Positive Turning Point (hopefully)

Hello, all, and happy Groundhog's Day!

Will Mr. Resetti see his shadow this morning?

Between all of the snow and the fact that the
light is in front of him, it's pretty unlikely!

With the big Nor'easter that just blew through the United States yesterday/last night, good luck even finding poor Punxsutawney Phil!

Oh! Oh wait... nope. Nope, Phil DID see his shadow. I DON'T WANT SIX MORE WEEKS OF WINTER!!!! 

Welp. Guess it means I'm still stuck inside, which is probably for the best because I've been SUUUUUUUUPER slacking on both writing AND reading!

I mean, actually, I haven't been slacking too much on the WRITING bit, but I haven't stuck to my schedule as tightly as I would have liked, and yet ANOTHER self-mandated deadline came and went.

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I had hunkered down and REALLY got to work on those last five chapters of Perfect Doesn't Need to be Perfect. Yeah, I got distracted playing more Going Under or Animal Crossing or Ori and the Blind Forest, or staying up-to-date with my Tumblr dash for the first time since last March, but I did put in some effort to get the story done before midnight on January 31st.

I got up to chapter 11 of 12, if that helps.

Worst part is, I had chapter 8 done, like, a week ago. However, the publishing format for each of the sites I use are almost completely different, so to tweak the word document for each one to make sure things like italics (of which I have a lot in this story in particular) are properly included takes a LOT of time. Posting each chapter and giving it one last quick review to make sure it's how I want it takes anywhere from 40 to 70 minutes total. I had figured I could use that time to try to crank out the next chapter, and when I was done with chapter 9 I thought I should keep going. I figured, at this rate, I could just do a mass-dump of the final five chapters before midnight on the 31st and call it good.

"Hey, folks, sorry I keep pushing back when I'd be posting/finishing this story. So here's the second half as one huge upload to make up for it. Have fun!"

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It also occurred to me that I wanted to include something in the chapter 6 author's notes that I forgot about at the time, so I'm debating going back and adding it in now so any future readers get the notation....

Anyway!

As of last night, I have chapters 8 through 11 written, edited, and ready to be published. At this point, though, I might as well wait for that final chapter to be done. It feels a bit pathetic to STILL be working on a Christmas story now that it's February (especially since the last time I was still working on a Christmas story post-December I was able to get it finished within January). However, as ChibiSunnie keeps reminding me: "Candlemas is February 2nd, so you're still technically in the Medieval Christmas time and still not late." So, I still have until midnight tonight! (Also, I had been getting notifications all of last year that people were reading Woven Heartstrings, so I guess not too many people restrict their reading of seasonal stories to that season...)

Koko Facebook sticker
by Hanasake Pictures Inc

Guess what I'll be doing after this blog post is published!

Especially since we're kinda-sorta snowed in. The roads are clear enough that we can leave if we needed to, but I think we're gonna stay safe and just postpone grocery shopping and laundry for another night....

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Looks like a pajama day to me....

Sooooo, yeah, I know how I'm spending MY day.

One more chapter! I got this! I can do this!

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Weeeeell... maybe TWO more chapters. Technically, Taurus Pixie's story has 12 chapters - one for each Day of Christmas - buuuut, I do have an Adrienette subplot I stumbled into, so I miiiiiight do an epilogue???? I mean, I have the subplot wrapped up the way I have it, but I also kinda-sorta want to put a bow on it still. Ya know? We'll see how I get along today.

Because, frankly, part of my "problem" with this story is that, while Pixie only gave herself less than 24 hours to write, edit, and publish each chapter - posting a new one every day - I'm giving myself ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD to get these chapters where I want them. Which, of course, means I get to spend some time with the environment Pixie set up, and dive a bit further into Ladybug's thoughts on everything. It also means that silly Adrienette subplot was able to creep into my story.

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Cropped by me

So, while Pixie's chapters would average about 2000 words... mine are all closer to 4500 words long.

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I mean, come on. Were you folks expecting anything else with me, though? Now, let's see, averaging about 4500 words per chapter.... at least 5 chapters must be up before midnight tonight... so... uh... yeah, expect a good old 22,000+ word-dump - er, I mean UPLOAD - when you wake up tomorrow (if not before going to bed tonight; I hope it's this one, honestly).

