Conquered Camp!

Happy Belated, little one!

As I mentioned last week, Sunday was the first birthday of Cyhyr and Ronoxym's baby girl. Sadly, instead of going to the party, I ended up passing out on the couch, but I'll get back to that. First I want to talk about my challenges.

I did it. I completed Camp NaNoWriMo my first year. Granted, it was a small goal to hit, but I still say that 10,000 words is big after the slump I was in! In fact, I finished with 10,892 words, and I finished four days early!

Could I have written more before the challenge was over? Yes. Is my story done? Far from it. So why did I slack off this past week? Would you believe me if I said it's because the Winner page told me to sit back, relax, and enjoy the sunset, since I earned it?

OK, in truth it's because the weekend got away from me. Friday I tried to add more to the story, but writing this fight scene is just kicking my butt. I'm having a hard time picturing the fighting and how everyone would move. I have no clue how true-to-life it is. If the movements are fluid and natural or if they're clunky and forced. I have Trish charging like a bull nearly every third paragraph. It's kind of pathetic.

So, Friday, while I was trying to add more words, I ended up editing a little bit and physically acting out the fight scene. I'd go through some moves as Trish to make sure they're fluid. Then I'd go back and counter as Devon to make sure those make sense. Then I'd have Devon go on the attack before switching back over as Trish for defensive maneuvers. I even got Hubby's action figures involved, posing them so I could see both sides of the fight at the same time.

I. Hate. Fight. Scenes! I'm such garbage at them!

Well, after subtracting more words than I added on Friday, I gave it another go on Saturday. It was late, I was mentally checked out after running trainings at work Friday and Saturday, and I had to play a little catch-up. I barely squeaked out over 500 words before calling it quits. It didn't matter really, I was still over my 10,000 word goal. I was still a winner!

Then, as I mentioned at the top, I passed out on my couch on Sunday. I was going to go to the party. I was going to write. I was going to clean. I was going to do SOMETHING productive while Hubby was at work. Instead I passed out on the couch until 8pm. Sure, I could have spent the next two hours writing before picking Hubby up and then watching Game of Thrones. Instead, my stomach decreed that it was time for a late dinner, so I read the last couple chapters of Smoulder by midnightstarlightwrites.

All-in-all a cute story, but I feel it loses its way after chapter 24: the big reveal chapter. There were twelve more chapters after that one, and they were sweet, but they felt like a different story. Especially since MidnightStarlightWrites didn't tie the original Smoulder idea into any of the last chapters, well aside from Marinette teasing Adrien about modeling underwear....

I wish MSW had stopped at chapter 24, maybe tie up a few more loose ends in one more chapter. Then take the remaining plot from the last third of "Smoulder" and made a really nice follow-up story, continuing where "Smoulder" had left off. There was so much there that was breezed over, and it felt like a completely different plot anyway. Especially since none of the chapters after the 24th one had the excitement and build that the Reveal chapter had. Which is a shame, because there could have been the same excitement, build, and anxiety. It was there, it just didn't measure up after the sigh-release in chapter 24.

Anyway, the story is still really good, a little naughty, considering the author pushed the cast of characters to their senior year of high school, and has sweet as well as humorous moments. The characters were a touch Flanderized, but otherwise pretty accurate. I'd say about 8 out of 10 for my overall grade.

But back to my writing.

Yesterday was the last day to write. Last chance to add a few more words to my story and get it prepped a bit for tonight's writer's group. Instead we celebrated Spink and her hubby's anniversary. I guess that's a fairly valid excuse, right?

So, yeah, I was a bit disappointed that I could have at least hit 11,000 words before the end of July, but in the end I'm still proud.

I still managed to write 10,000 words in one month, winning my first Camp NaNo. I managed to get at least half of a fight scene written, so I have a start on one of my most hated bits of writing, and conquered my fear of even starting this scene. Finally, I sorta-hit my goal for my first week of the Writers’ Huddle summer writing challenge.

I missed writing on Monday, Friday, and Sunday, which meant I didn't hit my goal of writing five days a week. However, I did hit 2500 words throughout the week thanks to writing at least 500 words, and most days surpassing it, on the four days I did write. So, for both Summer Challenge and Camp NaNo, I didn't quite do as well as I would have liked, but I still met my goal regardless. So, yay.

As for this week? Well, as I just mentioned, I hung out with the newlyweds yesterday, so I didn't get any writing done, but I have today and the rest of the week. I'll have to keep you posted.

Sadly, with my story still not being done I clearly don't have anything edited to share. However, I have a pact with Mouse that we're going to exchange our July writing projects on the 15th. That way we have time to edit before sharing. She managed to succeed in her own personal July Writing Challenge, so yay for her as well! Can't wait to see what she worked on.

My point being, that this Devon/Trish story - whatever I finally decide to call it - should be edited, shared, critiqued, re-edited, and ready for online publishing by the end of August, so keep an eye out for that.

In the meantime, I should get back to working on it so it CAN be done in time!

I'm A Camper!

Is it weird that it sounds weird to call it "Independence Day"?

Sorry for the day-late update. Took a lazy day, so I slept in a bit. It was an American holiday - THE American holiday - it was the first week in months that we have enough people at work for us to have TWO days off a week, I got today off as well, creating a rare "weekend" for me, plus, I actually wrote this week. I think I earned my delayed post. Plus, we had Shadow surprise us late yesterday morning - Hubby had invited him over for festivities, but we were expecting around 1pm - and then we took an impromptu trip to Ronoxym and Cyhyr's home for a grill-out get-together. Yesterday just didn't offer itself to be a good "stop and write something" day.

But let's talk about the day I DID write. It's not much, and I slacked off the rest of the week thus far, but on Sunday I buckled down and wrote out the startings of a story.

Well, technically I started out on the ending of a story. I'll get to that later. First, how I FINALLY got out of my slump.

Mouse commented on Facebook about a week or two ago how she was prepping for a month-long challenge she put forth to herself. She then mentioned that coincidentally it's the same month as Camp NaNoWriMo. She was also a bit shocked because she didn't know that Camp NaNoWriMo is a thing.

It was created in 2011 and was, I believe, originally designed as a way to encourage young writers to keep writing during the summer months outside of school. There were two monthly sessions: July and August. The following year it was June and August. Then, in 2013, they decided to spread out the NaNo months to November being the main event, then Camp in April and July. This was partially to fill the void in April left behind by the not-as-successful Script Frenzy event while still having one Camp in the summer.

Thing is, I was still stuck in the mindset of the first two years where Camp NaNoWriMo was in August, so I didn't even realize Camp time was upon us.

Much like NaNo, I have known of their Camp version for years, but I've never actually participated. So, when Mouse commented that it would occur in July, coinciding with her own private month-long writing challenge, I was tempted to give it a whirl.

Maybe a challenge would be my push to get me back into writing? It's always helped when Ali Luke ran challenges over at Writers’ Huddle. I wasn't sure I was ready for a NaNo challenge, though, because I really had no clue what to write. I had no new story idea to start. No desire to continue an existing one. Yes, Camp was a much simpler version of NaNo. It's sometimes considered "NaNo Lite" because there are no forums - although there are mini-forums called "cabins" where 19 participants are gathered as "cabin mates" and can talk among themselves - and there isn't that 50,000 word goal. Participants set their own writing goals, be it the normal 50,000 or as little as 31 - one word a day just to get yourself writing ANYTHING.

