Happy belated Memorial Day if you are American.... which seems weird to say... "Happy" Memorial Day, when the point is to reflect upon and remember military members who have died in service....
Um... well.... either way....
The week has been a bit chaotic thanks to Memorial Day. Sadly, it has sort of become synonymous with "Great Sales and/or Barbecue Weekend." So we were SLAMMED at work. Leaving me with roughly... 45min all week to write.
Although, who else has time to write during their normal 9-to-5? So I guess I shouldn't be grumbling. Still, it left me with a lot fewer hours to work with than I was hoping for, and I wasn't exactly using them well.
I know I already mentioned this last week, but I wanted to introduce the next akuma in chapter 8 of "Peeping Tomcat." So I spent a lot of last week working on him. I mean, A LOT of time....
As I also mentioned, I was then trying to use what I came up with to write a "behind the scenes" short, much like
what I did for Mimicker to help me sort things out. Problem being that I was spending too much time writing that, and not enough writing the next chapter of "Peeping Tomcat."
Normally, slacking off isn't that bad. I mean, it's still bad. It still takes me a lot of time to edit each chapter, but that's all I'm doing: editing. I had to actually WRITE this chapter this time, as well as have time to edit it so it's at the same level as the other chapters. It wouldn't be fair to my readers if they got a sub-par chapter because I slacked off.
I had also unofficially started posting shorts on my Tumblr every three days, and Wednesday would be the next day to post something. Things were getting crazy.
So I ended up giving up the shorts. Yes, it was great seeing the love of my stories getting likes and reblogs on Tumblr, but I had a priority: my main story. What was the point of getting likes, reblogs, traffic, any of that stuff, if I had no story to promote? I had to focus on that.
I spent a lot of Wednesday getting the nuts and bolts of the story sorted out, and then Thursday trying to finish it. I didn't do too well, because I was also exhausted from work, and we kept having impromptu guests. I love guests. I love people. I'm an extrovert. But even I got to a point where I want to say "Gaaah! Get out of my house! I need to write!"
In fact, I think I DID say that at one point. Thankfully, Hubby simply went on a Pokemon Go walk, so it all worked out. There are multiple ways to support the artist in your life, peeps.
Anyway, on Thursday I stayed up until about 1am before my eyes fogged over. That was my white flag. I had to go to sleep, and since I couldn't really see my computer screen anyway, it seemed as good a time as any.
Getting back up around 6am, I rushed through the last few hours of writing, editing, and posting my latest chapter. All while also taking Hubby into work before having to get ready for work myself.
I was exhausted, but I had done it. I wasn't even late! My 8:30am chapter update schedule stayed in tact. Although, my promoting of it didn't. I just ran out of time to do my normal promotional circuit - my personal FB page, the fanfic FB group, Twitter, and now Tumblr - and still get to work on time. So I had to wait until my lunch break at 1:15pm to promote my story.
Speaking of, have you had a chance to read the latest chapter yet? If not, don't forget that there are three convenient sites you can read it on.
Despite the struggles, I think I did fairly alright for myself.
FFN: 672 views, 1 faves, 2 followers, and 2 reviews
AO3: 196 views and 5 kudos
DA: 10 views
Total Results: 878 views, 6 faves, 2 followers, and 2 reviews
Tumblr Notes: 2 likes for my promotional post
The comments:
1. Man this was an epic fight scene in my head! :o I can see Chat just leaping onto Marinette's balcony later on that day since he is so distraught and to check on her, while she tries to find out what's wrong with him.
So glad you updated btw ~
2. So much angst!
I'm actually pretty impressed that I received the amount of views I did within the first 24hrs. Mainly because of that delay in promoting. That may have skewed the stats a bit, and I'll probably wonder for a while still what my stats would have looked like if I got to promoting on time. Oh well...
Those comments made the struggle worth it. I mean... "epic fight"? Me? I wrote a fight scene that someone thought was "epic"? Also, that "so glad you updated" made me smile.
I'm glad too, reader.
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That second comment also made me laugh. I mean, I
AM the Queen of Angst. Haha. I'm hoping the angst was at least appreciated. I'm assuming so based on the simple-sentence review. Even if it wasn't, I'm going to pretend.
