Devon, Devon Everywhere...

I have been mildly more productive this past week! Still not up to my 21 pages per week I keep aiming for, but there have been some days that I've gotten my daily 3pg quota in, so there's that. I think I finished the week with like 10 or 11 new pages in my script. I'm not sure if the pacing is nearly as good as how I started, but that's why I hate writing fight scenes. I'm just so bad at it. Also trying to balance four different personalities equally is tricky. Still, I chug on.

In truth, I probably could have hit my daily goal this week, but I've been unofficially distracted by something. See, my husband and I have been going out on walks for anywhere from an hour to three nearly every night after work. It's great exercise, but it keeps me from doing things at home, like cleaning and writing.

Oh, let me get more specific. When I say "my husband and I have been going out on walks" what I mean is that I race after to follow him while he goes on Poke-hunts. Yup. He's a full-fledged trainer with Pokemon Go! As is about 80% of the world, it seems! Works for me, it gets us out of the house and exercising. Something that pretty much hasn't happened since we got married. Plus, we get to socialize - which this butterfly also hasn't really been doing as of late - and I've probably seen more of the town in the past week than I have since I moved here five years ago!

Also, it's fun to have complete strangers call across the road "What team are you on?" and either cheer if Hubby's on the same, or playfully boo if not. We get to meet our neighbors as everyone gathers to discuss which pokemon were found where, and give each other tips. No one is anxious or awkward. You just lean in close and show off your phone as you chat; complete strangers jumping into the conversation to either ask a question or answer one. Such a phenomenon. I love it!

So, even though I myself am not much of a pokemon fan, I'm still loving Pokemon Go and what it's done for both the community and my husband's health. And, in extension, my own health. I just wish Hubby didn't want to "hunt" for three hours at a time! By the time we come home from work, eat, and then hunt, I'm not home to do my own thing until about 10pm. Not much writing done then. So, I'm still on the "write at work" train.

It's good, except for my days off where I try to play catch-up on chores since they've been neglected for these Poke-hunts. It also cuts into my writing time when I actually have customers to wait on so that I can get money at the end of the week! Yay, money! So, it's kind of a given that writing is second or third priority in the time I have to work on it. I need time where it's first priority. I need to restart my writing hour.

So, I'm thinking, go out with Hubby right after dinner and "hunt" with him for an hour, then give him a kiss, send him on his way, make my way back home, and then write in silence until he comes home. Or, at least for an hour, because who the heck knows when Hubby will actually come home! I get my exercise and time with the husband, and then my alone time, while he continues hanging out with friends, exercising, and training to be the very best.

We'll see next week if I manage to pull that off.

As for this week? Well, as I mentioned, I did get nearly a dozen pages written, so that's something. Granted, it's mostly dialogue, and so the pages fly by pretty quickly in scripts, but it's still something to read to my group tonight.

I feel like I really need help with this story, so I'm going to try to be brave enough to actually take the spotlight. Normally I go "eh, I'll read today, but others might need more help, so let them go first." Tonight, though, I might be like "HELP!" to make sure I can actually have time for feedback.

My issues? Well, for one, the info-dump exposition section. I don't know if I should cut it all, cut most of it, leave most of it in, or just go ahead and leave it all in. So, there's that. Then there's the fear that the action scene isn't as intense in the second half as it was in the first. I dunno, I'm better at emotional turmoil than I am real-world issues. Maybe because I find those fairly easy to either deal with or overcome, while emotional issues can last forever if not conquered. At least, that's my personal belief.

Anyway, my third issue is that I'm hedging on "Neo-Wolverine's" name again. I started with Mateo once upon a time, but when I did my character reworks last summer I landed on Dominic. As I'm writing, though, I keep getting this nagging thought to go back to Mateo, so I'm going to workshop that a bit tonight, I think.

I'm also stalled on the actual plot now. I was so focused on building the world that "Glitches" takes place in that I never really figured out how to drive the characters to the main plot points I'm grabbing from X-Future. As of right now my first main catalyst is Devon meeting Pyro - or Iggy in my version - and wondering about his heritage. I feel like I need to build up Devon first. Let the reader see him with the other "Glitch" kids for a bit; get a feel for who he is. Then throw the curve ball at the kid. That way he's a sympathetic character when he's going through his inner conflicts. That way his relationships with Chayse, Lia, and Willow are well established. So, how do I do that? How do I go from point A to point B? What elements of those first few months of X-Future can I grab? Or, what scenes can I create to bridge the gap?

Until I figure that out, adding more non-padded pages to my script is going to be hard. As it is, I'm done with my opening action scene, and need to figure out what comes next. Deciding to go with Dominic or Mateo might help because at least then I know who the heck is talking to the kids in the next scene. I dunno. I'm hoping for some guidance from the group tonight.

Worse comes to worst, I now have a new writing buddy via email correspondence. Ali Luke now plays match-maker for anyone over at Writers’ Huddle who wishes for a writing buddy. It's mostly to hold each other accountable so we don't slack off with writing, but it's also for encouragement and direction. Atlanta and I already seem to be a fairly well-matched pair both in where we are in our writing as well as what sort of genres we enjoy reading/writing. We decided last night that we'll email back and forth three times a week, and so if I still feel like I'm floundering after tonight's meeting I'll have to hit her up next.

She's not my only writing buddy, lately, though. Seems Ronoxym had the writing bug bite him again. Something about a bit of role play I did as Trish on the forums. He's working on an AU X-Future using both of our original concepts of the two characters. Ya know, before Devon and Trish went "Pfft. Yeah. Okay. How about no?"

In other words: Evil Devon with the Brotherhood and his romantic companion Trish. COMPLETE alternates of our current incarnations of those two, but hey, if it's getting him writing again I will wait with bated breath for him to finish and share. I may have also been nagging him about it daily for the past three days or so....

I've been thinking a lot about his writing lately, and he'll most likely not have any time in the near future as Cyhyr gets closer and closer to her due date. So, I'm going to nag and poke because I'm excited to see what he comes up with! I promise I'll avoid steamrolling it like I did with Please, Let Me Explain. Another reason why I'm nudging him back into writing, especially writing Devon. Perhaps it will get him pumped up enough for us to get back on track with PLME, but we'll focus on one thing at a time.

I dunno. I've been in a big "Devon Kick" lately. I've been meeting more and more "Devons" in real life. I've been working with him as a main character in Glitches. Ron has been excited about his Devon/Trish story. And I'm FINALLY starting up Magnus Chase: The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan. I know, it's hard to figure out the connection there, but exchange Devon's Brooklyn accent and brunette hair for a Boston accent and blonde hair, and you essentially have Magnus Chase. I asked Ron if he also saw the similarities when he read the book, and it seemed to be a bit of a bashful "yup." I find that amusing since Devon was created presumably years before Magnus, since the forum has been around since 2012.

