Welcome to 2019

Image by chibird.
See the original on tumblr

While I've always liked to give artists credit for their work, and try to link back to them whenever possible, I've also become more and more sensitive to reposting etiquette and desires of the artist. So, please rest assured that I checked chibird's FAQs to see if a repost is allowed. I am carefully following all of the requested credits.

I'm just glad I can repost, because this image is just too cute and perfect for me to not share. So Happy New Year, everyone! Welcome to 2019!

Whoops! Sorry, guys. Last week turned out a bit more frantic than I originally planned, so I ended up not posting anything at all. A shame, really, since I did have things to talk about. At least I still hit 52 blog posts. We'll just ignore that there was apparently 53 Tuesdays in 2018...

Anyway, instead of this being my normal "Here are my New Year's Resolutions" post or my "Year in Review" post, I'm actually going to talk a bit about my writing. Worse comes to worst, I'll do my Resolutions post next week. Gives me a week to break in the New Year to see how reasonable the resolutions are going to be.

I'm stalling though, so let's just get to it!

In my last post I talked about Jowy's Pixie gifting me and three other friends of hers a Christmas story. Well, first of all, a quick side note. Pixie recently changed her FFN name to Taurus Pixie, probably to match her other online handles on AO3 and Tumblr. So from now on she'll be Taurus Pixie here too, also please note that you're now looking for Taurus Pixie on FFN.

Now back on topic.

Pixie faithfully posted a new chapter EVERY DAY for TWELVE DAYS STRAIGHT in order to have it all done by Christmas Eve. If you want some warm fuzzies to carry the Christmas spirit along for a few more days, please go check out her COMPLETED story:

Twelve Days of Chatmas

The story really was incredibly adorable, and I'm still amazed that she could write so well with such a quick turn around. I'm still struggling to get something up once a week! So, if you enjoy Pixie's work as well, please be sure to give her some love by way of likes, kudos, and/or reviews. It means the world to us writers to have people show us how much they enjoyed our work, and she deserves a lot more love. For sure.

Also, she didn't just go with Chat Noir trying to gift everything from The Twelve Days of Christmas to Ladybug. She still thematically included each "gift" into each day/chapter of her story, but the way she did so was inspired and refreshing. Seriously, I can't get enough of this story and I can't say enough about it. The fact that I was one of the gift recipients of this darling tale is just super thick frosting to an already 7-layer cake of awesomeness.

Now, of course her story gave me all the feels. First of all, the story is just GOOD. Secondly, the fact that I got a new chapter to look forward to each day really helped me with the stress of prepping for Christmas. Especially since I was NOT in the mood this year. Third was the idea that, while she discovered “Peeping Tomcat” in May, Pixie and I didn't really go from me thanking her for her reviews to actual online friends until July or so. Which means I was only really friends with her for a few months, and yet she thought about including me with a Christmas gift she was writing for her friends. I could just cry knowing we bonded that quickly.

I really need to redo this
emoji. Does anyone even
recognize this meme anymore?

I wanted to let her know that our newfound friendship meant just as much to me. I wanted her to also have glorious feels like she was making me have. Plus, I needed something Christmas-y as a bit of a palate cleanser to help refresh my work on "One and the Same" and get me in the Christmas spirit.

So I asked her what her favorite corner of the Love Square is, and what kind of stuff would she like to read. After some personal debate, she landed on MariChat, and "fluffy hanging out on the balcony" as well as "there's not enough Nurse Chat Noir" fics.

Well, I DID come up with something for all of those suggestions, but it didn't seem "Christmas-y enough" so I shoved it all to the back-burner and started again. Doing so pushed me back a bit, and my story - as per usual - ended up being more involved than I initially gave it credit for. What should have been a 4000-word one-shot turned into at least 4 plotted chapters. I was going to try to have the whole story written and revised - to make sure I didn't need to tweak anything chapter by chapter to fill plot holes - but it was taking too long.

So, on Christmas Eve, just a few hours before Pixie posted her last chapter of TDoC, I posted my first chapter of my story gift to her.

On FanFiction        On ArchiveOfOurOwn        On DeviantArt

Woven Heartstrings

Summary: Chat Noir needs a Christmas gift for Ladybug. Marinette is a very crafty and creative person, so Chat Noir asks her for some help in making a gift for his lady. While hesitant in aiding Chat Noir’s attempts to woo her superhero self, Marinette reluctantly agrees. Although, after a week of working side-by-side with Marinette, Chat Noir’s not so sure he wants to gift the scarf he’s making to Ladybug after all.

Status: Chapter 1 of 4 (? I think it will be 4 when all is said and done…)

Ships: MariChat with hints of LadyNoir and Adrienette

Rating: K / General Audiences

Universe: This story DOES NOT take place in the “It’s You” universe along with “Peeping Tomcat.”

Spoilers: This story is Season 2 compliant, and therefore has mentions of minor spoilers from Season 2 of Miraculous Ladybug

By the way, coming up with cover art for my fanfics is HARD, man! I wanted something quick and simple since I didn't have much free time the past two weeks. And yet, creating that striped scarf, and coming up with a way to symbolize Chat Noir and Marinette still kept me TWO HOURS to do! If I were more artistically inclined I probably could have whipped this out a lot faster. However, considering, I think I did alright for only being able to doctor pictures, and therefore needing to find the base pictures online first. That took up 45 minutes easily: finding a base scarf I liked, a high-quality Chat Noir symbol, and a high-quality Marinette Signature logo. I do wish I knew who re-created the Marinette logo from her purse and accessories. It was so wonderfully done.

Coming up with a title was equally difficult. I tried and tried and tried to come up with something. Something that, in an instant, told people it was a fluffy story. Something that would let people know crafting was involved. Something that told people that things were going to become unexpectedly complicated and/or there would be significant bonding between characters. I also wanted something to let people know it's a Christmas themed story, but I couldn't tie it all together.

I kept landing on Christmas Pine, but the main theme of this story isn't actually about pining for someone. I mean, I guess it could be an underlining theme, but the pun hints at more angst than there should be in the final result of my tale. There's no reference to Christmas trees, as far as I know, to a significant degree in my story either. So either way, the title wasn't going to work. Shame, though, because it's a decent title, and I figured it out fairly quickly. Instead, I had to suffer three full days of trying to figure out what to name this silly story.

Christmas Eve I woke up to an alert on my phone. Every day at about 8am, my Dictionary.com app alerts me to the Word of the Day. The word that day was Heartstrings.

BINGO! Chat Noir is crocheting in my story, and the whole point of his making a scarf is to show how much he cares. He wants the gift for Ladybug to be a reminder of how much she's loved. The word Heartstrings seemed perfect.

