Prose Finally Written, But Not Done: Final Week of Summer Challenges

Well, I'm a ditz. I completely forgot that I was supposed to check out Inkitt.com a bit more and report back to you guys about it last week. I was so fixated on how behind I was with the August challenge over at Struggling Writers Society that I didn't even think about Inkitt.

It's a pretty neat site. There are a few "groups" that you can post in; they run essentially the same as a forum. A place to share and discuss. There's one section for generic writing and editing discussion, one for introducing yourself, another for tech support, one to discuss the current writing contests being held, and a final one for beta-reading.

The "Discover" tab allows you to pick what type of story you want to read, based on genre, Inkitt's staff picks, or whatever fandom's fanfiction you wish to read.

Finally, the part of the site that got me to join in the first place: Contests. They just opened up the fantasy genre one on Monday, and it's open until September 24th, in case anyone else wants to join in. I'm not sure if I'll be able to work on something soon enough for it to be ready by the 24th, but we'll see.

It seems that they rotate out contests, so if there isn't one for the genre you write right now, there might be one opening soon enough.

So, this definitely seems like a win of a find!

But what about my current challenge?

Well, I wasn't able to get the chapter done in time to share with this post, as predicted. However, I have a nice sized chunk taken out of it. Not as much as I would have liked, but I've been spending my non-working hours mostly catching up on cleaning and organizing the house.

Still, I was determined to have SOMETHING accomplished to post when we did our check-ins this past Saturday. I was NOT going to go another week of not doing anything for my writing!

So, I plopped myself down at the dining room table Friday night in order to write anything before going to bed. I could only spare about an hour before I had to go get some sleep for my early morning shift on Saturday, but at least I did it. I had done some writing before the end of the challenge week.

I had managed to write just over two pages - 1313 words - before crashing on Friday, and I also asked the SWS to keep me accountable by making sure I had posted a sample of my work before 10pm on Saturday.

Well, things went a bit awry, and so I didn't post until a bit after 10, but I still managed my deadline. Here's the sample I posted in the group:

“Lia, we fell asleep on the roof. You gotta wake up before anyone notices that we've been out here all night.”

“We fell asleep?” she groggily gargled back. As soon as the words left her mouth her brain figured out what they meant. Jumping on to her knees, she stared wide eyed at Chayse. “We fell asleep?” she yelled.

“Shhh, you're gonna wake everyone!” Chayse grabbed her arm to steady her as he covered her mouth.

She batted his hand away and continued to freak out. Thankfully, it was in a much softer tone this time. “Oh, my god, we fell asleep? We've been out here all night?”

Chayse slowly nodded his head; giving her a moment to finish waking up and comprehend what was going on.

“Crap! My dad is gonna kill me!” Her eyes widened farther – something Chayse didn't realize was possible – and stared him down. “He's gonna kill us. Oh, shit! We gotta get back to our dorms! Quick! Before he finds out. Oh, god! First the thing with the dress and now this? Shit. I'm gonna be in so much trouble. And he's gonna hate you. Geez. He's gonna think you're a bad influence on me or something, and then he won't let us see each other anymore, and since we both live here that means he'll be on patrol twenty-four-seven. And he can do that, ya know!”

“Lia,” Chayse tried to hide his chuckling, but it was just too cute listening to her ramble whenever she was nervous.

“I thought him watching me was bad before. He'll be like my shadow now. And what if he thinks all guys are bad influences because of this? What if you've ruined my chances with any guy? I'm never gonna get married. I'll grow old and alone, but instead of a crazy lady with forty cats, I'm gonna have forty copies of my father.”

“Lia!” He grabbed her shoulders and shook her briefly. “Calm down. They're not going to know, alright? You just need to relax.”

She punched him in the shoulder. “How could you let us fall asleep?”

He made a mental note to not make this girl legitimately angry. Even that playful punch kind of hurt. He guessed she had more strength than she realized; having to walk around with obsidian skin can add some real muscle strain otherwise. He rubbed where she connected and shrugged. “I know, I know. My bad.”

Accountability and disgust with one's self is sometimes a beautiful thing. It gets stuff done!

Apparently I didn't have quite enough disgust, though, because after hiding away for another four hours, I only managed to add another 1463 words. So, in nearly four times the amount of "writing time" I only managed to do a bit more than double my word count. Go me....

I then skipped two days; opting to clean and sleep instead. So, I tried to crank out the last of the chapter Tuesday morning before having to go to work. I still haven't figured out my writing rhythm, though, and don't allot nearly enough time to do the writing I need. So, no time to finish the chapter. Instead, I added yet another 920 words; barely anything in the grand scheme of things.

I then had more cleaning before work, work itself, and then house-invaders, sleep, and work once more before this noon update. Probably another reason why I ran out of time to get the chapter done and published; I had to write this post yesterday in order to get it published on time.

Still, having about seven pages written isn't terribly too bad. I do still have until this upcoming Monday to have the chapter done and published in order to meet my official August goal. I have time. I just need to really crack down on it. So, I'm adding accountability again.

I WILL have the chapter available to share in next week's post. Keep an eye out for that! And if I don't include it, shun me!

Hopefully I'll have another story to share next week as well. Seems Delaroux got bit by the writing bug yet again! She recently shared with the rest of SWS that she just finished a 13-chapter fanfiction about the anime Haikyuu. I told her to drop us the link to the story, but for all I know she hasn't posted it online. If she does get us a link, I'll be sure to pass it on to you folks.

Man, I had something else kind of major that I wanted to share this week, but this post is already getting long, and I'm in a bit of a time crunch. I'll have to hold on to it and share next week along with my chapter and possibly Delaroux's story.

Yay! Lots of stuff for you to look forward to for next week!

Weird Anime Concepts, Greek Gods, and Editing

Guys, I went down a rabbit hole this week. And it's all thanks to my friend Neghya.

A few weeks ago our mutual friend Delaroux was commenting about the latest anime she was watching. Most of the anime she watches centers around a group of students that are all on a team together. Sometimes it's tennis, or swimming, or cycling, or baseball; you get the gist. Now, I have no clue how she finds these, and I feel I'm going to perpetuate the anime stereotype here, but these "sports" animes always seem to have - even if it's just misperceived by the audience - a homosexual undertone. Neghya and Delaroux just out right call them Gay Sports Anime.

Well, in the way that ONLY those two can, they began to joke around about "what if there was a Gay-Sports anime; where being gay was the sport?" They joked about this all day until it wormed its way in to Neghya's head.

She's now obsessed with making this in to an actual thing, even if it's a manga instead of anime.

Well, here's the part that I come in. She was commenting about how she was working on her "gay sports anime" but knew she would need some help fine-tuning. I joked that "while I'm not an expert on gay anime, I am renowned for being the Queen of Angst, if you need."

Neghya and I proceeded to talk about her anime concept for the next two hours!

Granted, it evolved quite a bit. The original joke was "these gay men compete against each other in stereotypical 'gay' activities; like listen to their female friend bitch about her boyfriend, making a fantastic dinner, dance both classically and club, go shopping, and straight up arouse other gay men." This then evolved - back when she was chatting with Delaroux about it - in to "what if the male lead wasn't gay, but asexual? But his parents forced him to compete anyway?"

Well, when I started chatting with Neghya about this on Friday she already had the lead character designed.

Meet her baby Chris. Isn't he adorable?

However, the anime concept somehow evolved from "gay guys doing stereotypical gay things" to "gays - men and women - seducing each other in order to literally score; person with the highest point total wins" to a straight up "elite, underground college club where people sign up as seducers - Competitors - or people willing to be seduced - Game - and the highest point scorer gets a winner's purse."