First "Girl Meets World" and now "Magnus Chase".... great minds think alike?

Anyway, yes, I STILL haven't heard back about Sandy's first book returning to the library for me to borrow, so I needed a plan B. Hubby finished "The Sword of Summer" so now I'm good to go with it. I was originally planning on waiting until September so I can flow straight from that to the sequel that comes out in October, but you work with what you get. Since the book is intended for kids in their early teens, it's a fast read. Each chapter is only about seven pages or so, which also makes it easy to stop whenever. I can charge through about 30pgs per day easily. So I should be able to race through the story before the end of the month.

Whoo! Two books in one month! Roughly 15 days reading each! Go me!

Alright, well, it's a LOT later than my noon update time now - stupid chaotic morning - so I'm off to get some other things done today before my meeting. I'm excited and hope to have some positive updates for next week!

ALL THE DISTRACTIONS!

This has been the week of distractions. So much intention to take a time-out and write, and it always ended up as missed opportunities instead. Which is even sadder since I only had to work today and the previous two days.

Last week's update marked the first of an almost week-long mini-vacation from work. After I was done with the blog post, I was going to work more on the story I told you folks about last week: the backstory of the town and tavern I created for my premiere D&D session. I honestly can't recall what actually happened, but I know it was centered around getting ready for my trip back to my mom's for the weekend. Everything that day took about three-times longer than it should have. The alarm for my writing hour went off, and I was in the middle of a project of some sort, so I ignored it. This was a theme all week: ignore the Writing Hour alarm because I was in the middle of something more pressing, or I wasn't anywhere that I could take an hour-long time-out.

Between all the last-minute errands I needed to do, as well as packing and a few house chores before leaving, I just didn't have a moment to really sit and breathe. Still, I stole away a few minutes in order to try to keep up with the X-Future roleplay so I didn't hold anyone up. Even went ahead and had Lia and Willow do something in order to move them forward as well. Ended up having them interact with each other. Got to say, it's a bit boring roleplaying with myself.

Friday was my sister's birthday. Trips me up that she's now the age I was when I got married. When did she get so old and mature????

Well, belated birthday now that it's almost a week later....

Anyway, I drove down to visit her for her birthday, which meant no writing to be had. I woke up early, but only to finish the last of the packing and car maintenance before the drive. Then the celebrations were had, which lasted fairly late into the night.

Saturday had a little bit of "recovery" time in the morning, some more bonding along with a lot more food - I gained about five pounds over the weekend - and then getting ready to head out yet again.

Not only was I down to visit my sister, but coincidentally, my godson was born on the tenth. Made life easier that both he and my sister are about twenty-minutes from each other, and share the same birthday weekend. Saturday was spent with him and PA-Bestie for a belated birthday hang-out. This lead into more food, Sis taking everybody out for frozen yogurt, a relatively-large dinner, and then a game-night that lead into the wee hours of the night.

Sunday found me waking up just about in time for church with the fam. Then a LARGE brunch. So large that I was actually spending a great deal of time waiting in the living room playing on my 3DS while Sis and Mom put it together; too many chefs and all kept me at bay. I probably should have taken the time to write, but I had no clue how long it was going to take. So I just stuck with my video game, figuring it would be easier to stop what I was doing the moment food was done.

Once brunch was done we had some more family bonding before I drove home. That's when I unpacked and just crashed; a bit burnt out.

Monday I really don't have an excuse. I had the day off; last one before returning on Tuesday. Hubby was at work early in the morning, and so I had the house to myself. Did I read? Did I write? Did I clean? Nope on all three. I DID end up exercising with Spink, and was late picking Hubby up from work because of the hang-out. Prior to Zumba, and after picking up Hubby was spent mostly working on a project for Cyhyr and Ronoxym's anniversary. It's definitely a labor of love, because dear lord I didn't realize it was going to be so time consuming and tedious to complete!

I should have accepted that they weren't going to get it for their anniversary and just taken an hour time-out to write or something. I just slacked off there.

Speaking of, Tuesday was CERTAINLY the Ides of March. It was such a Murphy Day; I was in a terrible mood by the time I made it home from work. We had just received our tax refund, and so Hubby decided to cheer me up with a mini shopping spree. This first resulted in us still being out during my normal writing hour, which I then forgot to reset the alarm for in order to remind me later that day. Then we bought a new board game, and a new 3DS game for us to play together. The evening was then spent playing said games instead of me writing. Whoops.

Yesterday I was working through my writing hour. I did spend most of the day thinking about what I'd write next, though. How I was going to fix the blaring plot hole I created during the last D&D session, how I was going to turn that into a mini-quest, should the players follow, and possible alternative plots depending on how the players follow through with the mini-quest. I also plotting out this blog post. See, technically I've been at work since 8am today, and so I had to write all of this last night.

When I should have been writing recreationally.

I guess it's alright, though. I need to take a step back after trying to marathon-write in February. Same deal as what happens after attempting NaNo. Give myself time to let my brain recollect itself. Bounce around writing directions in my head; figure out which I'd prefer to do.

In the meantime, I guess I'll focus on X-Future and prepping story for D&D.

Running, Running, Running

Alright, so, even for a few weeks, and only for a scheduled hour, I still can't manage to write every day. Not even for something as puny as 500 words. It's a bit pathetic, actually. Even when I'm done with work later in the day, you'd think being out of the store by 3 would give me enough time to do everything else that I need done with an hour to spare to write.

You'd be surprised, apparently.

I keep letting Life get in the way, and it's annoying me. Really annoying me. But of course, once I set my mind to something as simplistic as "No one talk to me between 4 and 5pm because I'm writing," that's when I'm not even in my house during that hour. I guess it makes sense. As soon as I went "I'm moving my updates to Thursdays since I have them off all the time," that's when I started consistently working them.

Once again I'm debating switching my writing updates. Perhaps Mondays since I have them off. Maybe I'll even change my availability so that I never again work Mondays. Then again.... I need money, and that would be a dumb move if they need me on Mondays in the future. Which will most likely happen as soon as I move my blog update days to them.

I did manage to hit my 3500 words a week goal, though. Barely. I wrote about 1200 words on Monday in order to finish up the previous chapter - which I believe I already commented on last week - and then I finished up this week's chapter at about 2000 words. In one sitting. It was a semi-long sitting.

I was so mad that it kept me until Friday to write anything - besides this blog - and so I just sat in silence, and wrote. Next thing I know, I have the chapter done. It's short, compared to my other writings, but it seemed to have a natural stopping point that I listened to.

Saturday I edited, polished, and added a few more words to both improve the chapter, and get me the remaining 300 words I needed for my weekly goal.