....

Until I went to do my usual title check. Now, it's perfectly fine to title your story the same thing someone else titled theirs. It happens all the time with professional books, movies, and songs. It happens frequently for fanfiction as well. However, I try my hardest to have as unique a title as possible. I find it's easier for people to find my story that way. It helps me stand out. Plus, I don't like accidentally riding the coattails of another story. For example, someone heard "Heartstrings" is a fantastic Miraculous Ladybug story, but they don't know who wrote the story, and therefore accidentally reads mine instead of the one they were looking for. I mean, it's a great way to capture readers I wouldn't have otherwise received, but it just feels shady to me.

And lo and behold, there is indeed already a very popular ML fanfic called "Heartstrings." It's by taylortot, was completed May 2016, is over 60,000 words long, and is clearly popular. As of this writing, it has had 385,742 hits! There are 1703 comments, 2675 bookmarks, and 15,147 kudos. I have it bookmarked to read later since this story is clearly a winner and very popular in the fandom. I'll let you know my thoughts when I get around to reading it.

In the meantime, feel free to check it out yourself:

Heartstrings by taylortot

Summary: One of Marinette’s rare unlucky days turns into something treacherous. Thanks to a certain cat, the real danger passes, but there are other things to be more afraid of. Her heart, for example, might be one of them.

Rating: Teen

Warnings: The story is listed as "No Archive Warnings Apply" but additional tags has "read at your own risk holy shit"

Point is, this was exactly what I feared. What if someone looked for taylortot's story after being told "You HAVE to read Heartstrings" and ended up on my story? Worse yet, what if someone MEANT to suggest MY story, but forgot to mention "LycoRogue's story Heartstrings" and I ended up LOSING readers to taylortot?

Anyway, after my "perfect" title was a bust, I spent another 2 or 3 hours Christmas Eve morning going "WHAT AM I GOING TO CALL THIS DARN THING!? I NEED TO GET AT LEAST THE FIRST CHAPTER UP FOR PIXIE!"

Finally - thank god for shower thoughts - I realized that Woven Heartstrings would be perfect. I just needed to confirm one thing: is crochet considered a type of weaving? The Google answer is yes, checking on FFN and AO3 resulted in no other story with that title - Miraculous Ladybug or otherwise, and thus I could move on.

Have I ever mentioned before how much I hate naming things?


Anyway, chapter 1 of "Woven Heartstrings" went up, and it had a decent reception, given that everyone was probably spending time with their family this past week.

Most importantly, Pixie seems to like it.

Taurus Pixie: I'm dead. You've killed me. I've died from cuteness!!!!! I can't believe you've done this for me! I'm speechless! Speechless and dead! Just...AAHHHHHHHH! One of my favourite writers and most amazing friends of all time has written a fanfiction for me in her usual awesome quality that makes me just want to scream for eternity over how true to the show it is and how sweet it is! Eeeeeeek! I really don't know what to say! This is already so amazing! The images of Chat trying to crochet are just so adorable! It was great to see him and Marinette spending time together. How ironic that Marinette is helping Chat Noir make a gift for HERSELF! I couldn't help but get a chuckle out of that. But awww, bless Chat Noir so much! He really wants to do something special for her! Awww he's such a cute kitty, too pure for this world. I'm super excited to see where this goes! I can already imagine that you're going to cause my teeth to melt out of my head. You have such a wonderful talent for creating the most adorable moments between the characters!

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!!!!

So I consider that a win.

I had every intention of finishing the rest of the story on Christmas Eve so I could at least post a polished Chapter 2 on Christmas. That didn't happen.

I had every intention of writing up a blog post on Christmas Eve, talking about all of this "Woven Heartstrings" stuff, that way it was all set for Christmas Day. That also didn't happen.

I had every intention of doing either of those things Christmas morning after Hubby and I exchanged gifts, since we didn't need to be at the in-laws' until 2pm. Bet you could guess that also didn't happen.

As I mentioned at the start of this blog, I just wasn't feeling the Holiday Season this year. I've actually felt the "holy crap, I'm burnt out and overwhelmed and just want to hide in this corner of the couch" season this year. So the apartment fell to disaster, and my "Holy crud! We need to clean for Christmas" panic couldn't even get it all done in time. Hubby and I stayed up until about 3am on December 23rd trying to clean the house. After dropping him off at work at about 7am on Christmas Eve, I worked on titling my story, editing that first chapter, and creating the cover. After "wasting" a collective 5hrs on that project I went "Well, there went MY day" and stayed up until 1am or so trying to clean some more. I ended up collapsing with just Hubby's presents "wrapped" - read: thrown in gift bags with tissue paper, because it's quick - and the Christmas tree up without any ornaments on it.

Hubby stayed up until 4 or 5am to finish the basic cleaning for Christmas, wrapping everyone else's gifts, and fluffing/decorating the tree for me. When he finally came to bed and accidentally woke me up, he figured he'd show me his impromptu Christmas gift to me. And yes, I did weep that he stayed up late to decorate the stupid tree so it would feel more like Christmas for me.

Needless to say, after that first chapter, I just didn't have free-time to write. Also needless to say, we ended up sleeping in a little bit on Christmas itself. After returning home from the in-laws' we watched a Christmas movie to "stay in the mood" before I went back to frantic cleaning for my family's visit this weekend.

That took the rest of my week. If I wasn't at work or at zumba I was organizing/cleaning/scrubbing down my home so it looked like we were proper adults by the time my family came to visit. This also meant that writing anything took a back seat. Hence me not getting a blog post up last week. It sort of bugged me though, because I SHOULD have had time at work at least to finish editing the second chapter of "Woven Heartstrings" so I could get that up. I even stated in multiple places online that it should have been up. Buuuuut, things at work actually needed my attention, and so I didn't have the free time there either.

Darn work making me work.

Ya-Ya Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc.

Friday, just as Hubby and I finished as much cleaning as we were going to manage, my mom and sister arrived for the weekend. Then, on Sunday, Shadow popped in so we could catch up on Miraculous Ladybug episodes - he needed to see the Season 2 finale still, as well as the Season 3 premiere - and that surprisingly took us about four hours to do. Granted, we chatted, and interrupted the episodes with our commentary and freak-outs, and I introduced him to "The Seven Deadly Sins" anime, and we did a food run..... Still....

Just as we were finishing our mini-marathon, Hubby came home from work, and two more friends popped in for gift-exchanges and games. About 9:30/10pm yet another friend popped in for more game night. Eventually I just went "It's midnight. I need sleep" and crashed while Hubby continued to play host. Soooooo, no real writing then either.

