Chatting With My Zan

Heeeeeeey, guess what?

It's raining again....

Haruhi Suzumiya from
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
created by Nagaru Tanigawa 

I think we had a grand total of four hours of sunshine this whole week. I was outside washing down my porch furniture during some of it... and then promptly got pummeled by rain out of nowhere. It was sunny. There was a distant thunderclap. Rain came splashing at me. The worst part is that I have a covered porch, and I was pressed up against the outer wall of my apartment. Under normal circumstances, I could enjoy the energy being outside in a sun-shower gives me, but the winds were so bad I was STILL getting drenched. Worst yet was that I had my laptop outside with me so I could watch YouTube videos while I was cleaning, so I had to quickly scoop that up and sprint inside before it got too wet.

Yaaaay.... Raaaaain....

My one coworker says her yard might as well be a swamp or a moat at this point, and, frankly, I believe her. It's getting quite pathetic out there...

It's getting quite pathetic in here as well...

Yet another week where I didn't really do much of anything. Not a single word was added to "One and the Same," nor have I worked on yet ANOTHER side project.

Well... almost....

Friday I was quite surprised to see someone's name in my Facebook messenger list. Someone who either hasn't been on FB in a while, or at least hasn't been on the same time I have been in MONTHS.

This guy:

The Wonder Twins, as designed by Hanna-Barbera

Yup, I was able to chat with my Wonder Twin Ronoxym, and he reminded me that, just like Jayna, I truly do need my Zan in my life. It's great to just sit and chat with him. We were actually on messenger together for HOURS on Friday, which was FANTASTIC after months of radio silence.

Stupid adulting...


It was just great to be goofy with him, and to vent to him, let him vent to me, catch up on what's going on in each of our lives, and just go on and on and on about both "Game of Thrones" and "Avengers: Endgame."

Among all of that chatting, three things happened.

One: We jointly came up with a really cool fanfic concept for the MCU, which nagged at me the rest of the day, so I ended up writing up the rough concept outline on Tumblr. It has a major Endgame spoiler built into the concept, so be warned if you wish to check it out.

For those who want to know, but don't feel like reading the whole thing:

The long and short of the story is that Senior Citizen Steve Rogers, going by an alias now, befriends Young Phil Coulson in the 70s or 80s. Steve has aged and changed enough that Phil doesn't know he's talking to THE Captain America, and so this is a way for Steve to fix at least one regret in life: never giving Coulson a chance to befriend his hero. The two become close, with Steve and Peggy becoming surrogate grandparents to Phil, and it is actually Steve himself who inadvertently made Phil such a Cap fanboy. On top of that, it was Peggy who encouraged Phil to join SHIELD in the first place. Steve knew it would lead to Coulson's death, but he couldn't chance preventing Coulson from joining, and potentially never giving the Avengers a reason to unite to defend NYC in the first place. There's a lot more within the skeleton outline I came up with, but that was the meat and potatoes of it....

Anyway, I will most likely not take the time to actually write the thing more than I just did, so if anyone out there is inspired, you're welcome to the concept, just please send me a link once you're done, and a credit for the plot bunny would be nice. Not sure who would see it though, since the Tumblr post hasn't really had much love. The only one who seemed to have seen it was my buddy Skarabrae-stone, but still, the idea is out of my head, and the Plot Bunny has joined its brethren on my Plunny farm. That's enough for now.

Which brings me to the second thing that happened.

Two: I once again lamented my unintentional abduction of his Willow/Devon short story - meant to be only about 5 pages long, at most - which resulted in it being about TWENTY-EIGHT pages long, and sitting in WIP-limbo for almost exactly 4 years.... I admitted I went a bit overboard with the concept. I then expressed my hope that the editing skills and overall story crafting skills I honed slightly since I started work on “Peeping Tomcat” would be enough for me to re-focus "Please, Let Me Explain". This whole editing project is next up on my list once OatS is done.

As I discussed my need to go back and edit PLME so we could get back to writing and finishing it, I also acknowledged that I desperately needed to whittle PLME back down from the monstrosity I created.

To which Ron replied with: "No you don't. It'll be long as hell, and beautiful as all get out."

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Ron, you are a beautiful human being!