I haven't had any sort of comments on really any of the chapters in The Second Generation Begins, and so I'm a bit nervous about how this chapter is/will be received. It's basically a retelling of the earlier chapter "Rescues and Robots," but through Lia's Point of View. I was debating breezing over this solo-role play that I did on the board, but I feel like it really showcases Lia's character, and the bond growing between her and Chayse. So, I rolled with it. It's tiny, and so I hope it works and isn't too boring.

"Giant Robots of Death"

On DeviantArt          On FanFiction

I'm now working on the chapter I originally thought I was going to write when I started "Giant Robots of Death," but with the natural stopping point I had at the end there, I just couldn't continue on to the next scene.

So, now we have Lia tracking down Chayse. It was weird trying to figure out whose POV I was going to use for this chapter. Whose chapter was it? In the end I went with Chayse. I had two Lia chapters in a row already, and the lead-in to the chapter included a conversation between Chayse and Gambit that Lia wouldn't have been around to hear anyway. I could have had her hear it when she found Chayse, but it would have been hard to stop her from interrupting it.

Also, my husband isn't nearly as descriptive as I am. He writes enough that you know what's going on, but he doesn't add in things to showcase personal ticks a character would have. For instance: Lia, when nervous, bites her lip and plays with orange streaks she keeps dyed in her hair; Willow, when feeling particularly mischievous gives herself a Cheshire Cat illusion of ears, twitching cat tail, and large grin; Trish, when bored, plays with fire the way that someone might play with a lighter: snaps her fingers to create a flame, snuffs it, snaps to create another one, snuffs it, etc.

Does the reader need to know these ticks? Not really, no. Especially when the reader is simply another player on the board. Hubby's lack of elaboration keeps play moving. We know enough to set the scene and interact. That's all that matters.

For novelization, however, we need a touch more. Otherwise Chayse is this blank canvas that allows every individual reader the ability to paint him completely unique to their own imagination. It's not a bad tactic; a lot of books are starting to purposely be vague in character description specifically for that point.

It's not me, though. I have a set image in my head, and I feel it's my job to try to portray it so that everyone can see the same image I do. Again, personal preference.

Which is another reason why I try to get into Chayse's head whenever possible. I've talked with Hubby enough to more-or-less know what goes on in there - same with Devon - and so, if I can't at least figure out exterior ticks that will showcase his state of mind, I can literally go into it to show the reader what's up.

I can have another character note Lia's lip biting while playing with her hair, and the readers should know that she's nervous or self-conscious. Chayse hides this feeling - for the most part - because he feels he needs to be the rock for the other students. In which case, if he's nervous or unsure about something, I have to dive into that cranium to let the readers know that.

Anyway, those are all my reasons behind the POV switch to Chayse in the upcoming chapter.

It's going moderately well in the writing schedule front. I wrote about 1600 words on Monday; a good start. I'm about half-way through the scene. I also just picked up on how much Lia used to tease and call Chayse nicknames. When I originally wrote Lia, I was definitely channeling Annabeth from the Percy Jackson series. The way she picked on him, and called him things like Seaweed Brain. Lia did the same exact thing to Chayse.

Picking on people and giving them nicknames has evolved into an exclusively Willow thing, and no one calls Chayse "Cajun" anymore either. I like the change up. It definitely fits Willow's personality more. It will be interesting to explain that transition, though. Also, maybe it's about time Lia starts calling Chayse "Swamp Brain" again whenever he's being particularly stupid.

Tuesday got away from me, but I did read off what I wrote so far for the chapter while I was at my writing group. There wasn't really much by way of comments on the story itself - not that I would really alter anything since this is all just conversion from the roleplay - but we did get into a semi-long discussion about X-Men in general once I was done.

Yesterday also got away from me. By the time I was done with work, and dinner, I was back out the door to drive about 45minutes to a movie theater - because I live in nowheresville with a one-screen theater that isn't showing Deadpool - in order for me, Hubby, and two of our friends to FINALLY do our Valentine's Day double-date. I wasn't feeling well at ALL on V'day, Hubby was exhausted from the overnight shift, and one member of the other couple also wanted to just stay in, due to how insanely cold it got randomly over the weekend.

Anyway, my point is that between work, dinner, drive down to the mall, watching the movie, and the drive home from the mall, I had maybe an hour total to just sit at home and chill. I SHOULD have used it to write, but I needed a mental wind-down, and so it was spent catching up on Facebook, emails, and DeviantArt uploads by artists I follow.

Sadly, I also have no hope for getting any fiction writing done today. Due to my slacking yesterday, my "first thing in the morning writing" that I COULD be using for fiction is instead being utilized to write this post. Then it's work. Then it's come home, change, grab something to eat real quick while clipping coupons that I've been avoiding all week. Then back out to the store with Hubby to grocery shop for the week, then over to the fabric store to FINALLY get more to maybe ACTUALLY finish that darn blanket for my nephew, then off to Walmart to pick up a small array of things we need, and then FINALLY back home again. Grab some more grub, unwind for a bit, and then MAYBE get writing done. It's possible, but doubtful.

Maybe if we also include a run to the laundromat today. I could bring my headphones - which I always seem to forget - and write while doing laundry. If not, that's what I'll be doing tomorrow, and I'll get a lot of writing done again. Between laundry and Hubby being away for his weekly Magic thing, I'll have plenty of downtime to utilize.

I have high hopes of completing this chapter on schedule. I might even get the 3500 words a week yet again. I have no hopes of ever writing 500 words daily again until I can get the world to follow me with getting on schedule.

Silly, Life, just work with me, here!

One last fun little note to shout out. I don't recall if I mentioned this last year, due to me trying to keep my private life out of this blog if it didn't directly affect my writing one way or another, but my mother-in-law was diagnosed with a very aggressive strain of cancer. It was a rough go, but the woman is.... is there a word for "Scrappy" on steroids? Anyway, she'd a fighter that's too stubborn to die before she gets more time with her grandbabies - and sees the ones that I'll produce, I'm sure - and managed to do what apparently only 11% can.

This Tuesday she found out that she is officially cancer free! She also discovered that she somehow fractured a rib on each side.... but she's cancer free!

Facebook sticker Hacker Girl
by Birdman Inc

Alright, now that I have that out of my system, I should probably get ready for work. I'll catch you next week, with hopefully a better daily writing record....

The Challenges Continue

Well, I'm doing moderately worse this week, but at least I have stuff to show you from the conclusion of last week.

The "writing for an hour and getting at least 500 words" daily goal seems to really be working for me. That is, when I get to writing.

Yup. Got a few Zero Days under my belt.

Still, as of right now I'm still holding on to my New Years Resolution of "no more than three in any given week". Well, holding on since I started the challenge. We're ignoring January existed.