Although, as Shadow and I did our freak-outs and commentary on episodes, he laughed at me and told me I should do reviews on YouTube because I get.... shall we say fired up?

I don't know if I'll ever find the time needed to do videos, but I did take that energy and created two posts on Tumblr as my commentary on the latest episode.

Surprisingly enough, they both actually really blew up.... well, for me.... They're still at less than 1000 notes, so it's small peanuts, but I'm in the 100s with each post, which is big for me. I guess I'm starting to get noticed in the fandom, which is kinda cool.

The first one is just a cheeky little paragraph observation that has over 200 notes, including 16 reblogs. The other one is roughly essay-length with pictorial evidence of my headcanon. It has nearly 200 notes, including 27 reblogs.

It just amuses me to log onto Tumblr and have my dash look like this:

Granted, most of the likes and reblogs from this list are reblogs I had on my wall,
but there's still the two original posts I talked about above featured in this list.

For those wondering, the original posts are called "Adrien's View of Glaciator's Balcony Scene" and "Marinette Getting Salty..."

If this is what my dash looks like with barely any likes/reblogs of my stuff, comparatively, I can only imagine what it's like to be a popular artist/writer/celeb/whatever on Tumblr and have your post liked thousands of times....

Regardless, I'm now up to 76 followers. Again, nothing major in the grand scheme of things, but that includes 7 new followers since Sunday. Which is pretty neat if you take into consideration that I have 76 followers after being on Tumblr for about 9 months....

So I'm just enjoying the fact that I'm semi-noticed in the fandom. I need to keep up with commentary, theories, and headcanons I guess. I mean, I'd prefer to be the type of person who can get her act together enough to post a SHORT drabble of a one-shot at least once a week and become noticed THAT way, but I'll take what I can get. No such thing as bad publicity, right?

Well, I had to work today, so I spent last night - before celebrating with the Hubby and watching the ball drop - writing the first draft of this post. Which yet again means no work on "Woven Heartstrings." It also means I did not finish the first draft of "One and the Same" before the close of 2018 like I wanted.

Oh well. Screw 2018. It was trash for so many of us. Writing wise, while not as good as I would have liked, it WAS a good year.... for 8 months of it. But let's see if 2019 is better. Let's see if I can take what I learned from this past year and improve myself for this new year.

I will try to work hard to get chapter 2 of "Woven Heartstrings" FINALLY done for next week, as well as have my New Year Resolutions figured out to share.

Until then, Happy New Year!

Behold! The Beauty of Arts and Crafts!

I apologize, but before anything else, I have to squee about something. Sorry if you follow my tumblr or already saw this on my personal facebook page, but I have to squee EVERYWHERE about this.

EdenDaphne finished my commission of Willow! I got the email yesterday, and I've been bouncing all over the walls about it since.

Maki Natsuo from Love Lab
created by Ruri Miyahara

Hacker Girl Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc

*Ahem* Anyway, without further ado, EdenDaphne's drawing of Willow:

Comparatively, let's check out what I was able to come up with over the years....

So much Willow! I love it! I love it! I love it!

I was also a bit impatient when I got the line-art for Willow about a week or so ago, so, while I was bored at work, I decided to try my own hand at coloring her. Considering I was on my phone and using one of those pens with the stylus on the back, I don't think it's all that bad....

The shoes got a bit derpy because I hit the
bottom edge of the screen while re-doing
the line art.

Clearly Eden's coloring was better - her shoes actually look like sneakers while mine look like they belong in a bowling alley - but again, I don't think I did too shabby considering it's the first time I ever attempted to color on a cell phone.... Also, I'm impressed with the way I was able to make Willow's belt sparkle, and how I streaked her hair.

Anyway, if you couldn't tell, I'm beyond excited for this! Now to save up another $70, and wait for Eden to open commissions again, so I can have another one of My Girls drawn.... who next time though? Trish, Lia, Amara, or Jolene? Maybe Lia. Poor girl hasn't really had any love in the past two years. Amara's on the same boat, but I need to solidify where all of her scars are first so Eden knows if she has to have any showing....

Eden wasn't the only one crafting though, and coloring my line-art preview of Willow wasn't the only crafting *I* did.

ChibiSunnie hasn't had a very good year, loves penguins, and is always so kind as to draw me a birthday and a Christmas card each year. I wanted to do something for her in return. So I spent about a week or so crocheting. The beak and eyes look kind of wonky on this poor thing, but otherwise I'm happy with it.

The scarf is detachable, just wrapped
around and knotted in place like
a real scarf.

I had used transitional blue yarn - it went from the light blue of the face to the dark blue of the eyes - but the craft didn't use enough of the yarn for it to ever really transition. The flippers/wings are a slightly darker shade, but that's it....

I don't know if Chibi gave her penguin a gender, but she named it Chibird, after the inspirational artist we both follow on tumblr. Mostly because Chibird compiled her artwork into a book called Loading Penguin Hugs, which I also gifted Chibi for Christmas, and the penguin on the cover is blue.

You can get your own copy of
Loading Penguin Hugs on Amazon.

It really is an adorable book, and comes with stickers! It's less than $10, so why not give it a look and see if it's a nice pick-me-up/stocking stuffer for yourself or someone you know? Spread the love.

Anyway, you guys don't come here every week to see arts and crafts per se. You're here mostly to find out more about my writing, correct?

Well, guess what? I did that too! Quite a bit, actually.... 4616 words worth. Which is more than any week during this year's NaNo... Figures.

I kept getting flashes of the last chapter for "One and the Same." Basically, it's this closing to the “Peeping Tomcat” mess/epic that made me want to write this sequel in the first place. I instantly thought how perfect it would be if that final scene paralleled "You've Got Mail": they'd be in the park outside Marinette's home, Adrien would walk up, Marinette would see Plagg and tear up as she realizes Adrien and Chat Noir were the same person that whole time, Adrien would dab her tears away and tell her "Don't cry, Ladybug," and they'd live happily ever after.

Well, fret not, readers who are probably mad that I dropped a spoiler like that without warning, because.... well... the ending took a... shall we say DIFFERENT turn.

What I'm about to say may be a bit obvious, but technically there's spoilers ahead centering around what should be the climactic tension of OatS. So feel free to breeze by if you don't want even slight hints....
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Anyway, the "You've Got Mail" ending, while sweet and the whole inspiration for OatS, just made Marinette forgive Adrien/Chat Noir too easily. What's the point of climatic tension if it's resolved simply because Chat Noir was Adrien the whole time? How could Marinette be instantly okay with Chat Noir's spying in PT upon realizing "Oh, it was Adrien!"? It was too shallow. Too quick. It sent the wrong message. There were all sorts of red flags.