We figured out tiny bits about the college and how The Game - our working title for it - is structured. Competitors join either the fraternity or sorority that runs the competition. Those that sign up as Game are all in one dormitory: The Game Preserve.

While Neghya was a bit hesitant to do so since she feels the asexual community is almost never represented, she agreed to switch the main character Chris to demisexual. In other words, he's LIKE asexuals in the fact that he has little to no sexual interest and doesn't get aroused by anyone or anything. The difference is that demisexuals DO become aroused when they're with the one person they're in love with. This solitary human being is the only thing that gets their blood flowing.

For my Hey Arnold friends, Helga would be demisexual towards Arnold. For my readers who are Big Bang Theory fans, Sheldon's evolution is becoming less asexual and more demisexual towards Amy.

Neghya still wants to represent the asexuals though, and so she has a side character that might be able to fit the bill. We also came up with a best friend for Chris, although Delaroux and I have completely opposite ideas on who should be the bestie. The guy she thought up is aloof and blunt. He's a nice foil for Chris because he just doesn't care what anyone else thinks and doesn't bother to keep himself groomed. The guy I thought of tries way too hard. He thinks himself a lady's man, but his track record all but destroys that persona. He's eager to please and is a bit over the top, but in a goofy way. I think Neghya might be leaning more towards Delaroux's idea, but I hope my guy still makes it in as comedy relief at least.

We also did some minor work on Chris' love interest. We know what his - yes, Chris falls for a guy - basic look is and what his basic attitude will be. We know that the love interest will start off thinking of Chris as a hated rival, although Chris won't feel the same way at all. In the end, the love interest will start falling for Chris despite himself. We don't have much more than that.

Oddly, the thing we spent the most time on was designing Chris' parents; his reason for bothering to sign up as a Competitor when he's not aroused by anyone. Neghya and I have nearly everything figured out for these two. We have their personalities, their history, how they met, when they married, when they had Chris, what their jobs are, what Chris' homelife was like, and basic character design for his parents. We spent so much time on them, that Neghya jokes these two are the secret and true heroes of the story.

Now, to actually think of NAMES for them....


My week hasn't been COMPLETELY taken over by semi-smutty anime concepts, though. That was just my "slack off" weekend.

The rest of the week I have been slowly chipping away at Please, Let Me Explain.

I believe last week I stated how complicated the edit has become. I have three different versions of the same scene, and I'm trying to find a way to weave all three together. I'm about half-way done so far. Once I'm done with the weaving, I get to go back through with fresh eyes and see if I can't edit it down a bit.

I'm glad I caved and posted that short chapter last week, because this one is getting SOOOO long! I've added about two pages worth so far! The entire story is now at a grand total of about 21 pages, and according to Ronoxym, we're only about half-way through his intended story. Who knows how much longer the story will be once I get my mitts on it!

The last bit of work I did this week was finally beta read another story for ChibiSunnie. I just barely squeaked it in, but I managed to keep up with my New Years Resolution to get beta notes back to the author within a fortnight. She still needs to polish it up, and probably will send it back for another once-over, but I'll be sure to let you guys know when she posts it.

Which reminds me, I totally forgot to post the LAST story I beta-ed for her when she published it at the beginning of the month.

So, for any who might be interested, here is Chibi's Hey Arnold fanfic about Mr. Simmons:

Is She Really A Keeper?

While I'm not sure I'll be able to get it done before the end of the month - therefore making up for my slacking in January - I did start up my second book this week. Hubby and I watched the 2010 version of Clash of the Titans the other day, and it had me really want to do two things: play God of War and read Percy Jackson's Greek Gods. I ended up just reading the book, although I do still want to play that game. Our poor Playstation 2 gets no love with the Wii U and Xbox 360 on either side of it...

I'm not that far in to the huge 450pg book, but it is really amusing. Definitely what I've come to expect from Rick Riordan. Now to see if I can get it done in time to catch up with my "one book a month" resolution. Worse comes to worse, I have a head start on the book for March.

How about you, fine folks? I know Phfylburt is excitedly working on his latest project of a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story, but what have the rest of you been up to?

Playing Massive Catch-up

Soooooooo, this week has been so crazy I legit lost track of what day of the week it was. Wednesday came and went without my notice....

I feel like I've been non-stop for over two weeks now. The days have flown by so quickly I didn't even really have time to write. Thankfully, I changed that yesterday, but I'll get to that later.

Obviously, I didn't manage to write a blog post to replace that placeholder. Which means I'll have more to talk about today, right?

Let's start with why I even had a placeholder last week: the concert and my work presentation.

Let's start with Hubby's early 30th birthday gift for me. We went to the Monumentour with Paramore and Fall Out Boy. It was fantastic. I had such a blast, but I also worked the morning of the concert so I was on the go from about 6am until 1:30 am the next day. CRAZINESS! I was so tired I was NOT in the mindset to write a post in time for my normal noon update. I debated writing later in the day - after I woke up - in order to get SOMETHING posted. However, I had work that evening and I was still zoned out, so the placeholder was written.

The other reason I had no time was that work presentation. Not entirely sure how well we did. The way these presentations work is that each year a group of employees spend an extra hour a week trying to find ways to improve their individual store, or come up with an idea that could help better the chain as a whole. The first year I was a part of this project, we created a safety video to show during job orientation. Last year I BSed my way through raising employee morale. This year we threw together a last-minute presentation about what I have done throughout the year to improve wellness in the store's employees. Things such as moving the employee smoking section further from the store to keep non-smoking employees/customers from second-hand smoke, providing sunscreen for the employees that spend the majority of their shifts outside, providing things such as puzzle/activity books in the break room to help destress employees, and talking to the new-hires about the wellness program so that they know it's available.

So what I was doing since that last actual update was figuring out how to present these changes: taking photos, making a power point, writing out a script for MadDog24 to read off at the presentation, making hand-outs, etc. All while working long days at the store. By the time last Wednesday hit I was - as mentioned - exhausted and still needed to put on the finishing touches on everything to make sure we were ready.

Thursday was the presentation. We had to get up fairly early so that we could make the hour-plus trek to the building where the presentation was being held. We then watched other presentations - which were unbelievably boring compared to the previous two years; it was insanity - before giving our own. Once all the stores gave their presentations the managers in the sectioned off zone - so this would be about 15 stores - would then vote on who they think did the best job both on the presentation itself and with the improvements they did for their store. The winner is announced and said winning store moves on to present to the region and then possibly move on further to present to corporate.

The safety video went on to present to corporate, but we didn't win over-all. It was nice to win our zone though. Last year's pulling-this-out-of-my-butt presentation ended up getting us second place in our zone. This year we weren't informed where we were in the standings; we just know we didn't win. Oh well, at least it's over, our manager is happy with what we did, and we can move on.

Hubby already has a fantastic idea for this upcoming year, and we're going full-steam right out of the gate. Considering the previous three years more-or-less consisted of "[Lyco] throws something together in about three days before the presentation while [Hubby] plays tech-support so she doesn't throw the computer out the window," we're already off to a great start.

Now, once we were done with the presentation and we knew we weren't moving on to the "next round" - as it were - I had every intention of writing my actual blog update for the week. However, it was also the first day I could just sit and mellow out. So I did. Total zone out.

Then came Friday, and the start of Hell Week as the store dealt with the chaos that is "Preparing for the Fourth of July" shopping craze. We were non-stop! My manager's favorite word was "brutal". Every time I turned around he'd be muttering that word. Heck, this past Wednesday I went in to work and literally the first thing he said to me was "Brutal" as he shook his head.

Work. Has not. Been fun.

Everyone's hot and cranky and overworked and the customers are rushed.... it's just bad all around.

