2018: Year of the Writer

It's that time of year again! When I use any excuse to try to hit the reset button. To be fair, though, in regards to my writing, I haven't been doing so bad. I haven't been doing as good as I would have liked, but I haven't been doing bad either.

This past week was probably one of my worst weeks, actually. Ironically. Between a day or two of being in a deep, angry funk for no apparent reason, Hubby trying to cheer me up, Valentine's Day at-home date-night followed by an actual date-night late in the week, and ironically Writers' Group, taking up all of my evenings, I didn't get much writing done. I also had no time at work, even during lunch. Mostly because lunch was the only time I had to get any reading done to not fall behind there.

So, I'm on par with where I want to be with my reading challenge at least.

Writing time, on the other hand, took a back seat this past week. Instead, Hubby and I had a "bad movie night" and watched a couple of movies on Netflix with some terrible reviews. We then watched "Black Panther" at the local theater on Saturday. Yesterday we watched the live action Fullmetal Alchemist movie on Netflix. Backtrack to Friday, Hubby had us watch "Z-O-M-B-I-E-S" on Disney Channel. It was cute for what it was, a Disney Channel Original movie. It did give me a new song addiction, which I happen to be listening to now:

Quick explanation. In Z-O-M-B-I-E-S a lime-soda induced explosion at the power plant created zombism. For me, the lime-soda is important for explaining why the zombies all look like Batman's Joker cosplayers. Anyway, the point is, in this movie, zombism is more a mutation than the reanimation of corpses. They still have superhuman strength, are aggressive, and crave flesh - more specifically, "braaaaaaaaiiiiiins". However, the government was able to design Z-Bands, wristbands every zombie wears that calms their flesh-eating urges and their aggression while also dropping their strength to average for humans. Now that zombies are "normal" they can live side-by-side with humans, sorta, they're stuck in the zombie slums called Zombietown. The story then follows the attempt to integrate zombie teens into the "normal" high school.

Again, it's cute. A bit heavy handed in putting exposition in dialog, and late in the movie, during a song the main character Addison sings, they visually recap the movie YOU JUST SAW in a flashback montage, which Disney seems to be big on lately. Those were the two main flaws I saw, but otherwise I'd recommend the movie if you have Disney Channel.

Back to my writing though.

I didn't give myself a lot of time to just write. Instead, this week was more "self maintenance" week, trying to spend time with my hunny, figure out why I was so randomly angry all the time for two days, taking long showers, and watching non-serious movies as pick-me-ups. It was important to do this maintenance, because I definitely feel much better this week.

I did manage to still keep my chapter-a-week pacing, though. At this rate I will never have all of "Peeping Tomcat" set to send to my betas by mid-March. However, most fanfiction writers only have a detailed outline, will write a chapter a week, edit THAT chapter, and post for weekly updates. So, I'll be sort of ahead of the game because I'm trying to have the whole story done first and edited as a whole entity. That way, if something later in the story adjusts something earlier in the story, I can do so instead of trying to dance around plot holes.

You know, like what I did with What Is Truly Meant To Be. I knew what I wanted for this story. I had a fairly detailed outline for it. I knew what would happen in each chapter. I did what most other fanfiction writers do: write a chapter, polish it, post it, work on the next chapter. Then I discovered the devil is in the details. Once I got into the actual nitty gritty of dialog and inner monologues, I stumbled upon plotholes I had to fill. It would have been a lot easier to have written the whole thing out, found those plotholes, and changed the earlier chapters to avoid them, instead of trying to pull a solution out of a hat later on, after I couldn't change things. Lastly, writing chapters took me way longer back then, so updates weren't nearly regular enough. And I eventually fell away from the story.

I want to avoid "Peeping Tomcat" falling into the same pattern as this last major project I was working on. Which is why I want to have it completely done before I started my weekly update postings. However, it looks like I'm going to fall into a sort of half-way between the two. I should have the first ten chapters done by the end of the Winter Challenge, which means I'll have all but the last five chapters edited. I might even get as far as the eleventh chapter, actually, since chapter ten is already pretty close to the best I can do without beta notes. That's over 60% of the story re-written/edited and ready for my betas. I also have a fairly firm grip on what I want for the tail end of the story, complete with the chapters already having a first draft written thanks to NaNo.

I could send the girls the first two-thirds of the story as edited as I can get it on my own, and then a detailed synopsis of the final third so they know where I'm going with the story. They should be able to give me notes on each chapter and the story overall based on that. I'll start posting the finalized chapters on time, and I'll have about two months to finish the last four or five chapters, get them beta'd and then polished, before I would fall behind. I should be more than capable if I stick with my current pace. In fact, I should have a month leeway to start working on "One and the Same." I probably won't be able to start posting it the week after I complete "Peeping Tomcat" though, unless I lock myself away for a weekend or something and just write the whole first draft in one go.

We'll see how everything goes. I do need to work at a faster pace, but for right now, I like the rhythm I have, and it is an improvement over the past. I'm happy, and I can work to increase my productivity for "One and the Same."

I might even have something to read at group again.

I've been avoiding it for a couple of reasons. First is that my betas haven't read any of the story yet, so I don't know what their input will be, and I don't want to read the same chapter multiple times to the group. Second reason is that my chapters are LOOOOOONG and I'll probably take up at least 45mins of the two hours we meet up every other week. It could even be as much as a full hour, and I feel like that is taking too much of everyone's time. Especially if I do that fifteen times. Third is because no one is into the fandom. They seem to enjoy the story anyway, but they also seem kind of hesitant to critique. Mostly they just have questions on how x-y-z works, which I guess does help because it means I need to explain things a bit more so non-fans could enjoy it. I just need to figure out the happy balance between non-fans enjoying the story, and possibly be tempted to watch the show based off the story, and not putting in so much explanation that the fans get bored, since they knew all of it already. My final reason is that it's 15 chapters, read every other week. I won't be done reading the story to them until around September. I should be done posting the chapters online by then. Any critique they would give me would be moot unless I wanted to go back and update chapters already posted and read. So it would just be me reading for the sake of having a captive audience for my story.

On the flipside, though, I'll be doing a second Miraculous fanfic right after this one, am I truly not reading anything at group for a year?

I mean, I still want to post something new every month, so maybe every other writing group I'll read that? I need to write something for this month still....

I dunno. Thankfully, we ran out of time last group, so I didn't have to worry about whether or not I wanted to read something. Instead, I tried to pass the turn over to Omnibladestrike.

YEAH! Haven't seen that name for a little bit, huh? Well, he's writing again! Check the above link to see his latest. He's been coming to writing group too. This past Sunday was supposed to be the first week of our writer's dates, but it was mostly me reading his latest edits and then five hours of us watching YouTube.... we're good at this.

But he's writing again, and regularly! So exciting! And I'm not doing too shabby either. ChibiSunnie has been working really hard on her first children's story, and she should have at least the bare bones, if not the whole thing ready to publish, by the end of the college semester.

Over at Writers’ Huddle, last year's winter challenge was basically week after week of all of us going "yeah, I wasn't able to do much :(". This year's winter challenge has more people, and most of us are commenting about our progress. Even those who were sick, taking care of sick family members, were on vacation, or were otherwise distracted from their writing - much like me this past week - are commenting about getting SOMETHING written at least.

So, perhaps 2018 will be a good writer's year.

I guess I need to get started on chapter 8 to find out.

All the Reveal Stories!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Who knows, though? I might win the race!

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

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

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

Deciding On A Writing Challenge Goal

I still haven't really been doing too well with the “No Zero Days” commitment. Since my last post, I've written nice LONG posts over on the X-Future Play-by-Post game, so I guess that counts. But that was all on Monday night. Last Thursday, after finishing my post, I more-or-less finished up my weekly challenge from Phfylburt. We exchanged on Sunday, and Tuesday I edited it based on his notes before posting it online. I haven't really done any other writing except that.

Although this week has flown by so fast it FEELS like I've written much, much more. I was actually a little proud at how many times I've set myself aside to write, and a bit excited to write this post. Then I reflected on the week, and I realized there really wasn't much to say. How did that happen?

I haven't even read much more of the book I'm working on, although I really need to step it up a notch in order to get done before the end of the month. Recently I have been using my “reading time” to research more for my upcoming D&D campaign. Too much on my plate; not enough hours in the day to dedicate the right amount of time and effort to each project, I guess.

