Can We Fast Forward to Next Week?

This has been a very fast week, and a massive productivity crapshoot.

I wasn't able to finish the X-Future: The Second Generation Begins chapter before the end of Sunday due to a whole bunch of chaos last week. So, I started this week attempting to finish the darn thing, edit it, and get it published. It was a difficult battle in doing so.

Mainly because at some point on Sunday I busted the charger cable for my netbook. Still don't know how or when. It was working fine earlier in the day, and then it just stopped working for me when I moved from the bedroom to the living room. Hubby was able to get it at JUUUUUUST the right angle for it to still work, but it had to be at exactly that angle. Then it was over to our friends' house for the Super Bowl, and once more Hubby had to set up the charger at the proper angle for it to work.

Then Monday came around. I made the mistake of shifting which outlet my laptop was plugged into after Hubby was at work. I couldn't get the charger to work any longer, but I had a full battery. However, between everything I needed to do, the battery drained faster than I anticipated. Before I knew it, I was done with the writing, but not the edits of the chapter. However, my laptop was blinking that it only had 10percent battery left. I struggled with the charger for a good half-hour or so. The laptop was now frantically beeping that it only had about 5percent battery life left, so I caved in and turned the dang thing off.

Between attempting to get the laptop to bring up a menu it's supposed to after hitting FN+ESC - which it refused to do - and scanning everywhere else on the computer, I finally gave up. I took the battery pack out - since it was turned off anyway - to finally find the model number so I could buy a new charger online. Problem was, the only one on Amazon that listed my laptop's specific model number also had a 1star review saying that it didn't work for said specific model - there were about a dozen listed that it was supposedly compatible with - even though it claimed it would. Nervous that I was buying something I wouldn't use, I bit the bullet and bought the cord anyway since there were no other options that I could find in my frantic panic.

I got the cable in the mail yesterday, it works fine - stupid 1star reviewer - but it's about half the length of my original cable, so now I'm stuck working on my laptop only about 2ft from an outlet. Thankfully, Hubby bought me that new battery a few months back, so I can unplug once it's fully charged so it's not as big of an issue. But if I want to finish up something when the laptop is dying, off to my little outlet corner I must go.

Anyway, so it's Monday, my laptop is dead, and I still have to finish with my writing hour and posting the chapter. I decide to go on to Hubby's laptop to do so; thanking myself for writing everything in Google Docs so that I don't need my specific laptop to finish.

Problem is, I didn't want to screw up Hubby's Chrome settings, so I logged in under Incognito Mode. Except, Google Docs won't work unless I log in. Thinking "I'm in incognito, it will be fine" I went ahead and logged in to Google Docs, which logged me in to Google+, which then reset all of Hubby's Chrome presets to mine. Weirdly enough, even though we never went onto my computer under Hubby's account, when I revived my laptop yesterday my Chrome had all of his presets. Weirdest part is that Hubby's laptop claims it's set up under his Google+ account, and my netbook says it's logged in under mine. So, why do I have Hubby's presets and bookmarks, and he has mine? We have yet to figure this out, and so we're slowly rebuilding all of our bookmarks and the like. It's quite frustrating. So much so that I didn't want to bother looking at my computer at all yesterday.

So, mark that as a Zero-Day for writing.

Back to Monday. So, I'm on Hubby's laptop. Logged in on Google Docs. Finished the chapter, edited it, and published on DeviantArt and FanFiction. I was even proud of the fact that I didn't even get my full hour of writing in, but I still managed about 1200 words!

If you'd like to check out the chapter. You can find it here:

"Could Be Twins"

On DeviantArt          On FanFiction

I wanted to go straight into the next chapter. It should be significantly shorter since it's mostly written out via role play, there's not much I'll need to alter, and there isn't any new room I need to describe. I thought that maybe this would be the week where I could get the X-Future chapter done, as well as get another writing prompt set up for my meeting this upcoming Tuesday.

Instead, I have yet to even START the chapter. Stupid computer.

By the time I gave up attempting to revive my computer, and found a cable I could order to charge it again, I barely had any time left before Hubby was done with work. He came home, we celebrated the Lunar New Year - yeah, because wearing all that red was really bringing me good luck; thanks Year of the Monkey - and then he played some more Skyrim while I finished posted my chapter. I just didn't have the energy to get started on the next chapter after that whole headache. Especially since the actual chapters are in Google Docs, but the list of posts I was converting are all on my private laptop. I'd have to manually sift through all of the X-Future posts all over again to try to gather up what I needed. I wasn't ready to do that with everything else going on already.

Tuesday was a real bummer. I had to be in work an hour before my shift to drop Hubby off, and I had to stick around an hour after my shift for Hubby to clock out. I could have gotten so much writing done, but nope. Computer was out of commission. At least I got some reading done.

Same with yesterday. I had another three hours or so bookending my shift after dropping off Hubby and waiting for him to clock out. Once again, I didn't have my computer to write on, so I read. I guess that's a plus at least.