So whenever I wasn't at work I was pretty much asleep, or staring blankly at whatever was in front of me. Even now, after having a two-day "vacation" from work, I still have to focus on keeping my eyes focused. It's pathetic.

Want to know what helps with the focusing?

I HAVE MY NETBOOK BACK!!!!!!

My father-in-law is awesome. He totally Frankensteined the thing back to life. Actually, he had it set for me a few months ago, but he needed money from us in order to buy a few more components. Eventually he gave up. He knew how much I needed this thing back and how hard-up we've been, so he used some of his own scratch and we'll pay him back. Unfortunately, he didn't have enough extra to buy a new battery for the darn thing, so I have to keep it plugged in at all times. I can't let it off charge for even a second without it instantly shutting down. It's like a teeny desktop that way.

Still, I have it back and that means I'm writing this while lounging on the couch! Whoot! Perhaps this means I can actually get my butt in gear and get back to things like Writers’ Huddle or beta reading.

OOOO speaking of which. I'm redoing the writing group thing. Originally I was trying to keep it local in order to keep it off-computer; save my eyes and all that. Plus, I already have an online writing community with the Writers' Huddle. However, the local group didn't last long for a handful of reasons. True, I still have the Writers' Huddle, and so having another online community seems a bit silly, but this is with all of my online besties; none of which really have the spare change to join in Writers' Huddle.

So we're off to start up our own mini-group. Obviously the local peeps are free to join in, but this go around it will be me right along side ChibiSunnie, DarkAngel1326, AngelBlood666, Chopfe, Delaroux, Phfylburt, and introducing my one buddy from high school. I haven't found an online-presence for her yet, so I'm gonna use her Girl Scouts nickname for the time being. Everyone wave to Stargazer!

She's so excited. As far as I know she never really thought about writing too much before, but she recently took a writing course and loved it. She enthusiastically sent me a message about how she's now thinking about attempting to write a novel. I instantly threw out that I was trying to start up this online group and asked if she wanted to join. She happily accepted.

Now, to get my butt in gear and start up the group.

The only other writing update I have is that after over a week of the board being stalled out, I finally got around to getting Willow to do something. It's not much, but at least it's SOMETHING, right? I also went a bit hard-core on world building the X-Future reboot. Still haven't locked on to a definite environment idea, but I'm still coming up with possibilities; seeing which one works best.

Forgive me if I've mentioned this before, but I don't recall touching upon my latest roadblock. Although the actual world that surrounds X-Future isn't all that important - as long as the teens can somehow have these powers in some shape or form it doesn't matter if it's fantasy, sci-fi, horror, historical, futuristic, etc - but what IS important is the Xavier Institute. The fact that these kids with powers are all together in one closed environment away from normal humans. The fact that there's a rival "gang" as the main antagonists, and the fact that each group wants to get to potential "new recruits" first.

However, I fear that even if we do call them "glitches" instead of mutants, having a boarding school for these glitches to voluntarily be at just screams "this is blatantly the Xavier Institute and these guys are clearly X-men-like mutants." Even with terms changed and not really using any of the Marvel-owned characters, there's that real fear that Marvel could pick up on the "rip-off" and try to shut the story down. Either that, or any readers will be turned off by the fact that this is "fake X-Men".

Will the fact that the most basic environment structure is more-or-less straight out of X-Men turn away readers, or bring more in due to the familiarity of it all? Will it be obvious that it started off as an X-Men fanstory/role play? Will that matter?

I mean, I got drawn in to Order of the Stick because it was obviously a D&D campaign. Rich Burlew still makes TONS of D&D references throughout the strip. Do I feel cheated that he didn't completely create his own world? No. However, he also isn't pretending that he did, where as us changing everything except for the basic concept of "a school for mutants and the rival group they battle" feels like we are trying to pass our story as entirely original when it isn't.

So I'm stumped, do I just go for it and re-name the institute and be done with it? Or do I try something different?

I thought that maybe humanity forced these kids in to mutant-only schools; getting back to the X-Men social commentary roots about segregation. Phfyl threw out the idea that they're all together because of refugee/internment camps or reservations; again creating a social commentary on the American treatment of Japanese Americans in WWII or Native Americans throughout our country's history. The only real problem with these segregation/racism concepts is the idea of recruitments. There wouldn't be any X-Men vs Brotherhood recruitments. Everyone would be forced to go to these places, so a nice chunk of story would be lost, while a whole new one would emerge. Said new story would mostly have people rooting for the Brotherhood over the X-Men. The Brotherhood would be the group fighting back against this oppression while the X-Men would patiently bide their time while trying to show normal humans that not all of them are dangerous; that they can be just as productive parts of society as anyone else. I would think more people would cheer on the Brotherhood for trying to stand up for their kins' rights, and get irritated with the X-Men for not doing anything; content with their lot in life.

No go.

I then thought back to recruitment. If I wasn't going to use a school because it would be too obvious, what other options would I have for children to have a choice in whether or not they wanted to join one group or another; or any at all? Where else do children come together in groups?

That's when I looked to Rick Riordan and the Percy Jackson universe. He used "summer camps." Most of the demi-gods in his stories would still live at home and go to school like a normal teen; spending their school year trying to stay under the radar, but also knowing enough to fend off monsters if need be. Then they would all come back to Camp Halfblood for more survival training over the summers. There were even some demi-gods who either had no place else to go or were so powerful they couldn't go a day without a monster harassing them. These teens just stayed at camp year-round.

It was a fantastic idea and a great twist on the Xavier Institute problem. However, it would still be a blatant rip-off if we turned the institute in to a summer camp. Sure, it may not be AS noticeable with the rest of the world having a vague X-Men feel, but you still have teens with specific powers and facing daily dangers all gathered at a camp. Anyone NOT thinking X-Men going in to the story will most likely think Demi-gods. We now have the same issue as we did with the school idea.

But how else do teens gather in one place and live together? I was thinking "mutant slums; they all just live near each other" but this then goes back to the segregation issue.

I bounced back to the fantasy idea that Phfyl had a little while back. As much as I love the cyberpunk world we were creating - and I loved the idea of mutants being called glitches, and they were each categorized in a pseudo-cyberpunk category - the fantasy world just seemed like a better fit.

We could go back to the idea of the schools, but have it be mage guilds instead. It was enough of a trope inside magical stories for it to just feel natural instead of stolen. Teens going to a guild/school to learn how to master their birth-given powers? That could be any number of things. That could be D&D. It could be the animes Fairy Tail or The Familiar of Zero. It could be Harry Potter. It could be the video game Fable. The list goes on, but those are the things that first pop in to my head when I think "school for mages".

Sure, since it's a trope it's a bit played out and "safe"/"expected", but at least it won't jar our readers by having them go "wait a minute... isn't this like...?"

I could just save the "glitches" and categories idea for the world Hubby thought up a little while ago.

Yesterday I pitched the following idea to Hubby and Phfyl as a way to have a fantasy/steam/cyberpunk world where the "mutants" are now all mages.

The mages started off as a small few for whatever reason (TBD) and were praised as heroes and saviors against the dangerous creatures (insert generic fantasy creature here; ie - dragon, goblin, ogre, etc). Citadels were built as homes for these mages and the cities sprung up around them so that the mages were at the center of the communities and capable of saving the city at a moment's notice.

As the threat of creatures waned and the reliance of the mages simply became a generational norm, the mages became power hungry. They became tyrannical rulers over the non-magic citizens and warred among themselves.

An industrial revolution became necessary for the non-magics to be able to compete at all with the mages. In the end, they were able to dethrone their magical dictators.

Mages were cast out of society and they created communal homes for themselves by way of guilds hidden in wooded areas surrounded by the few remaining creatures that they once saved the non-magics from.