I've been trying to remedy that. I really have. Hence all the challenges I've been taking on – I'm still waiting for Ronoxym to send me his challenge for me – in order to add accountability to my writing. Get me doing it more frequently.

I even hopped back on to Writers’ Huddle in time to sign up for the 6 week winter writing challenge. Problem is, I don't know what to challenge myself with. Others can work on their manuscripts, or blog posts – since most others do professional, article-style blogs – or the like. Me? I have so many projects pulling me in so many directions, I don't know where to go.

Do I continue off of the summer challenge and work on the X-Future reboot some more? If so, what part of the reboot this time? I don't really have any other characters that I need to remake into original incarnations. I could attempt world building some more, or work on research so I'm set in April to keep working on the comic book script. But research seems more of an “on my own time” thing, not something to work on during a 6 week writing challenge.

Do I continue world building Gyateara? That's a strong possibility, but I've been banging my head against the wall for years now. Maybe working on the D&D campaign will really help me out, but right now I'm stuck on culture builds and pantheon creations and possibly creating my own monsters; let alone naming everything. Still suck at that.

I could take the bull by the horns and just finish off Please, Let Me Explain by myself. Then I could send it to Ron to read over and edit to more of what he was thinking. I mean, I have the outline of what he wanted to do with the story. But he hasn't even gotten back to me yet about whether or not he wants to include the new character I created – let alone get notes back to me about how he'd look – and so I don't know if moving forward without him is a good idea. Is it enough of a shove to get him back on track with the story? Or am I just stealing it completely from him? I still want this to be OUR story, not my story inspired by his.

I might have to break out some DVDs and binge-watch a bit to get back in character, but I haven't touched What Is Truly Meant To Be in YEARS. I could use the next six weeks to work on that.... Honestly, I don't have a counter against it aside from being stale when it comes to the story. This might be an actual option.

In the same regards, I went through pains to try to get myself set up to work on X-Future: The Second Generation Begins without terribly too much effort to figure out the next series of posts I'd need to look up. So, I could always work on that some more. Especially with the forum so stalled for the past year. It will still take me months, even years to catch up, but I can close that gap if I work on X-Future's story.

Speaking of. I do also have Lia and Ripley's summer in New York City from a year or two ago to write, although I honestly don't recall where I was going to go with that story. There's also the Willow and Chayse in Japan tale from the same time period. Hubby gave me a great play-by-play of how their summer went down, but it seems like such an epic undertaking, and I really don't want to start up ANOTHER chaptered story before finishing up ANY of my current ones. Finally, there's the confrontation between Trish, Devon, and Nys. I might work on that one. I haven't been able to write Trish in over a year – minus some small posts on the forum – and so that might be fun. However, I was looking forward to maybe collaborating that battle with Ron too. The only thing is that with how painfully slow PLME has been getting written, maybe working with him right now isn't the best idea – unless it's in person and we can crank it out in more-or-less one session.

Then there's still that story that DFL sent me, as well as the result of the last prompt. She couldn't attend on Tuesday, and so she emailed all of us her story to read. That's a little more than 100pgs to read. I could have myself read about 17pgs each week in order to chip away through the beta read. However, much like the researching issue, is this really appropriate for a WRITING challenge? I mean, I get people who are putting editing as their goal, but they're at least editing their own stuff. Which means they are still being creative by coming up with how to alter what they already have on the page. I can't do that. It's DFL's story. I can give her notes, but I'm not doing anything actively creative....

I could always go for the age-old challenge of writing x-amount of words per day or week, excluding what I write for this blog. Possibly excluding what I write for the X-Future forum as well, although that IS fiction writing... The only snag there is that I'm not sure what is a reasonable amount of words for me to aim for, since I generally don't write daily, as much as I'd like to. I could focus more on that 4-5 writing hour, perhaps. My goal being to not get distracted during my daily writing hour, and to not skip any. That's a thought.

Gaaah! I don't know which one to pick. I'm going to have to harass Hubby a bit to see which he thinks is the most do-able for me, or the one that would best benefit me at this time. I could also send a call out to ANY of my writing groups to see which one they think I should do....

I can't even make a decision on what my writing challenge is going to be. This is a promising start to the year.

Alright, well, forget about what I'm failing at. How about some positives? Such as the story I wrote using Phfyl's prompt, for instance? His challenge for me last week was to take a song and write a news article based off of it. I had to listen to a lot of songs last week before I finally heard one that really clicked with me.

I ended up going with Iggy Azalea's song "Black Widow" featuring Rita Ora.

Based on the song, I had this inspiration of a news report of her ACTUALLY loving him like a black widow spider. Namely, consuming the head after sex. It was twisted, but I haven't written something like that in YEARS; pretty much since college, or even high school. It was fun to tap into that dark side of myself again.

I was a bit concerned, though, because I haven't attempted to write any sort of article, even a mock one, since I dropped off of the college newspaper in 2003. I needed to shake a lot of rust off, and I know I didn't get it quite right. For one, Keaton brought up a good point that based on the time I established the article coming out - namely, the next morning - I have too much information. The reporter had about two hours tops after catching wind of the incident to write something up before the paper went to press for morning delivery. There was no way the reporter could have gotten so many quotes from the next door neighbor and a local barista at about 3am. On the flipside, if I were to change the article's opening to the murderer being sentenced, there would be plenty of time for the reporter to get the information, but now the article "feels too short." Keaton suggested turning it into a sort of expose about the black widow killer, similar to the Serial podcast series. I don't know if I want to put that much effort into this quick project though. It might be fun, but I have enough open projects to start up another one.

Anyway, with that critic in mind, for those who wish to still read the story, I have it posted on DeviantArt and FictionPress, as per usual.

"Gonna Love Ya Like A Black Widow, Baby"

On DeviantArt          On FictionPress

Now, I do want to add that I did put a mature filter on the story on DeviantArt, and a trigger warning on both versions of the story. There is some suggested sex, semi-descriptive gore, and implied violence towards a dog. I know some people are sensitive to that stuff, and I have recently learned how important trigger warnings are to such things; as ways to prevent people from reading or seeing something that would greatly affect and upset them.

To be honest, though, unless it's blatant stuff such as the above, it's unlikely I'm ever going to use trigger warnings again. I am sorry for people who are deeply affected by things and need trigger warnings to know what to avoid, but in truth, something greatly affects SOMEBODY. You can't figure out what is an emotional trigger for everyone. I don't mean to be insensitive about it, it's just the fact that I hold true.

On that pleasant note....

I still need to get to writing the challenge Phfyl gave me for this week, however I think I'm overthinking it. I have about five different scenarios on how to go with the concept, and I'm not sure which to go with. I do know that I don't have the time to write all five...

I also have both the newest writing prompt from the writing group as well as the one I lost from last time - they informed me what it was. So, I have a BUNCH of writing to get to still, as well as the reading I've been avoiding for whatever reason.

I guess I should get started then. I'll have Phfyl's prompt for me up next week, and I might attempt to have at least two of the local group's prompts done for next week too. Should be interesting to see what I can crank out. Finally, I'll have to have my goal figured out by Monday, and so I'll let you guys know what I decided on.

2015 Summer Writing Challenge Week 5 - Shadowcat

This wasn't a very productive week for me.

I knew it was going to be crazy since my birthday was this week, and my mom and sister would be up to visit. So I purposely saved the easiest character conversion for this hectic week. Kitty "Shadowcat" Pryde was all but done already through my previous months of brainstorming. I knew what she looks like. I knew what her powers were going to be. Thanks to her tie-ins with the characters Ryder and Dom, I already knew a great deal of her backstory as well. I literally needed to only figure out 4 things: a new name, her life leading up to college, what type of company was she working at when Ryder crashed the office Christmas party, and what catalyst made her start up an orphanage in Upstate New York. Then just type it up on Sunday. Simple. I pondered the catalyst thing over the week. In regards to her backstory, with so much already figured out I knew I just needed to figure out one piece and the rest of the backstory would fall into place. If I knew her youth I could figure out what major she went for which would lead me to the business she was working at. If I knew the business, I could deduce the major and then events in her youth that would point her down that path. If I knew the major, I could figure out why she chose it and what business she'd work for. Simple!