I kept thinking "Maybe if Marinette found out about Chat Noir's spying as the mid-point, it would give me the second half of the book to rebuild their trust." I mean, the whole point of YGM is that Kathleen hated Joe, but he managed to regain her trust and friendship before she ended up falling in love with him. It would work, and maybe one day I'll write another take, another reason why Marinette would be mad at Chat Noir, so it fits YGM like I wanted. But this story doesn't seem to want to take that direction.

What could be a higher tension point then Marinette finding out everything that happened in PT? I had originally written a plot skeleton where Marinette does indeed ask for Chat Noir's ring back since she can't trust him as an ally, and then Master Fu talked her into giving it back. It got too messy though. First and foremost, how was she going to take back his ring without finding out who he was? If she had him give back the ring, and therefore reveal himself as Adrien to her, how would she react? How would she be around Adrien from that point on?

It just.... the story took a dark turn. A fun turn. One I might explore in a different fanfic, but it just wasn't the direction I wanted OatS to go.

So I was back with the dilemma that Marinette was too forgiving of Chat Noir too soon. Plus, the girl is intelligent, so the fact that she didn't figure out who Chat Noir was before Plagg revealed himself felt wrong for me.

That's when I got those sparks for the final chapter. Basically, Marinette wondered why, if Chat Noir knew Ladybug was Marinette the whole time, did he keep pushing Marinette to confess her love to Adrien? It didn't add up for her. Until it did.

That was supposed to be the ending. She figured it out, and then her and Adrien would have talks about the whole thing. It really helped me with the whole "If they fought because she didn't want to know who Chat Noir was, why did Adrien show up to their date with Plagg in full view for her to know who Chat Noir was?" problem. He didn't randomly decide to tell her anyway, she figured it out and confronted him! Boom!

The problem was, the moment she figured it out was too good of a stopping point. I couldn't continue the chapter. My readers need a week to freak out at me, and I'm evilly waiting for that week with building anticipation.

So what I thought was my final chapter turned out to be the penultimate chapter. How do I keep doing that? The same thing happened to PT. I keep going into what I think is the last chapter, only for the characters to be like "Eeeeeh.... we actually have a LIIIIITTLE bit more story to tell."

And therein lies my current problem. Up until this chapter I've been fairly good at ping-ponging the story. It's in Marinette's first-person POV, the next chapter is in Adrien's, then back to Marinette, then back to Adrien, etc. However, the final chapter - when Marinette deals with the emotions of discovering her partner and the boy she's been pining for are the same guy - SHOULD be in her POV, shouldn't it? But the previous chapter - when she all but proved that Adrien is Chat Noir - HAS to be in her POV. Do I give up my formatting at the very end of the story and have two Marinette chapters in a row? Do I switch over to Adrien, giving them equal number of chapters to tell the story, and keeping the formatting? What about Marinette's insight though? Do I go real avant-garde and ping-pong first person POV within the chapter? Using line breaks and names to signal to the reader that the POV just switched? Do I conclude with the same scene being played twice: one chapter with Adrien's POV, and then the same scene retold in the next chapter via Marinette's POV?

I JUST DON'T KNOW!!!!!!
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OKAY, EVERYONE, THAT SHOULD BE THE END OF THE SPOILERS!
YOU CAN STOP SCROLLING BY NOW!

If you skipped that whole chunk, the spoiler-free long-and-short is Things Got Messy In The First Draft Of The Final Chapter; Now I Have POV Issues.

I don't know whose story the final chapter is. Should I be in Adrien's head at the conclusion of the story, letting him tell the audience what happened? Should I be in Marinette's head and have her tell everyone how things went down? Do I go a bit experimental and ping-pong between them within the chapter itself?

What I THOUGHT was going to be the final chapter turned out to be a 2400-word penultimate chapter, which will be lengthened because it needs a proper opening. I sort of just jumped in mid-action without any context because *I* know the context, and I wanted to get the meat of the chapter out of my head first.

That chapter ended up adding one more loose end to tie up so I could conclude this thing.

Oh, and by the way, don't get too excited. I'm still jumping all over the place with this story. I have yet to write most of the middle.

Anyway, with this final chapter - or what should be the final chapter, unless the characters throw me off a second time - I don't know which direction to go. There's a lot there that I want to be in Adrien's head for, but I always pictured the final chapter needing to be told through Marinette's eyes. While there's a lot going on with Adrien, OatS was supposed to be Marinette's story for the most part. She's the one who has to be hit with a bunch of stuff: the repercussions from "Peeping Tomcat", feelings being torn between Adrien and Chat Noir, the struggle between wanting to know who CN is vs the need to keep identities secret, etc.

Not really sure where to go and not wanting to end my momentum, I decided to just break format and write the final chapter in third person. Hop into whomever's head I need. Then, once I'm done with the chapter, I'll go back and see who was the one really telling that chapter, and rewrite using that person's first person POV.

Problem is.... 2200 words in and I'm still torn. Adrien seems to be bogarting the chapter, but there are still crucial bits of info that only Marinette would know. Plus, I still want her reaction to everything....

I'm seriously leaning towards ping-ponging 1st person POV in the final chapter, and just make sure I transition well enough and have their voices distinct enough that it won't get confusing.

In the meantime, it's fun emotionally torturing these poor kids. I'm a horrible human being.

OH! Speaking of torturing these little beans, Jowy's Pixie has a new story up! She actually gifted it to me and three other friends of hers: TLOS21, ChibiRinni, and oh-calliope! How cool is that!? We have a STORY as a Christmas gift from her? Soooooo coooooool!

Maki Natsuo from Love Lab

created by Ruri Miyahara

What's really the most awesome thing about it is the fact that she's writing it based on the 12 Days of Christmas. So each day, for twelve days, she's posting a new chapter of her story. Let's say that again.

EACH DAY

A NEW CHAPTER

FOR TWELVE DAYS STRAIGHT

How amazing is that? Such a quick turn around! Bravo to her. If you're at all in the fandom, feel free to give this girl some love:

Twelve Days of Chatmas

Christmas is fast approaching, and Chat Noir is determined to get Ladybug the perfect gift. The problem is, they all keep going disastrously wrong. Will Chat Noir be able to find Ladybug the perfect gift in time?

I just adore this story. If you know anything about the Miraculous Ladybug chibi episodes on YouTube, know that Pixie writes TDoC the way the chibi episodes SHOULD be written. I'm just gobbling this story up and loving that daily email telling me the next chapter is live.

Oh, and speaking of Christmas, next Tuesday does fall on Christmas itself, so I'm not sure if I'll have my post up as per usual. It may be up Monday night, or written ahead of time and scheduled for my normal post time, or I may work on it Wednesday instead.