Huh. I mean, it's not the excellent start to 2021 I had hoped for: getting this story done within the actual 12 days of Christmas, as intended. Or even getting the story done before the end of January, as I had aimed. But still, when the story is already over 14,000 words long and I'm going to add probably another 22,000 words on top of that? Especially when the source material was 23,500 words long to begin with?

Not too shabby for someone who spent most of last year going "what are even words?" Right?

Heck, if I'm feeling super ambitious, maybe I'll even try to think of cover art (this story and my Love Square Fluff Week story are the only multi-chapter ML fics I have that don't have cover art). BUT FIRST, I want to FINISH WRITING THE DANG STORY. We'll build from there.

Also also, while Love Square Fluff Week was over darn-near a YEAR ago now, I still have two more chapters/prompts to write to finish that story off. So, guess what my next big task will be. Maybe I can get that done by Valentine's day????

PLUS, I was supposed to help my mom out with something important last year, but then... well... 2020 happened. I've already delayed her enough as it is, so I really need to focus and get started on that project.

It's a new month. Our work schedule is FINALLY  back to a regular rhythm for the first time since March! *knocks on wood* Pending anyone taking vacation time, I'm back to two days off a week, with my longest working streak being my normal once-a-month Wednesday through Monday stretch. And that's because I'll have a Sunday off, then my normal Tuesday as my second day. Which means I'd have to then wait for my normal Tuesday again the following week for my next day off, and my second day off that week will usually be Friday. 

Added bonus, though, due to how the manager is now scheduling my coworker's work weeks (upon request), I tend to get Saturdays off the weeks that it's my coworker's turn to get Sunday off. We've also somehow fallen into a rotation where I get my Sundays off the week after my coworker has her turn, so now I randomly get weekends off once a month???? Neat.

I'm hoping all of this is a positive turning point, and I can truly start making my climb back to normalcy in my life. Get back to having enough mental stamina to Adult properly. Get back into writing regularly. Get back to reading regularly. Get on top of this project for my mom. Really get back into a proper schedule to keep myself even keel. 

We've got this, peeps! We can make it over this mountain. And we'll be stronger for it.

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I guess I'll catch you folks on the other side. In the meantime, stay safe and stay well. Sending you guys supportive hugs.

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Oh, speaking of! Sending some extra love out to Wolfhearted to wish him a happy belated birthday.

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And, with regards to my "need to get back to reading," Cyhyr posted the latest chapter of her story Displaced by Time the other day. If you're into FFXV, or want an emotional, action-packed, time-shenanigans story (trust me, you don't actually need to know anything about FFXV to enjoy this story), then go check it out.

Finally, happy Black History Month. May we put in the effort to learn about Black excellence all year round, not just in February!

Love you guys! Catch you next week!

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Incoming: Full-Blown Miraculous Nerd

My mother has completed her task to get my apartment organized!

I still have some "homework" to do; mostly boxes of odds-and-ends that I need to sift through, re-organizing my bathroom now that I have a new storage location, getting decent bookshelves for all of our books, and a few storage totes that are temporarily in my library.

So, I'm not 100% done, but, with her help, I'm up to about 90% done, maybe even 95% done.

The place looks amazing! Check it out! Excuse the "grossness" of the "before" photos. I'm sure now you'll understand why I was so stressed and constantly complaining about having to clean instead of write:

After

Main Living Area: After

And now time for the shameless plug for her business. If you are even close to my "before" pictures, and are in the continental US, please check her business out for some help. She's also good at generic "downsizing" or packing for moving.

Donna's A Place For Everything

OK, well, now that I flooded this post with pictures and free advertising.....


I spent the whole week writing! Can you believe it!? The beauty of not having to clean every minute I'm home! Also the beauty of finding some "just us" nights at home. I love my friends, and I get depressed when I can't socialize, but I need some "me time" too, ya know?

Anyway, I didn't do as well as I did the last leg of the summer challenge; I only wrote 4300-some words this past week. However, I did write every day. Well, technically, I didn't write any narrative on Tuesday, but I wrote the blog post, so I still had "writing time" every day the past week. SEVEN DAYS IN A ROW! WHAT!?

Monday went back to an "I'm not writing anything" day, but I did punch out a couple more pages for the work orientation handbook, so... that still counts, right?

