Behold! The Beauty of Arts and Crafts!

I apologize, but before anything else, I have to squee about something. Sorry if you follow my tumblr or already saw this on my personal facebook page, but I have to squee EVERYWHERE about this.

EdenDaphne finished my commission of Willow! I got the email yesterday, and I've been bouncing all over the walls about it since.

Maki Natsuo from Love Lab
created by Ruri Miyahara

Hacker Girl Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc

*Ahem* Anyway, without further ado, EdenDaphne's drawing of Willow:

Comparatively, let's check out what I was able to come up with over the years....

So much Willow! I love it! I love it! I love it!

I was also a bit impatient when I got the line-art for Willow about a week or so ago, so, while I was bored at work, I decided to try my own hand at coloring her. Considering I was on my phone and using one of those pens with the stylus on the back, I don't think it's all that bad....

The shoes got a bit derpy because I hit the
bottom edge of the screen while re-doing
the line art.

Clearly Eden's coloring was better - her shoes actually look like sneakers while mine look like they belong in a bowling alley - but again, I don't think I did too shabby considering it's the first time I ever attempted to color on a cell phone.... Also, I'm impressed with the way I was able to make Willow's belt sparkle, and how I streaked her hair.

Anyway, if you couldn't tell, I'm beyond excited for this! Now to save up another $70, and wait for Eden to open commissions again, so I can have another one of My Girls drawn.... who next time though? Trish, Lia, Amara, or Jolene? Maybe Lia. Poor girl hasn't really had any love in the past two years. Amara's on the same boat, but I need to solidify where all of her scars are first so Eden knows if she has to have any showing....

Eden wasn't the only one crafting though, and coloring my line-art preview of Willow wasn't the only crafting *I* did.

ChibiSunnie hasn't had a very good year, loves penguins, and is always so kind as to draw me a birthday and a Christmas card each year. I wanted to do something for her in return. So I spent about a week or so crocheting. The beak and eyes look kind of wonky on this poor thing, but otherwise I'm happy with it.

The scarf is detachable, just wrapped
around and knotted in place like
a real scarf.

I had used transitional blue yarn - it went from the light blue of the face to the dark blue of the eyes - but the craft didn't use enough of the yarn for it to ever really transition. The flippers/wings are a slightly darker shade, but that's it....

I don't know if Chibi gave her penguin a gender, but she named it Chibird, after the inspirational artist we both follow on tumblr. Mostly because Chibird compiled her artwork into a book called Loading Penguin Hugs, which I also gifted Chibi for Christmas, and the penguin on the cover is blue.

You can get your own copy of
Loading Penguin Hugs on Amazon.

It really is an adorable book, and comes with stickers! It's less than $10, so why not give it a look and see if it's a nice pick-me-up/stocking stuffer for yourself or someone you know? Spread the love.

Anyway, you guys don't come here every week to see arts and crafts per se. You're here mostly to find out more about my writing, correct?

Well, guess what? I did that too! Quite a bit, actually.... 4616 words worth. Which is more than any week during this year's NaNo... Figures.

I kept getting flashes of the last chapter for "One and the Same." Basically, it's this closing to the “Peeping Tomcat” mess/epic that made me want to write this sequel in the first place. I instantly thought how perfect it would be if that final scene paralleled "You've Got Mail": they'd be in the park outside Marinette's home, Adrien would walk up, Marinette would see Plagg and tear up as she realizes Adrien and Chat Noir were the same person that whole time, Adrien would dab her tears away and tell her "Don't cry, Ladybug," and they'd live happily ever after.

Well, fret not, readers who are probably mad that I dropped a spoiler like that without warning, because.... well... the ending took a... shall we say DIFFERENT turn.