So, someone in the fanfiction FB group asked if she should expect more or fewer views this weekend. On the one hand, most Americans had a three-day weekend, which meant more free-time to do things like read fanfiction. On the other hand, Americans could be slammed at work - like I was - or be otherwise busy with things such as family trips and/or barbecues to fill that three-day weekend.
Another member responded that most people have other things they do on the weekend to take advantage of having days off, and so views are always slow over those few days. Said member also stated that was why he never posted over a weekend. Most views come in on weekdays.
I always saw the opposite. Maybe it's because my story gets buried by other new stories and updates by Monday, but my view count seems to drop to a crawl after the weekend. The stats thus far for the week, post the initial 24hrs, seems to follow that trend:
FFN: 1096 views, 4 faves, 8 followers, and 4 reviews
AO3: 295 views and 13 kudos
DA: 12 views and 1 fave
Total Results: 1403 views, 18 faves, 8 followers, and 4 reviews
Tumblr Notes: I got a third like....
One of the two new comments (see below for Jowy's):
1. The poor kitty needs to talk to his lady"s" quick before he gets injured.
(Another lovely comment from cassy1994)
In other words, here are the stats from 8:30am Saturday until now:
FFN: 424 views, 3 faves, 6 followers, and 2 new reviews
AO3: 99 views and 8 kudos
DA: 2 views and the new fave
Total Results: 525 views, 12 faves, 6 followers, and 2 reviews
Tumblr Notes: 1 new like
According to my email notifications from FFN, 106 of those views, 2 of those follows, 1 of those faves, and cassy's review, were all from yesterday and earlier today. The rest were from the weekend. While I can't track the views on AO3 the same way I can on FFN, I can at least say that half of those new kudos came from either yesterday or this morning. I have no way of tracking DA without physically doing so myself.
So.... like I said.... my stories peter off once the weekend ends. I don't know if it's because new stories flood the sites on Monday, and mine gets buried, or if different fandoms have different reading trends, or if that one fanfic group member just has no clue what he's talking about. But I think I have enough proof to keep up my Friday updates, even once I'm done with "Peeping Tomcat."
Anway, going back to touch upon Jowy's Pixie's review. I'm beginning to love seeing the names cassy1994 and Jowy's Pixie in my email notifications.
Jowy's Pixie: Wow, up until 8:30 in the morning? I hope you're okay! Please get some sleep and don't worry about us! o_O
Also, CALLED IT! I knew he'd probably end up being akumatized! I totally get what you mean about trying to think of akumas though. It's such hard work and I have no idea how Astruc and his team manage to do it either. I'm always tearing my hair out trying to think of something. But you nailed it pretty well, the motivations were very believable and understandable with a decent build up.
Poor Chat Noir throughout that entire battle, so distracted by thoughts of Marinette. Oh dear oh dear, the poor boy really is whipped and he has no idea. I just want to leap into this story and give him a good shake, he's so clueless. I felt so sorry for him at the end of the chapter, thinking he was nothing more but a sidekick and didn't deserve to be by Ladybug's side. I have a feeling he might turn to Marinette for comfort over that. I just hope that Ladybug/Marinette can reassure him that that's not the case at all.
Once again, this chapter was a very enjoyable read. I'm really looking forward to the next chapter to see what happens. As always, this was very well written and I really love the detail that you go into, describing the world around them and the thoughts and emotions that Chat/Adrien is experiencing. Keep up the fantastic work!
I guess in my sleepy daze Friday morning I didn't express myself properly. I did reassure Jowy's that I didn't pull an all-nighter. While it wasn't top-notch self-care, since it was barely 5hrs of sleep, I do make sure to not push myself too much. Besides, once in a blue moon should be fine, right?
I did appreciate the sentiment of "don't worry about us! o_O" though. With all the rabid fans out there always whining "when are you going to update?" it is nice to know that there are still decent fans out there as well, who know you need to focus on you first and this hobby second.
And of COURSE I do keep this hobby second.... totally.... absolutely....
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Which is why I also went back and finished that side-story about Michel's transformation into Terravenger.
"I am Terravenger"
I wanted to have this up on Friday as well as a sort of "bonus chapter" but I couldn't get far enough into it to have it ready to publish. I tried again Saturday, and got a good chunk done, but I also didn't have much spare time. Sunday I had to drop Hubby off at work super early in the morning, so I had about four hours to myself.
