I mean, granted, that's only a little over 4,000 words, and I STILL haven't hit the 10,000 word mark. Nevertheless, my pathetic show this week is still progress in the right direction. It's still me improving. So... I'll take it.
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| Vash the Stampede from Trigun |
And I don't wanna!!!!
I'm still missing the majority of the story, but hopping to the "fun bits" and then threading them together later seems to be the trail I'm following this go. What kills me the most about all of this was that I spent MONTHS trying to build an outline so I could just blast through this year's NaNo. What happened!?
Thankfully, I do have the weekly writing sprints to help me out. Having those two hours dedicated to just writing without any sort of other distraction is what I need. I really should have done these at home throughout the rest of the week too. Even if it's just one or two more days a week. However, with Zumba and football and date night... I don't really have other evenings to dedicate to writing.
Which, among the other reasons I noted thus far this month, is yet another reason why this year's NaNo is rough for me. I just can't re-organize my new life schedule to include writing. And that kills me.
I have always been amazed by authors who balance writing with parenting. However, with just the slightest add-on to my moderately few out-of-work hours, and how much that's kicking my butt, I have a new level of appreciation for the time management parents have to possess.
Part of the problem - as it almost always is - happens to be that Hubby and I really enjoy the same shows, and it kills him that he has to wait for me for most of the programming he wants to watch. For instance, the third season of "The Seven Deadly Sins" was released on Netflix a few weeks back. We got into the anime when it came out in 2014. When "season 2" came out later that year - although it felt like a year later - we were super excited, only to be bummed that it was just a 4-episode transition between season 1 and the actual season 2. We apparently had to then wait four years for the ACTUAL next season to come out. Although, I have to say I thought we watched this show in 2016, not 2014... but I know we watched it the year it came out.... I'm becoming so old that years blend together now...
My point being that it was either a two year, or a friggen FOUR YEAR, wait for us to get the next season of "The Seven Deadly Sins." We already delayed watching it because season 3 of "Daredevil" came out on the same day, and Hubby watched the dark re-imagining of Sabrina in "The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" so I could at least pretend to write while he's watching that.
In truth, I kind of want to watch that series too, but I was on the fence enough to let Hubby watch it on his own while I was off doing other things.
But Hubby was getting antsy. He knew I'd be bummed if he watched SDS without me, but he didn't really want to wait much longer. Especially when he knew my sister watched it already and would probably want to talk about it during our Thanksgiving visit. So we watched the season. It kept a few days to do so, which is quite a few days to not be writing.
Panda also asked us to watch "Bohemian Rhapsody" with her on Friday. We were planning a date night to watch it anyway, so we happily accepted the offer. Another night knocked out.
Seriously, this week was probably one of the busiest after-work schedules I've had in a little while. Yet it was one of the slowest work weeks, so thankfully that's where I was able to make up ground. It does also explain why I wasn't able to break 2000 words any of the days I did write. Not having much writing time does that....
As I promised last week, I did manage to write at least enough to not be as embarrassed to share my NaNo calendar again. I just wish I could blot out Week 2...
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| Calendar designed by David Seah Get yours at DavidSeah.com/Productivity-Tools |
Can I take some comfort knowing that I did a lot of writing outside of my NaNo work? Or should I be more irritated because it meant I COULD HAVE written my story?
To be fair, the writing I did outside of OatS this week was easy enough to do while watching the TV show or football games, because none of it was fiction narrative. I was mostly just chatting into the void that is Tumblr via posts. They didn't take a lot of extra thought or brainpower, so having a divided attention was fine. Writing narratives though? You need full concentration really.
Still... it WAS quite a bit of writing.
Most of said writing was because of a Tumblr game I was tagged in by Hari-Writes. It's a simple game. You just list the titles of all of your Works-In-Progress - WIPs - without any sort of context. You then tag other writers you know on Tumblr so they can play the game as well. And then you wait. While part of the fun is to see which of your friends will join in and share their list of WIPs, the main fun of the game is that you also request your followers to ask you about the title(s) that intrigue them.
