2021 Starts Off With A Bang

Well then. Welcome to 2021, I guess. Seems 2020 decided to leave a few parting gifts before heading out the door.

How is everyone? This year has been a lot already. Namely, the insurrection in the US as Congress attempted to confirm the votes (yet again) that Biden did indeed win the election and is the next president. It's weird to both be shocked and yet saw it coming a mile away. Like, I was expecting that riot, but I also didn't think it would actually happen???? Especially to the extreme that they were able to manage.

January 20th won't come soon enough, but at the same time, I fear for presidential assassination attempts.

It's gonna be a rough year.

Even before all of that happy goodness, however, my husband and I had another lovely parting gift from 2020: COVID.

We're both fine, and we're allowed to leave quarantine on the 14th, but it certainly was not a fun go. Trying to track down testing in and of itself was a pain, although, the actual test wasn't bad at all. As the one nurse put it "we don't pick your brain anymore; just your nose" and it's a swab just inside the nostril, exactly like they're picking at it. Anyway, the other big issue was that Hubby had COVID, but I came back negative. Which means he had to isolate from me to try to keep me from catching it. Since only the two of us live in this apartment, and I had to quarantine, that meant I was effectively isolating as well; I just had more house to do it in. Fun.

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Well, sadly, it all was for naught. Either I had already caught COVID from Hubby and got a false negative because it was too soon into the incubation, or I caught it soon after because we share a bathroom and the man needs to eat, so we couldn't be 100% isolated from each other 100% of the time.

But, hey, I'm sure the week of sleeping on a loveseat and not being able to hug my husband was totally worth it...

I actually had symptoms about 4 days after Hubby, but didn't get the new test results until yesterday. Whoo! So... yeah, that's more-or-less how we've been spending our first couple of weeks of 2021.

The sad thing is, I was mildly excited about quarantine. I could use the time to start 2021 off right. I'd clean down the apartment. I'd catch up on more fanfics on my To Read list. I'd get my own writing done! Buuut then I was only getting about 2hrs of sleep each night on the loveseat. And my right ear has been clogged since the 3rd, so I've been hearing the world as if I'm under water for over a week. Plus the ear clog has been throwing off my balance so I've been wobbly and light headed and can't really stand for more than 15min at a time. Also, the coughing fits gave me mild headaches. So.... standing for long enough to clean wasn't really gonna work, which means the apartment is more-or-less "don't get worse" with the cleaning than the "improve the clutter" that I was going for. And getting my brain to function long enough to have energy to create or even imagine has been rough. There goes reading. I have attempted the writing still though.

In fact, the first few days of quarantine, before my symptoms arose and I was just in rest mode while fighting this thing, I was a writing machine! I went from barely writing anything in 2020 to writing nearly 20,000 words in less than a week!

Remember last time, when I told you guys that I had a story in mind thanks to Taurus Pixie? Well, as per usual, I wanted to have the story written before I started posting. That way I could edit earlier chapters if needed so later ones would make sense. Also, that way I could have a faster upload schedule, because then all I'd have to do is edit and publish. It might still take me a day or two between uploads, but it's way faster than if I'm waiting to have the energy to write the chapter first.

So I was spending pretty much my entire isolation - stopping only to throw on a mask whenever Hubby needed the bathroom, or when we needed food - writing away, uninterrupted, for three days or so. I got pretty far into the story too. I was determined to have it done by the 4th so I could just publish the whole thing by the 5th. I wanted that for multiple reasons.

First and foremost, because the story I was working on was Christmas themed, and I wanted to be able to publish it during the Christmas season. Secondly, the story is about the 12 days of Christmas, so it seemed fitting to publish DURING the 12 days of Christmas. (Yes, the 12 days of Christmas START on Christmas day; not end on it). Finally, I wanted the story published so I had links to post here in my blog.

Clearly, none of that happened.

I got as far as chapter 8 in a 12-chapter story, and then I had to wave the white flag. If I was going to publish and promote in my blog, I had to give up getting the whole thing done first and just publish what I had. Publishing even the first chapter would be good enough. So I stopped writing and switched to editing.

Always off to a great start, I didn't even BEGIN editing until after noon last Tuesday. Largely because sleeping on a tiny loveseat the past couple of weeks had really thrown my sleep schedule out of whack, and I didn't even wake up until about noon! On top of the late start, I was a bit dazed from my lack of sleep and my head spinning due to coughing and the inner ear problem, so the actual editing took longer than expected.

Then came the fight with four different websites in trying to format my story. I keep forgetting how much "fun" that part is, as well as how time consuming. Between Tumblr, FFN, AO3, and DA, my story wasn't uploaded until, like, 4am or something! Okay, fine. I'll just publish my blog post a day late. No big deal.

And then there was the attack on the Capital building.

Yeah, I did not have the heart to even think about this blog, let alone write a post, while dealing with the mental and emotional strain of watching that on the news all day.

So, here we are, a week later, with only 5 out of 12 chapters published of my Christmas story, and still needing to write chapters 9 thru 12. But something WAS written! Something WAS published! So now my goal is "have it done and published before February!" It worked for Woven Heartstrings. So I guess it can work here too.

This is all well and good, but what even IS this new story of mine?

Well, as I mentioned in previous posts, you can thank Pixie for unwittingly lending me her muse, because I 100% swiped her idea. As I was reading through Twelve Days of Chatmas I kept wondering how Ladybug was handling all the chaos that was surrounding her and Chat Noir. Pixie left enough breadcrumbs to guess what Ladybug was thinking, but I kept wanting to SEE it officially. So, I decided to write the story I wanted to read.