What I'm about to say may be a bit obvious, but technically there's spoilers ahead centering around what should be the climactic tension of OatS. So feel free to breeze by if you don't want even slight hints....
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Anyway, the "You've Got Mail" ending, while sweet and the whole inspiration for OatS, just made Marinette forgive Adrien/Chat Noir too easily. What's the point of climatic tension if it's resolved simply because Chat Noir was Adrien the whole time? How could Marinette be instantly okay with Chat Noir's spying in PT upon realizing "Oh, it was Adrien!"? It was too shallow. Too quick. It sent the wrong message. There were all sorts of red flags.

I kept thinking "Maybe if Marinette found out about Chat Noir's spying as the mid-point, it would give me the second half of the book to rebuild their trust." I mean, the whole point of YGM is that Kathleen hated Joe, but he managed to regain her trust and friendship before she ended up falling in love with him. It would work, and maybe one day I'll write another take, another reason why Marinette would be mad at Chat Noir, so it fits YGM like I wanted. But this story doesn't seem to want to take that direction.

What could be a higher tension point then Marinette finding out everything that happened in PT? I had originally written a plot skeleton where Marinette does indeed ask for Chat Noir's ring back since she can't trust him as an ally, and then Master Fu talked her into giving it back. It got too messy though. First and foremost, how was she going to take back his ring without finding out who he was? If she had him give back the ring, and therefore reveal himself as Adrien to her, how would she react? How would she be around Adrien from that point on?

It just.... the story took a dark turn. A fun turn. One I might explore in a different fanfic, but it just wasn't the direction I wanted OatS to go.

So I was back with the dilemma that Marinette was too forgiving of Chat Noir too soon. Plus, the girl is intelligent, so the fact that she didn't figure out who Chat Noir was before Plagg revealed himself felt wrong for me.

That's when I got those sparks for the final chapter. Basically, Marinette wondered why, if Chat Noir knew Ladybug was Marinette the whole time, did he keep pushing Marinette to confess her love to Adrien? It didn't add up for her. Until it did.

That was supposed to be the ending. She figured it out, and then her and Adrien would have talks about the whole thing. It really helped me with the whole "If they fought because she didn't want to know who Chat Noir was, why did Adrien show up to their date with Plagg in full view for her to know who Chat Noir was?" problem. He didn't randomly decide to tell her anyway, she figured it out and confronted him! Boom!

The problem was, the moment she figured it out was too good of a stopping point. I couldn't continue the chapter. My readers need a week to freak out at me, and I'm evilly waiting for that week with building anticipation.

So what I thought was my final chapter turned out to be the penultimate chapter. How do I keep doing that? The same thing happened to PT. I keep going into what I think is the last chapter, only for the characters to be like "Eeeeeh.... we actually have a LIIIIITTLE bit more story to tell."

And therein lies my current problem. Up until this chapter I've been fairly good at ping-ponging the story. It's in Marinette's first-person POV, the next chapter is in Adrien's, then back to Marinette, then back to Adrien, etc. However, the final chapter - when Marinette deals with the emotions of discovering her partner and the boy she's been pining for are the same guy - SHOULD be in her POV, shouldn't it? But the previous chapter - when she all but proved that Adrien is Chat Noir - HAS to be in her POV. Do I give up my formatting at the very end of the story and have two Marinette chapters in a row? Do I switch over to Adrien, giving them equal number of chapters to tell the story, and keeping the formatting? What about Marinette's insight though? Do I go real avant-garde and ping-pong first person POV within the chapter? Using line breaks and names to signal to the reader that the POV just switched? Do I conclude with the same scene being played twice: one chapter with Adrien's POV, and then the same scene retold in the next chapter via Marinette's POV?

I JUST DON'T KNOW!!!!!!
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OKAY, EVERYONE, THAT SHOULD BE THE END OF THE SPOILERS!
YOU CAN STOP SCROLLING BY NOW!

If you skipped that whole chunk, the spoiler-free long-and-short is Things Got Messy In The First Draft Of The Final Chapter; Now I Have POV Issues.

