Although... it still feels like winter here. There's bursts of nice, warm-ish weather, but it gets cut through by wicked-cold winds. As I'm writing this post, I'm huddled under a fleece blanket, a thick flannel one, and my.... well, I don't know if it's an official Snuggie, but it's a blanket with sleeves....
It would be reeeeeeaaaaaally nice if spring legit showed up sometime soon. I hate being cold all the time.
A comic book artist I follow - Linda Luksic Sejic - started up a side-project-that-is-soon-becoming-an-actual-comic-series called Punderworld a few months back. It's her take on the Greek myths centered around Hades and Persephone. With that mindset, she thinks she figured out why it's still cold all over the world, even though the northern hemisphere is SUPPOSED to be warming up.
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| I love that smug look on Hades' face. These two are adorable when interpreted as actually having a mutual love between them. |
Anyway, Linda is awesome, and you should both support her and check out her work. So, here are her links: Sigeel's Tumblr and her DeviantArt account. She's working on creating a Patreon to fund turning Punderworld into a legit comic book series, so feel free to take a peek at that as well.
I need to check my own finances, but I'm hoping to at least become a $1 tier backer, or something along those lines. It may not be much, but at least I know I'm supporting an artist I enjoy for a work I LOVE.
Anyway, back to me!
As per usual for me lately, "life got in the way," and my chapters for "Prescription for Love" were delayed. Instead of an "every three days" schedule, I was on more of an "every four, five, maybe six days" schedule.
At least I still updated once - usually twice - a week.
Anyway, last Tuesday, I went to go see "Captain Marvel" with Skarabrae-stone, which meant I wasn't home to finish the 8th chapter of PfL. Why didn't I finish it between publishing last week's blog post and going to the movie?
Honestly? I don't remember. I have no clue what I did with my day, and I again slacked off with my time audits. Do we now know WHY I have to do them? If I keep wasting my days and forgetting what it is I even did? I need the calendar as much for accountability as I do for my pathetic memory.
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| Knives from the Scott Pilgrim comic books by Bryan Lee O'Malley |
"Prescription for Love: Chapter 8"
The story was technically up on the 20th, and so I was aiming to have the 9th and final chapter up 3 days later: on Saturday the 23rd. That didn't happen either.
I was distracted at work on Thursday, and after was the first official "Omnibladestrike Thursday Visits" meet-up. He has a new job, and it means he's not really available on weekends anymore. Over the past couple years, we've tried to have a weekly meet-up with him where we could watch some bizarre anime or play games together. It was originally on Sundays since I get out of work at 4, and it would give us the most time to hang out. Then football started up, so we shifted to post-6pm on Saturdays.
But Omni doesn't have weekends any longer, and we don't want to lose our weekly meet-ups, so we're trying for Thursday Evenings now. He really wants to get back into little "writing meet-ups" were we can pow-wow and discuss our WIPs; really help him brainstorm so he stays excited about his project. We also don't want to give up on our anime-watching since we have about four different series going. Omni has a character attached to our Switch version of Diablo III, so we HAVE to find time to still run around and kill demons... Plus, there's tons of board games Hubby wants to try out with Omni, and more games where Omni is part of a Legacy campaign.
So my Thursday nights are pretty booked up, and we'll probably cram as much in as possible until Omni feels like he has to drive home before he passes out.
Needless to say, I didn't do any writing on Thursday. Did a bunch of reading though. I'll get to that later.
Friday I had off, and could have easily worked on my chapter. However, it was a rare Friday that Hubby was also off, so it turned into Clean The Apartment day. I would rotate between cleaning for an hour or two and relaxing for an hour, that way I wouldn't feel overwhelmed.
One hour was for food and hanging out with Hubby, but most of those "relaxation" hours were used sprawled out on my bed reading. My lower back was really cramping up, and it helped to just sprawl.
Wolfhearted showed up that evening, and we watched the latest episode of ML. I loved it. Wolf was "meh" about it. Mainly because it was a good old "mind wipe" episode.