So, if you haven't yet, why not check out that right panel of my blog? There's a spot there for you to sign up for email alerts, or you can drop me in your RSS feed... assuming people still use those.

Alternatively, you can follow me on Twitter or on Tumblr. I'm @LycoRogue in both spots. I do tend to fall a bit behind with my promotions lately, unfortunately. Priority is to get the post up, and then get errands done. If I don't have time between those two my promotional posts tend to be late.

So those email alerts are probably your best bet. I have nothing to do with those, they're all computer generated, so you KNOW they'll be on-time.

Anyway, until... some time next week.

Prepping for NaNo and Election Day

First and foremost, I want to say thank you and I love you all so much!

Hacker Girl Facebook stickers
by Birdman, Inc

I was in a bit of a funk last week and you all came charging in like a cavalry of White Knights. This is why I love my support group so much. My family, my friends, and my readers: you all rock so hard core! I have the best of all three.

I was already on an upswing. I was already fighting back. I was already determined to not let my funk keep me down. Yet you all came to my aid to help lift me up anyway, and I love you all for that.

ChibiSunnie started the charge by flooding my Facebook with love and hug stickers. She then reminded me that a lot of fanfic readers - at least, in the fandoms she's a part of - read fics in their short-lived downtime. I do have long chapters, so maybe people have my story dog-eared for later reading, but just don't have time now. Or they're flat-out intimidated by the 84,000+ words.

I don't know how I feel about that, considering there are tons of popular fics that are over 200,000 words long! But they are also roughly 40+ chapters long, so each chapter is roughly 4,000 words as opposed to my 7,000+ words. So... maybe? Regardless, she does have a point, and it was really sweet of her to remind me of that.

She also encouraged me to write more of my Miraculous Ladybug essays, and participate in fic prompt-challenges and the like to get my name out there.

I actually had similar advice from one of the fanfic authors I follow on Tumblr.

BaneIsMyDragon: I noticed you are dealing with the very real struggle of throwing fanfiction out into the void. The internet, and fandoms in particular, is such a fickle place, and it can be very difficult to find a foothold sometimes, regardless of talent. Remember that sometimes it can be very random what brings the change over from “obscure” to “popular”. That doesn't mean you can't or shouldn't feel disheatened when you are struggling to get feedback, but it does mean that you can look at the comments you do get as worth believing in. ^_^ I know for me, a lot of my stories wallowed in obscurity until I did some short story challenges that got semi popular, and that then lead people to my larger fics. If you are looking for ways to connect with the fandom challenges/prompt list request drabbles and things like that can be a great way to meet people and gain followers. Good luck and keep writing!

I had tagged Bane and a few other fic writers when I posted about last week's blog update. I was promoting their stories, so why not tag them? In truth, part of me did kind of hope they'd see their name and become curious about MY writing... leading them to read my stuff....

But I wasn't expecting getting advice. Especially since the "tossing into the void" bit wasn't on my Tumblr post. Bane would have had to read my blog to have noticed that. Which just makes my heart swell. It was really sweet of her to both read my blog and to then leave me a comment on my Tumblr.

Speaking of leaving comments! How can I forget the wonderful one Jowy's Pixie left me here last week? It's a bit lengthy to quote in its entirety here - much like Chibi's pick-me-up posts on my Facebook - but here's a basic summary; you can read the full comment on last week's post:

She noted that she thinks the Miraculous Ladybug fandom as a whole tends to be less generous with reviews, but she still gets my desire for more of them, along with more readers. She also reassured me that she's seen other high-quality fics like mine also get less recognition than she thinks they deserve, so I'm not alone in this problem. Much like Bane, Pixie pointed out that views and reviews seem to be sort of a luck-of-the-draw sort of situation, sadly. She then shared some trends she has been noticing, such as readers tending to lean more towards darker themed and AU fics right now. PT is neither of those.... She did suggest sharing a chapter of my fic on Tumblr to draw more attention to it. My chapters are so long I would have to do only a snippet, but that is a possibility... She concluded by reminding me that she thinks my story is still "incredibly underrated" which is why she made a point to have it be the first fanfic review she did on her blog.

Speaking of, she does have another fanfic review up as well as some insight into her own fanfics. If you haven't yet, go check out her blog: Taurus Pixie.

Anyway, Pixie noted that her fic review of “Peeping Tomcat” is currently her most popular post. While that's very encouraging, I also feel the reasoning behind the review of my story specifically being her most popular post is because of the times I've gone to it in order to grab a link to share, and/or because my family went to read it after I posted about it.... but it would be nice if the traffic to her post truly meant new readers for my story.

It did encourage one of her online friends TLOS21 to give my story a try. Actually, it seems that it was a one-two punch of Pixie's review and her actual fangirling to TLOS21 via messages. Either way, according to TLOS21 the excitement pouring out of Pixie made T just NEED to read this fic. She also noted in her review at the end of the last chapter that, if it weren't for school, she would have easily binge-read all 84,000+ words.

TLOS21: (Review on chapter 5) Wow! That was a really good chapter right there! You have detail but it wasn’t too much and it wasn’t just in general detail of things like how most authors do (ex, Ladybug purifying the akuma). You gave this story and chapter very well thought out detail with a good choice of words to describe things. Your OC of an akuma was excellent! The battle was amazing and the feelings of Chat/Adrien were wonderful! I felt like I was reading a script of an episode! This fanfic is super amazing so far! Please keep it up! I want to read more! See you in the next chapter!

(Review on chapter 17) Hello again! Me here! Hello! *waves* That was a beautiful story. All of it was amazing. I don’t think I could’ve thought of a better ending. It kind of seemed like the show a little bit, especially like “Origins: Part 2” in the umbrella scene. It ended where things got settled but there was still room for people to travel their imaginations with. The story was so beautiful and everything was amazing! The story and the side stories were all beautifully well written and portrayed very well. If it wasn’t for my conscious and me reading this on school nights, I would’ve binged the whole thing in one day. It had humor, suspense, and emotion all very well crafted into this story and there wasn’t too much of anything but not too little either. The personalities were pinned own so well that I had to remind myself that this wasn’t a script of the show, ha ha. You have a real knack for writing and I can feel and see all the effort you put in into every single one of these chapters. This is an amazing story! Don’t ever doubt yourself that this isn’t a good story, because that’s not true. This story is utterly amazing, one of the best I’ve read so far. Huge applause for you my friend!
Alrighty, now, to go hunt down that sequel fic. I’ll see ya then and I hope you have a good day! You rock!