Last week I did fantastically with the daily writing hour. Every day, 4pm to 5pm. Then I was stuck at work during my writing hour last Thursday. I managed to get two hours of writing in while working on the blog post, but I was too drained to write anything creative. One Zero Day. Friday I was just mentally shut down. I tried to write, but three hours later I still only had about 300 words. It wasn't a Zero Day because I accomplished SOMETHING; made the effort. Still, I was now behind about 700 words in my creative writing. Luckily, Wednesday's writing frenzy more-or-less covered those two days.

Saturday I was home alone most of the day, so I was able to finally finish the rest of the chapter I was working on for X-Future: The Second Generation Begins. I still had one more day left in the week, and so for Sunday's writing hour I cranked out the writing prompt story for this Tuesday's writing group. I honestly had no clue where I was going with that story. That was pure channeling. I just placed my fingers on the keyboard and let them do their thing. Still, I like what resulted from that.

If you were interested, you can see both new bits of writing I managed this week below.

"The Second Generation Begins:
Getting Into (Pseudo) Trouble"

On DeviantArt          On FanFiction

"Own Little City"

On DeviantArt          On FictionPress

After a mostly successful week, you'd think I'd be riding the momentum into another one, right? Yeah, me too.

Monday ended up being cleaning and errands day, followed by celebrating Shadow's birthday. I ended up not having the hour - or even fifteen minutes - to spare so I could work on the start of the next chapter. If you don't count last Thursday because I was at least writing this blog, Monday was my first official Zero Day since I started this challenge. Quickly followed by a second one.

Ironic that I ended up not doing any writing on the day I go to my writing group. I got home from work, had a few hours before Hubby needed to be home, had every intention of writing, and then Shadow asked me to call. Thinking it was a quick catch-up on what we were discussing the night before, I complied. Next thing I know, I only have a half-hour before Hubby would be done with work, and I was still in my own work clothes. I rushed around to get a quick shower, and then out the door I went.

Got home a few minutes after my daily writing hour started, but both Hubby and I - who neglected lunch due to the phone call - were starved. Once dinner was done and a few more neglected chores were taken care of, it was time for me to get to the writing group meeting. I honestly can't recall what kept me from writing when I got home, though. I know I hid in my room for the next hour in an attempt to still keep my daily writing. I'm pretty sure I spent the entire time instead chatting with Cyhyr online. I was trying to get her to poke her husband Ronoxym into doing one of three things:

1. Send me his prose. At the beginning of the year, when I was setting up my challenges with everyone, I sent Ron the challenge to complete one piece of prose per month. It could be a one-shot, a chapter, a scene, even a section of dialogue. I didn't care how large or small the prose was, I just wanted to see him complete SOMETHING every month. Last I chatted with him, Ron said he was ready to send me something by the end of January, and yet....
2. Send me his challenge. Since I sent him the above challenge, along with a few other writing stipulations to try to help him focus, Ron wanted to send me a year-long challenge in response. According to him, he has one already in mind for me, but it was too long and complex to try to send to me while on his phone. He was supposed to send it to me once he got to a computer, but it's a month later and still no challenge. Probably for the best considering how behind I am on my current challenges.
3. WORK ON PLEASE, LET ME EXPLAIN. Any form of "work." Write more, edit what I sent him, fix the outline, edit the middle section that has been waiting for almost a YEAR to be polished and published. I'd take anything....
   

Apparently, Ron wasn't really focused on writing at all last month; too busy trying to find alternative means of getting money - legally, I feel the need to add. It's a noble alternative to recreational writing, but the way he's going about attempting to get more money....

Knives from the Scott Pilgrim comics

Anyway, as Cy and I were talking, we decided that she would pick up the slack for her household. If Ron wasn't going to write, she would. She discussed how hard it was for her to have the mental energy to put anything down on paper nowadays. So I introduced her to the glories of "No Zero Days." She agreed that this was much more manageable - aside from her "Day of Rest" on Mondays, which are just utter chaos for her - and we decided on the simple challenge of "one sentence a day."

That's it. Just to say it wasn't a "Zero Day" and to help chip the story away a little bit at a time. Even one sentence will slowly get the story written. Much better than no sentences, and the story stays in your head forever. Who knows, these one-sentence-a-day writing briefs may lead to an exciting scene where she ends up spilling 2000 words onto the screen. The point is that she's writing.

Sure, losing 10lbs a week is exciting, but losing 1lb a week will still get you to a healthy weight. Maybe not as fast, but at a pace you can comfortably stick with, and that might lead you to maintaining that weight better than the fast-loser. Writing can be the same way. If you're frantically writing 1700 words a day, like you would during NaNo, you may get that novel done in a month. But who could keep up that pace and crank out a story every other month - one for writing, one for editing? More than likely, that kind of writing would burn you out, have you give up on writing for a while to recharge, and end up only getting one or two stories out a year anyway. So, why not spend the whole year writing that novel - still the NaNo 50,000 words - 137 words at a time? A simple 137 words, that's less than the number that's in this paragraph! Sure, it's a bit more than "one sentence a day", but not by much. And you can stick with this every day easily. End result will be roughly the same as that frantic NaNo-minded writer.

Now, that's not to say that people CAN'T write 2000 words a day. Some even knock out 10,000 words! It's all just a matter of how your brain is wired, and what your life situation is like. A person who sits in their ideal writing location for eight hours straight can most likely write 10,000 words easily. A person who barely has 15 minutes to sit down? Not as easy. Still, writing even that one sentence a day is important. It's telling yourself - and the world around you - that writing is important to you. You're not going to let it slip onto the back burner any longer. You are going to at least give it as much time and effort as you would brushing your teeth every day!

So, I say, if you're a writer as well, and are struggling to find time, even if you can't follow Ali Luke's advice to carve out 15minutes a day, you can follow Cyhyr's challenge and just write one sentence. Go ahead. Prove to yourself that writing is important enough that you won't let another day go by without doing SOMETHING writing related.

And now enough of that.
*Steps off soap box*

Back to my own writing; which I neglected for two days, even after that rousing speech above.

Yesterday I was determined. I took some time at work to go through my files, and organized what I wanted the next X-Future chapter to be. I hid away in my room for a little bit. Later in the day I did so again. I needed to get back on track. I needed more than 500 words. I needed the 1000 that I missed the first two days of the week. It kept me about three hours, off and on, but I did it. I got up to 1600 words. I have no clue how much of that I'll be keeping though.

The next chapter in TSGB is going to be focused on Lia watching footage of her mom's training in the X-Men War Room. It's an impressive room that will be brought up a few more times in the future. Thing is, I think it will only come up once or twice more before I break off for the 2yr time skip. In other words, the majority of the War Room use will be in the NEXT X-Future book I write. Which will also mean redescribing it for people who didn't read TSGB. Still, I wanted to paint the room. Painting the room is what took 1600 words.