For those of you who didn't click, just know that I loved the episode, so after Wolfhearted left, I spent the next FOUR HOURS flipping through Tumblr for posts on this episode. Now, keep in mind that the episode came out on Monday, the 18th. I had waited five days to watch it. So that was roughly a week's worth of posts I've been avoiding so I wouldn't see spoilers. I didn't even go into the episode tag. I just scrolled through the people I follow.
There were about 12 or 13 people who had posted ML content in reference to the episode. Most were quick gif sets, short reactions, or fanart. Simple to see the post and move on.
IT. STILL. KEPT. ME. FOUR. HOURS!!!!
A lot of people also enjoyed the episode it seems. From a fanfic writer's perspective, I loved it because it showed me so many new facets of Adrien's and Marinette's personalities, along with Tikki and Plagg. I found out more about the world ML takes place in. It showed me possibilities. It will be a great episode to go back to for reference material.
Anyway, that was my Friday night.... so no working on PfL. That is, until I went to bed. To try to calm my mind and lull myself to sleep, I mentally tell myself a story. It helps my mind focus on one insignificant thing until it can turn off.
To make up for my slacking, and knowing that I wanted to post the next chapter by Saturday, I started mentally working out how to conclude my story... and then I drifted off to sleep.
Saturday I figuratively cracked my knuckles and focused on the story. I was doing fairly decently. I had the chapter written by about 10pm that day. I just couldn't stay focused enough to edit. Especially since Disney channel was airing "Moana." I really enjoy this movie, and that climactic scene between Moana and Te Kā? Gives me chills EVERY time I see it.
If you haven't watched Moana, I advise that you don't watch the below clip until you do, because you don't want to ruin the impact of the ending. However, if you HAVE watched it before, just re-watch the song "Know Who You Are" and tell me you don't get chills!
I just wish I could have found a clip that started a weeeee bit sooner so you also had that single flute intro and walk down to the ocean. That's the part that really gives me chills. And the line "they have stolen the heart from inside you" is so powerful I'm tearing up again just writing it out.
UGH! I just wish Frozen hadn't overpowered this movie. Moana is so underrated. The music is fantastic, the visuals are stunning, the comedy is great, and there is NO romantic love interest in the whole movie, for anyone.
Anyway, I'm going on a tangent here. My point is that Moana is amazing, and even the less-than-amazing scenes, like with Tamatoa, still give us fantastic cover songs....
I really enjoy this man's covers, and, honestly, I think this version sounds more on-brand with Lin-Manuel Miranda than the actual movie version. He also did this nice cover of "How Far I'll Go."
Sooooo, yeah, that was Saturday. I knew I should have focused. I knew I wanted to post that day. I knew I COULD post that day if I focused. I watched a movie and snuggled a husband instead....
Whoops....
SUNDAY! Sunday at work I could just do the edits. That's it. Easy. I could post the chapter around 4pm after I got home. I'd still be late, but it wouldn't be all that bad. I mean, I was almost two days late for the previous chapter. I had this!
Until I didn't.
I'm not sure why, but as I was unpacking my netbook at work so I could work on those edits, I also pulled out my red notebook I keep my Miraculous Ladybug notes in. I decided to update my notes in the back of the book. I keep a running list of akumatized supervillains and their motivation while akumatized. Things like Zombizou wanted to spread "love" like a zombie virus, or Dark Owl wanted to get rid of LB and CN so he was the only superhero for Paris, or Simon Says wanted to hypnotize Gabriel in order to humiliate him, or Despair Bear wanted to prove that he could control Chloe afterall. Stuff like that.
It kept me like five minutes to write down the seven akumatized supervillains shown thus far in season 3. However, when I got to Backwarder - the episode that spawned PfL - I had a lightning flash of inspiration. I'll talk a bit more about that later. The point now is that I worked on that side project - to my already side project of PfL instead of working on "One and the Same" - instead of editing my final chapter.
Whoops again.
So I tried to hide myself away when I got home, that way I could FINALLY get the story done and posted. Well, between grocery shopping, eating dinner, and realizing the chapter I had written Saturday needed more help than I originally thought.... I didn't post chapter 9 until nearly 11pm!
Oh well, at least it DID get posted. I also received reviews pretty much within the hour, so YAY for fans having my story on an alert of some sort.
If you haven't had a moment to finish off my story, you can get to the final chapter below.