I'm still grinding away at my first-ever "Miraculous Ladybug" fanfic, and boy do I need to scrap about half of it!

I know, I know. It sounds discouraging, and it sounds like I'm discouraged. Neither are true, though. I'm excited that I'm writing so frequently. I'm excited that even with a few stall days, I've been able to more-or-less stick with this story for a solid month. I'm excited that I've evolved enough as a writer that I'm actually WILLING to scrap bits to try to improve my work.

Even earlier this year, I don't know if I could do that. Which is the main issue with Please, Let Me Explain. I just didn't know how to kill my little darlings. In this case, I don't mean harming - or literally killing - my characters. I mean looking over a paragraph, or two, or a whole page, and go "this is crap; let's try that again." I just couldn't slim it down to make it work better.

This fanfic, though? I have no problem dumping every last word I did the day before and trying again. I've done it about four times now. To prove my point, I had started this month with about 6300 words already written for this story. This month I have written exclusively for this fanfic, and I have written over 10,000 words as of Sunday night. Therefore, the grand total written thus far for my Miraculous story is 16,630 words. Yet, when I do a word count for the actual story - with all the "crap" bits removed and rewritten - my grand total is 13,891. That's 2700 words that I've written since I started this fanfic, and decided not to keep. I have NEVER done anything like that before!

Fear not, fellow writers who know better, for I did not just delete and re-wrote. I know that "crap" written still holds golden nuggets somewhere. You just have to go back and look it over again with a new perspective. Or, maybe I had a beautiful metaphor or turn of phrase that didn't work then, but will work in a future story. There's even the more painful idea of the writing actually being beautiful and some of the best work I've written, but it doesn't work a lick with the rest of the story.

No, dear reader, I know better as well. I've cut out the parts that just didn't work for me, and pasted them into their own individual word docs to maybe peruse later. I now have my first ever "scraps" folder to sift through should I ever need them.

I also started up a notebook for me to keep separate thoughts in: what I want to make sure is included in the final story, what needs to be added, what needs to be removed, plot holes I need to plug, bits I need to shorten, scenes I need to slow-down and expand upon. It even has notes from the show itself to make sure the continuity is accurate. The most fun bits, though, is that I've started notes for fan-theories as well that I might want to expand upon either in this story, or as plot bunnies for future stories.

I'm actually having fun with this editing process. Something I never thought I'd ever mutter. I mean, who ENJOYS editing their work!?

Even with all this heavy editing that I've already started, I know even more must be done. I have the makings of a good story, I know I do. I just don't think I came at it the right way. That's where the notebook comes in, to help me find the right angle. I'm still going to push through to the end of the existing story, to see what else shakes loose. However, I feel it will be a complete rewrite when I go back through and make it into a chaptered story.

The rough part is that I want to stop work on this fanfic by the end of the week in order to spend next month working on the Jungle Movie fanscript again. I also need to get started on my notes for the Varekai fan-novelization I want to do for NaNo. So, I might not even finish the current incarnation of this story until the end of the year. I may even have to wait until January to get back into writing more Miraculous, because I was supposed to have a cleaned up Devon/Trish battle for you folks that I completely forgot about with this current obsession! So I REALLY need to finish that up and post it before the year is out! Especially since I promised it would be done last month, and again for this month.

Bad, LycoRogue! Bad, bad Lyco!


Even when I do finish the Miraculous fanfic - be it in December or January - I then have to sift through to find the true story, and the right POV to tell it in. Clean it up. I'm probably looking at March, maybe even April, by the time I'm done, if I really kick my butt in gear. I just couldn't wait that long before posting ANYTHING about this story.

Since the finished product may only barely resemble the one I'm currently writing, and since it will take me about six months before it is ready for the light of day, I decided to just take the plunge, and share a teaser.

I know, it's mean, and leaves people wondering for quite some time, but maybe it will also get people as excited about this as I am. I hope I don't get in trouble for posting a teaser on FanFiction.....

"Peeping Tomcat - Teaser"

On DeviantArt            On FanFiction

Want to know the best part? I blame being in Chat Noir's head for this, but the pun naturally showed up in his inner monologue, and I loved it enough to make it the title.

GUYS! I DID IT! I CAME UP WITH A TITLE! It was fairly easy, too! Wha!?