Nah, TLOS21, YOU rock. You and all of my readers, and my friends, and my family. My whole support group, really. You guys are TOTALLY the ones who rock!

Marinette Dupain-Cheng in the episode Stormy Weather
Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug and Cat Noir

To accentuate this point, I also thanked everyone on my Tumblr:

You Guys are Awesome

Also, as I mentioned in that Tumblr post, I'm weirdly proud of the moderately quick edit job I did for this pic.

BEFORE:

Marinette and Tikki in Style Queen

AFTER:

I wish I did better with the base of the dress dummy,
but otherwise I'm actually impressed...

When I was in my funk I very much felt like Marinette in the opening of the episode Style Queen: despite tons of evidence to the contrary - Marinette was supposed to be delivering her hat to Adrien to wear on the catwalk of his father's fashion show - she felt like she had no talent and no one would like her derby hat. It just felt fitting to switch the hat out for a book version of PT. I'm also kind of impressed on my equally quick edit to make PT look like a book. Here's that edit:

So, I may be trash at drawing, but I'm getting better and better at doctoring images. I've always been fairly good at that. So... maybe that will be my next campaign attempt to get people to read PT. Splice it into scenes of Miraculous Ladybug. It seems like a fun campaign. Maybe it will be how I stay active on Tumblr while I'm busy with NaNo next month.

And by "next month" I of course mean "starting Thursday"!!!!

Speaking of, I already have my NaNoWriMo calendar downloaded from DaveSeah.com. How about you?

Get yours here.

Dave is a graphic artist who so graciously creates these calendars for free download each year. There is a string of reasons why I love Dave's design, and why I've used it each year since I found it - and so far I've also WON both years I've used this calendar.

• The satisfaction of ticking off another box every 250 words.
• Keeping track of individual daily word counts, as opposed to the tracker on NaNo's site itself, which just has a running tally.
• Keeping track of weekly word counts, which may help later if you go back and analyze when you slowed down vs really got into the flow of your writing.
• That glorious large box to proudly write the total word count you hit by midnight November 30th.
• The listing at the end of each week as to how far you should be to hit the 50,000 word goal on time.
• The reminders to back-up your work, as well as encouraging bits under certain days, such as quarter mark, halfway mark, three-quarters mark, word count sanity check, "so close", and a reminder to post to NaNo before midnight.
• The overall streamlined look that is easy to read, and easy to quickly glance at to see your progress.
• Finally, the most important thing for me is that Dave already broke down what you need to adjust your word count to if you're only writing five days a week; allowing for two breather days so November doesn't feel AS overwhelming. 

It says "5 days a week....2,272 words/day..... 9 blocks/day when writing 5 days a week"

Writing daily always stressed me out, and if I missed a day I would panic. Knowing I have those two breather days - I generally don't automatically work them in, but I do aim for the last two days of my week to be my "off" days - really helps me forgive myself if I missed a day. And forgiving myself keeps my stress down, which keeps the writing fun. It also allows me to still socialize because I can count that as one of my weekly "off" days.

So, I strongly recommend this calendar to any who are participating in NaNo, and if you find it as helpful as I do, maybe you could check out Dave's other productivity tools: Dave Seah Productivity Tools

All of this NaNo talk brings me to what I've actually been doing this week, besides feeling the love from everyone.

I have a large chunk of my outline re-written. I should be more-or-less set at least to get started on Thursday. The big thing, though, is of COURSE the darn akuma attack. As per usual, I'm struggling to figure out what Ladybug's Lucky Charm is going to be and how she'll use it to stop the Villain of the Week, as it were.

But I think I have a few more of the other things sorted. My main hiccup was wondering, if Chat Noir is going to be captured by Headliner, why he doesn't use his Cataclysm to get out of the bind - literally. Also, why doesn't Headliner just take his ring while he can't move?

We'll see when I start my revisions in January if I like what I came up with, but for now it's good enough to get started.

Which reminds me, you can still send me a friend request on NaNoWriMo's website if you are also participating. We can be writing buddies and check in with each other; encouraging each other. I'm easy to find. I'm LycoRogue over there as well.

Unfortunately, since I've been focusing on getting set for NaNo, as well as cleaning to prep for Halloween tomorrow, I haven't had time to write anything narrative yet. Part of me thinks I could count the Gabriel Agreste character study I wrote up a few weeks ago, but another part of me thinks that's kind of a cop-out.

I do have two or three ideas that SHOULD be nice shorts. We'll see if I can find time to write them before midnight tomorrow. I'll be sure to share the links next week if I succeed.

When.

When I succeed. I was determined to post a new narrative each month, and I WILL. I have nine months under my belt, I can keep going. Next month is going to be tricky though... writing a new story while working on my NaNo story as well.

I guess I should get started on all of that though. Thanks again to all of you for the love, the pep-talks, and for taking some of your time to read what I wrote. It means the world to me.

Armstrong giving a loving bear hug to Ed while Winry, Pinako, and Al look on with varying degrees of appreciation towards the show of affection.
Fullmetal Alchemist

Oh, and also, a very happy Halloween to everyone as well. Along with a lovely Dia de los Muertos and/or All Saints Day.

OH! WAIT! BEFORE YOU GO!

I want to get in a quick PSA for any of my American readers. I know next week's blog post will be up on Election Day, but I want to give you guys time to RESEARCH YOUR BALLOTS.

Yes. Please, PLEASE take the time to really research who is running. These mid-term elections are kind of crucial this year, for both parties. Either the Republicans keep control, or the Democrats take it. So VOTE! Regardless of which side you land on - or if you're with alternate parties such as Tea, Independent, or Green - you NEED to make your voice known.

And in truth, it really shouldn't be #VoteRed or #VoteBlue. It should be #VoteForWhoRepresentsYou. So even if you're voting "across party lines", do it! Research the candidates and pick the ones that really stand for what you do.

For more information on what you should be voting on come Tuesday, November 6th - as well as where your polling place is - check out Vote411.org.

After punching in your address you can look up a ballot preview. Here's mine:

I deleted my district from US House, State Assembly, and State Senate for privacy reasons,
but your ballot preview will have those specified.
Also, I guess I need to research what the heck a Comptroller does... #ThingsSocialStudiesDidntTeachMe

You can then see who is on your ballot and ways to research them: their political background as well as their campaign platform and stance on major topics important to you such as taxes, health care, abortions, gun control, etc.

You can even have this information emailed to you so you have it on hand while you are at the polls.

Finally, a reminder for any who don't vote due to lack of transportation, both Lyft and Uber are teaming up to provide either free or discounted services to make sure you CAN get to the polls. Also, your work is LEGALLY OBLIGATED to give you enough time off to vote, so check in on what the specific regulations are on that. It should be readily available for you to see on the Department of Labor posters most companies have in their breakrooms. If you can't find it: ASK.