Mouse poked me a couple of times the last few days of June. With her encouragement, I bit the bullet and signed up. I had no clue what to write, and I still had no desire for anything. Still, I went with a modest 10,000 words this month. It's not much, but it's a heck of a lot more than what I've written the entirety of spring. The trick then was to figure out what to write this month. All I knew was that, regardless what I decided on, I had committed myself to 10,000 words.

I started off with the idea of getting back into world building. I've been kind of stalled with "Glitches" so maybe go back to Gyateara? I haven't done much with The Divine Legends in years. Maybe I could do another legend per day throughout the month. Thirty-one new deity myths each running only about 300 words each. Heck, I knew I wouldn't be able to write that succinctly, so why not make it 15 deities at about 600 words each?  Or 10 at 1000 words? Then the world-build stall settled in. I still had no clue what to even come up with for the legends. Creation of the world? The reason certain laws are in place? What happened when the deities didn't keep their truce about staying isolated within the realms they created? The possibilities were so endless I was overwhelmed. Then I thought "I should probably work backwards: create the world first and come up with the legends when needed."

So, Legends wasn't really an option. It was closing in on midnight on June 30th; I didn't have the time to figure out my map or any of the other stuff in order to have enough to build legends around.

I was signed up. It was July 1st. I still had no desire to write anything. My one idea quickly petered out. What was I going to do?

Then I remembered Mouse's challenge to me. I had told her that I'm becoming more and more like my Wonder Twin Ronoxym; I was distracted by shiny new story ideas and never seemed to END any story. Even with my short stories, they were always scenes. Completed scenes, but not ones with "endings." More story could be told about any of these tales.

So, now back to what I started this update with: "Well, technically I started out on the ending of a story."

This is thanks to Mouse's encouragement again. I was commenting about how I was on the edge about joining Camp NaNo, but my wavering was because didn't know what to write. My inner editor was stopping each idea I had.

Mouse: You should try! Keep the goal realistic based off your schedule! Maybe it would spark something. And punch your inner critic in the face. If this is what you want and what you love, then you just gotta run forward! Even if you give yourself like....a five page goal for the month, I bet you would feel a little better....
I have a challenge then. Write backwards! Start with some kind of conclusion first. 

So, now that I am signed up and couldn't think of a story, I went back to her challenge. Start with the ending. What did I want for an ending, though? I ended up missing July 1st because I still didn't know.

Then, as I was falling asleep after dropping Hubby off at work I had my idea. Apparently my muse only shows up after midnight....

And apparently the muse comes in the shape of Devon....

A few years back - late 2012/early 2013 - Hubby came up with a time skip on the X-Future board to try to jumpstart the game again. At the time, Ron wasn't very active, and so, since it seemed he was done playing, Hubby actually "killed off" Devon to sort of thin out the character list. After the fact, Ron stated he was still interested in the game. So, Hubby revived Devon, however, he still "died" first. It was an epic battle between Devon and his hated enemy Trish. I was supposed to write the actual story, but slacked off at the time. I've tried multiple times over the years to write the showdown, but nothing seemed quite right. I then paused to see if Ron wanted to co-write with me, and that never came to fruition. In the meantime, Hubby just had a generic "Devon and Nyssa went to this place, and presumably met their demise. Two Brotherhood members that appeared to be Lighter and Agony were seen fleeing the scene." He then also had a scene with the revived Devon where his throat was cut, he nearly died, he collapsed due to loss of blood, and was found by the mutant Kira, and became an amnesiac.

I think this challenge is the perfect time for me to finish this story, or rather, write it in the first place. I know where it ends: Devon's throat slit, Nyssa stuck inside a burning building, Trish thinking she's victorious in her defeat of her rival, and Agony there as back-up. Now, to work backwards.

I only wrote on the 2nd, but I'm already almost 1000 words in. Ron seems excited to see how things turn out. I might have him beta and edit for me before posting though, we'll see how it goes.

While I'm working on that this month, though, I promised you two writing practices to make up for me not finding my journal last week. I probably should have added a third story to also make up for the day-late update, but I didn't want to postpone any longer so I could type up and edit one more piece. Next week, guys!

This first story is under 500 words. It was when I first fell into my writing funk this spring. I went outside to re-embrace sunshine, listened to my wind chimes, and jotted this down. You could tell I was rusty. Whoo-boy, you should have seen the misspellings and "typos" in the journal. There were a couple of sentences there where I had no clue what I was trying to say. It was like my mind was trying to write three sentences at the same time! Hopefully I managed to clean it up to something readable though.

"Mountain Man"

On DeviantArt           On FictionPress

And for another treat, I'm back again with X-Future, and another Lia story at that. When I wrote this Lia put herself up on the roof of the mansion, and the story flowed fairly well, although Ripley seemed a touch out-of-character. Problem is, canonically speaking, Lia probably wouldn't run away to the roof because she gets sick the further she is from the ground.... soooooo, I had to figure out a new venue for the story. In doing so, I also had to rework how I introduced that they were at the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters. I also reworked Ripley a touch. When all was said and done, I basically rewrote the entire opening and ending to this story.

"Late Night"

On DeviantArt      On FictionPress       Also On FanFiction

Alright, well, again, a day belated, but to all Americans who read my blog:

Bleeeck. Sick.

It. Has. Not. Been. A. Good. Week.

Wednesday - Wanted to kill my coworker. Vegged on the couch to prevent myself from punching things.
Thursday - Spent all day of the gorgeous weather doing as much super delayed Spring Cleaning as possible.
Friday - Coworker I wanted to murder just decides not to show up to work. It's more involved than that, but that's the long and short of it. Had to call my manager in from her day off enjoying the weather riding her horse and visiting with her daughter who drove 8hrs to visit her mom for Mother's Day weekend. On top of that, I got hit with a bug and ended up passing out at about 8:30 while reading in bed. Yes, I FINALLY got around to reading my next book.
Saturday - Still sick and just dragged all day. My head was too in a fog to write a cohesive sentence.
Sunday - Lethargic at work. Manager again had to give up a day with her daughter because coworker no-call/no-show for the third day in a row. No customers even showed up, because, ya know, MOTHER'S DAY. Had a house-full of guests the rest of the day when I got home.
Yesterday - Still drained from this blasted cold. I spent the day, both the downtime at work and after I got home, reading to play catch-up on my reading challenge. Quickly typed up and edited one of my January writing practices.

I've been so out of it, I didn't even think about my "keep track of your hours" project I talked about last week. At least, I didn't think about it until I went to type up this blog. Whoops.

Tuesday started promisingly enough. Sorta. I wrote my blog post. I did my normal errand-running-around and cleaning for my day off. I went to writers' group a bit bummed about not having anything new. I decided to read my first story about Jynna: The Future is Bright.

I think I have a true fan in my group. I know that most, if not all, of the members enjoy my stories, but one in particular always seemed especially satisfied after my readings. She talks about chills and asks about my characters and the worlds. She's just amazed with my fantasy writing. I threw her off the previous group because I read a slice-of-life story. She enjoyed it, but it was unexpected for me to read something realistic. When I read about the Numenera she just was like "That's you. We're home now." Which is cool.