Well, I wasn't taking into consideration that my sister-in-law was going to give birth to my nephew this past week. I also vastly underestimated the amount of time it would take to organize my apartment so there was space for my mom and sister's queen-sized air mattress to fit....

Most importantly, I was thrown off by the need to help a grieving friend. Sadly, one of my friends had to deal with her sister committing suicide. Considering all the focus on suicide prevention nearly a year ago after Robin Williams died, I figured I should honor my friends' sister by reprinting part of my post from last August.

Excerpt from Mind's Going Already

I am sorry that I do not know of any numbers outside of the United States,
but please PLEASE look for help if you or someone you know needs it.

I understand that if you are suffering from Depression that you must feel so terribly alone. Please know you are not. I am sure that there are people in your life who wish to help you, but most probably just don't know how, or they don't have the resources to. You may feel that no one loves or cares for you. Please know that this is also not true. I may not even know you, but know that I care and have concerns for you. I want you to feel and get better.

If a stranger can feel that passion for you, I'm sure you can find others. So please, PLEASE, I am begging you to look and reach out for help if you need it. You don't need to suffer alone. It may take a while to find the right grip out of the crushing darkness, but it can be found. Please, do not give up. Go to as many people as you can/need to. Call the above lifeline.

It is a tragedy when the only relief people can find is to end their lives. So even if you do not have Depression, or know someone who does, please help those strangers who do have it. Spread the word of where they can find help so the information can make its way to the people who need it. Advocate for companies, governments, and society as a whole to treat mental health as seriously as physical health. Plead for research to continue to find a way to treat and cure these painful struggles people have to deal with every day.

My father died of cancer, and so I am grateful for all the research and media attention cancer has received, but we need to think of those with mental health issues as well: Depression, Anxiety, ADHD, Bi-Polar, OCD, Schizophrenia, the list goes on. Most people have to fight against these illnesses a lot longer than those with physical health issues. Most people also have to do so while struggling silently and unknown to the world around them.

Help these people find solace. Help these people find peace. Help these people find hope. Help these people find cures or alternate ways to use their different mind to live a full life.

So, my brain was fried and I didn't even THINK about this writing challenge until 10pm Sunday. Even so, that was more-or-less when I started working on Ryder the first week, Dom the next week, and Iggy the week after that. However, I just couldn't do the normal brainstorming with Hubby again; just like the previous week with Keahi. We were just too burnt out with everything.

Trying on my own, the farthest I got is that her new name is Emily. I've also come up with the idea that she inherited the acreage of land that she put the orphanage on, that way I don't have to try to figure out where she got the money from. I'm not 100% convinced I like this idea, though, since Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters - what the orphanage is based off of - was set up on Xavier's family estate that had been passed down for generations. So, do I want the orphanage to be inherited land as well?

The only other part of Emily that I was able to "figure out" is maybe where she worked when she met Ryder. I keep picturing a law office for the Christmas party, so maybe she was a paralegal? Maybe that's why she and Dom's sister - who went for pre-law - were paired up as roommates? It wasn't because they were Glitches, but because they were both pre-law students? It would make sense that Emily would want to legally "fight the system" to get equal rights for Glitches, but why would she no longer work in a law firm then? Why run an orphanage if you could do just as much - if not more help - as a lawyer?

My one friend is part of a temp program at a college; she works for a department for a few weeks to help them catch up with work or cover vacation/medical leave/maternal leave/etc, and then gets transferred to a different department, so on and so forth. Maybe that's what Emily did? So that caring for kids and/or starting a school isn't so far-fetched? But why would a con-artist crash a school faculty Christmas party? I mean, for the most part, teachers are only paid well if they have their doctorate and are professors for an Ivy League school....

Anyway, here it is, three days later, and I'm literally writing the bio as I go...

New Name: Emily
Basic Info: 40yrs old, 5' 6", 132lbs, Brunette hair, and Magenta eyes

Powers: Norm-Beast Evoker Hybrid; Sub-category: Energy Charmer
Emily's Beast quality is her magenta eyes. The eye color is actually connected to her Evoker ability, and so whenever she transfers energy between kinetic and potential, that object glows the same magenta as her eyes. The same goes for Chayse, except with neon lime green. Another connection between the Evoker and Norm-Beast mutations is that when using her power the magenta from the irises of her eyes "bleeds out" to fill her whole eye; making it look like a pupil-less solid magenta orb is in her eye sockets. Again, same for Chayse, but with the green.
Emily's Evoker ability focuses on energy; namely the ability to manipulate the kinetic energy in the atoms around her. Unlike just about all other Evoker types, since energy cannot be created or destroyed, there is no such tier as "Summoner." Since Emily cannot transform herself into energy, she is a Charmer.
Emily's ability allows her to shift an object between kinetic and potential energy. She can add to the kinetic energy that something already has, allowing it to move faster or have more force on impact. She can also cause an object to power with kinetic energy; waiting to be released. This causes the object to explode. The intensity of the explosion is based on how much energy she builds in it. She can also allot herself time to escape the blast because she can add energy "remotely." As long as the object is within 50ft of her and she has a clear line-of-sight, she can focus on the object to add kinetic energy.
Same goes for potential energy. She can diminish the impact of an object, or cause it to stop completely by converting the kinetic energy back into potential as long as it is within 50ft and in a clear line of sight. This isn't instantaneous, and if an object is physically incapable of stopping - such as rolling down a hill - she can only slow it; not stop it.
Her powers are stronger the closer the object is, and so she usually focuses on things she can touch. She also focuses on using her powers defensively; so usually kinetic to potential energy instead of the other way around.
While she is not a Mind-hybrid at all, her powers have a side-effect that gives her a strong resistance to Mind Glitches. The constant change between kinetic and potential energy around her causes a sort of "static" that messes with the mental waves Mind Glitches use to manipulate their victims. This is why Ryder's Silver Tongue didn't work on her like it did all the other women he easily seduced. This is just a resistance and not an immunity. A strong enough Mind Glitch can navigate the "static" to still affect her. She can also concentrate on keeping the energy around her at it's natural state; removing the "Static" completely. Helpful for when she actively wishes for telepaths to reach her mind for whatever reason.

Physical Appearance: Emily has a very basic, blend-into-the-background, "Mom" look. She's simple and low-maintenance.
She's tone, but fairly slender with minimal curves, similar to that of a runner. Her Welsh heritage makes her fairly pale with a few freckles scattered down her arms and a little on her upper chest. Ryder loves teasing her "addiction" to sunscreen.
She keeps her medium-length brown hair in classic, professional cuts so she can dress up when the need arises. However, she typically has it thrown back in a ponytail or hair clip so it's out of her way while doing housework and/or handling the children. She also wears minimal make-up. Typically just a little mascara, maybe a quick application of eyeshadow, and tinted lip gloss.
When she dresses casual - lounging at home, housework, yard work, playing in the yard with the children, exercising, etc - she lives in deep blue jeans and a loose-fitted tanktop or sweatshirt. When she's professional - at work prior to starting the orphanage, having business talks about Glitch equality, teaching classes at the orphanage, running the location as a headmistress, etc - she's almost always in knee-length skirts, fashionable blouse, blazer, and heals. There is a distinct change in her attitude depending on the clothes she's wearing. When she's casual, she's playful and laid back. When she's professional she is serious and strict.
While she always has a Classic Black professional outfit - and "date clothes" - Emily's wardrobe has no real color scheme to it. She's too pale for orange or yellow clothes, but the rest of the rainbow is in her wardrobe, and typically in vibrant shades that match the intensity of her eyes. Speaking of which, when walking around in public she tries to wear sunglasses to hide her eye color whenever she wants to avoid being caught as a Glitch.
Unfortunately, it was hard for me to find pictures of non-celebrity brunettes online. I got frustrated and gave up. So the only reference picture I have is of her magenta eyes:

Where Chayse gets his unnatural eye color from.
However, Chayse's eyes are a neon-lime green.

