views, 6 faves, 3 followers, and 4 reviews
AO3: 321 views, 8 kudos, and 4 bookmarks
DA: 11 views and 1 fave
Total Results: 1471 views, 15 faves, 7 followers, and 4 reviews
The FFN reviews were the "feel better" comments posted towards the start of this update.
Another odd milestone: I got a religious-based spam review over on FFN. I think the bots only really find your work if you're fairly popular, so... yay?
Catch everyone next week, with hopefully the final chapter of this story! Super exciting!
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| Quick PSA: Please be sure to check in on your neighboring veterans who might be experiencing PTSD during the fireworks this year. |
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