Then, with a couple minutes left before the library closed, DFL pitched a writing prompt to us. Write something to do. Anything. Doesn't have to be writing related. Go on vacation. Clean the house. Go grocery shopping. Read that book finally. Binge watch a show. Whatever. Then write something NOT to do. Gain weight. Skip leg day. Binge all weekend long. Stay inside on a sunny day. Avoid the dishes. Anything. Next, write something you love when it happens: Hubby cleaning instead of me; a warm, but not hot, sunny day when I have it off; my favorite treat being on sale; finding lost change; the Muse strikes when I have free time to write; etc. Finally, write something you hate when it happens: I'm sick on my day off; I spend the whole day cleaning instead of hanging out with friends; it's rainy on a day I want to do things outside; I try to meet up with people because I'm actually free, but now they're all busy; etc.

After writing out your To Do, Do Not Do, Love When, and Hate When, you're supposed to pick one of them and write a short story about it. Bonus points if you somehow bring in elements from the other categories. DFL said "go" and I was flying. Sadly, I only got about five sentences in before we were told that the library was closing and we had to leave. I meant to keep going with it once I was at the laundromat, but the magic was gone. Hubby and I watched our weekly shows instead. That was the last and only time I attempted to write something this week.

It's been a bad week.

As I mentioned, though, I did finally crack open my new book. I'm twelve chapters in. I'm still not loving the Trials of Apollo series as much as I do the Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard series, but it's an enjoyable series nonetheless. Plus, one of my favorite characters from the Heroes of Olympus series is back as a main supporting character in this second book. He just doesn't seem to have that same "OMG, I want to hug him so tight" factor though. Not sure where the magic went. He's still adorable and fun to read, but... I dunno. Maybe it's the cold. Maybe he's just not as enjoyable because I'm so "meh" myself this week.

Anyway, as I mentioned, I also typed up another prompt. I'm 15 writing practices in. Only kept me the first 136 days of the year.....

"Price of Memories"

On DeviantArt           On FictionPress

Now to try to rest up, get better, and at least do my hourly tracking if I'm not going to do actual writing. Finally, a quick shout out to Mouse for poking me throughout the week and at least attempting to push me back onto the writing path. Thank you.

Climbing Out of a Little Depression; Don't Mind Me

I feel like I need to start off with the elephant in the room: Donald Trump is the United States' president-elect.

Now, I won't get into the politics of this and the social effects this has. That's not what this blog is for. What I will say is that regardless which side you were on with this election, this week was emotionally draining, and a bit of a shock.

So, I was already in a daze from the election. That Wednesday evening I was hoping for some much-needed distraction. Due to their move and lack of internet, Bear had to cancel two games, so he had one of the "make up" sessions last Wednesday. During said session Rensin - and Dunina - was frozen in stone by a basilisk gaze. So.... still emotionally charged.

I was itching to write Jolene's entry on this, but the characters weren't in a good resting spot, so it didn't make in-game sense for her to journal about it. I'm waiting until the "dungeon" is cleared before I post my next journal, but boy howdy will it be long!

At least two others couldn't wait, but I'll get to that in a bit.

This week for NaNo, I was writing about Jolene's third love: Parvil Kiv.

Addison by CrystalCurtisArt
Commissioned by WindyAutumnMoon for her character

It occurs to me that I don't think I shared the images I found for each of Jolene's loves, so I'll backtrack real quick before continuing on.

First up is the first - and strongest - love of Jolene's life. She's loved others since him, and Rensin is super close to being on par with the love she had for him, but this is the ruler others are measured against: Jacob Highwin.

How I picture Jacob dressed up
and while working the forge
Yvad Trevelyan - Skyhold Outfit by Slugette

Imagine Jacob with honey-brown eyes
instead of these purple ones
Yvad Trevelyan by Slugette

The last gentleman I'm going to share this week is Jolene's second love Teo Apenell. There's actually a really awesome scene that I wrote between him and Jacob. Poor sap didn't realize he'd hurt Jolene almost as much.

Image found via Pintrest
Original source unknown

Anyway, back to the topic at hand. I was writing about Parvil this week. Sadly, I don't really have much on Parvil. His relationship with Jolene was basically "rebound boy after being heart broken over Teo," and he was more into a physical relationship than an emotional one. He was the "rebel" she was with for a brief stint. Good for backstory purposes, but now that I have to write out the actual relationship, I've got nothing. I'm running on empty.

I wrote the chapter that introduced him, but I just can't write the next one. I've been chipping away at it a few-hundred words at a time, but I really should have had this finished by Thursday at the latest.

Proof that planning really DOES help with writing momentum. I had so much figured out for Jacob, and he ended up sticking around for four chapters. Then I had a nice chunk of information figured out for Teo, and he was another three-chapter character. Now that I'm Pantsing the part I'm writing about Parvil, I'm slugging along.

It also doesn't help that I know this chapter is most likely the one where Jolene finds Parvil with the lusty barmaid. It's already an emotionally charged week; I just can't mentally put myself there without sobbing and curling in the corner to weep. It actually already happened this week.

See, along with the emotionally draining election, and the emotionally charged game where Rensin got frozen in stone, there were at least two other things that got me really emotionally raw this week.

While part of me doesn't want anyone to see my unedited work - which is why I'm not posting it here - I still kind of want input. So, since I was going to convert the edited version into the canonical back story for Jolene anyway, I decided to share my progress on the forum Mouse made for the game.

I warned people that it was raw and unedited. Not a problem. I then posted the link to the Google Doc I'm constantly updating. Still good to go. Theeeeeen I noticed that Rensin responded to my link.

Seems he was burnt, bad, by a fanfiction writer before. To the point where he cannot stand fanfiction or fanfiction writers. It felt like he thought them downright deplorable. This stung. This drove a knife right to my core.

Everything I had told myself over the past years - all my writing doubt - it came erupting to the surface. The thoughts that I'm not an actual writer because I need the crutch of someone else doing the work of world-building and/or character building. The hate that I'm incapable of doing something original. The slacker attitude that I was doing FANFICTION for NaNo while there are thousand others "doing it correctly" by writing something completely original this month.

It was like my inner editor and writing doubts were given a mouthpiece, and it was someone I respected for his writing; someone I wanted to better befriend. Instead, I now shrink away from him. I feel just completely unworthy, and almost fear meeting him outside of the game setting. It.... it was bad. I couldn't think about my story for a day or two. I just kept thinking that he was right, that I was deplorable for writing this fanfic instead of trying to do something myself.

Mouse came to my rescue. She told Rensin that it was fine; that she and Bear knew me and trusted me; trusted my writing. She then cheered me on.

Still, the wound was there, and her standing up for me - and Rensin's subsequent "Oh, okay then" - couldn't stitch it closed. I tried to ignore it. I tried to let it be, but every time I logged onto the board and I saw Rensin's name as "last poster" on my NaNo thread I hurt. So, against my better judgement, I explained my hurt to him. I tried to be diplomatic about it: This is how you hurt me, please think stuff like that through before you attack someone next time. However, I was still emotionally raw from everything else this week, so I guess it came across as me being the one doing the attacking. So, Mouse again stepped in by telling us to be civil.

CIVIL!? I didn't realize I was being hostile. If anything HE was the hostile party, and yet she asked for us to be civil after I posted. That cut me harder; realizing how misunderstood I was.

I guess now I understand how Jolene could be misunderstood in-game. If I couldn't explain myself without people feeling attacked, how could she? No wonder arguments seemed to pop up out of nowhere around her. No wonder her calming, carefully chosen words meant to show concern were always seen as harsh and criticizing.

