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.

Tedious Actions, Mangas, and a New Writing Site

The summer challenge over at Writers’ Huddle is done, and we're about half-way through week 2 of the Struggling Writers Society's August Writing Challenge. I have to admit, I got a bit lost this week.

I'm trying to get back to working on X-Future: The Second Generation Begins for this month's challenge. I abandoned the project nearly two years ago, and I really need to start closing up projects.

Granted, considering the fact that I'm something like 8-chapters long already and still haven't finished adapting the first week of role play, this project will take YEARS before it's "closed". However, I can at least work towards that first time jump that Hubby created when the game starting to die down around the holidays. Consider that "volume one" or whatever. Then I can close out some other projects. Eventually I can work my way back to the board and create both the Devon spin-off - following him on his journey - as well as work on "volume two". Basically, writing up until the three-month time skip. I can again take a break, return, and do the next portion that leads up to the summer break time skip.

The whole process will still take me years, I'm sure, but maybe with a little bit of discipline, I can get this accomplished in a year or two. By then I'll either have more material to work with, or - as it seems to be going these days; sadly - the board will be dead, and I'll be completely caught up.

Of course, I'll still be working on my comic reboot throughout this whole process, but it's still nice to have a plan mapped out. Perhaps I'll even have some more material to add more chapters to X-Future: Snippets. I mean, with getting back into character to rework all of this role playing into prose, I may start really hearing The Girls in my head again. Stories might unfold. It would be nice to write prose again. I haven't done so in months.

It's getting to the point where I'm a bit envious of a couple of participants in the SWS writing challenge. Mouse posted on Facebook last Thursday: "I'm about 17,000 words in..." She also added on Monday: "Another chapter drafted! Woooo!" So. Much. Progress.

Then, even with play practices and whatnot, you have stupidly disciplined Cyhyr. When doing our weekly check-in on Saturday, she was "up to 19,698 words and [has] a general idea of the next few scenes."

I am so proud of these girls, and everyone else who's participating in the challenge, but at the same time, I'm so darn envious of them! So much work accomplished! And in such a short span too. I'm curious if I'm ever going to be able to accomplish that.

Granted, the project I gave myself does take a LOT of prep-work before I can actually get around to writing, so it's partially my own fault. Still, the tediousness is so overwhelming that I found myself BALANCING OUR FINANCES the past two days during the minimal amount of hours I had outside work. That's right. I would rather figure out finances and set up a budget than work on this project....

Not including the section for the Brotherhood role plays, there are 161 - that's ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY ONE - different topics in the X-Future board. Each topic is a different room or mission or off-campus excursion or character diary or "general world information" post, etc. MOST of these posts were started months, even years, after the part of the story I'm currently working on. So, I can weed out these topics as threads I don't need to re-read quite yet. The trick is weeding through them all to see which topics I DO need to go back through.

To try to help with that, I started up a spreadsheet listing the threads, the direct link for each of them, what date they were created on, and which topic folder to find them in. So far, I'm not even half-way through the full list of topic folders, and I'm already up to about 60 threads. Whoot! Only 100 more to sift through.

Trying to list all the topics would be a great help to myself later down the road, but it's currently taking far too long for my current challenge. So I decided to go back to my original way of sifting through everything. Namely, look up Hubby's account and select "all posts from this month". I then select "June 2012" and scroll to the date I want. It's convoluted, but it works. Mainly because Hubby was involved - either with his character Chayse, or as the narrator - in nearly every role play at the very beginning of the game. I then bring up my posts as Lia for any role playing that Hubby wasn't involved in, and finally I bring up any posts that celestialTyrant had as Nix.

We were the Main Three posters at the start of the game, and so anything that was going on at the time typically had at least one of us three involved somehow. Once I gather up everything that the three of us role played in, I then go back through thread by thread, and double check that there weren't any additional role plays in that time frame. For instance, Phfylburt might have had a solo-play with his character Lucas Kinney.

THAT is the most time-consuming. Going back through, thread by thread, and checking "was this thread started on/before June 23, 2012?" If it wasn't, I can quickly forget about it since any role play in it was obviously done after the section I'm currently adapting. If it was started on or before the date I'm currently working on, then I have to read through and see if there's anything there I need to grab. The real fun ones are when it's something like Willow's bedroom - both pre-time-skip when she was bunking with Penumbra, and post-time-skip when she was bunking with Lia - where there's about 20pages worth of role playing, and I have to try to guess where the "June 23rd" role playing can be found.

Tiring work. Boring work. Tedious work. I really need to get that spreadsheet finished so it's a bit faster for me to get through the "planning" stage of these chapters. Man, it would be so much easier if I could just type in a search bar on the forum "All posts from [insert date here]". Save me the trouble of trying to find them all manually.

I wish I knew where this came from/the artist.
I use this "sigh" graphic all the time. It just works perfectly.
If you know the source, please let me know in the comments.

AAAAAAAANYWAY.

So, I go through the whole board. I gather up all of the role play posts from a specific date. THEN I have to organize them. Sure, it's easy to go through from start to finish on one role play session, but what about the ones that are happening on different threads? I have to use the time stamps to figure out which posts happened when, and if they occurred at the same time, I have to decide - narratively - if it's worth breaking up one role play to insert the other so the times line up. Do I break up this action by bringing in this other one, and then bounce back to the first? Do I write out the entire first session and then comment that across campus at the same time this other action was going on? Do I take some creative liberty and say that the shorter of the two sessions happened after the first, instead of at the same time?