"Prescription for Love: Chapter 9"
Just a reminder that you can also use the above links to get to the story, and then use the chapter select, or "More From Lycorogue" to the right of the chapter on DA, in order to get to the first chapter if you've missed this story up until now.
Gladly, not many seemed to have missed this "little" story, at least, when looking at the grand scheme of my readership. As of this posting, here are my stats for this story as a whole.
This is my 5th-most reviewed story on FFN, which has a total of 29 works posted there, starting as far back as Aug 2010. Comparatively, I have posted 21 stories over on AO3 since I started that up last year, and PfL is the second-most commented on story. “Peeping Tomcat” still has top billing. "Woven Heartstrings" is a close third: 47 comments on PfL and 46 on WH.FFN: 3,860 views, 20 faves, 30 followers, and 22 reviews
AO3: 1,742 hits, 97 kudos, 9 bookmarks, and 22 comments
DA: 78 views, 5 faves, but no comments on any chapter
Total Results: 5,680 views, 122 faves, 39 followers, and 44 reviews
Tumblr Notes: 86 total; 83 likes and 3 re-blogs
So, basically, my multi-chaptered Miraculous Ladybug stories are my main draw.
Now, sadly, I can't filter my works through any other categories on FFN, and I don't want to take the time to go through each story to manually calculate the order. Especially since this update is already half-a-day late. However, I CAN filter through other categories over on AO3....
- KUDOS: PfL is in third, behind PT and WH, in that order, for most kudos on a story.
- BOOKMARKS: PT and WH are still the top two, but my "Hey, Arnold!" one-shot "I Thought You Liked Redheads" squeaks in at 3rd with 11 bookmarks, leaving PfL in 4th with 9.
- HITS: Once again, PT is number 1 with 8826 hits. WH comes in 2nd with 3219. PfL falls into the number 3 slot again with 1739 hits.
You never know where inspiration comes from.
Speaking of! As I mentioned above, on Sunday I tackled a plot-bunny that was brewing in my mind for a month now. It all actually started thanks to Taurus Pixie and her blog. About a month ago, Pixie posted her review of Backwarder, and within that review, Pixie had this paragraph.
The Plot Bunny Alert went off in my head, and I instantly took a screen cap of that paragraph so I could look back at it and contemplate; brew the idea in my head.However, this scene raised a lot more questions than it answered. When did Master Fu come to Paris? How did he meet Marianne? How did she come to know about the miraculous? She obviously isn't a guardian as it has been stated a few times that Master Fu is the only remaining one alive. So what made Master Fu trust Marianne with such an important secret? More importantly...just who was after the miraculous back then? We heard someone shout that they had to seize the miraculous. Who was it? Gaaah, so many new questions and possibilities have been opened up for us. I do love a good mystery. I always think the show does a really good job at teasing us and letting us catch glimpses of information to help solve everything that's going on. The lore of this show is always super exciting!
What ARE the answers to those questions? I could have fun trying to figure them out. Then, on Sunday, instead of working on editing my final chapter of PfL, I started working on that plot bunny.
BEHOLD! My version of a (Conspiracy) Yard Board.... Just wait until I can find an empty wall somewhere...
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| Charlie Kelly from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia The man, the meme, the legend... |
There were also the questions of why Fu was in Paris just before the Nazi invasion in the first place, why Marianne wanted to stay and fight, why Fu returned to Paris but didn't seek her out right away, and when did Master Fu start wearing the Turtle Miraculous, along with other such questions.
That's when it hit me. This "story" could actually be a legit spin-off. It would be more dark and mature, given that the main characters - Fu and Marianne - were adults, and were dealing with the rise of the Nazi party and start of WWII. It could be part superhero story, part spy story, part romance, part mystery/suspense, the list goes on.
And as I cracked my tired knuckles about three hours into all of my writing and research and math - to figure out why Fu and Marianne didn't seem to age as fast as normal - I realized something about my idea. Well, I realized two things.
- It was way too much for me to do as a side project. I had already delayed OatS by two months because of "side projects" like WH and PfL. I would have to wait until OatS was done.
- I needed help for this massive undertaking, and who better than the woman who inspired me in the first place? A woman who is a wiz when it comes to historical knowledge, and is almost freakishly fast at writing, when she's at a good mental-health spot.