Personality: She's very maternal; obviously, she started and runs an orphanage/school. She does her best to make sure everyone starts on equal footing. She is a firm believer of Neo-Xavier's teachings about Glitch/Norms co-existence. However, unlike Dom's interpretation, Emily feels that Neo-Xavier calls for peaceful negotiations that focus more on demonstrating that "not all Glitches are bad." She teaches the Glitches in her care to be patient and to use their powers to protect Norms. They can't defend themselves, and it will show them that Glitches are a great ally in Humanity.
She has two distinct sides to her, as briefly discussed above. She is usually a very playful person. Very loving and nurturing. She has a little bit of a wild side herself, and - as long as the mischief isn't illegal - she doesn't mind turning her head to some pranks on occasion; knowing it's all in good fun. She has a soft spot for the unwanted Glitch teenagers. Partially because Chayse is the same age and she couldn't bare to think of him in the same situation, but mostly because she knows how confusing it is to be a teenager; let alone one trying to figure out powers and how to survive alone.
The other side of her is what makes her a great headmistress. She's tough, strict, and serious when the need calls for it. She can put her foot down and people will listen. It doesn't hurt that she can make things blow up to grab peoples' attention. She keeps a firm enough hand on the Glitches in her care to keep them well-grounded and give them a structured, secure home. She also uses this Shark attitude to fight for all Glitch rights. It was this stern and stubborn attitude that keeps Dom at bay.
She is far from naive, and so she can easily keep Ryder in his place as well. He can't pull the wool over her eyes, and he enjoys that. It's hard for anyone to really get away with anything around her, unless she allows it.

General History:I don't have a specific California town or city picked out quite yet for Emily's hometown. I'm thinking maybe San Francisco, but a LOT of major X-Men plots center around San-Fran and/or Alcatraz island. So I might want to avoid it. There are other places to live in California besides San Francisco, Burbank, or Los Angeles. Either way, she's from California. I kind of see her as being from around the Pacific Mountain Range.
I'm still not sure about her youth, but I see a fairly simple one. California tends to be more accepting of controversial things such as interracial relationships mid-1900s, homosexuals in the 90s and early 2000s, and so fast-forwarding to the mid-2000s and I can see California being more accepting of Glitches. Perhaps that's another reason why Emily started up an orphanage on the East Coast, there would be more orphans there? Then again, the South tends to be the most conservative and unaccepting, so THAT should be where most of the orphans would be... Shoot, I need to figure this out more....
Even though I'm apparently establishing that California is more accepting of Glitches - which would logically mean at least some California colleges would allow Glitch students - Emily decided to fly across the country in order to go to school at NYU. She met Dom's sister Cecilia when they were matched up as roommates. The two quickly became best friends. It wasn't financially sound for Emily to go all the way back home in California for short school breaks, and so she spent them with Cecilia and Dom. The Glitch Slum they were forced to live in was a bit of a shock to her system; having lived in a normal suburbia grown up. While she loved how close-knit the neighborhood was, she hated that anyone had to live in such a dangerous, overpopulated, and rundown environment. She became determined to build enough acceptance in the world that slums like that one were at least well-maintained if not completely closed down; allowing Glitches to live wherever they wished.
While home in California, she was informed that Cecilia had gone missing, and was then found dead at a government lab. This broke Dom. His life driving force was to expose the government and take them down so labs like that didn't exist anymore. It was all that Emily could do to keep him from going on a rampage. She also had a hard time convincing him to let her to go home to California on longer school breaks. He became almost obsessively protective of her. He couldn't protect his sister, but he WAS going to protect Emily.
Since he was protectively hovering anyway, Emily convinced Dom to study with her so he could get himself to a better place than where he was with the gang. She also convinced him that he would be a better role model for the two Glitches he saved from the lab if Dom had some education. In doing so, Emily unintentionally created the rift between her and Dom. When she was studying the teachings of Neo-Xavier, her views on his writing drastically differed from Dom's, who saw it more as a call for violence so Glitches can forcefully take their place alongside Humanity.
While still loving each other like siblings, the connection between them wasn't as close. Emily moved back to California after graduating, and only kept occasional contact with Dom and his wards over the years. The one she kept closest contact with was Geoffrey, who didn't interact with people all that much, but took a strong liking to her "mothering" of him.
About a year after graduating from college, Ryder crashed an office Christmas party she was at. He tried using his Silver Tongue powers to seduce her; like many women before. She turned him down, and he started his legitimate courtship of her. They officially started dating a year later, and they married when she was 24.
Chayse ended up being their "Honeymoon Gift". Shortly after giving birth to him, Emily inherited multiple acres of land in Upstate New York. Keeping in contact with Geoff reminded Emily of the slums Dom and Cecilia grew up in; the slums Geoff and Lucas were growing up in. Then she realized that those slums were actually one of the best and most stable places for Glitches to be in that area. She then thought about Chayse ever being in that situation. She convinced Ryder to move to the estate in New York and establish an orphanage. That way those orphaned Glitches had a stable and safe environment. A place where they won't feel forgotten, and a place where they don't have to fear being abducted by the GPS.
She named it after Cecilia to honor her friend, and to always remind herself why she started the orphanage in the first place: so no one else ended up with the same fate as she did.
Obviously, especially with it named after his sister, Dom wanted to be a part of the orphanage, but their differing interpretations of how Glitches should get to equality was still too drastic. Dom wanted to teach the kids how to defend themselves against Glitch haters, and how to prove their worth via force. Emily was too afraid that doing so would confirm in the minds of Norms that Glitches are dangerous and need to be exterminated. Either that, or that the government would see the orphanage as a terrorist cell and attack it. She refused to work with him. Still, his heart was in the right place - wanting to protect the kids - and so he set up an arcade nearby so he can keep an eye on everyone.
Shortly after establishing the orphanage Emily expanded to include a school as well. This way her kids could also feel safe while learning both typical education, and how to handle their powers. Within the next five years word got out that there was a safe location for Glitch teens. The orphanage slowly became part boarding-school as well since it was currently the only place where there were people who knew how to train Glitches as they discovered how to control their powers.
The amount of children housed in the orphanage became so many that Emily and Ryder had to start hiring other adult Glitches to help run the facility.

So, still some holes, but the main parts that I figured out a month or so ago is there.

Now to work on my last character redo for the writing challenge.

Originally, this was going to be the week that I finally come up with my rework of Charles Xavier. However, it occurred to me about a week or two ago that I don't really need to know much about Xavier. I need to rename him still, but he makes little to no appearance in the comic. What is more important is his WORK, which I need to figure out more, but I have time for that. So, instead I'm going to work on another character. One that was about 90% done anyway, which is why I didn't include him originally. My rework of Jamie "Multiple Man" Maddrox.

So, that's my project for this week. I also need to figure out what I'm planning on doing throughout August. See, the mini-challenge for the last week is to explain how to keep up with the momentum of the writing challenge. Coincidentally, I had already set something up with Struggling Writers Society.

Back in November, no one was able to participate in NaNo because the month is typically too hectic with holiday preparations and the end of college semesters around the corner. So, we had a poll asking when our group would prefer to do our own version of NaNo. Not many voted, but the few that did agreed that August was probably the safest bet.

Well, August is creeping up on us, and so I asked if people were ready for our own version of NaNo. I had a resounding "no" as a response. People were still way too busy. Still, I knew that a lot of the members wanted to do something similar to the writing challenges I kept getting from Writers’ Huddle. They needed a push - as did I - to keep writing from constantly being pushed behind "more important things."

So, I decided to do something very similar to what I'm finishing up now. A 4-week instead of 6-week writing challenge, but one that focused on a goal. No matter how big or small. The point is for everyone to set their own writing goal to keep writing in the forefront of their lives for at least a month. Granted, a lot of participants are also keeping "OMG, my life is crazy right now!" in mind and are planning simple goals such as "at least one short story before the end of the month." Still, it's better than letting the ability to write a short story slip by. There's a push for them to focus.

The same push that Ali Luke gave us at the Huddle when asking us what we were going to do with the writing momentum we built up.

Still, I have no clue what I'm doing with it. After Cody's done I have my cast of characters fleshed out. Aside from going back and filling in the holes in their backstories. I could continue to world-build, but really the only thing I have left there too is to come up with the official name for the orphanage, now that I know "Cecilia" is somewhere in it, as well as the name for Dom's arcade and trained squad used to protect the orphanage.

Neither seem like a good "month long goal" option.

I'd like to get Please, Let Me Explain finished, or at least the next chapter to the point where I can publish it. However, I overwhelmed Ronoxym a little bit with all the pages I added to his story. He's slowly chipping away at his edits for it.