Please, please, please get informed on your voting rights, the voting rules and regulations - such as, you can't be promoting a party and/or candidate within the polling locations, who your candidates are, where your polling location is and how long is it open, how to write up an absentee ballot if needed, and how to get to the polls if you don't have reliable transportation. You have a week. You have time to research.

Okay, PSA is done.

Election day is Tuesday, November 6th. Most polls should be open between 6am and 9pm

My Writing Process for OatS

This week flew by quick! I'm not even entirely sure what I did. I was working, and the next thing I know it's Tuesday again!

Okay, I know what I was doing. I was lurking on Tumblr for the most part. I didn't even really have MUCH time online, even taking my time on Tumblr into consideration. I would find a post that I like, dump it in my Drafts folder to read fully, or comment on, or at least tag later. I have over 500 posts waiting in my drafts folder for me to find the time to properly go through them. Most of which are writing advice bits or writing prompts.

I really need to come up with a not-yet-used name for a writing blog on Tumblr - a writblr I think they're called... That way all the writing bits aren't buried among the massive pile of Miraculous Ladybug posts.

Anyway, speaking of ML, that's why I spent most of my limited free online time on Tumblr. First weekend of October we got two new episodes; two out of three for a three-part arc. The following weekend we got the third episode of that arc, along with another new episode. This past weekend the first part of the two-part season finale aired. This upcoming weekend that episode will re-air in English, as well as the second part; the season finale.

So we go from "This 26-episode season is taking the whole year to air" and "We have to wait a full month before the next episode!?" to six episodes in one month; mostly airing in sets of two.

The fandom on Tumblr is AAAAAAAACTIVE! It takes me nearly an hour to just sift through new posts that popped up every day.

It's a poor waste of time, but the fandom will die down soon, so I'm just trying to stay on top of it now. Especially because the more active you are in the fandom the more followers you get, and the more followers you have the larger a platform you have, and with the larger platform you have more potential readers.

I actually was discussing this fact with Hubby yesterday.

A couple of weeks ago I stated that one of the folks I follow on Tumblr - Buggachat - started posting her first ever multi-chaptered story.

Curiosity Wrote a Comic

The story went live October 6th. It already has four chapters posted - she posted two of them yesterday - and is a little shy of 12,000 words. As of this writing, there are 3489 hits, 449 kudos, 63 bookmarks, and 121 comments. Now, if Buggachat replied to any comments her replies would also be counted, so I don't know if all 121 comments are reader remarks, but still...

On the flipside, you have “Peeping Tomcat”. Kudos and hits are still trickling in, but since the story is complete and newer stories are always pouring in for this fandom, my story is getting kind of buried and forgotten. As of this writing, I have 7786 hits, 282 kudos, 43 bookmarks, and roughly 34 comments if I weed out my replies.

So... my story is done - at 17 chapters and over 84,000 words - and has been up since March; done since July 31st. Yet I barely have double the hits Buggachat has. Even with half the hits, she has twice the kudos, 20 more bookmarks, and at least double the comments.

I have to admit. That hurts. Especially when she's not known as a fanfic writer in the fandom. She wrote one one-shot, and this is her second go at writing fanfiction for the fandom. She mostly has snarky and/or amusing comments about the show on her Tumblr, and she draws. So she's active in the fandom, which gets her the followers, which leads to readers.

I mean, that's how it worked for me. I liked her snarky comments and fancomics, so I followed her. She posted she is writing her first multi-chaptered fanfic - which is her second ever fanfic overall - and I was all about reading it.

The platform works.

And I'm proud of her. The story really hooked me, and I gladly gobbled up both of her chapters yesterday within hours of her posting them. I have no ill-will against her. I wish her the best, and she deserves the comments, kudos, and bookmarking.

It just hurts that my story didn't get that love.

I mean. I LOVE the love I was shown. And I have to take into consideration that I got a LOT more love for my story over on Fanfiction.net than I did on AO3. Still....

Especially when I see Buggachat getting reviews like "I've never read a fic so in-character on this site before..." and "This is by far the best fanfic I've ever read..."

oof.

Granted, there's no proof that those reviewers even KNOW PT exists, let alone have it to compare to. Still, the fact that something that has be equally toted as "incredibly written" isn't getting nearly as much love?

Like I said: Oof.

I mean, most of my reviews seem to be "Why isn't this getting more love!?" so clearly those who reviewed really REALLY liked the story. So I can be proud of that. But... yeah... why isn't it getting more love? Why aren't more people saying "You need to check this story out"?

Is it because those who found it are, like me, not very renowned in the fandom, and so even if they do promote it - like Jowy's Pixie did on her blog last month - the vast majority of the fandom still doesn't see? Is it because I don't draw doodles that people can share; making me more popular in the fandom? Is it because I can't crank out a new story daily - or at least weekly - like other popular ML fanfiction writers? Is it because I just can't get my spotlight bright enough for others to see?

Is it because I wrote in first-person, and too many are conditioned to think fanfic writers can't write in first-person without the story being trash? The second they see the first-person they run for the hills?

I wish I could get the word out there. Based on my reviews, my story could be quite the hit... if only people could find it.

I joked with Hubby that I should just send messages to the more popular members of the fandom asking them to read and let me know what they think. I just can't work up the courage to do so though. I feel so awkward being like "Hey, I think you might like my story. Could you give it a read and let me know what you think?" It feels rude to be like "here's my 84,000-word story; go read it!"

Maybe if they were like "I'm bored and need to find something to read; send me a link to your fanfic" I'd be all over that! If someone ASKS I will gladly say "please read mine," but to go in cold? Unsolicited? Eh.....

Hacker Girl Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc.

It's also a bit depressing to know that your former college roommate is now a published author, another one of your college friends has her first round of edits back for her manuscript, and a third friend of yours has her first manuscript completed. Add in one of the members of our writing group finally finished his manuscript? And I feel like I'm the only one that doesn't have an original idea.

All of my energies have been focused on writing these novel-length fanfics. And they aren't even really the kind of vague-AU fanfics like a lot of people write; the kind that can easily be tweaked into original, publishable works. These will always and forever be passion projects used for experience and given to the public for free.... a public that doesn't seem to even know these stories exist...

So... please excuse my writing funk right now. I'm trying to get past it.