So THAT was when I got the story nearly done. I was about three paragraphs away from finishing when I realized that I had to be at work in about 20min, and I still hadn't gotten dressed or fixed my hair!
Yup. TOOOOOOTALLY a hobby that doesn't take priority in my life. I have my priorities straight....
When I got home from work I was so
hangry and exhausted I just gobbled down dinner and passed out while Hubby and
Omnibladestrike went on a Pokemon Go raid. When the guys got back we hung out, and Omni talked about how he expanded a bit on his fanfic. That was the extent of our "writing date" though since I was still dazed.
It wasn't until after he left at about 10pm that I went back to write the closing paragraphs of "I am Terravenger" and edited it.
It went live right around midnight, and then I crashed after promoting it.
Not even 24hrs later, I already got a comment on both my FFN and AO3 postings. They both made me chuckle. Warning, they both contain a spoiler.
On FFN: "Of course that's what happened. Dammit, Roger."
On AO3: "I'd been wondering just what had caused Michel to akumatise (even though it was obvious he would). Wasn't expecting it to be Roger's hair-trigger fine-writing fingers, though. I guess he HAS been building up a tally in Season 2, though..."
Know what I love the most about that AO3 review? The fact that the person had "been wondering" about Michel's akumatizing. That means Draxynnic is a reader of "Peeping Tomcat." Yay. Also, they posted at 12:38am on Monday morning... which means they pretty much saw, read, and commented on the story right after I posted it. Double cool.
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Anyway, add "I am Terravenger" to the three shorts I posted up on Tumblr, and I think I hit my goal of writing outside my main WIPs each month.
OH! And I did write a fifteen-minute practice piece during one of my "writing dates" with Omni a couple of weeks back. I never did go back to edit and publish that. I'll have to see if I can find time...
Speaking of, I ran
out of time last week, so I didn't get to let you guys know this. While out watching the second Deadpool movie, Hubby found Pop Vinyls of me and
Ronoxym. So naturally I had to buy them.
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| Looks just like us. 😉 |
Another thing I didn't have a chance to talk about - which semi relates to Ron since we went to watch "Ready Player One" together with our spouses - is how I'm doing with my reading challenge.
Let's see, shall we?
Sadly, I have to update this list. I'm so used to Riordan writing a five-part series I didn't even notice that he wasn't going to continue with Magnus Chase. Makes sense, it ended nicely. I guess I just wasn't ready to let go, considering I was liking that series more than the Apollo one. It's probably my love of snarky first-person protagonists....
Anyway, seems Magnus Chase was only a three-part series, much like the Kane Chronicles. However, no longer needing to tag-team stories but having mastered the art of releasing a "spring" and "fall" book, I'll have the fourth story in the Apollo series in... October, probably, based on past release patterns.
As far as how I've been doing with the books I actually have on this list? Well, I'm almost half-way through "The Burning Maze." I FEEL like I'm behind since "Ready Player One" took about six weeks or so to re-read, but thankfully I was already ahead. As long as I finish "The Burning Maze" before the end of June I'm still good.
Speaking of taking over a month to re-read "Ready Player One," the reason was because I was going at it with a very critical eye. I started off just seeing what was different between the movie and novel, but it devolved into something more as I really paid attention to the actual structure of the story.
Let's start with the movie adaptation, though, because ho-lee-smokes was a lot changed for the movie.
I mean, I knew it would be changed slightly, but with Ernest Cline writing both the novel and the screenplay, I was hoping for a much more faithful adaptation. Even when I was watching the movie I thought "wow... this... is different." Ron and I even had a playful but heated debate about it.
I have to say though, much like with "Coraline," I think I prefer the movie version. True, there are things that were better in the book... um.... mostly the character development of all the side characters. Pretty much none of that made it to the movie, and that sucks majorly.
On the flipside, the movie gave Art3mis more involvement and badassery? She basically took the reins for some of Wade's storyline; spreading it out and sharing the wealth a bit. Same with Wade's computer/programming genius shifting to Aech in order to fill out that character a bit more. Even out the value and necessity of the members of the High Five instead of skewing everything towards Wade.
Which brings me to why I think I preferred the movie, while I still love the novel.