Part of me wants to stick with X-Men since I'm in that flow. Maybe finally write the companion stories I was supposed to, such as the fight between Trish and Devon, or Lia's summer with Ripley in NYC, or Chayse and Willow's trip to Japan. I could also attempt to finish off some of the one-shots I was working on and abandoned because I couldn't get them to work: Trish building a Devon fight practice dummy or Ripley arguing with Lia about how she needs to give up on Chayse. I also abandoned my effort to rework the forum itself into straight prose. Mainly because it was so much effort to filter through everything to figure out what happened when. I may continue this project, though.

Then there's the idea of changing gears completely. I hate that I have so many open projects, and I hate abandoning stories that people are reading. When drama exploded in the "Hey, Arnold!" fandom I stepped away and focused on X-Men. With that, I abandoned What Is Truly Meant To Be. I may have to start my month marathoning the few HA season DVDs I didn't lose in my moves, but perhaps I'll pick this up...

I think those are my top two: Go back to the Hey Arnold fanfic, or go back to converting the board into prose... Now to decide on which one....

Passing The Buck Might Be A Great Plan

Blech. I can't stand being sick. I've had a nasty head cold all week long and I haven't even had a chance to nurse it properly because I've also worked a full 35hr work week. True, a measly 35hrs doesn't seem like much to those who have full-time jobs, multiple jobs, live outside the United States where a day's shift is about 16hrs long, or if you're a parent and therefore are ALWAYS on the job.

However, it's a long, tiring week for me when I just want to curl up in bed and sleep the week away.

Virtually no cleaning was done this week. I attempted three different times, and each resulted in one or two loads of dishes being done and the laundry washed, but nothing else. Pretty much the entire week consisted of me going to work first thing in the morning, coming home early afternoon, and then staying in bed the rest of the day.

Normally I don't mind weeks like this. Since I'm hiding away in my bedroom anyway, I would spend the time writing on my netbook. If I fell asleep, oh well, at least I did more work than I normally would. Otherwise, I just spent the last 8hrs writing!

Sadly, I still haven't found the money to purchase the last few things my father-in-law needs to finish fixing my netbook. So it's still out of commission. I have taken up stealing Hubby's laptop while he's at work, but the rest of the time he's usually on it.

Still, I do have those few precious hours where Hubby's working and I can thief his laptop. It's been a slow writing progress, but it IS progress. I've even added a new step in my writing process. If you're one of my personal Facebook friends you'd already know this, but I now request that everyone "poke me back in to my writing corner" if they catch me messing around online while Hubby's at work - and I therefore have his laptop to write on.

It might be cheating a little bit, but I discovered that I really have no drive to write lately, except for when I make myself accountable. And I also discovered that the best way to make myself feel accountable for writing is to pass the buck - so to speak - to my friends online. I now make THEM accountable for keeping me in check; kind of like a parent making sure I get my homework done.

I tried holding myself accountable simply by having a new chapter up every week, but my ability to write is so limited that I never seem to hit my deadlines. As the weeks slip by with no update my sense of accountability wanes. That's when I realized that maybe it's not the need to hit deadlines that kept me writing, but the knowledge that people KNEW I was writing and expecting me to do just that.

The daily challenges back in July 2012; maybe it wasn't the deadline of getting a new story done by midnight. Maybe it was actually the fact that people knew I was participating in the challenge and were expecting a new story to be posted daily. They knew for a fact that I was attempting to write every day, and they were anticipating that notification to let them know that I was done and the work was up. Same for the weekly challenges over on Writers’ Huddle back in August. People knew I was participating and were awaiting my weekly updates. Granted, the opportunity to win a prize didn't hurt.

The thing though, is that people didn't know the specifics of when I was writing for the Writers' Huddle challenge, so how was this not a case of the deadline alone being motivation to write? Well, because it had a forum connected to the challenge. I could see others posting their progress and I could comment about my own. They were expecting an update from me by that Sunday. If I missed my deadline - if I didn't write that week - they would certainly notice and have a place to discuss that.

Not to say that they would; we had a few people who - due to circumstances beyond their control - missed out on a few challenges. We didn't mock those people or talk down to them or question their devotion to writing. We were understanding and welcoming. We usually eased the person's sense of guilt over missing the challenge.

Regardless, the fact that there were people who were holding me accountable for this challenge forced me to stay on point.

I tried to tell myself that the same was true about my Hey Arnold! and X-Future stories. If I told people that I'd post weekly or monthly that they'd notice that I fell short, and they might not be as kind about it as my Writers' Huddle buddies. Yet, even with a few of you as known readers, the vast majority of my audience are nameless and faceless to me. I really have little knowledge that my stuff is being read aside from the slow tick on the "visitors" counter and the very rare comment.

So, even though I KNOW that you want new chapters and that you're waiting patiently for them; even though I know that you notice the days, weeks, and months fly by without an update; even though that SHOULD be enough to hold me accountable, it just doesn't for some reason.

Distancing, maybe?

But knowing that there are people who can ride me about not writing? That's motivation for me. So, I guess thank God for professional editors and publishers who could harass me in to keeping my deadlines if/when I become a professional author. Until then, I'll try to keep up with this "Hold my Facebook friends accountable" approach.

Eh, it seems to be working so far. I've had a few sticklers. I had an aunt who responded to a comment I made on my sister's wall; telling me to "get back to work" even though the comment was an hour or so before I posted that I was attempting to write. I also have The Bard sending me pokes and "get back to work" messages if he sees me activate in his IM contacts; problem there is that I actually wasn't online whenever he sent me those messages. The mouse must have been bumped or something, making him THINK I was messing around on Facebook.

Oh well, at least I know I can trust my friends and family to keep me in check.

Seems to be working well, too. I almost exclusively wrote while Hubby was at work this week. Because of this drive and the passed-on-accountability I'm doing fairly well with NaNo this year. Granted, that's partially because I'm not strictly counting the words going in to a 50,000 word novel. For this year's NaNo I'm just aiming for 50,000 words of creative writing.

This means I'm counting everything I type for this blog, for the X-Future story, as well as my X-Future roleplaying. I did miss a few days last week, however, and so I'm still about 7000 words behind where I should be. It's still better than last year when I was about 12000 words behind at this point.

I can't wait to see how much more efficient I can be once I do get my netbook back! Whoot!

As for you guys checking out my progress? Well, I don't have the chapter quite done yet, so I'll have to post the link to it next week. You can still keep an eye out, if I post during the week I'll try to remember to tweet about it, and/or post it on facebook.

In the meantime, here's the Snippet I promised you about Trish's run through the latest Brotherhood obstacle course. Devon decided to poke his head around and try it out himself, and so now I don't know if it will become significant enough to keep in his companion story that I'll eventually write. If so, this portion will be sort of footnoted since the story will be through Devon's perspective. Anyway, Devon wanted to really provoke Trish before his run, and so I tagged that at the end of her run; originally the story ended with her collapsing after finishing the course.

So, let me know what you think of the snippet and/or my new accountability tactic. That comment section under each post looks so empty and lonely.

Epiphanies and Obstacle Courses

To start, I'd like to say "Whoot!" to the fact that I'm over 12,000 hits. I pretty much never suspected such love for a dinky blog that is just a glorified diary of a whining writer. So thank you to all of my repeat readers. Thank you for enjoying my lame rants. Thank you for sticking with me when I disappear for weeks or months on end. Thank you for enduring my emo-ness on occasion. Thank you for showing me love.

Thank you also for following along while I whine incessantly about how "lame and pathetic" I am as I give out a seemingly never ceasing list of excuses as to why "I didn't write anything this week". I knew that I gave those pitiful "reasons" that were supposed to justifiable. I knew that I did so frequently. I didn't quite grasp HOW often I posted such updated until ChibiSunnie bluntly wrote to me:

Chibi: I’ve noticed a pattern of "I was going to write, but there was a great TV show on” or “I was going to write but Hubby's friends came over” or “I was going to write, but I got distracted by the forums” etc.

An astute observation of the content of not only my blog, but my Facebook statuses. I was slowly picking up on this pattern myself. This typically resulted in my verbal berating of myself about being lazy and unproductive; resulting in me whining to my husband that "I haven't written in x-days! I need to work!" However, I never picked up on the fact that I gave SUCH lame excuses and so frequently; enough to get called out on it.