Humanity still feared mages, but more and more were being born among them. Some were slaughtered instantly when their powers were discovered. Some were cast away, letting fate decide if they could survive the creatures of the woods in order to get to the mage guilds. Some were found out by wandering mages; undercover and unknown to be magical among their neighbors. These sleeper mages were tasked to whisk the newly discovered mages safely away to the guilds.

Some mage guilds were embittered by how their ancestors were cast out, and how their kind is currently treated. Their goal is to make mages the supreme rulers once more. (Brotherhood)

Other guilds wish to just be left alone; to live in peace away from the humans. (Morlocks)

Then there is at least one guild who wishes to show non-magics that mages are the same as them. Just as some humans are just "evil" and do things like kill and fall to corruption, so do mages. However, just as most humans are NOT inherently cruel and evil, neither are mages. Therefore, mages should be treated just as non-magics (I really need to think of a muggle-like term). Most are decent human beings, but discipline and punish those who deserve it. (Obviously this is the X-Men)

Finally, you have the guild that just wants to see the world burn. (Challengers of Heaven)

The actual world will be based as a fantasy world. However, instead of the typical medieval England atmosphere that most fantasy takes place in, the world will have a cyberpunk look. Now, I'd like to still restrict human technological advancement a touch, so this fantasy cyberpunk world has one more twist: Steampunk technology.

So, this is a fantasy world with Steampunk technology but a Cyberpunk look.

These tightly packed cities around abandoned mage citadels are dark, gritty, and filled with corruption in order to fill the power vacuum.

However, this overpopulated environment just screams out to the youth to not just become another number. They struggle to show that they're still an individual, not just a member of the human herd. So they wear bright, vibrant colors to stand out against the dark, gritty environment. They stylize their hair and dye it bright, unnatural colors. The advertisements are the same. Businesses struggle just as much to stand out against their competition, and so the billboards and other advertisements are just as bright, and vibrant.

Hubby's a bit hesitant on the cyberpunk still sneaking in. He thinks just the fantasy/steampunk will be enough. Phfyl hasn't commented yet.

If we do decide to go this route, it changes the way Devon does a crucial bit of research before setting off on his own. Plus I still need to figure out the rough mechanics of the magic. So I'm still trying to figure out the whole "teens grouped together" thing in order to keep them mutants instead of mages.

If you have any advice on the subject, feel free to drop it in the comments below.

And now to conclude I'd like to throw out that Chibi has started up her own blog a few weeks ago! She's still nervous about her writing, so I'm sure I'm going to get a response along the lines of "How sweet of you to promote my blog, but now I'm super nervous about what I post..."

Fret not, dear Chibi. My readers are kind, and I'm sure they'll enjoy your work as much as I do.

So, go ahead and check out her work. Don't forget to let her know what you think of it. Even if it's constructive criticism, us writers love the feedback so we know how to improve.

You can find her here on blogger at Philothea Ponderings.

Now, if I can get some of my OTHER writing buddies to update their blogs. Yes, there are four of you I'm staring down right now.

Here's to a calmer week and some actual writing! Catch ya next week.

World Building and Inspiration Striking (for others)

Wow. This has felt like such a loooooong week. I legit had to read back through last week's post to even remember what I last talked about. Weird to think how slow this month has been going. Bombarding poor Phfylburt as well as Mother's Day both feel like weeks away instead of just a few days.

Actually, I haven't talked to Phfyl at all this week aside from sending him more brainstorming on Thursday. I'll get to that in a bit.

Honestly, aside from bouncing more ideas off of Hubby and having the gears grinding, I haven't done terribly too much with writing this past week. I was finishing up this little fella:

Sorry for the blurry pictures. My camera broke a few years back and I haven't had the money to fix/replace it. Anyway, that little guy up there is supposed to look like a toy version of this dude:

That would be George, my best friend's pet rabbit. The crocheted version of him is a toy I made for Bestie's first-born son. Picking out what I would make for him was part of her baby-shower gift, much like what I did with my sister-in-law and the blanket I made for my niece. It's been so long since I last saw my bestie - and it kept me so long to get down to business and make the silly toy - that the bunny also became the kid's baptism gift.

So my week was spent frantically trying to finish up the toy while working my now-normal insane hours and getting ready to trek home for the kid's baptism. Oh yeah, and be surprised by Bestie that I'm one of the kid's godmothers! YEAH! I have a niece and now I have a godson! About a month ago Hubby and I even got a hand-me-down frame for our mattress and we've been sleeping off the floor. Look at who's growing up and junk!

Alright, back to writing.

So, my time was obviously spent on slightly-higher priority stuff this past week: work, finishing the kid's toy, becoming a godmother, visiting my mom and sis, etc. Oh, and, Mom, if you're reading this I put those in order of what I did for the week. I'm not saying visiting you was on the bottom of the list....

*Ahem*

During my work breaks, however, I was able to FINALLY finish editing the collab Ronoxym and I started back in February. There were a lot more edits - mostly typos - than I initially realized, and Ron has the collab word doc set up so that only he can edit and I can only make comments on it. So, I think I'm going to have to redo it as a new word doc, set it up so that both of us can edit, and send him that as a replacement. Hopefully if he re-reads the whole thing like I did it will respark his inspiration and he can finally advance the story.

Yes, I'm trying to guilt trip you in to writing, Ron!

So, that project is done and the project of actually typing up the second draft shouldn't be too daunting, I hope. The only other thing I really worked on this week - as I mentioned - was using my husband as a sounding board.

Which brings us back to my statement at the start of this blog: the brainstorm with Phfyl this past Thursday.

Technically I wasn't really brainstorming with Phfyl as much as I was relaying over an awesome concept that Hubby came up with. See, last Wednesday Hubby and I went to go watch the second Amazing Spider-Man movie. While we were waiting for the movie to start I relayed over Phfyl's thought of a cyberpunk fantasy setting for our X-Future original reboot. After some discussion, Hubby came up with the following:

In the near-future groups of hacktivists - such as Anonymous or The Rising Tide from Agents of SHIELD - succeed in taking down the corrupt governments of the world. Not sure if it's more of a domino effect or a simultaneous attack. Either way, this results in a massive power void. The hacktivist groups decide to take control since they feel they understand what works best for the people.

After a bit of a power struggle between the groups and the previous government officials and supporters the hacktavists manage to become the new government. They aren't numerous enough for a different person to be in charge of each country in the world, and so they break down the modern borders and restructure the world in to kingdoms. This will give us the "fantasy"/medieval setting.

Over the generations - Hubby was thinking our story would take place in like 2250 or something - the Cyber Lords become more and more corrupt and power hungry. Eventually they become just like the governments the original hacktivists overthrew. During those same generations, citizens have become more and more dependent and trusting of their devices, and so most are easily manipulated by the Cyber Lords' "approved" information. The Cyber Lords are the best hackers in the world and can manipulate any information that goes online.

Soon, people begin to age out of the knowledge of how the world was before the rise of the Cyber Lords. They only know of the existence of the Kingdoms.

Meanwhile, due to food additives, genetic manipulation, "unclean" power sources, and pollution, mutation has switched from a strange phenomenon to an almost every-day occurrence. And the mutations become more and more extreme; such as fur, wings, high healing factor, etc.

The mutations also become more and more genetic, so if your dad had wings you have 1/2 chance of having some as well.

Because of the Cyber Lords the worlds' dialects have become more internet/gamer oriented: text/tweet shorthand and leet-speak. Due to the new modern dialect, the mutants were typically described as something similarly found in games. For instance, mutants with wings would be angels, demons, or fairies depending on how the wings looked. Mutants with super-human strength and/or fast healing would be berserkers. So on and so forth.