Then comes one of the most frustrating portions of translating the role play into prose. The actual timeline of the story. We were testing the waters when we first started. We weren't sure about formatting or how to state what time we were picturing while writing. We didn't even have a way to state which DATE we were on. So we have two different characters interacting with each other on two different days; seemingly.

For instance, Lia goes off and has a heart-to-heart with her dad after her first date with Chayse. Right after Jamie leaves her, Lia watches the footage from the Danger Room session that put Chayse in the infirmary in the first place. Shocked by what she saw, Lia rushes from the room in order to find Chayse. So, based on how I role played Lia, this is MAYBE about 3pm the day after her first date.

MEANWHILE, right after getting in from his date with Lia, Hubby had Chayse chat with Nix, and then head out to the campus pond to showcase a new trick he learned while in the DR session Lia ended up watching. So, in my head, I'm picturing Chayse showing off his new "trick" to Nix about the same time - maybe a little earlier - as Lia and Jamie's talk. Then Chayse heads inside to grab food and change, only to see a note on his door telling him his parents wish to see him. At this point, Chayse is probably talking with his parents about the same time that Lia is either chatting with her own father, or is already watching the footage of Chayse's DR session.

Now, here's the trick, after having Chayse talk to his parents, Hubby stepped away from role playing for a few hours while the rest of us finished up stuff: me having Lia watch the footage; Nix and Annika finish role playing their date, etc. So, when he came back to role play as Chayse again, it's heavily implied that it's the next day, and Gambit is knocking on Chayse's door to remind the kid that he has a tournament to get to. Chayse races out the door and is gone for a few hours - more like half a day, probably - before returning home a champion. Lia - who was racing to see Chayse after watching the footage - meets up with Chayse right as he returns home. He's established as still wearing his martial arts gi and holding his latest medal. Lia even comments on both. In fact, most of the conversation revolves around Lia's discovery that Chayse does martial arts, and is super good at it. So, I can't really IGNORE that she finds him after his tournament. However, Lia - the way I wrote it - is still on the day after their date. Where as, Hubby strongly implied that Chayse's tournament was two days after the date; one day after showing his new power discovery to Nix.

It's going to be fun to try to figure out THAT timeline. And most of the role playing for the first few months is like that. Oh, the joys....

It's no wonder I abandoned this project nearly two years ago....

Another distraction - aside from work and figuring out finances; as I already stated - was that I'm rereading a manga series.

I don't even really recall when I started it - around 2005, I think - or who introduced me to the series - because I rarely just go "hmm, this one looks good" - but around a decade ago I got into the manga series "Fruits Basket." For one reason or another, volume 21, out of the 23-book series, was NEVER available for me. I tried multiple times for months on end to find this "elusive" book; purchasing the final two volumes when I found them so they wouldn't "disappear" on me too.

After about a year of searching with no success, I ended up forgetting about the incomplete series - mainly because I didn't have the disposable income to buy it any longer. So, I read up to volume 20, and volumes 22 and 23 remained untouched. Fast forward until this past Friday, when I realized that one of my friends had a lonely volume of "Fruits Basket" on her bookshelf. Her fiance's sister had left him a random assortment of mangas, and this ONE book from late in the series was one of the hodge-podge. Lo, and behold! It was "elusive" Volume 21!

Well, since it was silly for her to have just the ONE book, and since neither of them bothered even reading it since it was so late in the series, it was gifted to me so I could complete my collection!

NEATO!!!!!

I tried just re-reading Volume 20 to remind myself what happened before tearing through the last three volumes of the series. Except, I didn't recall ANYTHING from that book! I know I read it, but the whole thing seemed new to me. So, I backtracked again and read Volume 19, only to realize I still couldn't recall some of the things they were referencing. I kept backtracking like that until I got to Volume 16.

Oh. I remember this one! I've read it about five times already. My favorite book in the whole series so far; mostly because about half of it is the love story between the main character Tohru's parents. You had references throughout the series about how madly in love they were, and how opposite they seemed to be, personality wise. However, Volume 16 gave you the whole story. There's even a panel in that book - just one panel - that makes me sob EVERY. FRIGGEN. TIME.

Vol 16; Chap 92; Vol pg 91/chp pg 19
Every. Friggen. Time!
I think it's because I think of Hubby holding
our future child, and it melts me.
Or it's just because of the Father/Daughter thing.

*sniffle*
Anyway....

Point is; I CLEARLY recall Volume 16, parts of Volume 17, and nearly nothing after that. Sooooo, I've been rereading these books so I can FINALLY finish the series. On the one hand, it's a bummer because it means I'm NOT writing. On the other hand, I wanted to read a book a month throughout 2015, and I've only read one book; back in February! So, it's nice to be reading again. However, I think I'll consider reading Volumes 17 through 23 "one book" in regards to my reading goal; since graphic novels - by their nature - are easier and faster to read.

One last thing of note for the week.

Last night I randomly received a message on my FictionPress account. I was informed of a fantasy-themed free writing competition, and a strong encouragement to participate. Now, part of me is thinking that it's probably some sort of spam; this info was sent to anyone on FictionPress that has a submission in the Fantasy genre. However, another part of me kinda likes thinking that this person did read my work, and honestly thinks I'd do well in the contest.

Either way, I noticed the email this morning, and so I have yet to look up the contest; I'll do that once I'm done here. I also haven't had a terribly good look at the site the contest is being held on, but it looks very promising.