I thanked Chibi for her honesty. Sometimes your repeating pitfalls like that need to be pointed out to you before you truly see how large of a problem they've become.

I keep saying that I want out of my current job, and yet I rarely do any form of active job searching to find a replacement. I keep going on and on about wanting to be a professional author, and yet I don't put any sort of effort or discipline in to my writing. With my mentally and physically draining job - combined with the work of maintaining the house - it's just easier for me to turn off my brain when I'm home. Veg in front of the TV while snuggled against my husband; pretending to be productive while STILL working on my niece's blanket - a repetitive task that does allow me to sort of shut down my brain. Play video games that only require minimal puzzle solving. Mess around on Facebook or Deviantart. All mindless tasks.

I don't want to put the effort in to thinking. I don't want to put in the effort to try to figure out what The Girls have been doing at the institute or what Trish was doing before catching up with the two-year time skip. I don't want to think about how to thread forum posts together so they make a coherent narrative. I don't want to think about the layout of Gyateara, Amara's life, or how to bring Connor back to the Heroes Guild so he and Natalie can finally get back to their quest to save Albion. I don't want to have to figure out what Arnold did in Hillwood as the love of his life is out with another man. I don't want to figure out the thoughts racing through Helga's head as she tries to wrap her mind around the idea that Arnold never stopped loving her.

It's hard work if it's not a blast of inspiration; the characters spilling out their thoughts through me. After all the other work I do I just don't want to have to put that much effort in to something that is generally a stress-relieving past time for me.

And there's the problem. I still think of writing as a hobby. As a stress-reliever. And it is. When I do have those great moments of inspiration in which I don't really need to think - I just let my fingers fly and the words spill out - I feel lighter, happier, productive, proud, determined, and an overall mild sense of euphoria. As I stated in my one post last week: I was cranky all of October and I also didn't write all of October. I'm sure if I had done any sort of writing it would have really helped to de-stress me and made October a bit better.

The trick is to remind myself that I also want this fantastic stress-reliever to be a CAREER. If I wait for inspiration - for when it's easy to write - I'll never get anywhere. Weeks or months will go by without any progress, I'll slowly chip away at about five different projects - wherever the muse takes me, chapters will take up to a YEAR to finish, actual stories will inch towards a decade before completion, and I'll never get any sort of income for my efforts. On top of all that, I'll get closer and closer to middle age grumbling more and more about how I've wanted to be an author since I was nine and yet I STILL hadn't done anything to actually make that happen.

I hoped the concept of NaNo would kick me back in to gear, but it's not just the mindset, it's the atmosphere. When I lived with my mom I had seclusion. I could lock myself in my room, only poking my head out to eat and use the bathroom, and neither my mom nor my sister would really say anything about it. If I isolate myself in my bedroom now for more than an hour my husband tends to whimper about how he misses being able to hang out with me.

We're still in that sickingly attached stage of marriage where we want to spend all of our free time together. Probably a result of being in a long-distance relationship for eight years. We both know that we have to get over it; I have my stuff to do and he has his and we can't spend every waking moment attached to each others' hip. Yes, when I explain to him that I have to hide away in either our library or bedroom so I have a quiet place to work, and I explain how much I need to do said work, he pouts and then lets me be. The issue then is me not caving in to that puppy-dog look and wanting to snuggle against him while binging on the next show we have in our Netflix instant queue.

So we both have some growing to do. We need to re-learn to be independent and accept just being in the same house. He needs to improve his understanding of how important writing is to me so he can better build an atmosphere that I can nurture my writing in; instead of struggling to fit it in to my life. I need to stop letting the atmosphere I'm in dominate me. I need to find ways to make it work until the lifestyle changes. I need to do more things like locking myself away in the bedroom, writing when Hubby's not in the house, and blasting music through headphones so I can block out my surroundings while I write at my desktop. I have to be strong and reset our home's culture myself; Hubby will follow once I get it started.

I need to make an active effort to bring reading and writing in to my life. Well, reading without it TAKING OVER my life. Twice now I've spent the six hours Hubby's been at work just sitting in bed reading. I don't even realize how much time just disappeared until I have to stop to pee and notice that I have to go fetch him in about a half-hour. On the plus side, I'm half way through the "Heroes of Olympus" series and the conclusion of "Son of Neptune" was enough of a stopping point that I can hopefully wait a week or two before picking up "Mark of Athena"; especially since I KNOW it ends in a massive cliffhanger, resulting in me instantly tearing through the latest book. If I do that I'm going to loose a week or two of my life, easily.

Anyway, enough about epiphanies. They mean nothing until they are acted upon. So I started to act upon it.

For the Brotherhood section of the forum I wanted to upgrade the obstacle course that the mutants use to train on; as well as test out possible new recruits. Warbash busted up most of the obstacles and so it needed to be rebuilt anyway. The problem is that I'm HORRIBLE at coming up with a challenging obstacle course. Between June and now I had about four pages of obstacle ideas. I wrote out what I wanted to train the Brotherhood members in and rough ideas on how to do so. They were all jumbled concepts that didn't really work. Then Ronoxym posted as Devon this past week. He was itching to have the Brotherhood's two-year time jump to finally get that part of the forum up-to-date with the main X-Men portion.

Hubby was all set to do the time skip, but one of the ideas I had scribbled down for the obstacle course was Quicksilver poking fun at Trish over getting shot during the Purifier raid. I loved the playfulness of it and didn't want to lose my opportunity to post it. I needed the new obstacle course though, and I needed it before the time skip.

So I struggled and bounced countless ideas off of Hubby. I even started doodling out the layout of the course. When I say "doodle" I of course meant that I measured our apartment to get a better idea of  how large certain obstacles should be and then drew them to scale on a sheet of paper. When I set my mind to something I go all out to make sure it's done right. This usually results in something that SHOULD only take about a half-hour to write instead taking a WEEK to plan out and finish. This is probably another reason why I'm so hesitant to write anything.

I finally completed building the obstacle course on Thursday, finished typing out the three-page description of it on Friday, and wrote out Trish's run through it during my Sunday Insomnia while Hubby was on his overnight shift. It's lengthy and so I still have to figure out how to best post it on to the forum so it's not just this large wall of text to sift through. For the obstacle course description I broke it down in to the individual rooms the Brotherhood member has to run through, and hid them behind drop-boxes. That way you can easily jump to the room description you need without having to sort though endless text. I also used Photoshop to draw out the layout and hid the map of the course inside a drop-box as well. Not sure if this is the best way to go for Trish's run though. Maybe....

Anyway, this resulted in me going from virtually no writing to writing about 7600 words over the weekend. True, spending all of my time working on this project resulted in me not taking the time to work on the next X-Future chapter, but at least we can FINALLY move forward on the forum after it being dead since August.

Since Trish's obstacle course run isn't really all that crucial to the overall storyline of X-Future it probably won't end up as more than a paragraph or two in the novelized version. In that case I think I'll post it as a very lengthy addition to the Snippets anthology. So keep an eye out for that within the next few days and I'll be sure to link to it next Sunday.

Holy Tolito! A Month Just Vanished!

Why hello, my lovelies. So sorry for the unexpected writing hiatus. I don't really know what happened there. I took a week off for my anniversary, and then I was again bombarded with both work and finally catching the sickness that was taking out all of my other co-workers at the time. Two weeks without a post or without finishing the latest X-Future chapter turned in to three as my mother visited. Soon the snowball-effect resulted in me not even having much of a drive to attempt to write anything. Next thing I knew it was over a month since my last post and longer since my last chapter update.

A whole month without writing anything - or even attempting to. Also, a whole month where I've been insanely stressed, drained, and all-around crabby.

I'm not saying the two are connected. I'm just pointing out facts. 

Anyway, with (inter)National Novel Writing Month finally upon us again, I decided to use it as a motivator to get back in to writing. I'm not sure how well it helped. On the one hand, I didn't write anything yesterday between work, chores, and overnight guests. On the other hand, I did finally finish that blasted X-Future chapter that's been sitting around for about a month.

I started that blasted chapter shortly after my last update. I got interrupted for some reason and then just never got back to it. I'd like to say that I can't believe it kept me a month to finish it, but I've had Hey Arnold fanfiction chapters that have been in waiting for just as long - if not longer.