I had decided to start up "Life, The Universe, And Everything" by Douglas Adams. It's the third installment in the "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" series. I wasn't sure what book category I wanted to read next, and so I figured I'd go back to Hitchhikers - it's a small enough book that I can easily carry it in my purse - for the challenge. I wanted to go with "A book you abandoned" but I couldn't recall which one that was. Part of me feels fairly certain that I finished "Life, the Universe, and Everything" and that I abandoned the next book "So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish." However, Hubby doesn't remember me finishing "Life..." and so, I don't want to start up "So Long..." if I never finished "Life..." But what if I did finish "Life..."? Is this a waste of reading time? I read too slowly for me to be able to get this and another book done within a short month, especially when I missed the first week of it!

Well, then I rationalized that even if I did finish "Life..." I can still mark it off as one of two books: "A book I've read at least once before" or "A book published before I was born". And if it turns out that I was right, and I didn't finish this book the first go, I can use it as I originally intended: the abandoned book.

I think it was the abandoned book, because it's already starting to annoy me. While the first two books were fantastic and hilarious - and I have chuckled at this one too - there's something about the situations Arthur finds himself in that seem a bit too over-the-top compared to the earlier novels. I'm pushing though it, though. I think another hiccup is that in the first two books, Arthur is out in the galaxy, experiencing new worlds and cultures. I'm just as new to these worlds as the protagonist. I'm learning with him. "Life..."? Well, there's a whole section dealing with cricket and general English culture that makes sense to those that live in Adams' native country, but for a foreigner like me, I'm confused as to what is going on. On top of that, since Adams' assumed most of his audience knows exactly what is going on, he felt he didn't need to explain anything. Which confuses me more. If it were an alien thing that he's pitching at the readers, he'd know we had no clue, and so he'd explain things. Cricket? Nah. People know what's up.

I mean, I did play a game or two of cricket in college - thank you, eccentric Communications professor - but I don't recall much of anything. So, my brain is about as fried as Arthur's at this point in the book.

I'm hoping to get past the overboard opening of this book and power on through it, and enjoy it enough to want to read the remaining three books in the series.

I'm just batting 1000 with these series books. First, the Kane Chronicles were sort of lackluster for me, and now Hitchhikers.... I need more Percy Jackson....

Alright, I know I've been sort of all over the place with this post, and honestly, I don't have the time to bother going back and editing it to be more linear. So, let's recap, shall we?

Monday: Tried writing. Laptop died. I had a freak out for about an hour. Finished writing, editing, and publishing the chapter via Hubby's laptop. Celebrated Lunar New Year.

Tuesday: Laptop still down due to no charger. Fat Tuesday/Doughnut Day/Faschnact Day/Mardi Gras. Ate a lot of doughnuts. Spent all morning, and the early part of the afternoon at work without access to a computer to write. Tried reading instead. Got home and frantically cleaned. Two co-workers showed up a few hours later in order to build their new X-Future characters. Had a grand-old-time, but didn't have the ability to steal Hubby's laptop for writing. Zero Day.

Wednesday: Another day where I spent the majority of it at work, but with no access to a computer in order to write. Read instead. Attempted to get home, only for the soft metal of my car key to bend in the lock. Had to have the in-laws drive us home in order to get the spare. Had a headache of a time to make more spare copies in case this happens again. Don't actually make it home until after 6pm. Ate dinner, got frustrated at life, read some more. Passed out at 8:45pm. Zero Day.

Thursday: Got up early to write this post. Something is up, though, and I've been having stomach issues all morning. Hopefully it won't cause me to go a third day in a row without writing something fictional. I have to do grocery shopping, and laundry today. I'm hoping to write while doing laundry at least. This week hasn't been going well for me.

And now I'm off to get ready for work. I'm really REALLY hoping for a turn-around today, and the rest of the week.... With any hope, I'll still have a new chapter for everyone next week. I'm just sorry for anyone who had been following my writing prompts anthology since I've been slacking on that.

Computers May Hate Me, But I Love -LY Adverbs

Unfortunately, I've been having some computer troubles once again. I don't know what it is, but Technology seems to hate me. I've had computers inexplicably dying on me since 9th grade...

This go around it's my desktop. It randomly crashed on me about a week ago, but I was able to overcome that through the use of my revived laptop. Well, about Saturday or so my laptop decided to go on the fritz as well. Every time I turn the darn thing off - which is just about every time I no longer need it, since I typically change which outlet it's plugged in - the date and time reset to midnight, January 1, 2009... Because of this, I spent just about all of Sunday fighting with the darn thing in order to get it to go online.

It's also lagging like crazy. Normally I'd just shrug it off because this is a smaller computer; I shouldn't expect it to be able to do too much. However, it is a NETbook. It's designed to do little more than go online, and I rarely ask for it to do more than that. But when it lags while loading a single tabbed page of Facebook? Well, that's frustrating.

I was able to jump on to Google Drive in order to do some more edits/rewrites to the Devon/Willow story "Please, Let Me Explain". However, that was only managed via my smartphone, which I'm still learning how to operate. There ended up being too many typos, and I deleted things I didn't intend, and the whole thing was just troublesome. Maybe I was just too tired this past Sunday, I don't know. Point is, I only managed to edit a paragraph before giving up. Shame too, since I was planning on putting the next part up for you guys this week.