It's called Inkitt. From what I can gather, it's basically a more professional version of FictionPress. Anyone can submit their original writing there for free; so it seems, again, I haven't had time to really look to see if there's fees. Then, the group that runs the site has editors read the work to make sure it's publishable; is the grammar and spelling correct, no typos, formatting correct, no "author's notes" to bog the reading down, etc. I don't think work is ever rejected based on the quality of the writing/story, just on the actual grasp of the English language. Sort of like how a teacher won't grade your paper based on how much she enjoyed the story, just on whether or not the basics are done correctly.

Point being, that anyone can post there, but those who go to read the stories don't have to weed through ones that aren't properly polished first. Like I said, a more professional version of FictionPress.

Speaking of readers, apparently there's also a way for the site to custom-pick stories that you would like. I'll have to play around with that too in order to figure out that feature, and then get back to you folks next week.

Have any of you used Inkitt before? Either as readers or authors? Feel free to let us know more about it, as well as how you liked using it, in the comments. In the meantime, I'm off to play with a new site.

Legos and Anime Don't Really Help with Writing

Sorry about the late post. This week has been super screwy for some reason. I keep thinking today is Friday. Yesterday I was bouncing back and forth between thinking it was Wednesday and Thursday. Monday felt like Thursday as well. I thought Sunday was Saturday. At the beginning of the week it felt like the end of a long week.... it was just draining and kooky all week long. I'm so disoriented. It didn't even occur to me until just now that - had this been two years ago - I'd just be finishing up my last page push for Script Frenzy. I'd also most likely be no where close to the 100pgs in 30days goal of the event.

Anyway, my off-balance probably isn't being helped by the fact that it's dreary out yet again. April showers bring May flowers and all that junk. I sure and heck hope that means nice weather starting tomorrow!

Hubby and I have more-or-less spent the past week binge-watching Sword Art Online and My Bride is a Mermaid. SAO is filled with so many "feels" while MBiaM is more "OMG, WHAT ARE WE WATCHING" fluff. Nice contrast.

When we're not watching Netflix we're getting lost in the semi-open world of the new game Hubby bought with a gift card he won at work: Lego Marvel Superheroes. Just when I didn't think I could love Lego any more, I start playing these games. I actually finished off Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap about two weeks ago and have been periodically playing Lego Batman ever since. These games are just so goofy, I love them! You have the main missions, and then you can replay the missions while being able to switch through your unlocked characters in order to find more goodies. You can also go through Lego Batman as the villains for a second set of Story and Free Play modes, while in Marvel you can just run around NYC in an open-world format. Hubby and I spend HOURS just running around Manhattan gathering Lego Studs - the currency of the games - and doing side quests.

In fact, that's one of the reasons this is being posted so late.

I was working on a solo-play for Trish since I haven't done anything with her since January. I wrote a quick little blip recapping her recovery after getting banged up in the obstacle course. I then wanted to start up a new location in the Brotherhood section of the board, but I needed to do some quick research for the description of the area. Naturally, this "quick research" lead me to be sidetracked for about 30min. I posted the new location and then was about to role play in it as Trish when my mind went blank. I needed some inspiration, and so I thought "I'll run around NYC as Pyro in order to get inspired for Trish."

Well.... I ended up doing sidequests for three hours before realizing it! Still no inspiration either, awesome. So now I'll have to bring the notebook with me to work and see if I can get my mind to focus while I'm on break.

That's the other thing as of late. My job is becoming more and more stressful. We've had a LOT of people leave work lately. Some retired. Others got better-paying jobs. A couple left for medical/family reasons. One was even fired. Or she quit. We're not quite sure which came first; it was kind of at the same time.

Anyway, this means we're on a skeleton crew at the start of our busy season. I have to run around like a chicken with my head cut off all the time. Add in the lack of diversity when it comes to co-worker options, and we're all getting on each others' nerves at this point. The place is a powder keg!

So when I go on break I haven't been writing for the past month. I just can't focus on anything writing wise. It used to be that writing was a great stress reliever, and then I downgraded to simple puzzles like Sudoku or Word Finds that don't require too much thinking on my part. Right now I'm so stressed that I just spend the fifteen minutes turning my brain off. I slowly eat and drink as I lazily read the promotions work uses as the screensavers for the computers, or I'll read the labels on my food/drink, or I'll actually just color something.

Complete brain shut off.

Not the most desirable thing when you're trying to avoid Zero Days.

I go in to work, I zone out on my break instead of writing ANYTHING, and I finish my shift. I then come home, veg to decompress, and end up spending the entire day on the couch watching anime or playing a video game before I realize where the time went.

Hubby and I nearly forgot about dinner at least twice this week already. Twice! Out of three nights already this week! We are in such desperate need for vacations. I hope my need to just turn off the brain doesn't keep me from being productive my two days off tomorrow and Friday.

Aside from cleaning - perpetually - I want some productivity to be centered around writing. I took a step up from last week. I didn't have a week of zero-days again, but at the same time I didn't really do much more than a few posts on the forum. I'm hoping forcing myself to work out this Trish solo-play is another step in to getting in to my writing rhythm again.

We're also supposed to be getting new hires at work, and so I'm hoping this will help destress that environment too. The first new hire starts tonight, so we'll see how that works.