I got an ask from both Cyhyr and ChibiSunnie; always my faithful cheerleaders. I'll get to those asks in a moment, but first, if you also want to know about my current WIPs, you can check out my updated Tumblr post here: WIP tag game. I had to update since I forgot some WIPs my original go...
I knew I had quite the stack, but since I only ever really focus on one at a time - and the rest are plot bunnies I haven't gotten to yet, or side projects I drift from - I forgot how many I truly had. I'm sure I've forgotten some more, but my list of WIPs for the Tumblr post was 22 long! Granted, about five of those are probably now dead projects, but you never know...
Alright, so back to Cy. She must have only just started reading my blog recently, because her ask was "What's 'Glitches'? How did I miss this?"
How indeed? As of this writing, I have 17 posts with the Glitches tag, prior to coming up with the name "Glitches" I had posts talking about this project tagged with X-Future Reboot, and there's 21 of those, although 2 of them overlap when I first started referring to the reboot as "Glitches."
I really don't know how she did miss that.... Unless it was all a rouse, and she wanted me to promote my most well-developed original story???
Either way.... I went down the rabbit hole, and brought my followers with.
I answered that ask by stating the broad strokes of the project: it's a re-working of the X-Men universe into an original setting so I could utilize the OCs from X-Future. I then went into the world history I had figured out thus far. If you want to read my full 2156-word response to Cyhyr, you can check it out here: ASK: What is Glitches?
The real trouble of Cy asking about my original story is that I wasn't satisfied just talking about the history of the world I was developing. I didn't even touch upon the characters I'd be playing with. So I briefly did so in the next two posts. And by briefly, I mean "I talked about their powers."
You may remember that in the past I've talked here about the categorizing I did of the Glitches' powers. I figured it would be natural for the governments within that world to want to pigeonhole the Glitches, and it had the added bonus of me - as the author - also having a way to categorize them, and try to keep a bit of a world consistency. I called the location of this international listing of powers the GRID - Glitches Identification and Registration Database.
Well, after introducing the GRID briefly in my response to Cy's ask, I felt I'd demonstrate it a bit. I did two different posts on the subject: one for the adult Glitches that I had adapted from X-Men canon characters, and then one for my teenage Glitches; the OCs from X-Future.
If you want a refresher on everyone's powers and how they'd be placed on The GRID, you can check out the posts here:
The GRID (part 1) - Adult Characters
The GRID (part 2) - Teen Characters
I pretty much spent FIVE HOURS on Thursday finding my research and writing all of that up! Almost my entire day off - with Hubby out of the house working an 8hr shift, so I had no distractions from cleaning or writing - was spent answering an Ask that Cy couldn't possibly know would send me over the edge.
Whoops....
Poor Chibi was nervous that she'd do the same - send me on a tangent that kept me from working on OatS - but she wanted to also ask me about one of the titles she saw on my list. To be fair, this one I haven't really talked about anywhere. It was sort of just brewing under the surface for about a month now.
The story is going to be titled "When Love Matters," and it's going to be a bit more of an experimental fanfiction project. Since I haven't started this project yet, and there really isn't much involved in it, I haven't bothered to talk about it on here... yet. I'm sure that will change once I have the first chapter of it written.
In the meantime, you can find out about "When Love Matters" the same way Chibi did: via my answer to her ask.
ASK: What is When Love Matters?
The answer to Chibi was significantly shorter, but it's still words I spent talking about a project instead of actually working on one.
I've also done a lot of observation and promotion this week. Again, because doing so is a lot easier to do with a split focus than writing narratives.
Watching "The Seven Deadly Sins" again for the first time since I introduced myself to "Miraculous Ladybug," I had a few amusing observations about the fact that there are a lot of shared voice actors. In fact, three of the main cast from ML are main cast members of SDS as well: Bryce Papenbrook, Cristina Vee, and Max Mittelman. In the season Netflix just added - Revival of The Commandments - two more main cast members joined the SDS team: Keith Silverstein and Mela Lee.
- Papenbrook plays Adrien/Cat Noir in ML, and the main character Meliodas in SDS.