On the first read, there were glaring flaws, mostly dealing with time continuity. Anyone who read my blog two years ago
might remember me raging about it. I also talked about
some plot and character missed opportunities I wished Cline had taken. All-in-all, though, I thought the novel deserved an 8.5 out of 10.
Upon the second read, however, especially with the notes I was taking....
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| God, I'm such a nerd.... |
...well... I think I'm giving RPO a 7.5 out of 10 now. It just became so obvious that this was his first novel. The story is still exciting. I still love it. The 80s nerd culture is fantastic. I still laughed. It was still a page-turner. I will probably re-read this book a few more times. So don't get me wrong on any of that. I still highly recommend it, and it's still a great romp.
All that said, I have to say I'm a bit disappointed in the novel's storytelling techniques, especially now that I saw more of the potential showcased in the movie. It was like Cline went through the screenplay of his novel and realized "shoot! I need to rework this." In other words? The novel was a great first draft, but there needed to be a lot of reworking to get a truly excellent story, and all that improving ended up changing a LOT of the plot.
Yes, there is a heart-wrenching bit that was ignored by the movie, and some social commentary as well. The book will always be better than the movie because of that. Same with side-character development, as I already said. The thing the movie does better though, is that WADE gets development. HE has real trials.
Wade in the book? Well, he basically has the classic case of character plot armor. He's the one telling the story, so you KNOW nothing happens to him, but other stories - such as the Percy Jackson or Magnus Chase stories - have the same first-person flaw, and yet you still worry about their safety. You still wonder HOW they will get out of the problem.
Wade, though? Any sort of danger he's in is written in a sentence or two before moving on:
As my ship blasted its way skyward, I began to take heavy fire from several directions. But I was lucky. My ship was fast, and my shields were top-of-the-line, so they managed to hold up long enough for me to reach orbit. But they failed a few seconds later, and the Vonnegut's hull suffered an alarming amount of damage in the handful of seconds it took me to make the jump to light speed.
It was a close call. The bastards almost got me.
-pg 232
Did they, Wade? Did they?
I bet you didn't feel worried at all for him, did you? You didn't have the TIME to. He got away too quickly, and any danger he was in was summed up in a sentence or two. Plus, you'd be surprised how many times the phrase "I was lucky" or some variation of it is used throughout this story. This kid should have been playing the lottery while searching for Halliday's Easter Egg. He may not have needed to be a
gunter after all, with the luck he has. Plus, did Wade really DO anything to get out of danger, or prevent himself from being injured? I mean, aside from throwing a lot of money into precautionary items?
The book was basically "look how awesome this kid is, but he's going to be totes low-key about it. #humblebrag" with a plot of "oh look! A puzzle to figure out!" There's a little bit of a race element as well, but the villain gets the lead with fourteen chapters left to go, and the "end game" takes up the entire third act - about 11 chapters - and roughly a week within the confines of the story.
AGAIN, "READY PLAYER ONE" IS A HIGHLY ENJOYABLE BOOK. PLEASE DO NOT LET ME CONVINCE YOU OTHERWISE. GO READ IT. TRUST ME.
But it is still obvious it is the freshman work of an author. Same goes for my re-reading of the
Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini. It's a good read, but once you take a more critical eye to it, the flaws are pretty obvious.
To be fair, though. They are still published, professional authors. Whereas I am not. Also, Paolini wrote Eragon while he was still in high school soooooooo.....
And my characters kind of have "plot armor" as well. I just can't seem to ever injure them. The best I have is the angst.... which is probably why I am the queen.
My characters won't so much as break a nail, but they'll get so twisted up in a social/romantic web that - hopefully - the reader is still concerned and wonders how the protagonist is going to get out of the mess.
Speaking of, I think it's time for me to put Adrien through a deeper level of existential crisis. Catch you all next week.
Wildfire's Flame: I really enjoyed this story and don't know that I would have found it if not for Taurus Pixies blog. I enjoyed the story immensely. I love reading things with warmth and caring and sweet gooieness. Makes me warm and fuzzy inside. The worry dolls were great but I loved the crocheting and the part where Adriens dad was actually a dad for once in his life. Thank you for a truly beautiful and thought out story. It's a great gift for your friend and to all of us that love the show.