I don't know whose story the final chapter is. Should I be in Adrien's head at the conclusion of the story, letting him tell the audience what happened? Should I be in Marinette's head and have her tell everyone how things went down? Do I go a bit experimental and ping-pong between them within the chapter itself?

What I THOUGHT was going to be the final chapter turned out to be a 2400-word penultimate chapter, which will be lengthened because it needs a proper opening. I sort of just jumped in mid-action without any context because *I* know the context, and I wanted to get the meat of the chapter out of my head first.

That chapter ended up adding one more loose end to tie up so I could conclude this thing.

Oh, and by the way, don't get too excited. I'm still jumping all over the place with this story. I have yet to write most of the middle.

Anyway, with this final chapter - or what should be the final chapter, unless the characters throw me off a second time - I don't know which direction to go. There's a lot there that I want to be in Adrien's head for, but I always pictured the final chapter needing to be told through Marinette's eyes. While there's a lot going on with Adrien, OatS was supposed to be Marinette's story for the most part. She's the one who has to be hit with a bunch of stuff: the repercussions from "Peeping Tomcat", feelings being torn between Adrien and Chat Noir, the struggle between wanting to know who CN is vs the need to keep identities secret, etc.

Not really sure where to go and not wanting to end my momentum, I decided to just break format and write the final chapter in third person. Hop into whomever's head I need. Then, once I'm done with the chapter, I'll go back and see who was the one really telling that chapter, and rewrite using that person's first person POV.

Problem is.... 2200 words in and I'm still torn. Adrien seems to be bogarting the chapter, but there are still crucial bits of info that only Marinette would know. Plus, I still want her reaction to everything....

I'm seriously leaning towards ping-ponging 1st person POV in the final chapter, and just make sure I transition well enough and have their voices distinct enough that it won't get confusing.

In the meantime, it's fun emotionally torturing these poor kids. I'm a horrible human being.

OH! Speaking of torturing these little beans, Jowy's Pixie has a new story up! She actually gifted it to me and three other friends of hers: TLOS21, ChibiRinni, and oh-calliope! How cool is that!? We have a STORY as a Christmas gift from her? Soooooo coooooool!

Maki Natsuo from Love Lab

created by Ruri Miyahara

What's really the most awesome thing about it is the fact that she's writing it based on the 12 Days of Christmas. So each day, for twelve days, she's posting a new chapter of her story. Let's say that again.

EACH DAY

A NEW CHAPTER

FOR TWELVE DAYS STRAIGHT

How amazing is that? Such a quick turn around! Bravo to her. If you're at all in the fandom, feel free to give this girl some love:

Twelve Days of Chatmas

Christmas is fast approaching, and Chat Noir is determined to get Ladybug the perfect gift. The problem is, they all keep going disastrously wrong. Will Chat Noir be able to find Ladybug the perfect gift in time?

I just adore this story. If you know anything about the Miraculous Ladybug chibi episodes on YouTube, know that Pixie writes TDoC the way the chibi episodes SHOULD be written. I'm just gobbling this story up and loving that daily email telling me the next chapter is live.

Oh, and speaking of Christmas, next Tuesday does fall on Christmas itself, so I'm not sure if I'll have my post up as per usual. It may be up Monday night, or written ahead of time and scheduled for my normal post time, or I may work on it Wednesday instead.

So, if you haven't yet, why not check out that right panel of my blog? There's a spot there for you to sign up for email alerts, or you can drop me in your RSS feed... assuming people still use those.

Alternatively, you can follow me on Twitter or on Tumblr. I'm @LycoRogue in both spots. I do tend to fall a bit behind with my promotions lately, unfortunately. Priority is to get the post up, and then get errands done. If I don't have time between those two my promotional posts tend to be late.

So those email alerts are probably your best bet. I have nothing to do with those, they're all computer generated, so you KNOW they'll be on-time.

Anyway, until... some time next week.