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I'm hoping that June will bring more sunshine; banishing my "meh" feelings I've had most of this year thus far. We've had fairly nice weather these first four days of June, so that's a start. I even sat on my front porch writing a couple of times already.
Now, if only the temperature could remember it's June... I started off working on this blog post on the front porch this morning. It was bright out, barely any clouds, and there was a nice, light breeze. The problem was that it was still only about 50-degrees Fahrenheit, I was in the shade of my covered porch, and the light breeze was not a warm one. I lasted about 30min before I lost feeling in my fingers and toes, and I had to come inside. But the blinds are still up so I can enjoy the sunshine...
Eh, it's a start...
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| Hacker Girl Facebook sticker by Birdman, Inc. |
I was too focused on figuring out my car situation last Tuesday to work on anything other than my blog, but I NEEDED to have some fiction written before the end of the month. I couldn't let myself slack off again. I needed to shake myself out of my rut, for fear that I'd never leave it otherwise.
Taurus Pixie had suggested to me last week that I should try writing some Laidren fanfiction, since there isn't really all that much of it out there, and I have yet to really touch that corner of the Love Square. ChibiSunnie also suggested that I could write more Lukanette fanfiction, since that seems to be my jam right now, and it was noted that there isn't very much "good" Lukanette fiction.
While I was too busy on Tuesday to actually start working on my fiction for May, I did take those suggestions into consideration, and tried to mentally come up with a story. Of course, an idea came to me as I was falling asleep.
I had finished off Pixie's birthday gift "I Was Thinking Of You" with the happy couple being discovered by Marinette's friends. I didn't really show any repercussions of the two of them getting together. Specifically, I didn't show what Adrien's reaction would be.
You know how much I love torturing this poor little bean, so of COURSE I had to continue IWTOY to showcase his reaction to discovering Lukanette was a thing. While I may, at some point in the (distant?) future, officially continue IWTOY by adding more chapters to the story, for right now I'm just making a series of short stories within this over-arcing plot.
So, my completed work of fiction for May is a short sequel to IWTOY, exploring Adrien's feelings after discovering Marinette is dating Luka.
You can check out my story at my normal three spots.Summary: Everyone has been acting weird all week, and when Adrien finds out why, he starts acting weird too. It can't all be about Marinette's new beau, could it?
"Acting Weird"
I even posted the full story on Tumblr, since it's only 2600 words: Acting Weird
Now, just because I had figured out the basic premise of this story Tuesday evening, it doesn't mean I actually had the darn thing finished with time to spare! Hardly, actually.
I started working on it on Wednesday, but I only had some sporadic moments at work to shift focus to my writing. Post-work, I got back into Zumba for the first time since my accident, and let me tell you how sore my legs were for the next three days!
My friend Rozsavaria wanted to try out the Zumba class with me, so I dragged her along. My sister-in-law and I also do an hour-long cool-down walk after our Zumba classes. It helps us with preventing cramping from just collapsing after the workout. It also gives us time to just chat and vent to each other. Not to mention, the extra steps doesn't hurt with over-all calorie burning. Anyway, Roz came with us, and the three of us chatted for a bit. By the time I got home it was time for a much-needed shower, some dinner, and just an overall collapse for the close of the evening.
Thursday I had off, but I focused on home-stuff and more car-stuff. For those of you who are wondering, I think the insurance debacle is sorted out, the other driver was deemed mostly at fault, and I have the funds to go fix my car now... in theory... assuming the insurance company didn't majorly low-ball me. I'm dropping the car off at the collision center tonight at least...
Anyway, Thursday evening Omnibladestrike came over for his weekly hang-out and anime watching. Naturally, I wasn't going to run away to write while Omni was over. While I'm sure I could have found time before Omni's visit to write, I just didn't take the opportunity.
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It was a bit of a squeeze, with me formatting and posting between 11:30pm and 11:50pm, but I managed to get the story up on my main three sites before midnight.
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| NuaNia Facebook sticker by PRANEAT |
In the four days that I've had "Acting Weird" up, I've had a nice influx of readers already! Short and sweet, with some Adrien angst, and mention of Lukanette, is my sweet-spot I guess.
Here are my stats as of this writing:
Yeah, you knew that if Pixie had reviewed this story that it had to be its own blockquote. I love how much she puts into her reviews! Makes my heart swell a touch.FFN: 692 views, 11 faves, 7 followers, and 6 reviews
AO3: 221 views, 29 kudos, 1 bookmark, but no comments
DA: 20 views, 2 faves, and 1 comment
Total Results: 933 views, 42 faves, 9 followers, and 7 reviews
Tumblr Notes: 8 likes and 2 reblogs
DA review: <3
FFN reviews:
1. I super love this.
2. I like it! But it kind of feels unfinished?
3. This was awesome! Thank you for sharing it!
4. Yes he does... blind cinnamon roll! Thanks for writing and stay Amazing!
5. This is an interesting approach. You should continue it.
6. Taurus Pixie's review; see below
Haha, I think I may have broken Pixie slightly.... Sorry, girl!Taurus Pixie:
*slams head against table*
UGH! ADRIEN! WHY MUST YOU BE SO DENSE AND INFURIATING?!
Ahem...sorry about that. That boy is seriously gonna break me one day, I just know it. You managed to capture his infuriating obliviousness and naivety perfectly in this fic. It was also great seeing everyone interacting at school and just have a normal day with no threats or akumas. It makes for a nice, peaceful and casual read. And of course it was amazing seeing the references to Lukanette. Everyone was very in-character which just made it even more awesome.