I mean, I had Lia do some actions while she walked around the room in a self-guided tour of the sub-sub-basement she had never been in before. It's not ENTIRELY description of a room, but still, 1600 words seems like a LOT. I'll have to see what I can whittle it down to. In the meantime, it's there as establishment.

I can also relax a bit, knowing that I can comfortably go back to my daily writing hour from here on out, and still have my chapter done - in theory; we'll see how long it gets.

I can also relax a bit because I don't have writing group for two weeks, and Phfylburt has officially pulled my weekly challenges from him, at least until I'm done with the Writers’ Huddle challenge. It was a smart move. I thought I could conquer it all - the writing challenge, Phfyl's weekly challenges, and the bi-weekly writing group prompts - with the new daily writing regimen. I should have known better. Should have known that each TSGB chapter would take just about all 3500 words I aim for each week.

I tend to do this though. Spread myself too thin by taking on too much once I'm excited about a project. I mean, I do this ALL. THE. TIME. So, I'm thankful that Phfyl noticed my true ability, and pulled his challenge in the meantime.

Now, to get cracking on the actual, TRUE action of the next TSGB chapter....

Daily Timelines, D&D, and World Building. WHOO!

Well, here I am again! Blog post number three this year already! It may seem a bit much, but I did comment that I had a lot to say after feeling like I missed the last week of December. True, I did post on like the 28th or something, but that was to try to catch up with the week before. To me, I missed a week, and now I caught up with it. Plus, even if this is only technically the second week in 2016, it never hurts to have a head start on that 52 post count. If I slack somewhere later, I'll be covered!

Now, with two blog posts this week so close to each other, I'm sure you're probably thinking that I'm back on the ball with this writing stuff. Eh, you may be right, but at the same time, yesterday was yet another Zero Day for me. I got up, patched up some work pants, went in to work at 9, back out a little after 5, did some quick shopping, had dinner, and then it was off to FINALLY go see "Star Wars: The Force Awakens." I then spent the rest of the night reading through every fantheory, review, and meme that I had been avoiding for hope of dodging spoilers.

Actually, now that I wrote that last paragraph like that - vague play-by-play of how I spent my day - I want to quickly check in on my "read in one day" book. Ali Luke had sent me an advanced copy of her super short e-book "Time to Write", an updated version of her earlier e-book "How to Find Time For Your Writing." It's only about 15 pages long, and kept me less than an hour to read - with me pausing to think about what she was proposing, as well as analyzing the book as a beta reader. Best part? It's a free e-book for anyone who signs up for her blog's newsletter; a helpful email once a week with informative tidbits on writing.

She still has to do a quick touch-up polishing and get a proper cover finished, but otherwise the book is done and will be ready for her newletter recipients soon. I highly recommend it to any writer who is having difficulty either finding time to write, struggling to make writing a priority, or even trying to shut that inner critic up long enough TO write. She has quick 2-page chapters about different reasons why people may struggle with sitting down and writing, as well as a simple exercise to try. When I say simple, I mean it. One exercise is to find 15minutes a day - that's it, you can even use your work breaks or lunches - three times a week. Write during those 15minutes. Then there's another challenge to change up your writing location: find a new one, or get noise-cancelling headphones, or find music to get you in the writing mood/drown out everyone else around you, or use an exercise ball as your chair, etc.

One challenge - which is what lead me to talk about this in the first place - is to jot down the timeline of an average day - or few, if the schedules are drastically different - in order to see where you spend your time, and if you could maybe cut in some writing. Sometimes, you don't realize you have the writing time - even those 15minutes - until you see it on paper.

Here's the example she gave in her book:

Here’s roughly how Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays currently looks for me:

• 5.45am – get up, shower, dressed, breakfast
• 6.30am – get kids up, changed, dressed, breakfasted, ready to go out. Drop Kitty at pre-school and pop to the shops with Nick. Play with Nick for a bit.
• 10am – Kids’ nanny arrives and I head upstairs to work. Brief lunch break around noon.
• 1.25pm – head down to take over from the nanny. Play with kids, normally take them out somewhere, then come home to prepare tea around 4.15pm.
• 4.45pm – teatime
• 5.15pm – Paul takes over on the kids and I have fiction writing time! :D
• 5.45pm – run kids’ bath, pop away any laundry
• 6pm – bathtime, stories, bedtime
• 7pm – cook dinner, eat dinner, and watch a bit of TV or chat to Paul
• 8.30pm – housework and mindless web surfing
• 9.30pm / 10pm – bed

... Pre-kids, my routine looked something like this:

• 7.30am – get up, breakfast, mindless web surfing
• 9am – work, with maybe a trip out to get groceries mid-morning
• 1pm – lunch break with Paul, maybe watching TV
• 2pm – work
• 6pm ish – Dinner (Paul cooked) :D
• 7pm – shower, washing up, TV, board games
• 10pm – mindless web surfing
• 11pm – bed

I have to admit that her pre-kids routine does look very familiar to me. So, I'm going to try to see if maybe I can make my life a bit more structured without kids forcing me to do so. I'll most likely fail miserably, but I can give it a shot.

Right now my schedule is:

• 6:30a - alarm goes off and I hit snooze a million times while snuggling the husband
• 7a - Finally work my way out of bed, groom, and grab a quick breakfast while checking in on Facebook
• 8a - Work
• 2p - This varies from day to day, but the average is that I leave work by 2, possibly get some shopping in, head home, grab lunch
• 4p - Definitely home except for extremely rare days. Usually plopped in the living room with Hubby; Netflix and snuggling while checking in on FB some more.
• 6p - Stomach starts growling; ignore it for another 1/2hr or so, finally cave and grab dinner; I'm generally distracting myself with more Facebook or DeviantArt.
• 7p - Get one or two episodes of CSI:NY in - thanks to Netflix - while having dinner
• 8p - Primetime shows or football. If neither are on/new, it's more Netflix & Snuggle
• 11p - I go "shoot! It's late!" and head to bed
• 11:45p - ACTUALLY make it to bed

As you can see, writing is no longer a general part of my scheduled day. Used to be all those "Netflix and Snuggle" parts - which seems to make up at least half my day - were still productive because I was crocheting gifts. Now that Christmas is over, I need to wean myself back off of the TV and get back to being productive.

For starters, I need to get back to having 4p-5p being my daily writing hour - with the rare exceptions for days like yesterday where I was at work until after 5p. For the most part, 4p-5p is just a time-void where I'm mindlessly watching TV while catching up on Facebook. It's generally after I'm home and able to have some unwind time, but before people would come over or our Primetime shows/football would start - Sunday excluded. Plus, it has a nice hour-long buffer before my bi-weekly writing group meeting, so that I can still make it to the meeting on time without cutting the session short, and I can have the session run a little long without being late to the meeting.