Along with the information distortion that all but erased the pre-cyber-world, the idea of mutants gave way to just "new races".

Technology became more and more impressive, but the average citizen became less and less knowledgeable of how it worked. They just took for granted that it did. Only the Cyber Lords and the other nobility knew how technology truly functioned any more.

Because of this, citizens began believing in magic again. This gave way to elemental-kinetics, psychics, and other "physics" manipulators to be thought of as "mages" instead of "mutants".

Thus is the setting of our Brave New World of cyberpunk fantasy while still holding on to the original concept of mutants.

Now, I embellished a bit on his initial idea; adding in things like how the mutations kick-started and why technology was considered "magic" in the future. However, the core of the above was from the mind of my husband. Man, I miss having him as a Dungeon Master...

Anyway, the concept is amazing, but there's one downside. It's TOO good. X-Future works so well and is able to be converted in to an original tale so easily because the background universe it takes place in barely affects anything at all. We can put these characters in to virtually any setting, and as long as they're able to still have the normal teenage-high-school-drama and powers/magic the story works.

The above setting is too intriguing for X-Future. You don't want to watch an ensemble cast play around in this universe without really acknowledging it. You want to explore this new world. You want to explore how it came to be and determine if it will stay as is. You want to maybe watch a Cyber Lord as he ruled. Or you want to watch a citizen become disillusioned and try to start a coup. Maybe you just want to watch a woman struggle as she's declared an outlaw simply because she wants to become an archaeologist; discovering how the world once was and how it came to be. There could even be a really cool tale if the citizens of this new world decided to rename Earth - or never refer to their planet by name - and so the reader thinks it's a tale on an alien planet. Then someone discovers the history of the world and BAM! The reader is shocked to discover that they're still on Earth!

That's what happened in one of the mangas I used to read. I won't say what manga so that I don't give away spoilers, but the basic concept is that teenagers were magically teleported in to this barren, hostile, desert-like planet with ruins that vaguely resembled modern buildings. Then, one of the teens discovered his uncle's house perfectly preserved. That's when they realized they weren't being sent to a different world, they were being sent to the future! Dun Dun Duuuuuun!!!!!

My point is that the setting Hubby came up with is almost a character in and of itself. However, the focus of X-Future is definitely on the interesting characters we all came up with. It would be way too complicated if we tried to run a story where the reader is torn between wanting to know more about a cast of at least seven people or learn more about the setting.

I am planning on slotting that idea away for some future project, though. I just need to figure out who will be the character that gets to play in that playground. ONE interesting character running around an intriguing world is a much better fit.

So.... still trying to figure out the world behind the X-Future reboot. Wonder if Phfyl has thought of anything over the past week.

In the meantime, I'll brainstorm some more with Hubby. I may even take up world building Gyateara more. Silly Hubby actually told me on Sunday "If you ever need help with naming things, I'm pretty good at it."

First of all... I KNOW he's really good at it! I love all the names he comes up with for his characters and settings. I tell him that a lot, actually! Heck, there was a month or two where he had me convinced that we should name our son - if we were to ever have one - after one of his D&D characters. Would have been a really cool name too....

Secondly: DOES HE NOT KNOW ME BY NOW!? Of COURSE I need help naming things! I frequently lament how horrible I am at naming things! Where has he been!?

That being said, he's now going to help me with coming up with names for my world building.

Before I jet for the week I do want to do a couple shout-outs!

Seems a trio of my online writing buddies are finally back in to the groove of things, plus Omnibladestrike has been chugging along with his own world-building for about two weeks now.

Friday I had a message posted on my Facebook wall:
"All right, I'm doing the '5 minute writing' that you talked about in a blog. Let's break my hiatus."

AngelBlood666 later commented that his "five minute writing" turned in to a half-hour; easily. He has since written for "five minutes" every day and is ready to do his first update in a long time. Should be up sometime today! Mad props, AB666!

Same day I also received a message from AB666's beta and the mutual friend that got us to meet: DarkAngel1326.
"You better be writing! I'm writing tonight too. Rose (my princess/undercover knight) has some stuff to say."

So glad she's getting back in to Of Blood and Honor! So YAY for her too!

The real shocker was when I received this message yesterday morning just before running off to work:
"I want to write a story, but I need someone to be my sounding board. Up for it?"

Heck yeah, I'm up for it! Especially since that message was from someone I haven't mentioned here in AGES. Good old Delaroux! I honestly have no clue how much writing she's been doing over the past year or so since I stopped frequenting the Facebook group she started up for her original characters. It was a fun time and I loved both her and the other girls I met in that group, but they would be up at about 2am role-playing. I'd spend HOURS just going back through and reading everything they've posted while I was sleeping, like the old broad that I am.

I kept telling Delaroux that she needed to create a forum - much like X-Future - for her and the girls to role play on. I'd be able to read more at my leisure that way. Instead of scrolling on endlessly in the group set-up Facebook switched to a few years back. I still can't stand that. The old groups where everything was organized in threads was so much easier to navigate; especially when you aren't on the group 24/7.

Anyway, I'm off topic.

My point is that I'm so proud of all four of you!

Omni! I'm excited to hear what progress you've made with your world building. Perhaps we'll make a day to draw maps together.

AB666, I'm so proud that you've tried out the 5-minute writing challenge, that you've stuck with it, and that you have something to show for it. Doing better than me, haha! I can't wait to read the end result.

DA1326, I'm just amazingly excited that school let out - or is soon? - for you and that you finally have writing time again! I want to know everything Rose told you Friday night.

Delaroux, I still need to go back and read everything you sent me - probably my next task after posting this - but I'm elated that you're writing again! Your characters are always so intriguing to me. I can't wait to see what you have in store this time.

The Hundred Post Trek... finally....

For my Mom who is celebrating 18yrs Cancer Free!
CONGRATULATIONS, MOM!

WOAH! Three week hiatus!? What the heck happened there!? I in no way intended to just stop posting anything in June! Holy Crow!

Honestly, I just haven't really been feeling "writing" with all the craziness going on at work this month. Add in that I wanted to do sort of a "recap" of the past 100 posts I had on this blog - as a sort of celebration of the milestone - and the fact that it kept me about nine hours to do THAT.... well....




So, sorry, guys, that the "temp post" lasted for so long!... Yeah, that's REAL temporary... *sigh* It seems to be part of the new trend this year....




Anyway, I had a presentation for Corporate back on the eleventh, and so that Sunday and Monday were used to finish up preparing for that - which is why I didn't have the post in the first place three weeks ago. I also had this training program on that Wednesday. So even though my Tuesday and Wednesday work days were more-or-less easy days, they still took up too much time for me to work on my blog post to take that temp post down mid-week as intended.

Thursday was my day off that week.... and it was spent doing everything but what I wanted to do... damn socializing.




Friday and Saturday was back to the old grind stone. That Sunday I TRIED really hard to get this post up. I swear I did. But, as I just stated, it was a much larger undertaking than I originally realized. So I worked on it for about four hours before passing out, and then just didn't have time to get back to it. The rest of the week was spent between more crazy hours at work and taking care of Hubby who had this real bad stomach virus. Add in that we've been VERY SLOWLY role playing the X-Men prom over on the forum all week - as a way to celebrate the game being a year old - and well.... *shrug*

Last Sunday was again found me working on this post for hours on end just reading all the old posts and figuring out how to best highlight them. Still, I wasn't able to get the post up in time, and it had to be pushed back one more week. Monday found just about the entire herd of our friends - minus poor Omnibladestrike - invading the apartment the majority of the day. The rest of the week was split between work, cleaning, and packing to visit my Mommy to celebrate being Cancer Free for 18yrs!