I'll try to focus on being proud of my friends and their writing accomplishments, because I know how hard it is to get that manuscript done. I know that it's an amazing feeling when you hit that last word of a story that's been brewing for forever, and I would never want to taint that. I'll try to just enjoy the stories I'm reading - because we're all colleagues, not competition - and ignore the stats attached. I'll try to remember how much my story is loved by those who HAVE found it. I'll try to focus on how proud DFL seems to be of me. How she is constantly asking if I've talked to the rest of our writing group about the milestones I've hit with PT: the great reviews; the consistent posting schedule; completing a novel-length story, including edits; the fanart I've received; Pixie's lengthy review on her blog; etc.

So... yeah... WRITING!!!!!

X All the Y meme
Originally created by Allie Brosh
for her blog Hyperbole and a Half

Okay, so I didn't really do much WRITING per se this week. What I mostly did was edit the scenes I've already written, as well as go through my outlining notes to try to tweak based on how my plan has changed.

And when I say notes... um... I mean NOOOOOOTES.

Technically, this isn't even ALL of my notes...

This story has kind of been forming in multiple different ways since no one way seems to be working. Back in August, I started off trying to use the Snowflake Outline method created by Randy Ingermanson. It sort of worked, but it definitely is better suited for original works. As is the "Ready. Set. Novel!" workbook.

I then gave myself a refresher course on the Three-Act format. Considering "One and the Same" sort of has two parallel stories going on that converge just before the climax, I figured writing out each story using the 3-act format would work.

It... kinda did???? I got hung up a bit though.

So I tried to break down the 3-act formula a bit more: asking questions and then trying to answer them. That... didn't really work any better....

That was when I switched over to the notecards method I used to write PT, but I didn't get very far there either, so I tried going back to the 3-act formula. I created worksheets for myself and filled them out.

Well, this past week I went back and filled in some of the remaining blanks - and there's still some I need to figure out - as well as scribble a heck of a lot of notes/changes to my original view of the story.

So. Many. Marginal. Notes....

The third act got pretty dark this past week when I jotted down my notes. Even so far as to have Ladybug force Chat Noir to give up being a superhero. I'm not sure I'm going to keep that in, but it's nice to know how far I'm willing to push the angst....

Anyway, since most of the scenes I've been writing have been through Adrien's POV, and I wanted a sort of even split between him and Marinette, I figured "maybe I should alternate chapters; how would that look?"

I scribbled out the first four chapters - the part of the novel I know the structure of pretty solidly - and I'm still working on tweaks of even THAT.

I should probably go back to writing in
pencil instead of scribbling things out in pen.

Before I even finished writing "Peeping Tomcat" I had attempted to write out the basic outline of OatS, using the Snowflake Method, and leaning heavily on my original idea of this story being a sort of retelling of "You've Got Mail." This past week I took that original outline to task....

I think my task this week is to solidify my outline so I'm ready to start NaNo in A LITTLE MORE THAN A WEEK! Speaking of... who else is joining me in November?

My biggest hurdle I think is trying to fit in more Marinette chapters since this story is SUPPOSED to be largely about her. For whatever reason though, while I can easily get into Adrien's head and write his POV, I'm having the darnedest time getting inside Marinette's head. Which is suuuuper weird since she's the main POV character in the show. If anything, she should be the easiest one to write, which is probably why so many fanfic writers keep their story in her POV.

I'm also struggling with when and why Chat Noir confesses fully about spying on Marinette and finding out she's Ladybug. I think I have it locked in as the Main Culmination at the and of Act II; jettisoning the plot in a different direction for Act III. That way the third act is about Chat Noir trying to regain Marinette/Ladybug's trust, as well as Adrien trying to discretely handle damage control for his superhero persona. However, I had the Big Confession happen when CN again asks for the superheroes to reveal themselves. The catalyst of him asking is seeing Ladybug be hesitant about her date with Adrien, because she has feelings for Chat Noir. After the argument, LB decides she can't handle this right now, and zips over to her date.

Originally, when this reveal was the climax of the story, Marinette gets to her date with Adrien, only to admit that she really does love Chat Noir just as much. Her confession gives Adrien the confidence to transform into CN in front of Marinette, and everything ends happily ever after.

Buuuuut.... did Marinette forgive Chat Noir too quickly after he betrayed her trust? What about their conversation made Adrien realize that she did want to know who Chat Noir is after all? Now that I have to fill the third act with ways for CN to earn her trust again, what would the catalyst of the reveal-ask be? Would LB still be debating if she should go on her date? Would Marinette and Adrien be dating throughout the third act?

Knives from the Scott Pilgrim comic books
by Bryan Lee O'Malley

I think I made this whole thing more complicated for myself.... All I can say is that I'm glad this is such a passion project for me - and that I feel I owe it to the few really devoted fans I have - because if I let the above heartbreak of barely being found dictate anything, I'd stop.

Or at least I'd focus on writing simple one-shots. That way I'm a more active member of the fandom that actually ADDS to the fandom, instead of what I'm doing now which is just reblogging with added commentary. Being more active in ADDING content to the fandom would be the main way to get that larger reader base. It would be the way to go.

Buuuut nope. I have to come up with complicated plots to 80,000+ word novel-length fanfics.

Sometimes being a writer for the love of writing sucks.


Alternatively, I also used this week to finish reading "Leather and Lies." I actually finished it on Thursday. I was having one of those "no good; everything sucks" kind of days. So I squirreled away in my bedroom with just five chapters left to go and blew through them.

Celeste Straub certainly knows how to write an intense third act, that's for sure. I totally get why people stayed up all night to finish the story. You can check out my Amazon review here. I also really need to get around to posting my review on GoodReads as well....

Anyway, one more book crossed off my reading challenge. I've also started another of Jowy's Pixie's stories, which is 256,502 words and 45 chapters long!

Hacker Girl Facebook sticker
by Birdman, Inc.

You can read it too here: Destiny's Dance

I think I might be bumping "Atlas Shrugged" off my reading list in favor for this story for this year. I MIIIGHT get to AS next year....

I also still need to figure out what to use for that final reading slot. I mean, I have read a LOT of fanfics this year, all of which are either one-shots - such as the two Pixie posted - or on-going stories, such as "Under Lock and Key", "When Duty and Desire Meet", "Curiosity Wrote a Comic", "And the Name for Your Order is?", "Mr. Lucky and the Cat", and "Immortal Bond" - which, unfortunately hit a writing snag for Pixie, so she's starting it over again.

So, word count wise, I think I hit my quota, but it would be nice to have a completed story title to put in that last slot. Anyone have any suggestions?

In the meantime, I'm back to working on my story and trying to shut out the demons trying to tell me I'm not "good enough" simply because my story hasn't been found.

Screw those demons! I'm writing "One and the Same" anyway! And I'm also figuring out a one-shot that I can write and post for this month's new story quota.

I hope to have a link for you guys next week. Until then, take care.