I've also started using the time while I'm home and Hubby's at work; such as now while I'm writing this post, actually. The house is quiet, and I don't have distractions. I do feel a bit unproductive still because I could also use this rare alone time to clean, work on finances, search for a better job, or even exercise. Heck! I could use this equally rare time where I have control of the TV and game systems to start up a game; I haven't played something myself in MONTHS, excluding my handheld games.

Nope. I'm using it for writing. I partially feel bad about it, but it's priority fixing. I can work on finances and job searching and cleaning with Hubby home. I can fight the siren's call of the TV while working on those chores. My writing, however? Even with headphones in, the gleam of the TV calls to me. I have to not have the TV on at all in order to write, and Hubby needs it on as background noise at the very least. We need to work on having a radio or something that we can have on as background noise instead....

Anyway, if Hubby's home, then I have to hide away somewhere. Not a bad option, but that either leaves me with sitting on the floor in the library, or snuggled in bed... which tends to lead to me falling asleep while writing lately.

So, writing while Hubby's at work - at least for an hour or so - and then hiding myself away between 4p and 5p. Seems like good options, we'll see how sternly I stick to them this time. The "Writing Hour" thing did work for a little while. Once Hubby knows the routine he usually shoos me away to make sure I stick with it.

There's still all that extra time though. Again, I really need to have us cut back on all the endless Netflix & Snuggle dates, and be more active/productive. More structured. As I mentioned in my earlier post this week, humans are actually fairly simple, and sometimes you need to revert back to how things were when you were a toddler. And toddlers need structure. They need to know what activity is next, when it will be, that it will be the same pattern daily, and that there's little to no "free time" where boredom or mischief can set in.

Even as adults we need that. Sure, it's out of necessity, but think about your friends, family, or even yourself after becoming a parent. Life HAD to become more structured, and with that, the new parent is surprisingly a lot more productive.

Structure leads to happier, healthier, and more productive lives. Now, to get Hubby on board so he doesn't unintentionally disrupt my new call to order by beckoning me to the couch to snuggle for seven hours straight.

But enough of that! I have been moderately productive with creative stuff, and I had every intention of talking about THAT today.

I'm becoming a Dungeon Master, or DM.

Two of my co-workers, who are planning on joining the X-Future game, are in a small D&D playgroup. The one co-worker asked Hubby to help him design a dungeon labyrinth. Hubby did, and the month it took to build it and come up with the traps in it, and all the discussions the three of us have had on the dungeon has really REALLY brought up my craving to play some D&D myself.

Sprinkle in that Hubby's been playing Skyrim, with is basically D&D the Video Game. The call for me to play this game is strong, and yet I'm sitting in Limbo with it.

For one game, a friend of a friend is supposed to DM, but life got crazy and he hasn't even thought of the campaign yet. All we have are the basic structures of the characters we built for a game that may never happen. Another game had Spink and her fiance asking Hubby to run it. He's still trying to figure out what he wants to do for that game. Then there's Hubby's Game of Thrones inspired game that he started over a year ago, and hasn't really done much with; no inspiration. Finally, there's the game that was sort of impromptu when we went to Mouse and Bear's house one day, but with our car out of commission, who knows when we'll be able to get to their new place and have the campaign continue on.

FOUR. Four games that I COULD be playing, but I am not. I lamented this. Then people suggested that if I wanted to play so badly, why not run a game myself? I have willing players that are waiting for a DM too. I'm a bit hesitant due to my inexperience with the game, but with Hubby as my co-pilot, my gift for storytelling, and four players just as inexperienced with the game as I am, it might work. I just have to remember to start simple and then work up to the heavily complex world that I've been drafting in my head.

Namely, Gyateara. True, I've been building it as a grand setting for multiple High Fantasy novels, but it was always about creating a new D&D realm as well. I want to be able to work my way up to the point that Skyrim and other Open World games are. You are the main character, but in the grand scheme of the world, you're not really important; at least, not at first. Wars are fought around you without you impacting them much one way or another. Raids happen that aren't meant to be random encounters, you may not even get there in time for it to be an encounter at all. Towns are ransacked before you can return to them. NPCs retire to a safer location before you get all the information out of them that you could have. The fortune-telling beggar ends up simply dying of hypothermia before your quest is done. The world keeps spinning with or without you. I LOVE this aspect of the Elder Scrolls games, and I am dying to be a skilled enough DM to be able to run a campaign setting like that one day.

For now though, I have to keep it small and simple as we all learn together. Which means that along with Ali's book, and making my way through "The Throne of Fire", I have also been setting aside some time to read the Dungeon Master's Guide cover to cover - although it specifically states that it's a reference book and isn't expected to be read as such - in order to learn how to do this task.

It's a great way to get my mind going again. Brewing up some plots and story ideas. Get the creative juices flowing. A lot of writers and Hollywood Big Wigs actually used to play D&D for this exact reason. Even if you don't self-identify as a geek or nerd, I do suggest finding a playgroup and joining in on at least a few sessions if you feel stuck. It's a great way to shake off some rust and have you think creatively while on your toes.

I even finished off 2015 with finally creating a map of Gyateara. It's a preliminary one and I already have some notes on how I want to alter it, but it's a start. Sadly, even after avoiding drawing a world map for years out of fear of just recreating Earth, I somehow still managed to do just that. Stupid subconscious having me create something familiar to me.

Anyway, here's the first map of Gyateara, remember, it will change, but I'm not sure by how much:

Please excuse the folds in the map....

I don't have any of these continents named, and I only have the pantheon structure figured out for about 5 of them, and so that's part of the issue that I need to work out. I have been having some fun with it though.

The equivalent to Europe will have a Greco-Roman pantheon; much like the original pantheon designed for D&D. The island grouping along the top of the page is made up of a pantheon of four goddesses, maybe one or two minor gods as well, and is structured pretty much identically to that of the Legend of Zelda games. It's also an off-shoot of the Greco-Roman pantheon.

I was wondering if the basic structure of Norse mythology is unique enough for a pantheon stylized off of it to be at all different from a Greco-Roman one, or even a war-driven one such as the Aztecs. So, I'm still debating having one of the continent pantheons be stylized Norse.

There will be an Asian-inspired continent with 12 gods, much like the Chinese zodiac. I was also debating having Japanese culture - since it is so distinct and even separate from the rest of Asia - as its own pantheon. I'd focus on the yokai, or even one centralized god - Budda-equivalent - with the yokai as his servants that helped him in the Divine War and in building his continent.