Those two, simple sentences killed a nagging paranoia that had been in my head for the past 4 years: I took over Ron's story, bloated it way past his initial concept, and now it's so overwhelming he can't/won't work on it, which means I'm responsible for killing his muse/inspiration for this story, and he probably never wants to collab with me ever again because I just bulldoze over my fellow-creator.
Now, not to say any of that is NOT true, to some degree, but the fact that he seems to genuinely enjoy the way the story has gone is a MAJOR weight off my heart. He hasn't continued working on the story because he genuinely has been too busy to think about it, not because he's mad at me or because I killed his muse or what-have-you.

This revelation led me to my third thing.

Three: My overall desire to work on writing projects again jumpstarted.

I opened up PLME again on Saturday, and just sorta skimmed through it. It wasn't as painful a read as I thought it would be, so yay us. Our writing wasn't cringingly bad 4yrs ago! Whoo! It DOES need polishing though, and I more-or-less know how to do that, so it is evident that I DID improve on my skills over the past handful of years, so that's also encouraging. Yay yet again!

I didn't actually start on editing anything, or take notes - aside from mental ones - on where to tighten or adjust, but that initial "let's take a look at this thing for the first time in years" happened, and that's kind of a big step.

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I actually had a DRIVE to do something this week. It didn't really amount to much, but it did start up the gears again. I was motivated to read through PLME so I could get re-acquainted with the story. I wanted to bring up the Devon and Trish fight scene as well so I could finish that rework too. As well as maybe FINALLY come up with a title for the dang project!

I wanted to work on "Glitches" a bit more too, and even thought through some more world-build as I flipped through writing advice and resources on Tumblr.

OH! That reminds me! Random side note: I have a writing-focused blog on Tumblr now. The blog you are currently reading will always be where I talk about how my week went in the world of writing, as well as my over-all writing process and writing progress. It will be where I talk about my struggles of a writer, the joys of the faves and reviews, and promote my latest writing projects. The Rogue's Scribe will always be my main "writing blog." However, I have nearly 1650 Tumblr posts just chilling in my drafts folder to eventually sift through and reblog. At least half of those posts are writing related, but always felt weird to put on my main blog for whatever reason, even though it's a hodge-podge mess anyway. Probably because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to re-find the writing related posts when I need them again.

Anyway, for MONTHS now I wanted to do up a writing-centric Tumblr, and the thing that kept stalling this goal was... you know it... say it with me now...

I couldn't come up with a title for the blog. Which also meant I couldn't think of a handle for it. But I'll get back to this in a moment. For now, let's stay focused on the inspiration sprung from my convo with Ron.

So, still dealing with Happening Number Three: drive to edit. I wanted to work on PLME again. I wanted to rework the fight scene between Devon and Trish. Both stories wanted me to work on Glitches as a whole again. Part of me even wanted to work on world-building Gyateara a bit more. I just had this desire to Create on Saturday.

Sadly, it ended up not really amounting to anything, as I already mentioned, but it was the first time I had the DRIVE to even attempt anything writing-related pretty much all month - this blog not withstanding.

Sunday, that drive was still there, thankfully. So I cracked open my netbook at work for the first time this month, with every intention of writing another scene for OatS. I got a bit side-tracked though. Mainly because I wasn't sure whose chapter the scene should be yet again. I'm STILL having issues with figuring out the final chapter, and writing it in third person to test the waters isn't helping, so I wasn't sure if I should bother with the same tactic with this new scene I've been brainstorming for a little while now.

So I did the only other logical thing: I worked on yet ANOTHER outline for the story. This time I'm breaking down the overall plot into potential chapters, and then designating them to a narrator: Marinette or Adrien. I'm trying really hard to bounce back and forth between them: odd-numbered chapters are narrated by Marinette, and even chapters are Adrien's. With this concept I should be able to see whose turn it's supposed to be when I get to the scene I'm thinking of, as well as see if I need to actually shift things around a little so the chapter can actually be narrated by the other character. It helps me also see their respective character arcs this way.

I didn't get terribly TOO far with the outline before my computer died on me, and I was busy all day yesterday, so I couldn't get back into the outline, but it was still progress.

Teeny, tiny, barely anything, progress, but it's still more than I've done all month, and a step in the right direction. I got my foot through the proverbial door, and that initial push to write shouldn't be so hard anymore.