Again, I sunk further into my writing funk. If I couldn't properly explain or present myself in writing when it comes to my own conversation, how could I possibly do it in my fiction? If my simple words could be so misinterpreted how could I properly tell a story to another?

That inner editor that was supposed to be locked away this month busted out of his cage and was roaring around me about how inadequate I was. I'd read what Rensin wrote on the board in the Myths or Journal sections. I'd read what Corlmitz wrote in his journal, backstory, or Legends section. I'd read what Mouse would put in Mahtab's journal or more world-build info about the various religions. I got emotional. They all provoked such strong emotions in me: anger, fear, sadness, joy, etc. And I watch people react to these posts stating just that.

Then there are my posts: Jolene's posts. Nothing. I'm not even sure others read them. No one ever comments. I am amazed by the writing the others do, and I feel so subpar. It took everything I had to push through. To keep going. To just write this week, even when every ounce of me told me to quit; it wasn't worth it; no one cares; I enrage people with my effort.

If that wasn't bad enough, we then had game on Saturday. We had continued through the "dungeon" - it's a set of sewers under the city they were in - but we're not quite done with it yet. Hopefully, we'll complete it tonight.

Anyway, Jolene is already on edge from Rensin being turned to stone, but he's back to flesh, so she's kind of elated at the same time. Then they came up against a vicious monster. It should have been challenging, but a lot easier for us to take down. Sadly, the dice were not with us that night, and we all rolled far too low to do anything more often than not. This resulted in Rensin and Dunina again nearly kicking the bucket.

Mahtab was able to get them both to full-health - or close to it - easily enough, but she admitted that she probably wouldn't be able to do much more healing that day. That's when Jolene innocently suggested that they retreat, regroup, let Mahtab rest, and possibly get other means to heal so they didn't need to rely on her as much.

Mahtab wasn't hearing it. According to her, she never retreats. Then she basically told Jolene to hide in the back if she wasn't brave/strong enough to fight. That stung. Jolene announced that she was pretty much the only one who came out of the fight unscathed and that she was more worried about them than herself. Frustrated that she again got misunderstood and ridiculed, she stormed ahead. If they wanted to march to their deaths she was done trying to stop them.

That was when the shit hit the fan. Rensin called out for her to "go home" since he couldn't handle her whining and fighting all the time. Jolene argued back that her fighting all the time was to protect HIM since she had to watch him nearly die THREE TIMES within the past week. She couldn't handle it because she loved him. It was the first time she admitted - even to herself - that she loved him.

In truth, I didn't expect Rensin to scoop her up and start a make-out session, overjoyed by her confession; they'd been through too much and she cut him too deep for that. I did, however, expect him to at least sigh and state something to the effect of "about time you admitted it." Or for SOMEONE to state something to that effect. It was obvious to everyone but her that she was madly in love with him. "About time you admit it" and then a "but we have to do what we have to do; we'll discuss this further later." That was more-or-less the reaction I was expecting.

Instead, Rensin swung from left field. He blurted out that he was sick of hearing Jolene focus so much on herself and how what the party does - whether or not they survive - effects HER. He then accused her for not understanding him. That's when he dropped the bomb that he re-evaluated his feelings and realized what he felt wasn't love; never was, and never could be.

Well, I was right there sobbing beside Jolene. And not a single party member tried to comfort her or reprimand Rensin for his harshness. They all stood there, more-or-less releasing a sigh of relief that the volatile relationship finally came to a close. The only one who reacted was Corlmitz, but even THAT was unexpected. He went off on BOTH of them for acting like children and finding the most inappropriate times to hash out their doomed courtship.

The night kind of spiraled from there.

First, there was the emotionally draining election. Quickly followed by an emotionally charged D&D session. That was followed by Real-World Rensin's criticism about me writing fanfiction for NaNo. Which, compacted with how I view everyone else on the board and how I'm sort of the outsider of the group, just tore the dreaded Inner Editor out of my head and plopped him right in front of me to try to battle. I saw myself the way Jolene sees herself within her group: an outsider always misunderstood as selfish and uncaring; disconnected. Then there was character Rensin's random outburst to implode his relationship with Jolene, followed by even more ridicule from Corlmitz. Again, I felt like I WAS Jolene. Was Rensin's harsh breaking off of the relationship somehow emotionally backed by me and Real-World Rensin butting heads about my story? Finally, I have to break poor Jolene's heart a second time by writing her finding Parvil in the arms of another.

I couldn't do it! I couldn't keep working on my story this week. There was just too much. I was just too depressed. I had to climb out of that hole before I was lost to despair.

So I switched over to "Some Like It Flame Broiled."

Can't handle a break-up scene due to crushing depression? Switch over to a smut story filled with violence!

I finally finished it, but I have to also admit that once the foreplay was done the story kind of died off. Apparently I'm great at foreplay, but the actual sex scenes and post-sex fight scene? Meh.

I sent it over to Ronoxym while playfully yelling at him for it. I needed a happy place to hide from Jolene for a while, and apparently that "happy place" was a smut story between Trish and Dark Devon.

Ron got a nice chuckle out of it and we playfully teased each other over the weekend as I kept using SLIFB as my "safe space" to further avoid Jolene and the depression that came with her. However, after I sent the story over to Ron, he agreed with me: about 65% through the story it just kind of died off.

However, with just a quick read through my 13-pg story, that was his only criticism thus far. He even pointed out a line that was perfectly in-character for Dark Devon, and it was during the "meh" part of the story. So... win? I was so concerned that I wasn't going to keep Dark Devon in-character, especially after everything about fanfiction writing this week.

Ron still needs to give it a better read to actually put his Editor's Hat on, but the fact that there weren't parts that he instantly stated as "he's out of character" gives me hope. He joked that he'd help me figure out why the story went sideways at the end. "Together we shall save this smut!" HAHA.

Um, thanks, Ron. I'd really like to have something that is strong all the way through, but at the same time.... all this effort on a story that will most likely never see the light of day....

I also used my depression a bit this week. I did write up Jolene's journal entry while the emotions were still raw. I just have it saved to add to and edit depending on how the rest of the dungeon goes. I'll then post once I'm done.

I've also started writing Jolene's farewell letters to everyone. An individual letter for each party member. I have Mahtab's, Rensin's - which he can't read himself yet...., Corlmitz's, and Dunina's written already. And they are LONG! Sorry, players!

So, I have written a LOT this week. More-or-less 1227 words in SLIFB, 1360 words for Jolene's journal, and 2897 words for the farewells written thus far. Add in the words that I did write, and the fact that I'm scheduling myself Saturdays and Sundays off, and I'd be ahead of the overall word count I should have been at, instead of about 8,000 words behind. I wish I could count it....

Before I get even more depressed with tonight's game, I'll have to push past Parvil's break-up scene. Maybe if I get to the point where I'm writing happy thoughts again - like the start of Jolene's relationships when they believe they're in love - I can push through. I can write.

Wish me luck.

All Aboard the Jolene Train!

Yup. Full-on obsession with Jolene. I literally can't focus on any other character right now. I guess it's a good thing that the X-Future boards have been dead since June - more or less - because I don't know if I could even play as any of those girls right now.

Probably doesn't help that I'm playing Jolene multiple times a week now. We have our normal weekly game, and then a "side quest" day of your choosing.