One of the smaller continents will have a pantheon inspired by the Native American beliefs and lore. One of the other island groupings will possibly be an off-shoot using other native beliefs such as the Mayans, Incas, Aztecs, Inuits, and Native Hawaiians. Since these beliefs can be drastically different from each other - Aztecs and Mayans, for one - I may reserve these smaller, more centralized beliefs for the different island groupings in order to have enough pantheon diversities for all of the continents.

The Africa-inspired continent will have a combination of an Egyptian-stylized pantheon, as well as one focused more on the tribal beliefs of the jungle sections of Africa. Namely, a pantheon made of people with animal features and a structured hierarchy. Then there will be one focused on anthropomorphed animals such as Anansi the Spider.

I'm thinking that continent in the center that looks like Africa and has a second continent attached to it might work. The one side will be "Egyptian" inspired, where the gods are all half-animal people, and the other side will be "tribal" inspired, and the gods will all be humanoid animals. The gods will create beings in their image; tweaking the agreed upon human structure that is seen across the entire globe.

The "Egyptian" gods will create creatures such as centaurs, lamia, merfolk, harpies, D&D Driders - also known as an Arachne, and to a lesser extent - mainly because they're so important to Egyptian lore - the sphinx. Whereas the "Tribal" gods will create creatures such as kobolds, gnolls, kuo-toa, catfolk - in all their variety - and minotaurs, which I define as humanoid bulls instead of half-bull half-human. Although, I guess you can make the same argument for harpies... maybe it's because minotaurs have the animal head and harpies have a human one?

Like I said, I've been having fun with this.

So, I guess I'll have to see what other inspiration learning how to DM and watching Hubby play Skyrim will bring. I'll be sure to keep you posted.


**EDITING NOTE: Soooo, um, it was brought to my attention that the term "Netflix and Chill" is not as innocent as I had thought.... I have since gone back and changed all of them to the "Netflix and Snuggle" that Hubby and I actually do...**

MasterClass Week 3: Writers Block, Character Build, and First Lines

Wow, so, in the process of having to get up at 5am two Wednesdays in a row in order to get my blog written for the noon update, I completely blew past the fact that two weeks ago marked my 200th post! Go me!

I never realized what this blog would mean to me and how it would evolve when I first started it YEARS ago. It was going to be something where I simply would post "yeah, I was busy, I know you've been waiting for a while for my next chapter update. I'm such-and-such far along, so maybe by next week". Instead, these are insanely long posts all explaining my writing journey. Might be something fun to go back through and edit into a writing memoir once I'm famous.

Right now, though, I'm just so involved in what I'm doing that I just don't have the time to do any sort of "look through the years" recap like I did for the 100th post or for my year-in-review posts. Maybe I'll do that again at the end of December, but right now I'm just excited to keep telling you fine folks about my MasterClass program!

I was kind of disappointed in myself because I kept skipping out on my scheduled writing time last week. I would avoid writing - while still telling myself that I was being productive - by doing the "researching" portion of last week's assignments. Mostly I was going through Rick Riordan's works to see what myths of Artemis he established.

I also searched to see what country was most in power among the Western Civilization back in the 1600s. See, according to Riordan's world, the celestial portion of Mount Olympus - the portion that actually houses the Greek gods - shifts to be at the center of Western Civilization. So, it moved to Rome when the Romans came to power, and then shifted west again as Europe developed, ending up above NYC when the United Stated became a World Super Power. Since my female protagonist - the huntress of Artemis - was born about 1672, I wanted to know who was the center of civilization back then, so I would have a better idea of where Olympus would be stationed, and where Artemis would be most likely found. Granted, she could still hunt throughout the world, and the protagonist could be from Japan if I wanted. Still, I wanted Olympus to be "close to home" for her. I discovered that Spain was pretty big in the 1600s, but was on the decline around when she would be born. Later in the week I finally got some writing time with Spink, and she somehow came up with Switzerland becoming the new Super Power around 1670. So we spent nearly an hour going through Swedish names to find one that was around in that era. We're not entirely sure that it really was around - or popular - back then, but for the purposes of the class, it works. I'm also not sure I want her to be Swedish; I sort of already started picturing her as Spanish after my find. Maybe that's Lia's influence.

Anyway, the protagonist huntress of Artemis is now named Pernilla. YAY! A name! Still need to name her boyfriend, but I haven't even figured out what ethnicity I want him to be, and that might influence his name. Alternatively, he's 17 in my story, and so I can just check to see some of the most popular boy names in the United States in 1998. Name him off of that.

I also still need to figure out the gods that are each of their parents. Being a follower of Artemis, Pernilla would either be a demigod or some sort of mythical creature herself, such as a nymph. I like the idea of Pernilla being at least part human, and so demigod it is. I need to figure out if her parent is a major or minor god, and who it is. From there I could then figure out if her human parent was her mom or dad. I then have to figure out the same for the male protagonist. I don't think their godly parents are going to have much impact in the story, but it might bring something about their character, or impact some of the scenes throughout the tale. At the very least, their parentage influences the supernatural abilities they possess, which would influence their fighting and the journey.

To bring this back to the week's timeline, I was spending most of my daily writing hours researching this sort of stuff. Productive, but not what the hour should be used for, in my opinion. I needed to get back to writing prose. THAT was what the hour was supposed to be for. I kept postponing the second assignment - the one I SHOULD have been doing each daily writing hour - because I hadn't told Spink my idea yet. The last assignment from week one was to tell a brutally honest friend a story idea and see if they think it's worth writing. While I was pretty on board with the Huntress of Artemis tale, I didn't send the 5 - or, rather, 11 - sentence synopsis to see if she found it interesting. She just lives five minutes down the road! So I kept thinking "I'll meet up with her tomorrow and we can go over it."

Yet when "tomorrow" arrived there was always something keeping us from getting together. Finally, it was Friday and becoming "crunch time". So I asked her if I could meet up for some Writing Talk while her fiance was at work and Hubby was off playing in a MTG tournament. Sadly, even THEN I didn't manage to relay my story over. As soon as I mentioned that none of my original characters had names yet, she asked me why and then went off on her own research. I appreciate the help, and she was the one who picked out Pernilla, but she was so fixated on the characters needing names - and then focus shifted to their parentage, but we didn't get as far with that task - that she derailed me whenever I tried to talk more about the actual story plot.

Eventually I gave up. I was determined to get these assignments done before I watched the next set of videos, and it was 1:30am on Sunday morning. I was up anyway with my normal Sunday Insomnia - added to by massive back pain and some nausea - and so I decided it was time to tackle the outline problem.

Before I knew it, it was 7am and I had TEN PAGES of outline; roughly 24 plotted out chapters. The originally perceived climatic battle with Artemis is actually around chapter 14.... so, a little more than half-way. I'm not sure how I feel about that since it now sort of feels like two books merging together as one, but at the same time, the end of the battle with Artemis doesn't seem like a good stopping point.