I've also started thinking about converting X-Future in to an original work some more this week; world building that concept. I'm still struggling with a generic term besides "mutants" since everything I come up with either seems to elevate them or has a demeaning connotation. Maybe I should just use both and that way you can determine the "haters" from the "allies" by how they refer to the mutants. I don't know.

Its stuff like this I'd like to talk over with the writing group, but that all but fizzled out. Omnibladestrike is unmotivated to write. Ronoxym is still MIA aside from one comment on celestialTyrant's status before ghosting again. Finally, Cyhyr is uber introverted and was having difficulty letting others in to her writing process. It seemed to be hindering her more than helping. Ironically though, just before I was going to disband the FB group that Omni started up and officially declaring our group dead, Cy posted a discussion topic. Last I checked I was the only one who responded to her, but it does give me hope. The writing group may not be a good idea for us right now, but perhaps in a few years we'll all be at the right mind set for it to work. In the meantime, we can slowly post helpful tidbits on the group page to keep the concept from dying completely.

So, in the meantime I still have Hubby as a sounding board. Once I have either glasses or my friggen laptop back I can hit up WH frequently again. Perhaps that can help. Now, to just get myself in the mindset to WRITE in the first place.

Until next time - which will hopefully be more productive and on time.

Yup, It's Procrastination Time Again

So this week went by so fast I nearly forgot today was Sunday - and thus forgotten the blog update.

It's been a crazy week for RPGing and not so crazy for writing. So sorry about that. And sorry that it looks like my earlier prediction of having the chapter up this month isn't going to happen.

I still have my wedding thank you notes to write and my Operation Ruthless video to edit.

This Week's Procrastination List:

• Finished the cover picture for my main Facebook account's timeline. Thankfully my Lyco Rogue account doesn't have Timeline yet, so I still have some time to figure out what I want to do for that.... Maybe something as simple as a promo for this blog....

Anyway, here's the picture. 

Isn't Toothless adorable!? It was a pain in the butt to pixelize him, but he's adorable, no?

Also, the drawing was based on this one by Hirukio

And by "based" I of course mean "blatant rip-off".

• Hubby and I finished watching all five seasons of The Guild. Which sparked two things in me:
1. I want to make my own web series based on the chaos revolving around me and my friends! Buuuuuut, I don't want a "blatant rip-off" of The Guild.... so.... yeah
2. I AM SUPER DUPER MADLY IN TO MMOs AGAIN!!!!!!
Which means I'm once again addicted to a free "baby" MMO called Fiesta Online! Hubby and I got in to the game right around July 4, 2006 or 2007. We played a little more frequently than "casual gamers" but we weren't quite obsessed with the game either... For one reason or another, we stopped playing the beginning of 2009. BUT NOW WE'RE BACK! Whoot! If you have an account - or would like to start one - on the Teva server, just leave a comment below and I'll track you down and we can party together! YAYZ!
• Wednesday and Thursday - rare occasions where Hubby and I have the whole day together - we finally attacked the Back Room - where we've been storing everything we didn't trust in the garage - and slowly worked on turning it in to The Library! It's nearly done! SOOOOO MANY BOOOOOOOKS! Now, to figure out where to put the "non-book" stuff that was back there - like VHS tapes, the inflatable mattress for sleepovers, and a bunch of throw-pillows that we can't put on our couch since it's a rocker/recliner loveseat and the pillows just get in the way...
• Friday we once again played D&D!
• Sis-in-Law turned THIRTY!!!!! The big 3-0. Which means I have roughly 2 years to plan a party for Hubby.... *sigh*
• Work has been KILLER with all the nice weather lately! Stupid working at a grocery store....
• After work-craziness, I wind down with either some Fiesta or another game I recently started re-playing: Leisure Suit Larry. Because I am a perverted woman who likes to play super-cheesy dating sims where the lead is a complete loser but still thinks himself a Ladies Man. Ya know, I'm actually surprised The Big Bang Theory never made an online dating sim starring Howard Wolowitz. Now that he's married off I guess we'll never get one... La Sigh.
• Sporadically throughout the week I HAVE been working on Thank Yous! We JUST got the wedding thank you from my sister-in-law and her wedding was the August before ours, so we have about a month-and-a-half to keep on par with her....

In writing news, I finally got back in to beta-reading. CartoonLover16 sent me a rough draft of his second chapter. He's still working on it on his end, and I'm slowly reading it on mine. With everything else going on this week the only time I have to read his story is during my half-hour lunch breaks. It's a slow process, but I'm about 1/2 way through his chapter. YAY!

Speaking of YAY and Writing.... I got an AMAZING surprise this Monday!

Any repeat readers, as well as those I beta-read for, can tell you that I pretty much SWEAR by the knowledge of Ali Luke at Aliventures.com. Well, last weekend - after talking to Mekonraiba at D&D - I went on a reading spree over at Aliventures.com. I was trying to find anything and everything I could to revive his writing spirit. While there, I made multiple comments on archived posts. 

Now, normally Ali is AMAZINGLY NINJA QUICK when it comes to responding to comments - and I try to do the same here - but she didn't respond all weekend. I didn't really think too much of it. She's busy with her novel's online book tour, the posts were in the archives, and it was Mother's Day weekend.