See, I didn't really want to post the second chapter/part until about a month past since I first published the story. That way there was more than enough time for Ronoxym to get back on board and get to writing again. However, he started working faster than I anticipated. We chatted a little bit, and he finally advanced the story. First time since last March, I believe, that he's added to our collab! I'm so excited that the muse seems to have returned.

Granted, he only managed a few paragraphs, but it's still something. I consider it a win! Enough of one, at least, for me to want to put up Part Two of our tale. Especially since he just started us up on Part Four. Yay, buffer zones!

Perhaps life will go a bit more as planned this week. That way Ron can advance the story, and I can edit Part Two in order for it to go up by next Wednesday.

There will be a bit of a pull for my time, though. I only JUST realized that it's the final days of the month, and I haven't even STARTED reading a novel yet. I want to complete my resolution of one novel a month, and so I really need to pick one - even if it's a small one - and really plow through it within the next few days!

On a more positive note, I DID keep my resolution to go on to Writers’ Huddle at least once a week. In fact, to make up for missing the first couple weeks, I went on multiple days in a row. It's becoming quite routine for me to check in daily and read at least one or two threads. I've also made my presence VERY well known. I must have Necromanced about a half-dozen threads.

For those that don't know, when a forum thread hasn't had any new comments for a few days, weeks, and/or months - depending on the frequency of forum activity - the topic is considered "dead." When a person responds to a "dead" topic the thread becomes one of the first listed on the page. This "bump" due to new activity is "reviving" the thread, or "bringing it back from the dead". Since a common term for a spellcaster that revives dead bodies is a "necromancer" the act of reviving dead threads is Necromancing.

Point is, not only did I log in and read a bunch of posts - sticking to my resolution - but I also responded to these posts, regardless of the fact that the last comment tended to be in late November/early December. I hope no one minds me throwing in my two-cents about three months too late...

One of the threads I commented on extensively was a dialogue about fanfiction becoming professionally published. Just like my other article-response posts, my reaction was a bit ranty and VERY long. However, I am seriously considering polishing it up for a near-future post. Maybe free me up on a Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. We'll have to see how this week goes...

I also did something a bit on the brave side for me. I openly submitted stories for critique. Now, I - on the rare occasion - have had some critiques posted within reviews of my stories. Most rave reviews, I might add. I don't mind these comments because they are always done kindly, and they help me grow. I can't learn if my mistakes aren't pointed out to me.

However, everyone over at Writers' Huddle either already had a book published, or they are already having their book professionally edited, or they are on their manuscript rewrite, or some other stage far further than I am at in my writing career. Even people who appear to be younger than me and/or have been writing for a shorter amount of time. These people are incredibly dedicated to the craft and incredibly focused. It amazes me the focus these people have.

Because of all of these factors, I feel like a hobbyist that stumbled upon a professional convention. The "simple fanfiction writer" pretending she's some big shot writer.

Let me clarify that these are MY hang-ups and by no means reflect how the people at the Huddle really are. No one is condescending or treats me like I am not on equal footing with them. Doesn't stop me from feeling inadequate though. I then remembered the one article I responded to: Why Writers are the Worst Procrastinators.

See, I was stuck in the Schrodinger Writing World. I was both an excellent author and a complete hack at the same time; I wouldn't know which statement were true until inspected, by way of beta reading/critiques by another person.

Therefore, I sucked it up and posted my original works: The Divine Legends and The People of Gyateara. I then waited to open the box and see if my writing was alive or dead.

Today I received some feedback from fellow Huddler Maria. She told me something that I was told at least twice before: I over-write sometimes. I "over elaborate", to steal Maria's phrasing. I also have a tendency to use "-ly" adverb; this affinity I didn't know I had. I guess it's like someone telling you that you say "um" a lot when you're speaking. You don't realize it until it is pointed out, and then it seems painfully obvious.

Two things I now know I need to work on, or rather, one thing to work on and another I need to focus harder on. It will be a bit tricky since this "over elaborating" is part of my written voice. However, if I can polish how I speak in order to become a better orator, I should be able to streamline my writing voice in a similar manner. Fixing both will be tricky and a bit of an uphill battle for me, but one that I know will make me a better writer once I master them.

I'm calling out Ron and ChibiSunnie on this one. Chibi was one of the people who once before pointed out my over-explaining of everything. She and Ron are also the ones that seem to read my stuff most frequently and relatively quickly after I publish my stories. So, I'm sort of relying on you two in order to help me out with these struggles. If you - or any of my readers, for that matter - notice that I can streamline my sentences and/or I use "-ly" adverbs too frequently, I need you to point that out to me until I learn to catch it myself.

So now I throw this out to the rest of my readers. Any other places for improvement that you see in my writing? Remember, the only way for me to learn and become a better author for your enjoyment is for you to let me know where I'm failing.

I thank you all in advance. Until next week where I'll either have that new article response ready, or the next chapter for Please, Let Me Explain.