Speaking of my Hey Arnold fanfiction, I've been hearing "Life After You" by Daughtry on the radio a lot lately. That song hasn't really played on the radio for a few years now. Add in the sudden revival of Gavin DeGraw's song "Not Over You" - which happens to be the inspiration for the chapter I've abandoned almost a year ago. So.... I think maybe Arnold and Helga are telling me to get back to work on their story. I'm not saying that there will be any updates in What Is Truly Meant To Be anytime soon - I'm too invested in X-Future right now - but I just may tackle the latest chapter a bit more before the end of the year. Sorry, folks, for going nearly a year without an update in that story.

Bad author. Very bad author!

The real irony is that the writing hiatus I stumbled in to over October was truly a complete stop. I haven't posted anything in X-Future either. No one really has. The game has halted completely - aside from Ronoxym doing a post as Devon about a week ago. Hubby's trying to think of a concept to kickstart us back in to playing. I'm just trying to get The Girls to start talking to me again.

Because of that - and because it's mad fun - I actually set up two cosplay costumes for My Girls. Eight bucks off of eBay and an additional two at the dollar store and I got myself a white wig with blue hair extensions. Roughly a ten dollar investment and I have a Willow Wig. Throw in some white shorts - or the white dress - and the white and blue cover-up my mother bought me for my birthday, and viola! I'm Willow! The playful, perky prankster who's a little bit of a flirt.

Or we could go the other way. Also for my birthday, my mother bought me pleather pants and a matching jacket. The pleather jacket has super wide lapels with little spikes all over them. The whole outfit just screams "Harley Davidson Biker". Add a red shirt I already own and the eight clip-on hoop piercings I also got off eBay. Mess up the hair so it's a bit wild and covering a lot of my face and BAM! I'm Trish!

Actually, that was legitimately my Halloween costume. I got all punked up. I wish I had the time and money to get my hair cut shoulder-length and re-dyed my normal gothic-red for October. That would have matched Trish PERFECTLY. I also wish I was able to get one of the clip-ons to act as an eyebrow piercing like I intended, but it kept popping back off, so I moved it to a lip-ring.

It was fun to roleplay as Willow and Trish. Hopefully that will get my juices going. At the very least I am picking up more and more the varying voices of my characters. I mean, I always knew that each of my characters - not just the X-Future ones - had their own personality. For the X-Future girls they were all sort of a bit of my own personality focused and refined. But given that they are all teenagers I was afraid that they were all using the same dialects and sounding similar to each other. I'm starting to feel more and more confident, however, that once my readers get to know my characters they'll be able to know who was speaking just based on how it was said.

I originally went more in-depth about what I meant; describing each girl and how her voice differs from the last. It ended up being this long-winded tangent. I think I'll have it as a bonus blog post to make up for the random disappearance.

As for this post, I'm just going to wrap up by stating that I hope I can get back in to the rhythm of writing again. I'm pretty sure I won't be able to write daily like a true NaNo attempt. I'm also pretty confident that once December hits I'll again disappear in to my little crocheting-hut while I make everyone's gifts. In the meantime, however, perhaps I can get back to at least updating this blog weekly and my X-Future story roughly every ten days.

Wish me luck!

Ending the Summer Challenge With A Weak Bang

Ugggh... this was not a good writing week.

It was not a good motivational week.

It was not a good week.

My work week consisted of insane hours, cranky co-workers, incompetent co-workers that made me want to punt them across the store, managers that couldn't stand still long enough for me to accomplish anything I needed to for the Wellness portion of my work week, and finally a rarity for me.
Customers that just irked me.

Normally I love customers. I love interacting with them. I love the quick brain teaser of trying to figure out how to make a mad customer happy. I love the diversity. I love the repeats that you get to know and vice versa. Even if I get a cranky customer every now and again I can shrug it off as "eh, they're just cranky" or "They probably had a bad day."
This week though.... *sigh*

Add in that tomorrow is Labor Day - that glorious ringing out of Summer in The States - and my week was insane and tiring. To be honest, I can't really recall what I did day-to-day like I normally do when I write these posts.

So when I was home I had no energy to actually think. I zoned out by either watching TV, putzing around on Facebook and DeviantArt, or playing one of two video/computer games. A few days ago I started up playing Fable on the Xbox again - only to be ticked off that I failed one of the side quests for probably the seventh time since starting up that game file. My main go-to, since I'm already at the computer, is to play the game King's Bounty: Armored Princess.

The worst part about my burn out? It just might happen again this week. As I stated, a holiday is tomorrow, and I have an equally crazy work schedule. Joy.

Anyway, enough griping about how I didn't WANT to write this week. Point is that I still did. I forced myself, but I got through it. I guess sometimes that's just what you have to do. Especially if you write for a living; you can't just give up a full work-week because you don't feel motivated.

So, in the end I guess it's good training for future weeks like this when I'm writing for a living.
*knock on wood*

It was a bothersome week for the forum recaps as well. The first recaps were easy. Aside from the second one about Nix - which was easy enough to gather; just go through the listing of his early posts and get the info needed - the first and third recaps were live role play sessions. This meant I had enough interaction and "story" to write out my recap chapter without much effort. Just read the session and write what happened. Simple.

Well, for this week it wasn't so simple. The day after the Danger Room session a whole bunch of us players just did a ton of individual roleplaying. Simple things to set up what our characters do in our day-to-day and/or how we reacted to Nix's control loss and/or the Danger Room session. So, there were a bunch of posts scattered across the multitude of boards that we have on the forum. When I say "multitude" I'm not joking at all. We have six different sections of the board: a section for character bios and the like, a section for general out of character discussion, a section for polls, a section for important Moderator/Administrator announcements, a section for roleplaying as X-Men characters, and most recently we added a section for roleplaying as Brotherhood characters. Out of just the X-Men role play section there are 136 topics. Granted, a large portion of them are closed but are available for reading; a large portion are still open for people to continue roleplaying in.
That's a LOT of boards to sort through!

So I started off my weekly task by going to Hubby's and celestialTyrant's accounts since the two of them were the most active when the game first started. Through their profiles I was able to track down their posts and when they posted them - the same tactic I used to figure out everything for Nix's control slip-up recap. From there I noticed that a LOT was going down on June 22, 2012. I then used this information to sort though the over-hundred topics to figure out which ones were created on or before the 22nd. This narrowed it all down to 22 topics. Still quite a few, but not nearly as overwhelming as 136.

From there I went through and found all the posts that were up on the 22nd specifically. This narrowed it down to just 10 topics, but it was still a LOT of posts. It was too much for me to try to organize them while still on the forum itself. So I thought a touch out of the box for that.

I copied and pasted all of the posts from the 22nd in to a word document. They were all still in their forum comment layout of member name and picture, timestamp, and comment all nestled in to table cells. Because of this the posts - roughly 130 of them - take up a little over 31 pages!

And we're back to overwhelming... just a touch.

Well, thank GOD for time stamps, because while I was going from one topic thread to the next I was able to organize all hundred-plus posts in to the order they were originally posted. It definitely helped flow everything easier, especially when certain "scenes" flow from one location to another - therefore going from one topic thread to another.

Needless to say, just tracking down everything that happened on the 22nd and organizing it was a task that lasted about two days.

I then attempted the last mini-challenge of Writers’ Huddle's Summer Writing Challenge: Spend exactly 5 minutes planning the scene/chapter/post/article before writing. Five minutes and that's it. Not a minute more or less. It was basically a challenge to see what you could accomplish in such a short period of time - much like last week's writing for 10minutes. It was a nice exercise for those who never plan ahead of time, as well as those who spend hours or even days writing out the planning before writing. Ya know, like how I write for What Is Truly Meant To Be.

Anyway, as I was re-organizing the posts according to their timestamps I of course glanced over them to get a basic idea of what was going on that day. I figured "alright, five minutes? I got this" and started to write bullet points about what happened; periodically glancing at the posts to make sure I didn't miss anything. Well, 5minutes quickly came and went, and I was maybe a fifth of the way through the posts.

The later third - or maybe even as much as half - of the posts were all two large scenes, and so I was able to make it through bullet pointing the rest of the posts in another 15minutes or so. I now know that there was just so much going on this third day of playing that I'm going to get either three or four recaps out of it - depending on how long the second recap ends up.

The first recap is basically what the full day of roleplaying was: everyday happenings and people dealing with what happened in the previous recaps.