OK, I've become a MAJOR Miraculous nerd over the past two months, but if it's helping me improve THIS MUCH in my writing, I'll go with it.

"Hey, Arnold!" did the same thing for my writing. It brought me out of a six-year slump and got me excited to routinely write fiction again. THIS is what's so amazing about fan fiction! Shows, movies, games, and books with such rich characters and worlds that the audience just CRAVES more than can be presented, these are perfect springs for Muses to drink upon. Writing blossoms, as does artwork, and even acting.

I've been a bit obsessed with listening to dubs of fancomics the past week or two. Seeing the other stories and the beautiful artwork Miraculous has inspired floors me. And, while I'm loving the vast majority of the voice actors practicing their craft with these dubs, there is a couple in particular that kills me. Nearly every night Hubby looks at me weird as I'm laughing hard enough to cry at their bloopers.

Give them some love: Princess Sakura Serenity and her fiance Isamu Mamoru.
Love should also go to their main partner in crime RileyChase Fox.

Enough gushing about them, though. I have someone else to gush over: Omnibladestrike!

Yup! You read right! I actually flaked and forgot to share his second chapter a week or so ago, but he's up to chapter 3 of his new story! He's afraid that he hit a wall on where to go for chapter 4, but maybe some love will inspire him. Go! Check it out!

Ok, well, if I'm going to take a huge chunk out of this story before I have to shelve it, I should get started on that! Catch you guys next week.

All the Reveal Stories!

It's.... been a trying week. I only managed 1800 words last week; only two writing days. I squeezed in a short burst before writing group, although I didn't end up reading anything. I then finished put-off errands on Wednesday, followed by a mad-dash on Thursday to try to clean my apartment at least a LITTLE before my mother's arrival.

She came up Friday, and we spent it going over her business. Saturday was a long, and I mean LONG, day organizing my dining room/secondary room. We have a few more last-minute things to do to finish, but it's mostly dropping off trash and donations. I should have it done by the end of today, so I'll be sure to post pictures next week. Anyway, after putting in my eight-plus hours of near-straight work, I finished the night trying to get more than 600 words in for the week.

Where I'm at, Adrien is wrestling with his feelings: does he love Marinette for Marinette, or does he only have feelings for Ladybug that spills over to Marinette? If he only has feelings for Marinette because she's Ladybug, does that mean he doesn't truly have feelings for Ladybug after all? The poor kid is so confused, but I couldn't get into the right mindset. Thankfully, a song that played at work gave me the spark of inspiration I needed.

Because of "Crush" by David Archuleta, I was able to knock out almost 1200 words before I had to call it quits Saturday night. It was a nice mini-spurt of writing, but I wasn't able to get any more in on Sunday.

While I was at work yesterday I did take some downtime to write some more, just to avoid all of these zero days piling up on me. I didn't continue telling the story, and I didn't really add all that much to the parts that I already wrote. All-in-all, my writing at work wasn't even 400 words, but it still was something. It wasn't a zero.

What I did accomplish was the start of editing the first half of the story. I decided that will be my goal while at work. It takes a little less effort, so it's easier to jump in and out of the process, depending on when I'm needed. It also really helps, as editing tends to be, because it allots me time to clean up some of the paragraphs that were clunky when I originally wrote them during the summer challenge; leaving my out-of-work writing time available for continuing the story. I'm also adding a bit more depth with these edits, now that I know this story needs it. I'm probably going to go over the story yet again to slow the pace further in order to add even more meat to the tale, and then break it into chapters.

For now, though, I'm just working on getting the main body of the story fleshed out. I'll chapter it later, once I have the first draft fully written.

While at work, I'm also cleaning up characterization. There have already been a few paragraphs scrapped and rewritten so Adrien and Marinette stay more in-character. I'll have to find time for another rewatch to solidify that I have them written right. That's the main issue of watching all these fancomic dubs: I'm being flooded by how others interpret the characters and the character's voices; which is overshadowing the canonical portrayals.

On the plus side, though, I'm really picking up on a lot of patterns that the fandom has thought of in regards to the Big Reveal of Chat Noir and Ladybug's true identities. There are some that I love and want to try to include - such as Adrien's confusion about his feelings, since us fans believes he has started to have a crush on Marinette anyway - as well as some I know I want to avoid - such as Marinette freaking out that Chat Noir is disappointed that she's Ladybug because she feels that she's a loser.