Then Monday comes around and I find the following email:

"First, thanks so much for the comments.... Also, would you like a free copy of my novel Lycopolis? I think it'd be your kinda thing. I'm looking to get a few more reviews on Amazon, but there'd be no obligation whatsoever to review it unless you felt like it....And if you're happy for me to sign it, lemme know what name you want it signed to (if that makes sense) :)
Cheers,
Ali"

OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG, OMG!!!!
A free, autographed copy of a novel written by a woman I consider my mentor!? I'm not sure if it's because of the frequency that I comment on her blog, or the fact that I'm constantly telling her that I use her posts to help those I beta-read for, or if it's because I openly admit to being as much of a RPG nerd as she is, or if it's simply because she knows me as LYCO rogue... but whatever her reasoning, I am beyond excited!

So, be warned, people... there may be less of my own writing, and perhaps a review here once I get my hands on Lycopolis. If you are interested, Ali has a link for you to download the first five chapters for free.

Also, don't forget to check out the blog itself!

OH! And by NO MEANS am I trying to exploit Ali's kindness by telling you guys about it, so please, PLEASE don't try to con her out of free copies of her book!

I mean, I trust you guys, but I felt the need to stress the above point.

Anyway, that is all for me this week. Now to get ready for another killer day at work... friggen nice weather...

Script Frenzy Fail Diary

Those who have read my blog posts from last April know what I like to do while participating in Script Frenzy: document the day-to-day of the event. So I took a ten minute time-out each day to quickly write a blip about my journey. Join me on my trip towards failing Script Frenzy... *sigh*

APRIL 1ST - A Sunday, therefore it was spent sleeping. I attempted to finish Character Creation for the D&D game I talked about; that way I would be all set for the next game session. However, every time I went to read the books for research I passed out.

APRIL 2ND - Hubby and my 6month anniversary! It was also Monday which means Cyhyr and her boyfriend were visiting for game night. With massive cleaning still needing to be done on top of everything... yeah.... no writing done again. FUDGE!

APRIL 3RD - Failing continued when it came to Script Frenzy. I opened Celtx and saved the file. Does that count? However, I DID spend about two hours working on my latest chapter. Granted, it was mostly spent editing and re-writing portions I already wrote and sent to ChibiSunnie for beta-ing, but it was still SOMETHING!

APRIL 4TH - Woke up to find the latest newsletter from Aliventures. Since it's a newsletter and not a blog post I can't link it. This then resulted in my Setting Goals blog post in order to relay all of it over.

APRIL 5TH - I wrote about five pages of script before getting stuck. I HATE exposition!!! Switched over to my fanfic and hit the 11,000 word mark! Super, crazy-long chapter. It's about 19 pages long. Not done yet, but I'm getting closer. At least I'm accomplishing SOMETHING, even if it isn't my script. Chibi reminded me that I wasn't much farther last year, and so I'm not quite at the Point of Panicking yet....

APRIL 6TH - Cleaning commenced for Easter weekend, plus I still needed to take care of the in-laws' kitties while Hubby's parents are still on vacation. At about 2pm, Hubby and I got kidnapped to the local college by his BFF. I ended up running in to Makonraiba. Since I couldn't work on my own stuff anyway, agreed to beta the new opening to his story. Better than before. Finished off the day with the first actual D&D session with everyone. Just wish a troll that was in the college common room we were all in would have stopped his elitist BS about how "his" way to play D&D was infinitely better than our way... I'm normally not violent, but I was about to show him my own "Ol' Betsy and The Five Avengers". Anyway, no writing was done.

APRIL 7TH - Yeeeeeeaaaaaaah... was lazy and watched X-Men: Evolution with my hubby all day... Day 2 of absolutely no writing.

APRIL 8TH - EASTER! :D Started off the day with some VeggieTales movies. Then over to take care of the kitties while making dinner at the in-laws' house. Then trucked everything up to my sister-in-law's house. After a few hours up there, we came back down to the in-laws' house to again take care of the kitties and clean up after using Mom-in-law's kitchen. Went home and passed out. Spending the holiday away from home means a third day of no writing. I'm such a slacker!

APRIL 9TH - First day on the job! The meat/cheese slicers didn't remove my fingers, so it's a start. Also, it's easier for me to actually, oh, I don't know... write? Easter holiday weekend is over, and Hubby literally smacked my butt in order to get me back to work. I had about two hours before Cyhyr got out of class and came over for the weekly get-together. Her boyfriend was already here when I got off of work.

APRIL 10TH - Hubby and I went in to work at the same time, but I worked an hour less than him. Therefore I spent an hour in my car working on my story in the backseat. Once I got home I didn't accomplish much more since Hubby's obsessive X-Men: Evolution watching suckered me in as well.

APRIL 11TH - FINALLY finished the chapter and sent it to Chibi. It was on time too! Granted, I originally wanted to have the chapter published by Easter, but I still made the week goal I established in my last post. So there is nothing left to stop me from getting back on track with Script Frenzy... except for work having me stay an extra two hours to cover a call-in.... when I've only worked there for three days!!!! Good thing I'm a quick study! @_@

APRIL 12TH - Got edits back from Chibi, but I had some follow-up questions, so the chapter wasn't completely ready for posting. I then used the 1/2 hour between when I got off of work and when Hubby did in order to work on... gasp... MY SCRIPT! I also finally started talking in the Script Frenzy forum since the region leader was commenting that no one posted anything there since April started. Only managed to get a few more paragraphs done - not even a full page - before my script writing halted. Hubby's BFF is going through a romantic crisis and so we spent the rest of the day trying to cheer him up. At least it was for a good cause...