You can find it on DeviantArt here.
It's also up on my FanFiction version of X-Future: The Second Generation Begins.

Quick aside: I actually had someone favorite this story on FanFiction this week! The X-Men stories haven't been getting much love/attention, and so to have someone fave the story was like "WOW!"

So, thanks, ItsAlexO!

Okay, back to the recaps.

The first recap ends with Lucas Kinney racing towards the Danger Room after getting an alert. The next recap will be why he got that alert in the first place, as well as why Nix is so nervous. This was tricky because when the game was first set up we didn't have a lot of the things we have/use now to help game play flow easier. For one, we didn't really know how to create hot-links in our comments. We now use this to help refer to either a crucial event that will make our current post make more sense, or as a means of directing people to the previous location we were at in our scene. It would have been VERY helpful to help me sort through everything. The other real key thing we do now is have blank posts - aside from a single blue line - separating one scene from another in the same location. The last thing - the one that would have been super helpful for the Danger Room recap - is that double-posting was defaulted to condense down in to one post if the posts were within an hour of each other.

How this works is if you post a comment and then went back to that location thirty minutes later to do another action - but no one else posted in that location in between your two posts - the two posts would condense in to one with a blue line breaking the posts apart. When it did that the timestamp on the non-original post(s) is lost.

So Hubby had a Danger Room session going on in which he had nine posts in a row. These all condensed in to one large post with lines separating them. I have no clue what time the individual posts were up aside from the original one. That in and of itself isn't that big of a deal. What makes this whole scene a pain in the butt is that while Hubby was posting in the Danger Room a whole bunch of players had their characters reacting in the Danger Room Observation Deck, therefore including their reactions in to the scene. So I had to read through both and try to figure out where the Observation comments fit in relation to all of Hubby's posts; a task that would have been easier if I had timestamps to go off of. *sigh*

Even better is that Lia wasn't one of the people watching - she was off doing her own training. CT wanted to interact with Lia - I think mostly because I was off on my own while everyone else was roleplaying in the Observation Deck - and so Nix came to talk to her. Thing is, according to the Observation Deck posts Nix was there until like the last five minutes of the session, and yet he somehow managed to miss how it ended..... The timing is tricky, so I'll probably fudge it a bit when I re-work the recap.

Anyway, depending on how long the DR session is - which will probably be very long - I may make the next portion of that extended story a third recap... Danger Room Aftermath. The scene for that went on for a bit as well, so it just might be enough for its own recap.

The final one for the day would be **Spoiler: Sorta. Not really, but whatever. Hover cursor over to see.** going on dates. So keep your eyes out for those updates. Whooo!

As for the Snippets... still no love for them; ItsAlexO didn't fave that story set. Maybe people are purposely avoiding the Snippets to avoid the spoilers???? *shrug*

Anyway, I haven't even THOUGHT about working on the next Snippet I have in the works. I'll keep you guys posted though.

At least X-Future has been at sort of a crawl/stand still for the past month. Kinney - who is Hubby's right-hand-man and fellow storyteller for the game - wanted to do a Danger Room session for some of the guys, but he then had to go on a week-long vacation to visit the in-laws before the session was done. Plus none of the guys seem to be online at the same time and so there are hours and even a day or two in between postings. This session is literally taking a month to conclude.

Problem there is that it freezes the rest of us more-or-less to make sure our characters don't get too far ahead time-wise. In other words, the rest of us will be roleplaying a day or two ahead of those guys and it's a pain to catch people up.

• So Crystal and Tyler are in roleplaying limbo until "the next day" can start up.
• I have no further advancements for Trish since her day was pretty full already and is probably on the next day at this point. Plus... she's in a cell, what can she really do? Hubby's trying to figure out what Deadpool can do to mess with her this time.
• Willow and Chayse are very slowly chugging through the day, but neither of us really know what to do with them; especially since Chayse wants to ignore the two huge elephants in the room: who Screw Driver is and the identity of the traveler from the future.
• Thanks to my taking over as Jamie "Multiple Man" Madrox and playing the "insanely over protective father" card, Lia and Ripley are advancing slowly but surely; with a bit of a cameo from Ronoxym's secondary character Oswald, Ripley's best friend.

OH! Random little fun tidbit about Trish that happened this week. Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook already know this, and originally I wasn't going to include it on such a public venue as my blog, but it was just too good not to.

As I was getting ready for bed on Wednesday I put on my red nightgown. I've been wearing a lot of blue lately and Hubby jokes that I'm just in "Willow Wear" or that I'm "Cosplaying Willow". After noting to myself that I had worn red I chuckled that I was finally in "Trish Cosplay". I quickly corrected myself that the nightgown had to be "Lia Cosplay" instead since a nightgown was way too girly for Trish - who would be more likely to wear shorts and a t-shirt to bed.

After another second of pondering I realized that she - in an extreme case - just might wear a nightgown as an act of seduction. Thing is, I MEANT to think to myself that she'd wear one to seduce PYRO. Ya know, the Brotherhood baddie who is Devon's father and the object of Trish's affection? Instead, what I accidentally thought to myself was that she might wear one to seduce DEADPOOL. The wackjob Merc With A Mouth who had been interrogating her.

I then shuddered at the thought.

That's right. MY CHARACTER Trish was so repulsed by the thought of trying to seduce Deadpool that not only did SHE shudder in my mind, but she actually got ME TO PHYSICALLY SHUDDER AS WELL! As an experiment I then purposely thought "What? Deadpool and Devon both start with D... it's close."
I then gagged.
WHAT THE ACTUAL HELL!? This is a whole new level of characters taking over....

Does this ever happen to any of my writer readers out there? Or am I just a nutjob????

Speaking of my writer readers - although I'm not so sure she reads my blog... I know Ron does... anyway - I have great writing news in the world of Cyhyr. First off, her collaborator finally finished her chapter for the fanfic they're writing, and so they were able to update after a year hiatus. Kind of makes me feel better about not updating WITMTB since February. The real reason I bring up Cyhyr, though, is because the woman has been a writing machine as of late.

Cyhyr: I wrote 25 pages in my session yesterday. How many can I write today? I'm shooting for at least 20; I've already got 9 though, and I think I can challenge for 30...
I'm at 17 pages now but I'm hungry and I don't want to leave...
Update: just finished scene 6 and I have a total of 48 pages written, so 23 today...
[I'm working on] a completely new fanfiction that slapped me across the face and said "write me" on Thursday night. So I started it a little then and now I'm almost 50 [frigging] pages into this shit.

So, let's give her a cyber round of applause for her great stamina and drive. Now... for me to find that same drive...

Alright, I just want to conclude by announcing one last thing that I accomplished this past week; last Sunday, actually.

For nearly a year now I've been thinking of branching out and starting up a more conventional blog - one that's informative instead of journalistic - but I couldn't figure out what I have enough knowledge about to write more than one post. That doesn't really matter if I write the one or two posts I know about such-and-such subject, submit it to a blog as a guest post, and repeat for the next topic, etc. However, I'm too lazy to spend hours on end tracking down a variety of blogs, and then attempt to write a guest post for each of them; although this is the best way to get started with a paid gig as a blog writer. Ali and I tried working on figuring out my specialty for a little bit at the beginning of the year, but it didn't really get far.

Well, Sunday I realized that I goof up a LOT, and in a wide array of categories. I've also figured out how to fix these goofs. So I've decided that my next blog should be a sort of "self-help catch all" in a sort of "learn from my mistakes" way.

I've reserved the url CritFailing.blogspot.com for when I start up this new blog:

Crit Failing: A Guide to Goofs and Screw-ups

Thanks to my co-worker Sergeant Strudel for the blog name idea. My other title possibility is "I Roll Ones", but I think that's already a "fail blog" on Blogger.... Eh, the name has time to change/evolve. The important part is the blog url.

Sadly, I don't have nearly the time to dedicate to running two blogs, especially when I barely manage to update this one weekly. Plus, I need to figure out how I'm going to write professional, article-style posts. On top of everything else, I need to set up a cache of articles; really focus on the mess-ups I do that may also plague others as well as advice on how to avoid/fix the problem.

It will be a bit of an undertaking and the new blog probably won't launch for another two years, but I at least have a plan! Whoot!

Now off to work on that next recap.... or to sleep.... probably sleep....