- Mittelman plays Plagg in ML, and King in SDS - one of Meliodas' squad known as the Seven Deadly Sins; hence the show name.
- Vee plays Marinette/Ladybug in ML, and Hawk the pig in SDS; one of Meliodas' companions who is always by his side. Doesn't hurt that Hawk's mom is a giant pig who wears Meliodas' inn - The Boar's Hat - on her head/back.
- Silverstein plays Gabriel/Hawk Moth in ML, and is Monspeet, one of the villainous Ten Commandments in the latest season of SDS
- Lee plays Tikki in ML, and in the latest season of SDS she is another Ten Commandment: Melascula
So, that makes the core cast of ML - Marinette, Tikki, Adrien, Plagg, and Hawk Moth - also key characters in Seven Deadly Sins. I had fun posting musings about these facts on Tumblr. One such musing was how similar Cat Noir and Meliodas are to each other both in character design and rough character build/personality.
I mean....
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| Meliodas from The Seven Deadly Sins (top) Cat Noir from Miraculous Ladybug (bottom) |
With a similar character design and attitude, coupled with the same voice actor, I was afraid that I was going to watch Meliodas thinking "this is just older Adrien LARPing." Essentially "ruining" the show for me.
Instead, while Cristina Vee used a COMPLETELY different voice for Hawk, I had to chuckle whenever the pig tried to prove himself the bravest and strongest out of all the knights. Because all I thought of was Hawk strutting around as Ladybug.
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| Don't focus too much on this. I spent like 10min on it... |
The mental image must have amused a few people because it has 61 notes on Tumblr....
Another amusing observation that seems to have gotten a little bit of love on Tumblr was for the DuckTales reboot. The latest episode has Louie try to get his company off the ground. The problem being that he has no clue what his company should actually DO to make money, and he has no employees to run it. So he recruits Huey and Webby, and they brainstorm what they could do as a service. Webby starts blurting out random items they could sell. Meanwhile, Huey, already 100% done with Louie's nonsense, suggests Louie just sells lemonade like a normal kid.
I have 22 notes on that post from Saturday... so I guess I have my shining moments of humor every once in a while...Huey: “Why don’t you just sell lemonade?”
Louie: “Eh, lemonade is small potatoes.”
Webby: “Oh! POTATO-ADE!”
Me to Hubby: “Isn’t potato-ade just… vodka?”
I had been following "Mr. Lucky and the Cat" since the day it first went up, back in March. As for "Under Lock and Key," I discovered that via EdenDaphne promoting her artwork for the story. ULAK itself started May of 2017, and I jumped on board mid-December. Either way, I had been reading both of these stories on and off for a large portion of 2018. So much so that I figured they should just go on my reading challenge list.
Yes, both are both less than 50,000 words each, but I think they can also represent the words I've read, but not putting on this list. All the still-in-progress fanfics, as well as all the one-shots, should more than make up the "small" word count each of these completed works have.
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| Thus completes my challenge; a month early I might add |
My point is that I loved "Mr. Lucky and the Cat" as well as "Under Lock and Key," so after I was done finishing both stories - on the same day no less - I needed to promote these now completed works. I felt like I owed it to the authors to gush about these stories. I also felt like it helped me a little to express the bittersweet feeling I had having read the last chapters of two stories I enjoyed.
Naturally, I tagged both HariWrites and EdenDaphne as I promoted their stories. Well, Eden apparently couldn't resist gushing back. She reblogged my shout out for her story, with an added "Thank you so much đđđđđ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️"
One can only guess how large her fanbase is, but, thanks to Eden's reblog, my shout out post - as of this writing - has 323 notes. Luckily, I saw that one reblog did note "As for the other story mentioned, that’s one I haven’t read yet but now I have a new story to look forward to reading! Thank you for the recommendation." So, yay! Getting readers for HariWrites! I was kind of hoping something like that would happen: Eden's fans would discover Hari, and if there were any of Hari's fans who didn't know who Eden was; now they do.
I've even picked up 3 new followers this week, bringing me up to 61 people. Not massive, but not too shabby either. I think I'm slowly weaseling my way into the fandom's notice. Which might mean more readers once "One and the Same" is posted.