APRIL 13TH - My day off! Cool! I was all set to use it to really punch through with the script writing. Hubby would be at work for 5 hours, so I'd be completely uninterrupted. Then I got a call from the landlord. We're renting the house on the month-by-month basis. It's a super sucky way to do it, but we couldn't afford the extra $100 a month for the landlord to write us a lease... HATE our landlord. Makes no sense, you'd think with a lease it would be CHEAPER, but whatever. Anyway, while we're renting the house he also has the house on sale. The deal is he gives us 24hr notice of a showing, we have to be out of the house during the showing, and if the house is sold we have two months to find a new place to live before we're evicted. Goody, right? Anyway, the landlord called to inform me that there'd be a showing 9am Saturday and again 11am Sunday. So my day off to write turned in to a day off to clean - something that's been neglected with all the writing and random visitors.

APRIL 14TH - Virtually no writing done yet again. Not only did I have to work, but I also wasn't feeling well, so I spent the day watching TV with the hubby. His BFF again stopped by. He seems to be getting better with each visit, and it was fun talking about X-Men for about an hour. Still need to write about 45 pages... awesome! :P

APRIL 15TH - Well, originally wanted my chapter up by now at the latest, but I DID say it would be up by "Tax Day".... and technically that's April 17th.... So that's two more days to work on edits from Chibi, figure out how to rework the epilogue, and get this thing posted. Since I was waiting for edits from Chibi, I used my "Well, I'm up dropping Hubby off anyway, might as well write" hours to FINALLY work on my script. Only wrote 9 more pages, so the page count is 13 instead of the 50 it's SUPPOSED to be, but at least I didn't give up completely on this project.

APRIL 16TH - Work, people over, quick last-minute edits to the chapter, and sleep. Not a very productive day for writing. Plus side... In-laws came home so at least writing-time won't be taken up by take-care-of-kitties-time....

APRIL 17TH - IT'S UP! IT'S UP! MY FRIGGEN CHAPTER IS FINALLY UP! Also, I got out of work before Hubby again, so I was able to punch out another page or two of the script before he got off of work. But the main thing was that I got my stupid, forever-long, chapter up! Whoot! Now to find time to do my Author's Notes blog post..... But first, more of the script.

APRIL 18TH - Super bad day at work. Craziness, working with employees I haven't previously met, working 5 out of my 6 hour shift before getting a break... oh yeah, and a dehydration-induced migraine. Got home, crashed for about 2 hours, spent the rest of the day drugged up on pain killers and curled up on the couch trying to get my head to stop self-destructing. Went to bed at like 10pm! Plus side.... I have a nice review for my chapter already. :D

APRIL 19TH - Day off. Desperately needed to use the free time to clean and write! According to Script Frenzy's webpage I can still make the 100page count by the April 30th deadline if I write 8 pages a day! Let's see what I can do. My major problem is that I picked this plot because it was based on a game Hubby and our friends were playing - so I figured I'd get re-inspired each week. Of course, we switched gears and played OTHER games during the Monday Visits - or Hubby's BFF steals everyone to his lake house.... So no cheating, I have to do this plot completely on my own. :P I did manage five pages, but I'm stuck with all the combat I need for the script.... :P

APRIL 20TH - Work and house guests, as per usual. I am completely and utterly stalled with this script. I am just not inspired. With 10 days left I'm struggling between forcing myself to at least ATTEMPT to write - I mean, I DID put everyone on hold for Script Frenzy - or to just wave the white flag. I'm only up to 20 pages. Hubby suggests that I just stop, but I signed up for this, could I really be a quitter? I'm not even 1/2 way to were I was last year and I was supposed to have LESS distractions this year. In fact, if it weren't for my lack of willpower to walk away from my husband watching the TV for like 7hrs straight I WOULD have been about on par. I'm actually super upset about this. I had it all planned out. I had it all strategized better than last year. So why can't I write?

APRIL 21ST - I got about three pages done throughout the day. Pathetic really, but I'm forcing through. I haven't even gotten to the main plot of the story, it just doesn't want to be written. I feel drained whenever I attempt - it's like forcing a fatty to run a mile every day. Still not sure if I should just quit with only a 1/5 of the story written, but I'm still pressing on. I did attempt a real effort this time. Hubby had some friends over right after I was done with work. I attempted to be a good hostess at first, but they started talking about Magic: The Gathering and they might as well speak Klingon. So I sat in the living room for like five hours while they talked and played Magic. Every time I attempted to write I couldn't think over how loud they were. *sigh* I was too tired to do my normal 2am writing session while Hubby is at work. Maybe while he's sleeping throughout the day.

APRIL 22ND - I set up a playlist to try to keep me pumped. I stayed in my bedroom - AWAY from the TV. Hubby's asleep downstairs, so I had no sounds distracting me. And I'm spent the day fighting the urge to just play Mario 64. *sigh* Why does this script suck so much!? With the distraction of The Lorax fanart to celebrate Earth Day, I was only able to crank out another four pages. Plus the new Blogger format sucks. I want to go back to the other way. It didn't feel as sterilized and it felt more user-friendly... I can't stand websites changing their layout when the old ones work perfectly fine. Pwah.