I kind of want to do something similar to "You've Got Mail" I think. Adrien will use Marinette's crush on him to convince her how great Chat Noir is so that she falls for the "true" version of him. I'm not 100% sold on this idea, and I still have to get past Adrien's shock over who Ladybug is, but it could be fun.

On the flipside, while messing with Adrien's head over his crush for Marinette is fun, the "You've Got Mail" thing works better if Marinette knew first. Mainly because Marinette already likes the civilian form, so him showing her he's Chat Noir by powering up, and her giving the iconic "I hoped it was you" line just seems odd and reversed. Meanwhile, since Adrien has been actively looking for Ladybug, having her de-power to her civilian form is a lot more analogous of the anonymity of a pen pal being revealed when meeting in person for the first time. "I hoped it was you" works so much better when the mask is REMOVED instead of added.

On the other hand, I also really liked the reveal in "Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman." Spoilers for anyone who hasn't watched the series, but wants to: skip to the next paragraph if you want to avoid them. Anyway, Lois volunteers to let Superman flash-freeze her so she appears dead, under the assumption that Superman could then use his heat vision to revive her once the villain is thwarted. Lois is dating Clark at this point, so when Superman lovingly brushes her cheek before freezing her Lois recognizes it as the same move Clark does all the time. Then, when Superman revives her Lois hears his voice and recognizes it as Clark before she opens her eyes and realizes it's Superman.

I kind of want to do something like that. Marinette and Ladybug are so similar to each other that the personality Marinette showcases as Ladybug seems to be the main thing throwing the world off; kind of like original Superman with his glasses. Clark is too meek to possibly be Superman, which, along with something "covering his eyes," is his only real "mask" to hide who he really is. This is nearly an exact parallel for Marinette and Ladybug. Therefore, I kind of like the idea of something traumatic triggering Adrien "hearing" Marinette when Ladybug talks, and then realizing who she is.

On the flipside, Adrien changes up his personality, his hair shags into a mildly different style, and he does change up his vocal inflections a touch as well - a trick both superheros do unintentionally, I'm sure, but it CAN be enough to also fool people. Between the two of them, Adrien to Chat Noir is a much more drastic change, and so I could see how it would be harder for Marinette to figure out who he is. Plus, it's a lot easier to believe there are multiple teen males with shaggy blonde hair, since Adrien's eyes are also changed completely green to match the cat-look. It's a lot harder to rationalize that in Paris there are tons of teen girls wearing their black-hair in pigtails, while also having blue eyes. So, this might get us back to the original "You've Got Mail" situation of Chat Noir using his Adrien half to convince Marinette to love both sides of him.

I might have to write multiple Reveal fanfics and see which one the fans prefer.


Thanks to a college friend, I'm now part of a fanfiction group on Facebook, so I might have to see if any of them are into Miraculous. It is an 18+ group, but who knows? Maybe some wholesome child's cartoon fanfiction is just the palate cleanser they need.

Either way, with the second season coming out in November, I might have the readers regardless. I just hope they don't actually do a Big Reveal scene this upcoming season, because there's no way I'll have any of these stories done before November, and it's more fun to write these fanfics when it's still a mystery as to how the show will do it.

I mean, after how "Lois and Clark" did their reveal, it just seemed too perfect to mess with it. It wouldn't be fun to rewrite that story. It's much like the "Hey, Arnold!" fanscript I want to try to finish before November; it's a race to get my own vision out before the canonical version is revealed.

Who knows, though? I might win the race!

Thanks to the massive hard work my mother put in over the weekend, I now have my library back, so I have my writing hide-away again. I also have much easier access to my journals for all my notes. On top of that, I can now get to the binders I have set up for Gyateara's world creation, and the outline for What Is Truly Meant To Be. So I might be able to get back to working on each of those starting in January, after the projects I already have planned are completed.

It is WORLDS easier to find what I need, and know where everything should go, after my mother re-arranged and re-organized this place, which also means I SHOULD need to dedicate less time in cleaning every week. Want to guess what I might do with that new free time? Anyone guess more writing? Okay, maybe some video game playing again.... but mainly MORE WRITING AVAILABILITY!

2017 may have been a slow-start/sucky year, but 2018 already is shaping up to be promising. It's always the even years....