But first, I should probably WRITE THE DARN STORY, and worry about readership later....
Which brings me full circle to NaNo again.
Naturally I'm a bit bummed with my performance this year for NaNo, and I frequently state so both here on my blog and on my Facebook page. Seeing how down I am about my slacking, both Chibi and Cy have pointed out the amount of non-fictional writing I've been doing this month. You can see above how much I've done in just this week alone. Noting specifically my blog posts and the three-part info-dump for "Glitches" on Tumblr, both women said I should count those words as well. Chibi went so far as to include my analyzing Tumblr posts, and an anecdote I sent her the other night.
I explained to both of them that I want to stick with the original spirit of NaNo, and only count the words I add to my fictional writing. Mainly because that's the hard part. Just chatting with you guys here in my blog? Info-dumping about a world I've been building for years? That's easy. I could do that in my sleep. That's just me being my long-winded self; a bit of an inheritance from my maternal grandfather.
Still, the more the two of them pointed out "every word counts" the more I wondered. Especially when Chibi told me the anecdote I sent her was 1494 words long. Knowing I'm not going to change my official NaNo word count to include anything not written for "One and the Same," I was still curious about how much I really HAVE written...
That's already 9,287 words I wrote in November, but not for OatS. Now for my blog...
- Posts about "The Seven Deadly Sins": 695 words
- Observation about "DuckTales": 34 words
- Post about my WIP "When Love Matters": 563 words
- Posts about my WIP "Glitches": 5067 words!!!
- Post promoting fanfics I'm reading: 344 words
- Post promoting my progress on "One and the Same": 373 words
- Facebook posts talking about what I'm thankful for
(I'm way behind; stopping on day 7): 717 words, but this will be lengthened soon- And like I said, the anecdote Chibi counted for me: 1494 words!!!
Another 5573 words!
So, not including the lengthy conversations I've had with Chibi, Jowy's Pixie, and TLOS21, and also not including this week's blog, I have 14,860 words that the ladies think I should add to my overall total. Like I said above, I'm not going to, but it's fun to know that they'd have my NaNo total be 23,640 words. A touch more than the 8700 I'm actually counting...
Now I'm curious how much I'd add if I included what I wrote for OatS prior to November, but I've lost track of what I have and have not written this month. I do know that, just counting the scenes I haven't touched yet this month, I'd be adding another 11,103 words!!!
If I posted to NaNo all the words I have for OatS thus far, whether or not I wrote them in November, I'd be up to 19,883 words! There's a lot of completed fanfics that aren't that wordy, and I'm not even half-way done with my first draft! OatS will probably be another 80,000 word beast.
So, I HAVE been writing. Just not the "right" things at the "right" time. I guess I can feel a bit better knowing that. I mean, I've already come to terms with the fact that I'm not "winning" this year's NaNo. Although, I am a bit more determined to get my butt in gear now that I have some swag....
As a thank you for donating to NaNoWriMo, the Office of Letters and Light - the name of the non-profit that runs the NaNo organization - sends out some gifts. You can opt out of receiving the gifts so more money is spent on the program. I was tempted to go this route, but I really liked what they were offering.
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| The bracelet says: "The sword with which I slay the beast called doubt." |
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| Cute little pin |
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| This book shaped sticker says: "Optimist. Explorer. NaNoWriMo Writer" |
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| One side of the bookmark from OL&L says "Thank You" across a background of books on a shelf |
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| The flipside of the bookmark with an encouraging "Thank You" message. |
With all of this encouragement around me, how could I fail? I may not be able to finish writing "One and the Same" before November 30th. I may not hit 50,000 words, or even 25,000 words. Although, quick shout out to Cyhyr who surpassed 20,000 words last night...
No. I will most definitely "fail" NaNo this year, but I won't let it defeat me like it did in the past. My newest goal is to just have the first draft of OatS done before the close of 2018. That way I can still start the editing in January, and have it polished enough to start posting in March.
That, and to enjoy my time with my loved ones.
So, to all of my American readers...
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