Plus, between the massive highs and lows of the latest Game of Thrones season, and the literally debatable plot-holes in "Avengers: Endgame," I've been talking about writing in general with a LOT of people lately: Ska, Ron, and Hubby, to name just a few. Talking about what we loved and what we hated with each episode or movie really brings up the questions of "what makes a good story? What is good storytelling? Are character arcs we're watching fulfilling, and why or why not? Is it a great subversion of writing in general if those character arcs don't feel complete? Was plot sacrificed for character growth? Was it the other way around?" There are TONS of storytelling and writing questions these stories present, and the (mostly civil) discord it's causing is FANTASTIC.

Love the episodes, hate them, thought Endgame was the perfect close, or believe the Russo Brothers need to re-learn how to write a solid script; regardless of where you are on the spectrum of feelings with regards to these bits of media, the overall discussion that comes out is awesome. And, frankly, Endgame left a LOT open - on purpose or no - for fantheories and fanfics to develop. Which means awesome content for me to devour.

If nothing else, these fandoms are erupting with their own creatives: fanart, fancomics, fanfiction, and/or fantheories. And these creatives are being used to either correct perceived wrongs in the canon presented in these conclusions to epic tales, or they are expanding upon concepts presented, or they're theorizing on how the canon could make sense.

People are being overly critical with the stories they're consuming, which is a bit terrifying as a writer, but at the same time it is invigorating to see so much discussion about storytelling surrounding me. It helps me see the pitfalls other storytellers are tripping into, so it's easier for me to avoid them in my own works.

Also, I'm in those discussions as well. I'm also being analytical and going into stories with a critical eye. I have my own criticisms for Endgame and Game of Thrones, as well as a few of the anime series that Hubby and I are watching, and even some of the fanfiction I've read this past week.

I won't go into details here as to what pulled me out of the fanfics, because I don't wish to shine a bad light on otherwise beautiful stories. It did help me understand what pulls me out of stories, though, and so I hope it will therefore help me avoid the same pitfalls in my own writing.

Which, I guess, brings me back to that writing tumblr... or... wriblr I believe they're called? Or something like that???

Along with studying the writing trip-ups of other stories, I've also been going through the writing advice I've had saved in my Tumblr drafts section. Mostly so I could finally empty out the drafts by reblogging them to my writing-centric Tumblr.

As I mentioned above, I've wanted to do this for MONTHS - at least since November - but stalled out by not coming up with a good title and/or handle for the new blog. I couldn't use LycoRogue, since that was attached to my main blog: Inside the Tree Trunk

You know, I don't recall if I ever explained the name of the blog. Basically, it's a nod to a D&D campaign Hubby briefly ran. My character Pamela Sheppard - going by the stage name Arianna Snow - had unintentionally charmed a nymph, who instantly became smitten with Arianna. The nymph was also a high priestess for her goddess, and since Arianna wasn't really of a faith at the time, she just sort of shrugged and told the nymph "Yeah, I'll follow your goddess, I guess." The weird pseudo-courtship the two had led the goddess to favor Arianna, and gift her with a magical tree. It grew next to the sacred pool the nymph watched over, and if Arianna knocked on the tree trunk it would open up into an endless trove for anything Arianna wished to hide within it.

So, since my main Tumblr blog is also an endless trove for anything I find value in and wish to save, I figured "Meh, this is my own magical tree trunk." Thus the name...

AAAAAAANYWAY, as I was saying, I couldn't use LycoRogue as my handle. I knew I wanted to somehow include my latest writing mantra - just get the shit on paper; dare to be bad - within the writing blog. I tried naming the blog itself Get The Shit On Paper or Dare to be Bad, but I couldn't use either phrase as my handle; they were already used. Not thinking of alternative names that I enjoyed, I gave up for months.

However, I guess also thanks to my convo with Ron, I finally went "Ya know what? Let's try one last attempt at that handle." This time I changed tenses slightly: Getting Shit On Paper. It's a bit crude, but I also kind of loved it, so that became my handle for my writing blog on Tumblr.

The blog name itself needs some work, but it gets the point across for right now: The Writer's Random Resource Guide, managed by @gettingshitonpaper.

There isn't much up quite yet. I need to find the time to go through all of those drafts - of which, again, there are over 1600! - and start setting up a queue of them. Still, there's SOMETHING up on it right now, so feel free to hit it up if you're on Tumblr and would like a generic resource blog.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to ride this wave while it's active, and work on some of my writing.

Catch ya next week!

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