Bear started creating bounty posters - the one for Jolene is awesome! - as well as quest requests that are posted on the "community boards." In-game, these are boards in a central location of any given town so that everyone can see and possibly respond to the quests/bounties. In the real world, these are side-quests posted on the forum Mouse made at the beginning of the month. You choose what quest you want, a good time for everyone is coordinated, and the questing begins!

Jolene had a solo quest that was both a success and complete fail last night, Mahtab had an epically successful solo quest yesterday afternoon, and Rensin, Corlmitz, and Dunina are all doing a quest tomorrow night. It's a fun added element that not many DMs utilize.

Now, again, aside from explaining why I'm obsessed with Jolene, what does any of this have to do with my writing? Well, for one, the more sessions we have, the more journal entries Jolene will write. I still need to write up the one for last night, but with the other game sessions we've had, I added nearly another 1700 words to her journal this past week. I'm probably going to add at least a couple hundred more today once I write up the next journal entry.

I've also done some brainstorming with Shadow. I wanted to find a picture for the now infamous Jacob Highwin; Jolene's first true love. In the process of trying to track down something that both matched the picture in my head, and match the hype I've written about him thus far in-game, I stumbled upon a bunch of other pictures I liked.

Soon I had a collection of pictures of beautiful men drawn in High-Fantasy style. I decided to add them to the roster of Jolene's past loves. I've named Jacob, as well as the other four men who swore to be with her forever, only to dump her. I started matching up pictures with these names, and when I was done, I still had a few extra. So I gave them some backstory connecting them to Jolene as well.

I then passed the pictures over to Shadow, along with complete improv storytelling of each man, his love affair with Jolene, and why it didn't work out. It just flowed from me, and I only felt the need to slightly tweak a couple of elements.

In the end, I had about a dozen named lovers - ignoring the countless nameless clients Jolene had taken up over the years. I also had a small story involving each of them.

I think I have my new NaNo concept for this year. One that can help me stay with Jolene, and maybe get me to the winning 50,000 words this year. I think I'm going to write about Jolene's love affairs. A chapter or two for each beau. As it is, I'm looking at about 4,000 words per love(r). I'm also assuming that Jacob would get either a lengthy chapter or two, given Jolene was in love with him for about seven years.

This will probably turn into a 70,000 word novel once done....

I've even unofficially started NaNo prep for this story already. A little less than a week ago, after I came up with the skeleton of Jolene's past with these men, I decided to get her actual life timeline - as it were - down on paper. Coincidentally, Bear asked for exactly that about an hour after I started.

Anyway, so, I'm still painstakingly working on this timeline, but I am up to four pages; bulleted. I'm essentially going Year by Year with different major factors of any given season listed on the timeline. As of right now, these "main points" include things like her mother's many miscarriages, and when Jolene fell in love with the next man in her life.

I'll have to come up with a better visual aid for her 21-yrs before I post it officially anywhere, because it's a jumbled mess right now. At least I can understand it, though, and that's what matters.

It will be exciting to have something to read at group again once I actually START this project. Last week I ended up reading the first six entries for Jolene's journal; in other words: first four game sessions, more-or-less. As predicted, the group got a bit lost without the context of the game that lead to that entry. However, they did say that there was ENOUGH in the journals to intrigue them; make them wonder what DID happen. They also enjoy Jolene's personality, which is fun.

They'd love for me to turn the journal into a novel. This means I'd have to find a way to add more detail to a journal-entry-based story so people can actually see the story unfold; not just Jolene's reaction to the events. It's a fun concept, but I don't know if I could re-do Jolene's present. It wouldn't be Jolene if she didn't have this battle about her love for Rensin, this sibling-like respect for Corlmitz, distrust of the cleric Mahtab, or struggle to keep the corruption of the Prime Evil Deceit under control. I couldn't write a story about all of that though, without just transcribing an already transcribed game. It wouldn't be original. It wouldn't "count."

However, there IS something that could be said about converting a good game into a novelization for others to read. I feel like this either hasn't been done before, or only done very rarely before. Then again, just about every geek/nerd has had that ONE game or ONE character that was just so epic it is ALWAYS the fall-to story among your friends.

Hubby has that with his elf character Zalic. Even if you weren't part of the game that Zalic was in, he is still infamous within our group. There is another campaign where Shadow consistently rolled so high for a random NPC that the character not only got a name - Mandito Atarme - but he got his own CHURCH dedicated to him. Then there are tales like this comic I recently found, and now proceed to read whenever I need to weep with laughter:

Read the full comic "Fated"
Written by Jasmine Walls, Illustrated by Amy Phillips

My point being, there might actually be a demand for fun games getting narrated for other geeks to consume. I'd obviously get the OK from all the players first, and count them as co-authors since there wouldn't be a story without them.... Heck, this might also be a "thing." I mean, I've been trying to do the same thing with X-Future via Glitches, but this time I really can't make this story original. This D&D game is just too good as-is.

There's action, drama, intrigue, mystery, danger, angst, and humor - although, I do kind of wish the humor would be a bit higher. We're so serious in this game!

*ahem*

Sorry. Obsessing again. I guess that's my cue to wrap this up.

To recap: I have written this past week, about 1700 words, but it's for Jolene's journal, which my writing group wishes I could add more to so it could be a stand-alone story. However, there's a possibility that I might just get permissions from Bear and the group to novel-ize the transcripts of our games instead of trying to come up with an original story for Jolene, since it won't be the same without the people surrounding her. In the meantime, I'm going to focus on Jolene's backstory, and finish working on the timeline of her past. This will help me with my new NaNo concept of writing about Jolene's many love affairs throughout the course of her young life.

Mixed into all of this is my struggle to think of something NOT relating to Jolene that I could write a flash fiction about, in order to keep up with Ronoxym's challenge for me. As it is, I've missed two weeks.

So, in order to not miss any more weeks, I'm bending the rules a little bit again.

I wrote a story from the perspective of one of Jolene's slighted lovers. It's not necessarily Fanfiction, since it doesn't have a well-publicised "source material" such as a novel, movie/TV show, or game. I mean, there IS D&D, but you could just claim that as generic high fantasy. So, skirting around rule 1. Rule 2 is that it cannot relate or continue previous entries, and it does not since none of the other three have anything to do with Jolene. Rule 3 is that I cannot write about a character I've already created, and I didn't create the character of Orick until after I wrote this story. It's another bend of the rules, but it works, right?

Anyway, cheating a bit or no, this story still - more-or-less - has the spirit of the challenge, so I'm counting it.

"Lost Love"

On DeviantArt           On FictionPress

Now, to write Jolene's history, come up with details about these men so I can write about them next month, as well as figure out what to do for my flash fiction this week. Busy, busy, busy!

Two More Peeps Join the Party; and a Dirty One at That....

So August Script Frenzy month isn't really going well at all. I haven't worked on "Glitches" since before Spink's wedding. That's not to say I haven't written anything. I've just gone off the reservation on what I'm writing.

Temp's player from X-Future - Lyonish - has that Dread game I told you about last week. Well, it kept me THREE DAYS to fill out the 13-question profile questionnaire. There were some really interesting questions on that thing. Dread's full character questionnaire actually has 40 questions, but the GM picks 13 based on the archetype you choose, and possibly depending on what you have in your basic profile. For instance, Hubby said his character had a tattoo in his profile, and ended up getting a question about the tattoo.

Anyway, the questionnaire has a lot of hard-hitting questions I never would have thought to ask my characters. Mostly because it's designed to best set up tormented characters for a horror-setting game. Still, these are some AWESOME questions.