You never fail to blow me away with your ideas and talent. I'm sorry about your writing slump though. I know how annoying those can be. Great work as always! Thank you so much for sharing this with us!
Anyway, it's been so nice to see the comments, and watch my faves/kudos/bookmarks and hit counts climb. Not insane numbers in the thousands like a lot of fanfic writers, but still... over 900 hits in 4 days is nice.
Well, since I was able to hit my self-imposed deadline of at least one completed piece of fiction before the end of the month, I needed to hit my next deadline. Specifically, to continue my Meet My OCs series on Sunday, as I had promised myself.
In case you don't recall, two weeks ago I started up a Tumblr series of posts all dedicated to explaining who my main OCs were, and how I came up with the worlds they inhabit. I had originally intended to just crank them out over the weekend, but then the car accident happened, and I only managed to release the first of the series.
It had introduced what I wanted to do with the series, as well as explain the real-world inspiration for my worlds Gyateara and "Glitches". I then came back last Monday - having sucked at life and neglected to get the post done by Sunday's end - and posted the second part of my multiple-post series. That one broke down the real-world inspiration that produced my four Gyateara characters: Amara Yori, Jolene Crisslebalm, Natalie, and Connor.
Well, I wanted to get back on track, and have Part 3 of my series posted this Sunday. What I didn't take into consideration, however, is that I have a LOT more characters for Glitches, and they are much more developed with a lot more real-world influence.
I had written the post in Word since it was easier to see everything that way, and I had save features. The complete post ended up being 9 pages long! It kept me nearly the full 8hrs that Hubby was at work for me to write! A touch more epic than I had intended, plus, I think Tumblr has a word cap for their posts, and I didn't know if that would surpass it.
What really killed me, though, was that I had forgotten to manually hit save for an hour of writing. My laptop didn't give me the normal "your battery is dying, bro" pop-up warning, and with my sunglasses on outside I apparently didn't notice the screen dimming to save power. I just so happened to glance at the clock and noticed the battery icon nearly empty. I raced inside to plug my laptop in when it had something like 10min of battery life left. In my frantic scrambling to gather everything up and bring it into the apartment I didn't notice that Word ended up crashing on me. Which meant I only had my last save to use.... I had lost an hour of work. Joy.
So good at life, you guys.
Anyway, I was still able to finish writing up my post, and split it in two. Then came the struggle of formatting everything for Tumblr. I guess Tumblr got rid of its line-breaks, which sucks because they looked so much nicer than a series of dashes.
I had tried shifting everything I had written into HTML in order to format with header-sized fonts and line breaks and indents and bullet points within numbered points and... none of it worked properly. I must have spent an hour working on the coding, but when I previewed what I had done it never looked the way I wanted it to.
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| Knives from the Scott Pilgrim comic books by Bryan Lee O'Malley |
ANYWAY! I got them done and up before midnight. Cutting it close again, but technically hitting my deadline.
Whoo! Technicalities!
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Yesterday I took a break from writing, and instead tried to focus on reading again. Last week I saw a Tumblr post showcasing a bookstore that had a bookcase display set up to suggest books based on the potential reader's gaming tastes. Things like "If you like to play Call of Duty: Black Ops (Zombies), then try World War Z by Max Brooks" or "If you like playing Sid Meier’s Civilization, then try A Game Of Thrones by George R. R. Martin" or, my favorite because of how tongue-in-cheek it is, "If you like playing Mario Party, then try Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins."
Now, I don't know how closely the theme of these books and video games truly relate, but I figured I'd give some of the suggestions a try. Out of the list of 31 books, there were 3 games/franchises that I really enjoyed. So I figured I'd give these books a try.
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| If you liked "The Legend of Zelda," then try "Graceling" by Kristin Cashore |
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| If you liked "Fable," then try "The Young Elites" by Marie Lu |
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| If you liked "Portal," then try "House Of Stairs" by William Sleator |
Honestly, I'm not expecting much, especially based on the back cover blurbs. They seem like interesting stories, but trying to equate them to the games they're paired with feel like stretches.
The big thing with the Portal/House of Stairs pairing is that both involve a person - persons, in the book's case - trapped inside a strange building with no knowledge of how they got there, and I'm assuming puzzles need to be solved to leave?
"The Young Elites" has a main character who, after childhood tragedy, may have fantastic power and the potential to become a villain as much as she could become the hero. I can see how that might relate to "Fable."
"Graceling" though? The premise is that the main character Katsa has a "Grace" - which is kind of a mutation of preternatural skill - and her Grace is for killing; a power she can't stand. She then pairs up with another Graceling; an unlikely match.
I'm about 70pgs in, and I am enjoying the story, but I am NOT feeling "Legend of Zelda" at all while reading it. In fact, the other Graceling Po has a sort of "Aged Up Fanfic Chat Noir" feel to him. Also, based on the story blurbs, "Graceling" might tie in well with "The Young Elites" and "Fable" again, but so far no "Legend of Zelda."
The story IS still interesting to me though, because the Graces truly do feel like mutations. So... maybe some inspiration fodder for Glitches? We'll see.
Anyway, if you're interested in the full list of book suggestions, you can find the post here: Console-free Camping
If you join in on this list, feel free to let me know which game/book pairing you chose, and if you feel like the suggestion was accurate.
Until then, I'll keep up with my own reading, try to get some more writing in, and I'll catch you guys next week.
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