APRIL 23RD - My day off was spent LITERALLY playing out the main battle sequence that really catapults the plotline. I broke out Hubby's Heroscape, built the "set", placed the "actors" in their positions, and then played out the battle the way it would happen if it were just a normal game of Heroscape. I then documented the fight and managed a nine-page battle sequence. Epicly long for the beginning of a movie, but I'm just going for page counts at this point in the game. Got up to about page 40. Goody, I'm making REAL headway now.... :P
Plus, can  you believe it kept me FOUR FRIGGEN HOURS to set up and play the battle sequence? I think the most annoying part was that I wanted a casualty of war, but the character I created to be that casualty just WOULD NOT DIE! I even started him off with 1/2 the health as my other characters, but every time I tried to kill him off he ended up surviving! The main characters, on the other hand, would have each died like 4 times if I didn't "fudge the rolls"... in other words, when the character would have died in game I just added more injuries to their script counterparts. *sigh* Nathan, you will forever be my epic NPC that WOULD NOT DIE! :P

APRIL 24TH - My first 8+ hour day of work since I quit Subway almost exactly 7 months ago. I was supposed to get a break, a lunch, and a second break. But it kept so long to get to my first break that by the time I got back from lunch I only had about an hour left of work. In other words, my legs got REALLY tired. Plus I had to be up and at work at 7am - another thing I'm not used to anymore. So even MORE tired. And I FINALLY got my hands on a copy of Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.... only for my Hubby's one friend to call and interrupt the movie... and then his mother stopped by and interrupted again.... and then a different friend called and interrupted a third time. The damn movie kept almost 3hrs to watch! :P I attempted to write, but my mind was so burnt out I couldn't think of ANYTHING. Why am I failing Script Frenzy so hard core!?

APRIL 25TH - Cleaned like a boss in the morning, nearly killed myself by scrubbing with too much bleach, and then - when I was sufficiently tired out - I went to work. It. Felt. Like. The. LOOOOOOONGEST. Day. Even Hubby said I felt like I was away FOREVER. It was only a four hour day.... Anyway, Hubby had a buddy over by the time I got home. I cleaned some more, and then Hubby's BFF came over and the four of us watched TV shows and played Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I have five days to go. 60 pages. Mom's coming to visit for her birthday this weekend. I should just give up. *sigh* I won't wave the white flag, but I'm not actively participating anymore. Not like I really participated at ALL this year. Shouldn't have even bothered signing up. Such a waste. I should have just continued with my beta reading and waited until next year. I didn't think I'd have many distractions, but I didn't take into consideration the power of snuggling up to my hubby while watching endless hours of TV.... *sigh again*.... I super duper really need to find a quiet place next year.....

APRIL 26TH - Super Duper Cleaning Day part 2. I scrubbed EVERYTHING down... the counters, the floors, the bathrooms, the refrigerator, the dishes... I was a cleaning BEAST in my attempt to get ready for Mom's visit. In my cleaning furry I did manage to pull something in both my back and shoulder.... so the evening after picking up Hubby was spent watching movies and icing everything down....

APRIL 27TH - MOM'S BIRTHDAY!!!! While she was driving up to visit I was at work. I actually worked long enough to get a lunch this time, so I brought my netbook along. I did manage to work on the script a touch more, but I got interrupted by the HR rep who was practically begging people to sign up for her wellness program through the store. *sigh* I got maybe two more pages before I had to stop. I continued work, went home, Mom showed up almost right after - I wasn't even out of my work clothes yet - and we spent the evening with Hubby's BFF playing games and introducing my mom to the wonders of Netflix. We must have started and stopped about five different TV shows, we'd get about ten minutes in and she'd go "Oh, does it have *INSERT SHOW NAME HERE*?" Oh mom.... Happy *2nd birthday. :D

APRIL 28TH - Another long day of hanging with my mommy. We hung out at the house chatting for a little while, then we went to go eat, and then we took her to Hubby's BFF's house; which is up a mountain and on a lake. My mom LOVED the view. I didn't think we'd ever get her to leave his backyard. There was an awkward moment when Hubby told his BFF that we were kidnapping him, he replied that first he was going to shanghigh someone on to the lake in his canoe, and then Hubby flipped the canoe - on purpose, of course - when pushing it off the shore... causing the BFF to be drenched head to toe in his regular clothes, almost losing his keys in to the lake, and without any clean clothes to change in to. He later thanked my husband for allowing him to "go commando" since the only pants he had left were his swim trunks.... why wasn't he wearing those originally!? Anyway, Mom stopped repremending for the horseplay and we headed back to our place. More movies and games before BFF's roommate picked him up and Mom headed out to her hotel room. Then it was a few brief hours of sleep before Hubby needed to go in to his overnight shift at work.

APRIL 29TH - Well I pretty much waved the white flag on the whole script thing. Mario 64 was calling my name - too bad I couldn't really play because the cartridge is slightly goofed up and you can't read anything... Either way, I miss playing video games, it feels so long since I've done so.... Instead of my normal 8hr writing spree while Hubby was at work, I ended up spending about 4hrs reading a loooooooong message from my beloved Chibi and responding to her in an equally long manner. She did cheer me up a little by reminding me that just because I didn't hit 100 pages and got the "Won Script Frenzy" badge or whatever, that doesn't mean I "failed" either. I set out to do something that no one else I know set out to do. Granted, Cyhyr's boyfriend wanted to do it this year as well, but he opted out because he knew he didn't have the time to make the commitment. I did have the time and I wasted it, but at least I made an effort. That's something, right? And I DID manage to accomplish at least one writing goal this month: POSTING THAT DARN FANFIC CHAPTER!!! Speaking of which, I think I might have to do a blog post about 50 Shades of Grey....