Here are some of my favorites that I didn't have to answer:

What did your last few breakups have in common?
Why do you have a picture of a person you’ve never met in your wallet?
How can you stand there and act so proud of yourself after what you did to your mother?
Why do you refuse to touch scissors anymore?
Whose face keeps you up at night?
When did you first hear the voices?
How might your life be different if you hadn’t driven off in a rage that night?
If the headaches are so bad, why won’t you go see a doctor?
How did you pass the exam if you didn’t sit for it?

And finally, the tattoo question Hubby got:
After how many tattoos did you realize nothing will hide those marks?

And here are the ones I DID have to answer:

What mental illness runs in your family?
What do you do for a living?
Where did you grow up?
What is your favorite game?
How old were you when you learned you could predict horse races consistently?
Why were you named after your cousin instead of your grandparent?
What made you think you could get away with it, and how in the world did you?
What is the recurring dream and why does it frighten you?
What addiction do you hide from your friends?
What can you do that most other people you know can’t?
When all else is quiet, how do you silence the screaming in your head?
Why is next month big for you?
What unusual hobby do you have?

Want to know the worst part? The hardest question for me to answer as Artie was the favorite game question! Something that should be simple, but in its simplicity I couldn't focus on a game. Is it a sport? Some sort of "recess game" like hopscotch? A video game? Board game? Card game? Puzzle? There are so many possibilities!

I think my favorite question to answer was "Why were you named after your cousin instead of your grandparent?" I almost instantly came up with an answer and I LOVED it. Artie has the "family name" that was supposed to be given to the first child. Well, the first child died as a preemie a couple weeks before Artie was born, and so the family name got "reused" as it were. It's more involved than that, but broad strokes.

Now, I only gave 23 out of 40 questions on this Dread character questionnaire, but I'm sure you can see by now where it goes, more or less. So much fun. Definitely something to go back to for any other tragic characters I want to build.

Part of me kind of wants Ronoxym to fill some of the questions out as Devon now that in-canon Devon has amnesia after being resurrected. I wouldn't give Ron a set of questions like Lyonish did for the Dread characters, but I'd have him go through all 40 and have Devon answer as many as he could. It might be fun to see the character development from that.

Speaking of Ron and Devon, that's where some of my writing went again this past week. Trish is SUPER dirty, and I'm in straight up smut territory now...

It IS fun though, to go so out of my comfort zone, and write something so fun! However, I'm hoping this will be my only trek into the world of NSFW, and once I'm done with this story it will be out of my system. I can't deny the drive I have to write it, though. Granted, I only allowed myself a couple hours this past week - more focus on actual work and character building - but I went from about 2100 words last week to over 5300 total. Yup, I more than doubled what I wrote over the course of this past week. Again, I only allowed myself A FEW HOURS TO WRITE because I was more focused on character building. Not just for Dread, too. I had yet ANOTHER character that I built this past week.

I know I haven't mentioned them in a while, so I'll re-introduce. Early last year Hubby and I got introduced to a couple I lovingly call Mouse and Bear. We were like peas in a pod. Our weddings were even hauntingly similar! Fun though; it was like I was attending my own wedding.

Anyway, Hubby and I didn't have much of a chance to hang out with Mouse and Bear due to my poor-quality car and them living almost an hour away. Unfortunately, it became infinitely harder for us to hang out because Bear got a job down south and they ended up sort of abruptly moving away. This super saddened me not only because I didn't get a chance to really hang out with an amazing couple we majorly clicked with, but also because Bear had started up a D&D game, and we all should know by now how desperately I want to play this game. I mean, I run my own monthly game, but it's not the same as PLAYING it.

Now, how does this relate to character building? Seems Bear started up an online D&D game via Roll20. He's wanted me and Hubby to join in for a couple of months now, but our schedules never seemed to match up. That's changed, and Bear was restarting his campaign anyway. Perfect time for me to jump in!

Well.... it WOULD have been. Problem is, I didn't have a character ready before the game session started this past Saturday, and so I tried to build one while everyone else played. Bear figured he'd throw me in once I was done.

I was never done.

I just froze up. I couldn't even think of her name! I couldn't think of what I wanted to do with the character. I just knew I wanted to be a rogue because every time I tried to set one up I only got about 3 sessions in before the game was dropped for whatever reason. I was determined to play through at least ONE campaign with a rogue. The follow-up issue was how diverse rogues are. Did I want her to be mostly focused on stealth? Sneak attacks? Trap mastery? Social manipulation? Master of Disguise? The list goes on, and I was a complete blank!

Well, it seems the old adage of "sleeping on it" really worked, because this past Sunday I brought up the Dread questionnaire as well as another one I had tucked away in my archives, and I just started answering whatever questions I could. I jumped all over the questionnaires. Whatever I was inspired to answer I did and moved on, regardless of order. While I only touched about half the questions, it was enough for me to figure out my character finally. I then managed to write up a 2pg backstory; about 1300 words. Hope Bear's up for some reading!

So, I'd like for you to meet my two newest characters to hop into my head. Thanks to character questionnaires, I was able to discover these two a LOT faster than I normally would coming from thin-air!

First up is Artie; someone I introduced last week. Artie is a Waif; a street urchin orphan. While technically a female named Artemis, Artie's small 14-yr-old frame and deep voice allows her to pass for a 12-yr-old boy. She's one of the few times that I'd justify using the term "Gender fluid" because she doesn't really perceive of gender as much more than a tool to get what she needs. Yes, when she addresses herself in her head she self-identifies as a woman, but to the world she is whatever people perceive her as. She's a boy if she's mistaken as one, and will act accordingly, especially as a defense mechanism to seem tougher or more capable. If she's discovered as a girl she will again act according to social norms as a means to get people to protect her. This and other means of manipulation are her main ways of surviving on the streets over the last couple of years since becoming an orphan.

Artemis "Artie" Makris 

Jolene was slighted by love one too many times in her youth. She blamed her cobbler father for not having a decent enough dowry for her to be enticing to suitors, and so decided to earn her own dowry. In the process she befriended a brothel's Madam and, upon seeing how popular and well off she was, Jolene decided to become a prostitute as well. She was good at the trade, but didn't like that the Madam decided on her clients. Jolene went off on her own as a "touring whore" but quickly discovered the protection that brothels provided to their workers. As a freelancer she had to learn to protect herself from dangerous clients. This lead her to train with a Thieves Guild in order to perfect her knife skills, as well as expand her repertoire to include thievery to help build up her savings faster. This means a long list of angry clients who discover that she took a bit more payment than agreed upon. So she's constantly on the move. We'll see what running into a party of adventurers does for her.

Jolene Crisslebalm
Wish I could have gotten a dagger for her
and managed to give her a high ponytail....

The hair and dagger are the way I want, but over-all,
I don't think she's as pretty as the previous option...

Rough edit job on the hair, but this will be
the picture I use as my avatar for the campaign.

Now, in regards to reading, I'm 56 pages away from finishing "Reformation" by local writing group member Sandra Brewster. While Keaton and DFL both sing the book's praises, it just isn't for me. I'm going to finish it because that's part of the challenge, but I feel like I missed the point. The villain shouldn't be my favorite character, right?