As a belated Christmas gift to Pixie - because, boy howdy does this poor woman deserve a good pick-me-up after the year she's had - as well as a thank you for sparking any sort of writing from me, I dedicated my latest story to her. My story was mostly written by her anyway; I'm just coming at it from a new perspective. 

Yes. I have fallen so far off the creative horse that I'm now writing fanfiction of fanfiction. (And Hubby was the one who came up with the story title for me). Maybe one day I'll have an original idea of my own. In the meantime, I'm just happy to be writing again.

Anyway, for any who are interested, you can check out my story in my usual four places.

"Perfect Doesn't Need to be Perfect"

On FanFiction      On ArchiveOfOurOwn      On DeviantArt      On Tumblr

**Contains Spoilers for Taurus Pixie’s story Twelve Days of Chatmas**

Summary: Chat Noir has run into a long streak of poor luck, all in an attempt to give Ladybug the perfect Christmas gift. Little does he know, his first try was already perfect in Ladybug’s eyes. Now it’s her turn to try to navigate around Chat Noir’s failed attempts in her own pursuit to find something equally fantastic for him.
**A Switched-POV Unofficial Companion Story to Twelve Days of Chatmas by Taurus Pixie**

Rating: General Audience

Status: 5 chapters published out of 12; ongoing

**For reals, if you haven’t read Twelve Days of Chatmas yet, read that first so my story doesn’t spoil anything for you. It’s cool. This story will still be here when you get back. ;) **

Now, since the story has been up for a week, I do have some stats on it already. It's had quite the warm reception, which really helps this nervous heart that feared I would come back rusty after nearly a year of not writing anything. A lot of the comments are Pixie gushing, so I won't post those here. You pretty much know her reviews by now, and you can go read them yourself over on FFN. 

Pixie, just know how much I appreciate you, and your reviews always make me smile. I'm glad you are enjoying your gift, my friend!

As for my other stats?

FFN: 408 views, 4 faves, 9 followers, and 6 reviews
AO3: 76 views, 9 kudos, 3 bookmarks, and 6 comments
DA: 2136 views!, 3 faves, but no comments

Total Results: 2620 views, 16 faves, 12 followers, and 12 reviews

Tumblr Notes: 25 notes; 16 likes, 8 reblogs, and a comment from Pixie

Reviews:
  1. This seems like a very sweet story, I'm excited to read more escapades. ~ Vexel
  2. Hi! Just discovered this fanfic and wanted to let you know I followed and your writing is very good quality. I love love love the Ladynoir. Chat Noir is absolutely precious and deserves to know so :) Keep it up! Can’t wait for more updates. ~ countesscoloratura888
  3. A semi-long review by ritorudeito that I'll share below
  4. Aww, poor Chat! Interesting story! ~ pkk
  5. Nice writing! ~ pkk
  6. Poor Chat! All those chickens come with feathers! ~ pkk
  7. Poor Chat is really striking out with his presents! This is such a cute story! It doesn’t matter that it’s going past Christmas. It’s still very enjoyable to read. 🥰 ~ pkk
  8. This was great! I can just feel Marinette’s anguish. Really nice job of writing! ~ pkk
  9. ooooh OUCH...[COMMENT REDACTED DUE TO STORY SPOILERS] ~ BFG_blueapple303

How the heckens did DEVIANT ART get the most views for this story!? And the individual chapter views are all over the place too! Check this out: 

• Chapter 1 surprised me right out the gate with 978 views!?
• Chapter 2 had a much more modest 219 views
• Chapter 3 has an animal abuse content warning and drops to 102 views
• Chapter 4 is back up to 265 views
• Chapter 5 then balloons to 572 views!

Meanwhile, AO3 has only 76 hits! HOW!? When did DA become my big readership base!? If you're here from DA, let me know in the comments. I love you all and I'm amazed you are finding my writing on DA of all places, but this is exactly why I keep posting there!

I'd also like to note that the Tumblr account AO3 Feed - LadyNoir also shared my story (there's an algorithm in place that auto promotes stories published online with the Lovesquare tags). Their share did get 4 likes, and since the post is simply a promotion of my AO3 link, I'm guessing at least 4 of those AO3 hits were probably because of this blog. So, thank you, to AO3 Feed - LadyNoir.

Now, for that semi-long review from ritorudeito. It is so sweet, and I'm so impressed, because English clearly isn't their native language, and yet they are still giving my story a try. That always amazes me!

  ritorudeito: Sorry because I didn't have chance to leave you a review before but I follow this story since the first chapters. I were a biggest fan of the original story. Indeed I translated it to Spanish to share with more readers here in fanfiction! (Author gives me chance by the way). I always dreamed with more about this story! And a Ladybug's version is more than perfect. The next days are my favorite! [REST OF REVIEW REDACTED DUE TO STORY SPOILERS]

How sweet is that!? This person loved Pixie's story so much they got her permission to translate it into Spanish in order to make it easier for others to read her story, and now this person is back to read my story simply because it retells Pixie's? I'm dumbfounded by who finds my stories, I truly am. It's such a humbling experience to get reviews like these. 

And a huge thank you to pkk, whoever you are, for the consistent reviews left on my AO3 stories. It's always such a joy to see repeat readers like that.

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Anyway, I should probably get back to editing the next couple of chapters that need to go up, either that, or write those final three.

Here's hoping 2021 is treating you kinder, and that you enjoy this little bit of Christmas cheer seeping a bit further into the month than expected. 

With a little bit of luck and determination, I'll try to see you fine folks again next week.

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