So how about we do what I should have done nearly a month ago... HAVE A FLASH BACK POST! YAY!

The first weekend of June marked my 100th post in this blog!
And then I celebrate it by not updating for nearly a month....

Anyway! To honor the milestone of 100 posts, let's take a look back through the past few years, shall we?

A little over a year ago I hit my 50-posts milestone and did pretty much the exact same thing I'm doing today. So, if you'd like to see how my blog started and how the first half went, you can read all about it here.

Let's move on from that point, shall we?

I'm actually surprised that even with my disappearance in April as well as numerous "temp posts", that it kept me only a little over a year to write the second fifty posts needed for this milestone!

Really, not as much changed over the second fifty posts compared to the first fifty. My blog, I believe, has more-or-less come in to its own. However, there was one major change.

The addition of a new page.

Before I get to that though, let's go back through the past year, shall we?

June 2011 and my fifty-first post had me talking about my love for my devoted readers, my realization that I could actually make money with fanfiction, and an increasing bond with Ali Luke which includes becoming Facebook buddies! YAY! I also discovered that I had won a Hey Arnold writing contest. It would be the only one I won this year, but it didn't stop me from entering every one of them. More on that later.

I also started tweeting about my blog updates, as well as making sure to post announcements on both my Lyco Rogue and main facebook accounts. Really focusing on promoting myself and my blog. Because of this I saw a spike in readership. In fact, while I was still at only three followers back in September, I now have seven listed and I know at least three more who read this blog regularly but aren't following me through Blogger itself. So, if you're one of those people that started following me since last June, I thank you for sticking with me and a super belated "welcome".

I think the most important part of last June was the creation of a major part of my life. Both my inspiration and my distraction when it comes to writing. The thing that takes over most of my life and has been present in nearly every blog post that I've written since.

The X-Men Forum RPG Hubby created: X-Future.

The RPG has distracted me from working on What Is Truly Meant To Be - sorry about that to my faithful readers - as well as also opening up so many new dimensions to my writing. It has turned me in to a slacker - never updating any of my stuff - but also a more productive writer; having me either constantly on the forums continuing the story there by interacting with others, or inspiring me to write little side scenes while I'm away from the computer. It has introduced me to four very different personalities by way of my four characters Lia, Willow, Trish, and Crystal. It taught me how to better work with an ensemble cast of characters, as opposed to my three in WITMTB; out of which I only really seem to focus on one at a time. I've also started to "hear" the characters in my head.

The obsession with the forum also resulted in many lost hours on both DollzMania and Photoshop in order to design each of the characters created for the game; mostly because I have a hard time picturing the characters as anything other than the people playing them. The past two weeks Hubby gave me yet ANOTHER means of creating a visual representation of the X-Men forum. Admittedly, this is another reason this blog is so late, as well as why everyone was at my place on Monday. Hubby recently purchased the Xbox360 game WWE '13 where there is a VERY comprehensive "custom wrestler" creator. As of this post we have created:

• Chayse - Hubby's main character
• Willow - My secondary character who has more-or-less taken over as my main one
• Ripley - One of Hubby's secondary characters
• Lia - My main character who's quickly falling behind Willow
• Trish - My Brotherhood of Mutants character; my most complicated and tied favorite with Willow
• Warbash - One of Hubby's Brotherhood characters who surprisingly turned out VERY charismatic in the game... that needs to be translated over on to the forum...
• Screwdriver - Hubby's main Brotherhood character
• Graham - Another of Hubby's main Brotherhood characters
• Devon - Cyhyr's fiance Ronoxym's main character who switched to the Brotherhood
• Nys - Devon's traveling companion who begrudgingly joined the Brotherhood to stay with him
• Oswald - Ronoxym's secondary character who is still with the X-Men
• Hunter - One of our friend's characters
• Joyce - Another friend's character
• Colette - celestialTyrant's new character. Yes, he's cross-playing.
• Penumbra - Another of Hubby's characters
• Luke - Omni's character

I think that's everyone..... We still have like 8 more characters to create, and possibly three more NPCs that aren't used all that frequently.... So... about 2/3rds of the way through them??? It's fantastic, but I've killed so many days with this! It takes at least an hour to create each character since you can completely construct their face and adjust the size of just about every individual body part: chest, stomach, legs, toes, neck, etc.

And then once they're created, you can customize the outfits, the entrances, the theme song played during the entrance, and the move sets they use while wrestling.

Anyway, I'm off topic. Back to recapping the past year. See? Even now the forum derails me!

So, sticking with the same post as the introduction of the forum, I had a new kind of Plot Bunny post. I listed a huge Plot Bunny Farm of ideas when it came to Hey Arnold-themed fan-made music videos. I haven't touched an editing system since I completed the video for work - more on that in a bit - so no progress there, but it was still a bit of non-X-Men creativity. And, to be fair, I did have three story plot bunnies at the bottom....

The second half of last June saw two things. One: The start of car troubles that didn't get taken care of until March. Two: Me obsessively watching Gambit clips from all the different X-Men cartoons, as well as collecting Gambit/Rogue fanart online. My true obsessing over the forum really started when Hubby used Chayse to woo Lia; resulting in me getting the same butterflies as when he started courting me. Whenever I had a crappy day at work, or felt inadequate about my writing, or just felt "blah" for whatever reason, I could just hop on to the forum and get all warm and fuzzy. It totally is my drug!

Finally over to July and the Daily Writing Challenge. Every day of July there was a new Hey Arnold themed writing prompt and 24hrs to write a story based on said prompt. I only managed the first 14 days, and even then there were a few that I didn't quite hit. You can find the anthology of the challenges here. Eventually - whenever that would be - I plan on going back and doing the challenges I missed.

Well, even if I never completed the DWC, it did help me break through writer's block that had been clogging up my story for a little while. It was nice to get back to writing and enjoying it. Reading all the positive feedback on both Fanfiction.net and DeviantArt.com really helped push me to keep going. One of the people who routinely gave the positive feedback - aside from my two biggest fans ChibiSunnie and DarkAngel1326 - was someone who found out about me because DA was his Beta Reader, and I guess she talked me up. Thus I became friends with the equally awesome writer AngelBlood666. Sadly, much like me, I don't think he's updated anything lately. I should check in on that. He was awesome at coming up with really crafty stuff for his challenges. Don't believe me? Check them out.

July also saw an influx of fanart of.... well... ME! Chopfe - who was CartoonLover16 when I posted last year - had tons of fun drawing fanart of my LycoRogue online persona. As much fun as it is to get Chibi's fanart of my story, it's mindboggling to get fanart of myself.




The second half of July saw a lack of inspiration. As I already mentioned, I wasn't able to finish up the daily challenges because life became crazy preparing for my birthday - which was kind of epic because it was the first time I received gifts from on-line buddies! You guys all rock!

But back to the lack of inspiration... People stopped posting as frequently on the X-Men game, which cut short a large portion of my writing. Add in a Safety orientation video that I edited for a corporate presentation at work - boy was THAT fun - sprinkle in some life drama, and I just got behind the writing 8-ball with little hope of getting back out when it came to regular writing.

Instead, August saw me continuing with no inspiration aside from a few blips on X-Future. Although, I did start seriously thinking about somehow adapting the game in to a story - be it webcomics or prose online novels or the like. It would be a thought that would turn in to an urge that increases each passing month. Eventually I'll do something about that nagging thought....

I did also start expanding my number of fandoms by rewatching more and more X-Men cartoons, and then Extreme Ghostbusters, and finally finding a large fandom-mash-up story I had come up with back when the Xbox game Fable first came out. On top of that, I participated in another Vampire: The Masquerade roleplay. So I had to create a new character for that. There was a LOT of brainstorming going on in August. Just.... no actual WRITING.