I dropped the outline in the critique section of Writers’ Huddle last night. We'll see what some of the fellow Huddlers think of the story outline. In the meantime, I'm off to this week's list of assignments.

From the "Writer's Block" class, my assignment is to figure out the best way for me to concentrate and focus on my writing. To do this, I'm supposed to set an alarm for half-hour and just write about my day so far. Of course, being the insanely detail-oriented writer that I am - and because I somehow thought I'd run out of things to talk about before the 30min was up - I wrote down EVERYTHING I could remember. In that 30min writing sprint I only managed to talk about the first four hours of my day! And I did this exercise at 6pm! Whoops. Guess that explains why writing diaries always failed for me. I had four journal attempts over my lifetime; my most recent one being a journal to keep track of my wedding planning. I only ever got a couple months in before it was too cumbersome to keep up with, and I'd drop the project. Shame. So many journals wasted and so much of my life lost to my horrible memory.

BACK ON TOPIC!

In that half-hour writing session I managed a little more than 1400 words and almost two full pages. Honestly, considering that it took so little effort to figure out what to write - same with this blog - I have no clue if those are good stats. I'm thinking "no", but it explains why it takes me HOURS to write this blog.

Also, is it weird that it was hard for me to NOT save all that work? I mean, what would I need it for? It would just take up space on my computer. It's not like I'd really want to bring it up and reread it. Especially since I wasn't even half-way through my day when I stopped. It's just, not saving it feels like a waste of effort. I spent a half-hour typing all of that up, and no one else will ever see it? Yes, it was for practice, and so it was worth something, but it was still almost painful to click "discard" when I closed out the file.

So it will be interesting to have to go through that again later today when I again have to spend a half-hour writing about my day and then not save any of that work. See, the full assignment is to write about our day because it wouldn't really take too much focus to do. That way most of our concentration is on what BREAKS it. At the end of the 30mins, we were supposed to write down what distracted us, so we can attempt to avoid it in the future.

Since I already pretty much know what distracts me - the TV and my friends talking around me because I want to be part of the conversation - it was fairly easy going. Granted, other things that distract me are Facebook when I haven't been on it for hours, and simple research becoming hour-long-involved-read-every-Wiki-page-available research, and going back through my writings to try to find one specific thing, but it results in me rereading the whole thing. None of those distractions were an issue because of the short time span and the lack of researching necessity.

What DID distract me was pain. My job isn't the best environment for my back - although it's improved a little now that I'm in a new department - and I don't have very supportive furniture. Sprinkle in that I was on said furniture pretty much all of Sunday - Yay, Football! - and you can probably see why I now have the spine of an 80-yr-old woman.

So, I'm laid up in bed since the foam mattress topper is pretty much the only form of support we have in the entire apartment. Even so, my lower back would spasm, my hands would lock up, and my legs would stiffen from being extended straight out most of the writing time. Having a mostly quiet apartment also means that the new upstairs neighbors moving in was pretty distracting. I've also been a buffet for bugs this summer no matter what I do. So, random itch attacks threw me every few minutes. The final distraction for me was that I was listening to music off of YouTube and was thrown by a commercial before nearly every video. Kind of jarring, especially when the music itself did such a great job at being background noise. I could attempt to stream radio instead, but it will have the same issue with commercials. I guess I'm either sticking with Noisli or popping on the iPod. My only issue with the iPod is that we're cheap and haven't bought any new music for it in years. So the music isn't what I'm feeling when I write. Oh well, better than commercial interruptions, I guess.

I can't really do to much with the pain and itch thing, but we'll see if I can weed out my other distractions for part two of this assignment tonight.

For me, I think the interesting assignment will be the second one presented for this week. Character building. Fantastic, because I know virtually nothing about my main characters. We're supposed to come up with 20 character traits, and then cross out 17 of them to see if the final three traits are still compelling for the character. Narrowing it down to the Top Three - as it were - will be tricky. We'll see how that goes, and I'll be sure to post the results here next week.

My final assignment for the week is to write five first lines for a book. Now, I guess this could either be interpreted as "Five individual and independent first lines as if writing five different books" or "Five sentences that make up the opening paragraph of a story". I personally read it as the first interpretation - as did the two males whose work is showcased in the workbook as examples - but the two females that were showcased in the workbook interpreted it as the paragraph. I find it interesting that the difference in interpretation is seemingly gender-based. I'm not sure if I'd be the exception, because I've always had more of a masculine mindset. Yay, androgyny!

Anyway, I'll have to check out Patterson's critiques on the opening lines and see if he says one way or the other how the assignment SHOULD be interpreted. I may try the assignment with both interpretations though. Mostly because I feel the men interpreted it correctly - especially because the Patterson examples posted above the assignment are all literally just the opening sentence of his books - however, then the assignment devolves into simply "come up with interesting sentences"; I mean, you don't necessarily need to go anywhere with them, you just need it interesting enough for someone to want more of the story.

For example, Hubby suggested that one of my opening lines should just be: "Boom". That should grab a reader's attention. Was that a large footstep? Was it a minor explosion in chemistry class? Was it a building being demolished? Was it a landmine going off in a war zone? Stupidly simple to come up with interesting sentences, even if they don't need to go anywhere. For instance, who isn't confused and intrigued by this next sentence? "The magical pepperoni mobile that was fueled by mozzarella sticks was surprisingly roomy."

I mean, I do NOT have a story to go with that, but it does tickle some fancies. Is the story in a magical realm? Is this just a random bit of magic in the real world? Is it a dream sequence? Is the narrator on the set of a movie or children's show and the "magical" pepperoni mobile is just a prop?

Anyway, so the assignment seems stupidly easy if you interpret it as simply "five opening sentences independent from each other". So, even though I think it's a misinterpretation of the assignment, I might follow the women's lead and write a five-sentence opening paragraph too; see where that takes me.

Probably to Frustration Town. Starting stories is always so hard. Knowing to how to write that hook. But, if it were easy, Patterson wouldn't have to spend 14minutes on it in one of his video classes.

So, those are my assignments. I'll be sure to share the results next week. Along with the DeviantArt link to X-Future: The Second Generation Begins.

Yup, forgot again. Sort of. I DID manage to remember to post the chapter "Bro-Bonding" on DeviantArt, but it kept so long to format it that I ran out of time to do the same for "You're In Trouble, Son!" I then completely forgot until JUST NOW that I didn't go back and post that second chapter. Derp.

Well, at least I have the one up. So, for anyone who was waiting for the chapter on DeviantArt, here you are: Bro-Bonding

Alright, well, I need to start getting ready for work now. I also might have to rethink my weekly updating day if I'm now on every Wednesday morning. Probably won't switch it back to Sundays since those are still pretty crazy, but I'll keep you posted on that too.