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| NuaNia FB sticker by PRANEAT |
As much fun as building this concept will be with Pixie, I hope we can keep our steam and balance going long enough to actually complete it; even if it takes a year or so.
Regardless, I still need to finish OatS first, and Pixie needs a vacation from writing until she gets her affairs in better order, and her mind can properly and fully re-charge. We probably won't start it until May at the earliest. Maybe closer to June or July.
We'll probably casually throw What Ifs to each other in the meantime though.
But first! OatS while participating in Camp NaNo!
I had also said above that I had been doing some reading. Yes. It is true. Lots of reading, actually. I managed to read the last third or so of "Armada" by Ernest Cline over the past week. I had meant to read it January. I didn't start reading it until about half-way through February. I didn't finish it until the end of March.
I'm doing real well with this year's reading schedule....
I still haven't even really come up with a To Read list, even though I have a ROOM full of books waiting for me to crack them open. Instead, I've been reading fanfics, fanfics, more fanfics, and... oh hey! Fanfics!
So, new goal. No actual list of completed works. No count of 12 stories. Instead, I'm going for word-count, that way 2000-word fanfics also count, because it's still time spent reading.
Here are my rules:
- I wrote an 80,000+ word novel, and most of the ones I read tend to range between 80,000 and 120,000 words. So I'm going to split the difference and round a novel to about 100,000 words.
- I still want to read the equivalent of 12 novels by the end of the year.
- That means I need to read 1,200,000 words of fiction by 11:59pm on December 31st.
In the meantime, though, I checked on "Armada." It's harder for professionally published works, because they generally don't come with a word count like fanfics do. However, assuming the website ReadingLength.com is accurate, there are 102,950 words in "Armada." What's actually really cool about that site is that it can help you estimate how long it will take to read something. Neat bit of knowledge if you are trying to figure out if it's worth reading, or if you have the time to cram a book into your schedule. Or even if you want to make sure you're packing enough to read for a trip....
I also now know that I average at about 160 words per minute - I am quite the slow reader - and so my next tackling of "Atlas Shrugged" - a book that ReadingLength has listed at 455,300 words - should take me nearly 48hours to conquer. Once you add in that I'll be stopping to take notes so the story is a bit easier for me to sift out, it will probably be about double that length.... And I tend to only manage about 2hrs tops per day for reading, if I read at all.
Anyway, without adding in fanfic word counts, I'm nearly at 103,000 words. It's a start.
Also, while I was kinda close on what the "big twist" for the conclusion of "Armada" was, I was also wrong, and there were a couple other surprises I hadn't predicted. So, Cline did pull off a few "Oh. Neat!" moments within the story.
I don't know what it was, though. Aside from Lex, and another character I won't mention here due to spoilers, I didn't really connect with any of the characters. By the end of the book, the Two Mikes that were the main character's best friends were still indistinguishable for me. There were some moments where you were SUPPOSED to feel for the support characters, but was just kind of "oh. That sucks." I just couldn't empathize with anyone in this novel for whatever reason.
There were also some elements of the story - much like with "Ready Player One" - where you could tell that Cline doesn't quite understand the difference between telling a story via visual media vs. through print media. In other words, it's obvious, for me, at least, that Cline started off as a script writer. The main character Zack didn't have as much Plot Armor on him this go, but there was still a fair amount of Deus ex Machina. At least, what I would consider "well, THAT was convenient" moments. I mean, to be fair, some of it was done on purpose for the mystery of the story, but there are times where the "that was convenient" extended past where it should be; once I thought back on the story as a whole.
All-in-all? The story wasn't for me. I'll stick with "Ready Player One," and perhaps give "Armada" another read when the movie adaptation comes out.
Yup. Another movie adaptation. Like I said, the guy is a script writer by default, so his stories seem to always have a twin movie.
Okay, well, enough bellyaching about Cline's novels, and going on forever about why I don't have progress on my own. This blog post is now 5hrs late, I still have to eat, and I have writing group in less than an hour.
So, I'm waving the white flag here. I'll catch you guys next week. You'll probably just be finishing reading this post by then.
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