After a month of not really doing ANYTHING productive by way of writing, I just gave up and cracked open my copy of Lycopolis that Ali sent me. It was an enjoyable read, even if it did confuse me a touch. Once I finished it I made sure to add a review on her book's Amazon page.

Having not written anything for nearly two months had gotten to me - which I guess goes to show that I AM meant to be a writer if I get so depressed when I just don't write anything. *shrug* Anyway, my first "emo-post" of the past year wasn't intended to be such. I was commenting about how great it was to see DA and Omni writing again. I then mentioned CT giving me a novel adaptation of a cartoon I used to love. From there I somehow managed to turn all "What if I never make it as an author?" Not sure how I got to Self-Doubt Central, but there it was. I was then FLOODED with messages on facebook and on my phone to try to cheer me up. The massive influx of "You can do it!" resulted in my next September post: A thank you note for you guys, my readers.

September found me again beta reading after a season-long hiatus from the task. It was through this activity that DA introduced to me - and then I you - her original story idea entitled Of Blood and Honor. Throughout the months since, I have commented on her advancement on OB&H. I've also commented on my confusion, curiosity, excitement, and envy of her actually "hearing" her characters as if they are separate people talking to her. I have recently discovered what that's like - but that's another thing I'll bring up in a little bit.

Along with introducing you to DA's original fantasy story, I also introduced you guys to my world of Gyateara, or, as I called it back then, my massive hybrid crossover story. One last introduction that occurred in September was for my D&D character Amara. Both Gyateara and Amara would get a few more mentions in my blog as the year clicked along.

Aside from working more on Amara's backstory - a project that had been in the making for nearly as long as I had been with my husband - September brought yet another distraction. So, there was X-Future and all things X-Men in June, my birthday and more X-Men in July, Hubby playing Persona 4 took up a lot of August, and now September leading in to October was being taken over with the anime Soul Eater.

October was also Hubby and my first year wedding anniversary. Thankfully, DA started up her own blog, so my readers could read her posts while I was on vacation. I also received an un-official anniversary gift from Ali by way of her gifting me a membership to her online writing community Writer's Huddle - which just so happens to be in open membership again for anyone who wants to join. It's been a fun community and I really need to spend more time there, as well as do more than just hang out on the forums; even if they are very helpful. Chopfe had also offered for us to collab on a webcomic, but I never figured out what the story would be. Whoops....

But, all-in-all, October seemed to be at least moderately productive, at least, when it came to PLANNING things. Executing them on the other hand.... Well... it kept me all month of brainstorming to get my Halloween Writing Contest entry done. So many starts, stops, rewrites, and all out starting-from-scratches. But, even with all the chaos, the entry was done. That's all I really cared about. If you want, you can read it here.

November was my first ever attempt at National Novel Writing Month. I gave myself three goals:

1. "Win" NaNo by writing a 50,000 word novel between November 1st and 30th.
2. Post at least one chapter on this blog every week so you lovely folks could see my progress.
3. At the very least hit Half-Nano by getting to the mid point of 25,000 words

I accomplished the second two goals at least....

• Week One
• Week Two
• Week Three
• Week Four
• Final Week

I finished NaNo with 25,360 words and seven chapters. The story isn't getting much love, but it's a super rough draft due to the hurried writing of NaNo, so it's to be expected. If you're curious, you can check out "The Race For Destiny" here.

After all the writing I did in November, I didn't do much in December. Instead I focused on two non-writing projects. The first being working with Chibi on a Hey Arnold animatic music video for the Maroon 5 song "One More Night". This project ended up being sort of short lived because of the second thing I was working on all month: Crocheting Christmas gifts.

I also got a very encouraging letter from my uncle; sadly, he seems to be one out of only two of my family members who seem to routinely read my blog/writing. Or, at least, only two ever SAY ANYTHING about my blog/writing.... Oh well. Point is, he was excited about getting published himself, and so he passed along the book with his chapter in it, as well as a few positive comments about my NaNo story. Hey! I found at least one person who read it!




The new year brought in new distractions by way of the video games Kirby's Epic Yarn and the Professor Layton series. It also brought in a list of resolutions; of which I haven't kept ANY of them.... crud....

Well, okay, so I sorta-kept some of them. I did hold a two-month long Weight Loss Challenge at work, so both Hubby and I lost some weight and are TRYING to eat healthier.... it's not working too well, but we're TRYING... that counts, right? I've also been writing more steadily thanks to the forum, but more about that later.

The rest of the resolutions?



Yeah... little to no hope on those...




January did have another plot bunnies post as I tried to figure out what to write for the Hey Arnold Valentine's Day writing contest. Thanks to Chibi, that list of like 30 options was narrowed down to my Brainy Daydreams story idea I went with. My issue was then trying to figure out EXACTLY how the daydream would work. I spent at least one week packing to move to a new apartment and figuring out exactly what I wanted to write.

Along with attempting to finish up the story for the writing contest, finally finishing my chapter for WITMTB after working on it off and on since July, and trying to stick with the new resolutions, I also started up that Handy Links page in January. It was brought on when I was looking for crochet patterns over December for all of those Christmas gifts. I kept finding blog pages that were nothing more than link archives for other places that held the actual pattern. If there was something like that for crocheting patterns, why not one for helpful tips for writers?

Quick special shout out to both Chibi and DA for sending more links to add to that Handy Links page! Thanks a bunch, ladies!

Anyway, I haven't really gotten any feedback on the new page - most likely since I haven't updated it in like three months - so I'm not too sure what everyone thinks of that new page. I'm assuming it's appreciated. If you have any comments or criticisms, just let me know in the comments section. Super duper thanks.

February Hubby and I moved in to a new apartment, I had my sister-in-law's baby shower, and my netbook died on me. So I've been stuck with working exclusively on my desktop since then. I think this is part of my problem when it comes to writing motivation and my blog posts being delayed.

I can no longer hide in my room, or go outside to enjoy the weather, or run to the library or some other distraction-free area. The new apartment also doesn't have a hook up for our washer and dryer, so we have to go to the laundromat. So that's more time where I COULD be working on SOMETHING, but no portable computer hinders that ability. I also find I write better when I'm comfortable: aka reclined/lying down. I can't do that at the desktop. So, here's hoping for a new netbook for my birthday, or Christmas, or for our anniversary. Either that, or I somehow get a better job so I have the money to buy one myself.

Anyway, aside from Chibi helping me punch out that WITMTB chapter - after a nine month wait - she also helped me finish up my writing entry for the Valentine's Day contest. It's not as beloved as my other stories, but it's probably because it's a Brainy+Helga story with Arnold as the villain. Regardless, I enjoyed working on it and think it's a fun read.

Although I believe I DID improve on my scores from the Halloween entry, I still didn't place with my story. Chibi, on the other hand, received second place for a second time in a row! Not too shabby for someone who had only written those two fanfictions.

Her 2nd Place Halloween story can be found here.

Her 2nd Place Valentines story is posted here.

After finishing the Valentines Day contest entry I got to work on my latest chapter of WITMTB; ya know, in order to maintain the whole "Update once a month" resolution I had set for myself. Well, although I had the chapter plot scripted out before the end of the month I have YET to actually WRITE it. 

Fantastic.....

However, just about Valentine's Day itself I received a HUGE boost to my writing. For the first time ever I witnessed someone posting about MY story in the Hey Arnold facebook group! She was asking others what stories they were reading and then she mentioned that she was reading WITMTB and that she'd highly recommend it! Cool beans! Now, for me to get back to using this positive feedback as MOTIVATION TO WRITE! Sheesh.....