I dunno. The book utilizes the same narration technique that a lot of books I've read uses: multiple first-person narrators. You have the supposed main character David, and his siblings Paul and Sara, both of his parents Tom and Laura, David's Aunt Tamara - who FEELS like she should be the main character - David's grandmother Katelyn, and then the villain Mary Langston. Juggling all of these narrators alone is a bit of a task, but I personally don't see the point. I could maybe see keeping most of it with Tamara as she discovers the mystery behind David's random bursts of violence, and the occasional hop over to David as he battles his own brain to try to remain the peaceful, loving boy he's always been. I even like the chapters almost all concluding with Langston's POV. The rest of the family, though? Eh. I feel they bog the story down, personally. I feel there'd be a lot more emotion shown if their inner thoughts had to be projected via dialogue instead of them just taking control of the story, especially since these POV changes happen about a dozen times each chapter. It's a bit jarring for me to constantly jump narrators.

The characters also don't seem so distinct, either. Thank god each narration jump starts with the narrator's name, because I'd be hard-pressed to know the difference otherwise. Which is why I think I like Langston so much. Sandy clearly put a lot of thought into the woman, because she's the only one with a distinct voice.

Sprinkle in the fact that in the first 30 pages or so we're introduced to like 38 characters. Some are obvious supporting characters, some don't return until about 20pgs later, and others I have yet to meet again. I had to legit go back and write up a cheat sheet to remember who was who.

To be fair, Sandy's been reading her first draft of her sequel to "Reformation" in our group, and it seems a LOT more polished. She has also been going back through and doing a LOT of editing of "Reformation" for a second edition copy. So I don't want to completely discredit her. At least two women in my group enjoyed the book, and so I'll just say that the format it is written in just isn't "for me" but feel free to try to find a copy to check out yourself.

Now to get my butt in gear to actually have my own completed work some day. Can't very well do that if I'm spending my days creating new characters and writing dirty one-shots.

Then again.... maybe I can.... "Fifty Shades of Grey" IS a thing.....

Story Revivals and Master Classes

I oopsied, and I'm paying for it right now.

Once again, I lost track of what day of the week it was. So, while I was home alone for five hours while Hubby was at work last night, I neglected to write this post. Then, at about 10:30 last night, I remembered that today is Wednesday, and that I'm working 8-3:30. Whoops.

So, I forced myself up at 5am so I can make sure that you folks have a noon update. But my eyes are still half-closed, I'm yawning, and I don't have the time to edit this before heading in to work - yes, it takes my that long to write these things - so please forgive any typos and bad grammar.


Let's start off with the important part, the conclusion of my August Goal Challenge on Struggling Writers Society, and thus the end of my summer writing challenges. It was tough to try to squeak everything in, but Monday was my day off this week. Given that it was also the last day of August, I locked myself away in my Writing Nest I created last week and typed all morning.

Set this up in my library when I typed last week's post.

When all was said and done, I actually ended up with TWO chapters. The chapter I was originally intending was a little with Chayse and Lia at first, and then about 80% Chayse and Nix, concluding with Chayse getting in trouble with his mom as well as Nix and Annika heading out for a date.

While I'm not a fan of the majority of the chapter following Chayse's POV, only to hop over to 3rd Omniscient for the last 500-so words while sticking with Nix and Annika. However, them running off for a date seemed like a natural end, and a nice segue into their date chapter. At the same time, Chayse getting in trouble with his mom took on a bit of a life of its own as I embellished the solo role play Hubby had between Chayse and Kitty. Over 2000 words later, I decided it was probably best to break it off into its own chapter.

Plus, even though there's some POV-Hopping when Chayse leaves and I stay with Nix and Annika at the end of the intended chapter, for some reason it fits the flow to stay with them. Cutting back to Chayse for his solo thing felt disconnected even though the majority of the chapter was his POV anyway.

So, there are two back-to-back Chayse POV chapters now. Oh well.

Hacker Girl Facebook Sticker
by Birdman Inc

In the end, I finished off August with something shy of 9,000 words written. Not nearly as exciting as Cyhyr or Mouse hitting 30,000 words, but given that I haven't written actual prose since about April, I think it's a nice wing-stretcher.

Another snaffu that I hit is that FanFiction hasn't been allowing me to properly log in the past two days. I managed to post my chapters on August 31st perfectly fine, but now I can't get back in. I keep getting some error message about no servers available. I can still read stories - including my own - perfectly fine, I just can't get into my FF dashboard to upload, edit, or post anything that I write. Weird.

Anyway, the reason I realized that was because at about 10pm - apparently my realization hour - on Monday I remembered that I had posted the new X-Future: The Second Generation Begins chapters up on FanFiction, but I had neglected to post them to DeviantArt as well. I spent roughly the next forty-five minutes editing the chapter. See, I still haven't learned how to upload prose as if it were a picture file on to DeviantArt. A lot of authors have done this so that you scroll through a PDF or something. Very professional because it's like an ebook.

Like I said, I haven't figured that out yet. Mostly because I'm just computer literate enough to survive in this digital world and know a few tricks to impress my mother with, but I'm computer illiterate in most things beyond "basic". So, I haven't figured out how to save my Word Doc as a PDF that I can then upload to DA.

Because of this, I have to post things the hard way, by entering text into a box and then adding all of the formatting things - such as line breaks - via HTML. One of the most annoying formatting edits I have to do is redoing all the italics that I put into my story. They don't transfer over at all with a simple copy-and-paste. So I have to then re-read the whole story and try to find all the parts I had italicized.

I tried something new this past time. I scanned my story, stopped just before an italic, copied, pasted, put in the HTML, wrote the italicized word or sentence, and then copied the next section of text leading into another italic.

Since the first chapter had a LOT of Chayse thinking, it also had a lot of italics. It kept me roughly 45 minutes to get it all formatted.

And then I derped.

Hacker Girl Facebook Sticker

by Birdman Inc

I brought up the preview to make sure the edits worked the way I wanted them to, but when I went to close the preview, I hit the wrong box and closed out the entire document. It doesn't auto-save. It doesn't ask if you're sure you want to close. It doesn't warn you that you'll lose everything you didn't save. It just complies, and closes the window.

Nearly an hour, gone. Never to return, and with nothing to show.

I was kinda ticked at that point and gave up for the night.

Problem is, now I can't get back into FF so I can copy my chapters, since FF won't let you copy a story you're reading. A great way to prevent plagiarism, but an annoying feature right now. So, when I'm done with work today, I have to again unbury my external hard drive - I have one of the older "My Book" models that's about a pound or so, and kind of clunky; not an issue when it's forever still next to a desktop, but annoying when attached to a moving laptop - so I can access the original files that I had used to post to FF in the first place. At least I know I have access to them. I can even attempt to save as a PDF one more time before going through the stupid HTML edits again.

In the meantime, you can check out the latest chapters - as well as the rest of the story - on FanFiction.net:
 > Bro-Bonding
 > You're in Trouble, Son!

Yes, I'm well aware that I still suck at coming up with titles....

I'm also aware that my story's voice, style, and detail have all evolved since Chapter 1. It's a fanfiction I started over 2 years ago; I'm not worried about it. Just enjoy the evolution, I guess.


*cracks knuckles*
Alright, and now for some super exciting news. The news I meant to tell you guys last week, but COMPLETELY forgot until about 10minutes before I had to publish the update.

So, my awesome mother did a thing.