In the meantime, talking to both Omni and DA about their respective world buildings in February, I was re-inspired to work on Gyateara more; as well as make it the world that Amara's story would be based in as well - just on a different continent. Sadly, that motivation to world build died quickly when I realized just how horrible I was at naming things. It was pathetic! Oh well, I'm sure I'll pick it up again once I have free time to do so....

At the end of February a coworker and new friend signed up for X-Future with his wife. The new players/characters as well as the new desire from these people to play resparked the life of the game. No one had posted in months at that point. Hubby had instituted a 2yr time skip and no one really knew what to do. Having these new players completely revived the board and the game. It also got me back in to my obsession. Worse/best part is that at least the coworker is just as addicted as me when it comes to the boards, so I always seem to have someone to interact with; making it even harder to leave the game alone.

March was odd in the fact that I was both massively stuck behind writer's block once again, and I created one of my favorite and most complicated characters: Trish.

She was birthed from me obsessively listening to "My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark (Light Em Up)" by Fall Out Boy. She was originally created so I had a character who wasn't so reserved and restrictive of her pyrokinetic powers; as well as a foil and possible Brotherhood romantic interest for Devon. However, as I created her she slowly became more than just a fun new means to still interact with Devon. She became the first character that I ever wrote who actually "spoke" to me. Like, this girl legitimately ARGUES with me. It's fascinating, intriguing, and a bit weird. Now I kind of understand what Delaroux and DA meant when they said their characters were constantly talking to them.

Her backstory was the longest and easiest for me to write because it was like hearing her telling it to me. Then, when I tried to set her up as a playful romantic interest of Devon - who ended up unofficially getting Nys instead - Trish turned in to a psychotic who actually despises Devon and is instead in love with Devon's father. It's to the point where I mentally pictured a scene where Trish tried to lure Devon in - to of course literally backstab him - by flirting with him and Trish REFUSED! I pictured Devon on a couch and Trish curling up next to him and playing with his hair. As soon as her fingers ran through his locks once, Trish jumped off the couch, shuddered, and started yelling "Eww! Ew, ew, ew! I- I can't! Ug! I think I just threw up a little. I can't. This is so gross. I need a shower," and then stormed out.

I had a slightly similar instance while working on The Race for Destiny in which Connor randomly explodes with this anger I didn't know he had and storms out of the scene; leaving me staring at the screen and going "uh... Connor? I kinda need you for the rest of the story. How the hell am I supposed to work you back in????" However, Trish is almost like an actual voice that I hear.

March, however, also had Willow start "talking" to me as well. With the forum being restarted, Willow was just a lot easier to use to interact with everyone. She became my main character and she drastically developed throughout the month's play. This all accumulated in "The Week of Feels. One of the players killed off his character and it hit Willow a LOT harder than I thought it would. I spent a full week of almost non-stop writing just working her through the pain and anguish of losing the friend, and then finding out that a family member could be a villain, and that she has feelings for Chayse - who also had feelings for her, but was still dating Lia. 

The apartment was quickly filled with a chorus of me and Hubby yelling "What are you doing!?" to our characters as we wrote, but they totally took over. We were like weird mediums for these characters to just flow from our brains to the screen with no filtering. It sort of freaked both of us out as we realized our characters were both "real" and "separate entities". 

Either way, it was a massively fun time for my writing as the writer's block was torn down and I wrote daily!

It was because of how much fun the writing was, plus getting at least four people - including myself - either choked up or crying while reading everything I wrote, that my nagging thought of converting the game in to a story became an overwhelming desire. I started and stopped about five different projects I have in the works, but I do plan on finishing all of them at some point.

I WILL eventually have:

1. A thread set up on the board where each post is sort of "Last time on..." to highlight the key things that have been going on. This way new players or players that have been away for a little bit know what's currently going on and what the main plot points were without having to spend HOURS going back and reading EVERYTHING.
2. A prologue written explaining the world of X-Future; what we deem Earth-11616. It's a merger of the Marvel classifications of the X-Men Evolution continuity of Earth-11052 and the main comic continuity of Earth-616
3. Write out Willow's tale on the boards as prose
4. Write out Lia's tale on the boards as prose
5. Write out an anthology of scenes that I've written for the X-Future characters; not necessarily focusing on just one character.

Another fun thing in March was my introduction to my favorite character on the forum: Lincoln. He's awkward, geeky, and has a split personality that we recently found out is named Darwin.

Final thing that occurred in March was Cyhyr starting up her own blog as well. So, if you haven't done so yet, you should totally add both hers and DA's blogs!

Here they are once more:
DA's blog
Cyhyr's blog

April brought with it the birth of our adorable niece! I haven't really done much writing since then....

What I HAVE been doing is crocheting like crazy to try to finish a baby blanket for the kid. She might get it before she's five...

 April was also when I first started being able to FINALLY role play as Trish on the board. It's been a fun ride with that one. There are a lot of times where Ronoxym will be visiting and we both start glaring and yelling at each other as Trish and Devon. It's a fantastic interaction.

Here is sort of what goes on in my apartment:

Me: I can't have her do so on the forums, but just know that Trish is flipping you off so hard core right now. Double deuces.

Ronoxym: Yeah? Yeah!? Well, Devon's doing the same thing right back, sister!

April also had my characters so talkative - mostly Trish, but whatever - that I had written a few little scene snippet one-shots. I haven't done so yet, but another item on my list of things to do is create an anthology of these scenes so you guys can get a look in to these characters, I have a writing outlet, and a way to get further in to the psyche of my characters with stories done off-forum.

I also helped beta-read a quick one-shot for Delaroux, had Cyhyr help, and then became terrified of having Cyhyr beta any of my stuff! Holy crow, that girl is just....

So, the end of my solitary April posting I did a bit of emo-writing again, commenting about my concern about whether or not I'm cut out to be a professional writer.

May was mostly taken up with me pretending to participate in an online writing class.

Holly Lisle hosts an online course on "How To Write Flash Fiction That Doesn't Suck". I found out about it through a fellow member of Writer's Huddle and decided to give it a whirl. And by "give it a whirl" I of course mean, "didn't really participate at all".

 

Anyway, seems that Holly restarts the three-week program after the end of each one, so this is a constant thing that people can participate in. If you want to try it out but it's not open because it already started, give it a week, or two, or the full three, and she'll open it back up again. Even if I didn't actively write anything for the course, the information is still good. I recommend it. 

Anyway, so May was me messing around with that as well as me having the realization that my one side-character Crystal could be a super major catalyst for plot/character development in the game. Hubby's still working on the details, as well as whether or not my realization will come to fruition. Regardless, it was fun concocting that plot device and really get the gears going. 

WHOO! That's pretty much it! The journey thus far. Does this long post help make up for the month hiatus? MAAAAAAYBE?

Anyway, I did notice on my trip back over the last 50 posts that I haven't accomplished a few things and I need to work on that...

1.  I never did post that "inspirational" post I commented on back in like February/March. I'll have to get cracking on that.
2. I never did post Amara's backstory. I really need to have Hubby look over it so I can post.
3. I never finished ANY of my X-Future ideas and should work on finishing at least ONE
4. I never did send those wedding thank yous.... I had them all done by the year anniversary and then something happened, they got shuffled and I misplaced them before mailing them. I then wrote a "Christmas Letter" explaining everything that happened our first year of marriage and apologizing for not sending the thank yous. I had intended to send the thank yous with the letters.... and then things again got shuffled and misplaced. Then we moved and the letters are all blocked towards the back of our spare room we will EVENTUALLY turn in to a library. Trick is finding the time to finish unpacking so I can get to the letters.... I'm such fail.  
   

So, here's hoping I have appeased you readers with this hour-long read, and perhaps I'll get back to my weekly updates again.

 

Hopefully.