There is this site called MasterClass. It has all of these mini-courses about tons of different professions, and they're taught by professionals in said career. Right now, there are three available classes: Acting taught by Dustin Hoffman, Tennis by Serena Williams, and the one my mother found for me. Writing taught by James Patterson. In case my mother wasn't quite amazing enough for finding this for me, she also paid the sign-up fee as an early-anniversary/Super-Early Christmas gift for me.

So, the Monday before last week's blog, I excitedly watched the first four videos - as directed by the "class syllabus". I was just too excited to wait any longer to open my gift, so to speak.

These classes are awesome! Patterson is a really down-to-earth guy who is playful, funny, personable, a joy to listen to, and you can tell he really cares. Yes, I know there are skeptics out there that might think "Yeah, he's paid to care," but he also does donate millions of dollars towards literacy programs, such as funding libraries and book donations to schools and the like. I legitimately think this man cares about both literacy and the up-coming aspiring writers.

Plus, the guy is inspiring, and has so many great quotes!

Here's a few I made sure to copy, and then I posted them on my FB:

• "It took me into my forties before people really believed in the kind of fiction I was writing."
  This is actually really comforting for someone in her early 30s who hasn't even finished a manuscript yet.
• "When I got out of school, I started working at an ad agency... but I've been clean for twenty years now..."
  This one just made me chuckle. I absolutely loved my time at the production house right out of college. In fact, aside from maybe my brief stint at a movie theater, I think it's my favorite job I've ever had. I guess it just depends on the ad agency you fall into, and what sort of advertising you do...
• "If you had to tell me your story in ten minutes; fifteen minutes. Figure out a way to tell me that story in fifteen minutes, and that will be the core of your story.... There's the story. You should be able to tell that story, I would think, in ten or fifteen minutes, or less."
  I'm fairly certain - based on context surrounding this quote - that he meant verbally telling someone. Either way, it's a good rule of thumb; especially for someone long-winded like me.

I also want to state that I am dumbfounded by a factoid that Patterson threw out about himself. Apparently, when he was in college, he was reading 10-12 novels a week. A WEEK! NOVELS! I can't even get myself to read 10-12 novels a YEAR and he was doing so A WEEK! Geez! How the heck!? Speed-reader, much?

Anyway, back on topic...

The video classes are only about 10minutes long, and so it's real easy to tear through them. As I mentioned, there's a sort of "class schedule" that MasterClass posts. A suggested schedule on how many videos - and which ones - you should watch per week.

Yes, per WEEK. I'm assuming most who take the classes put 10minutes of their busy schedules aside three or four times a week in order to watch a class. Then, on their "off" days, they spend the 10minutes or so they would be watching a class, and use it for the "homework" provided with each lesson.

I was too eager and watched all four suggested for Week 1 in one sitting. Whoops.

On top of that, I've been so preoccupied with finishing up the August Goal writing challenge that I didn't bother with any of the assignments.

So, now that it's September, and the challenge is over, I'm bothering now.

Assignment #1: Create a writing schedule and fill it out on the week-long calendar provided.

Well, I intended on doing these classes Monday nights, which would mean the week would be Monday through Sunday. Given that it's Wednesday - which would be when NORMAL people would watch the second video - and I only came up with my schedule last night, I feel like I failed a bit. However, I did CREATE the schedule. It didn't say anything about actually following through with it.... #Loopholes.

Anyway, I'm writing now, first thing in the morning, to make up for not writing at all yesterday, and I wrote like the Dickens on Monday to finish up my challenge. So, maybe consider this first assignment only semi-failed?

For the rest of the week, at least - and hopefully spilled over into next week, I'll have to check my work schedule - in the hour between 5pm and 6pm I shall be writing every day, again, ignoring yesterday and Monday.

We'll see how a consistent writing schedule works for me. It hasn't in the past, and that has been one of my biggest pitfalls in the world of writing. I really REALLY need to learn how to discipline myself enough to get a steady writing schedule, even if it isn't a daily routine.

Alright. So, Assignment #1 is done; sort of.

Now on to Assignment #2: Create 3 raw ideas - either new, or ones I've been playing around with - and write them down somewhere.

In other words, I have to start physically creating a Plot Bunny Farm. The ideas have to be physically written down. Either by hand on some hardcopy - index cards, notebook, looseleaf in a folder, etc  - or digitally - word doc, folder names for future documents, spreadsheet, MS Paint Thought Maps, etc.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be trickier than I gave myself credit for. I have a few Works-In-Progress that I could use to build the Plot Bunny Farm, but it feels a little like cheating, I think. So, I figured I'd attempt some new ideas. It's hard to transition away from ideas you've been brewing for years in order to "magically" come up with some new ones for an assignment.

Worst part is I discovered I'm pretty good at coming up with a neat story environment/world, and I'm also pretty good at coming up with interesting characters. What I'm surprisingly bad at is coming up with actual PLOTS. Beginning, middle, and end. Done. *dusts off hands*

I have Amara. She's a D&D character that evolved into a High Fantasy story character that evolved into one of the many stories I have based in the world of Gyateara.

I have Amara's backstory, physical description, personality, and life goal all mapped out. What I DON'T have, is a specific story arc for her. "Amara does whatever she can to try to find a way to banish the human part of her soul so she can become fully Elvish." Great life goal to give her drive throughout a story, but that in and of itself isn't a plot.

Jump over to my Vampire: The Masquerade character that I attempted writing a story for this past NaNo. Same deal as with Amara: backstory, description, personality, life goal, but no plot. That's the main reason I abandoned the story. "Lottie is on three simultaneous quests: hunt down the vampire that killed her sire, as well as as many of his clansmen as she can; find out what happened to her husband when he went MIA in WWII; find a way to retain her humanity." Three great starts to books. I can write one based on any one of those goals, let alone all three at the same time. However, there's no PLOT there. What is the fighting force against her?

Then you have the idea I was going to attempt for Script Frenzy. A story similar to Pixar's "Inside Out", but instead of the "little people living in your head" being personified emotions, it was an author's characters literally living in her brain. Fun world concept, but there's no plot there.

Then you have X-Future - and it's reboot I've been working on - which is simply "Teenagers with powers struggle in a world both trying to co-exist with them as well as destroy them. Chaos ensues."

I can go on. This past week I thought of about four more characters like Amara and Lottie, and three more world concepts like the "Inside Out" one or X-Future.

You know what that probably means I'm good at? Serials.

I can probably write comics or TV series. I have characters with vaguely specific goals in life that they're working toward, and each strip/episode is a different little plot that either fights against that goal, or helps lead them to it. I have a fun world that readers/viewers might enjoy exploring, and they can with each new strip/episode which is another "slice of life" in that world.

However, my inability to come up with solid PLOTS does not bode well for me as a novelist....

So, I'm still working on that Plot Bunny assignment.

The final assignment I have for the next time I watch more classes is this.

Assignment #3: Write a plotline out - preferably based on one of the three Plot Bunnies from Assignment #2 - in 3-5 concise sentences. Once the plot is fleshed out, send it to a good, but brutally honest friend. If they want to know more about the story, then you have something you should commit to. If not? Then go back to the drawing board and see if you can tickle their fancy next time.

My NY Bestie Spink volunteered to be my "Brutally Honest Friend" for this assignment. Now to figure out what to tell her....

Well, that's it on my assignment list and my feelings on my writing MasterClass for the week. Plus, I need to wake up Hubby so we can get ready for work....

Keep an eye out for my list of Plot Bunnies, as well as my 3-5sentence plotline next week.