APRIL 30TH - Fought with my bank, social services, my other bank, and the electric company. All before work. At work I got my break two hours in to my six hour shift. Which is beyond stupid, and resulted in mild dehydration that cramped up both legs. My legs are swore, I'm laid up on the couch, my back is killing me, I'm tired, and there is really no chance of me even THINKING about the script. So there you have it. I officially ended Script Frenzy with a lousy 40 pages. Super lame. 

And thus the month is past, and so is Script Frenzy. I got back in to the rhythm of daily chores during the weekend my mom was here, so I'm hoping to keep that up. I also STILL have to do the wedding thank you letters - because I'm THAT much of a loser. But all-in-all  hope for the next fanfic chapter at least structured before June.

So here I am, back from the hiatus and ready for more writing! Yes, I'm bummed about my poor turn-out with Script Frenzy. However, I now know that I need to be stronger and not only take an internet hiatus, but let Hubby and his friends know that I can't have visitors over April. I also think I'm gonna try a graphic novel script next year, but I could also convert my story in to a movie script if I'm done with the story by then.

Anyway, moving on to my Author's Notes post. Hopefully that will be my return to Sunday Blog Updates.

Giants Win the Super Bowl and I am Super Screwed...

Hey, imagine that, I'm posting my blog late... again... In all fairness, I had every intention of updating yesterday at noon...but I was in the process of passing out right about then.
For those who don't know, my husband works normal hours the rest of the week, but on Sundays he is given the Overnight shift. Since we have only one car, I drop him off at one in the morning and then pick him up again at ten. This usually results in me needing to drink coffee so I'm awake enough to drive at one o'clock, and therefore I am not capable of sleeping while he's at work.
This also results in me going in to a writing frenzy for about eight hours! YAY! I'm not sure why I can't be productive unless I'm hyped up on caffeine at two in the morning, but I guess it's marginally helpful. I just wish I was equally creative at a less ungodly hour.

So anyway, the blog!

I was passing out at noon, set the alarm for two o'clock, and then hit the snooze for two more hours since I still couldn't keep my eyes open. Now disappointed in myself for not having the blog updated at noon like intended, I got right on starting it. And then my stomach growled. Made the mistake of going downstairs to get something to eat. Our downstairs is one large open area with only small sections of walls separating the dining room, living room, and kitchen. So while downstairs you can hear everything going on in the other rooms.

My husband vegges on Sundays - as he's entitled to after that Overnight shift. However, this typically means leaving the TV on TBS all day. And dammit! TBS actually had good movies on yesterday. I got suckered in! I attempted to at least blog over the commercials, but still didn't get too far. Then my husband started playing a loud computer game on his laptop. So now I had TV on in front of me, and a loud computer game on a laptop right next to me. Total sensory overload... I couldn't put a comprehensible sentence together if I tried. By the time Animation Domination came on Fox I knew I was done. I had been attempting - and failing - to blog for five hours and barely had anything written.

Thus, the post being nearly 24hours late.

Which super sucks! I meant to write out a simple blog update in about an hour at most and then spend the rest of the day in writing-frenzy mode. *sigh* Well, at least I had that eight hour writing frenzy first thing in the morning.

I'm a little less than half way done with my next chapter. The thing really is a beast! Not even half way done and it's already eight pages long. This is clearly going to be the longest chapter I've written so I hope this makes up for the super-extended hiatus.

My issue, however, is that I also promised ChibiSunnie that I would write her a Valentine's Day story to make up for not making her something for Christmas. :D Well, I've been attempting to tag team both stories, but I was having perspective issues for the Valentine's Day story and that created massive Writer's Block.

I talked things over with Chibi - which helped a lot, but I still felt like I needed a male's perspective. I put a call out on facebook and had three guys offer to help. The two guys I actually know in real life didn't help too much. However, a guy from the Hey Arnold! group did help me figure out what I needed. So, thank you, Solace Of Songs. Getting another perspective really is helpful when it comes to breaking down Writer's Block.

Now, unfortunately, this breakthrough didn't happen until Thursday. I then attempted to track down episodes of Hey Arnold! so I could really get the voices of the characters in my head. Only to then be super bummed to discover that I'm missing two of my season box sets! I'm a proud owner of four out of the five seasons, and I was only able to find two of the DVD collections... Blarg!!!! And I guess Nickelodeon/Viacom has gotten pretty hardcore about taking the episodes off of YouTube, since there aren't really any there. Thankfully, I was still able to watch School Play, and that was really all I needed.

So the next chapter of my fanfic is on hold at least until the end of this week. I need to get cracking in order to get this fluff-piece done by Valentine's Day. However, that's the secondary issue with my blog post being postponed until today. As I already said, I had every intention of writing a quick post yesterday, and then spend the rest of the day working on the one shot. The fact that I spent the whole day watching TV super killed me. I now only have today to write this thing, so I'm keeping myself cooped up in my bedroom so my husband's TV watching or video/computer game playing doesn't distract me. Here's hoping for another frenzy like I had yesterday morning.

As for this one shot, well, I sure hope Chibi likes it! The character I had the Writer's Block about is now flowing freely, and it is so much fun writing his perspective! Ironically, the character I thought I'd have no problem writing about is now the one giving me trouble. So I'm writing the story a little unconventionally. I'm starting with everything in the guy's perspective, and then I'll go back and splice in the girl's perspective. Hopefully by the time I have the guy's POV finished I'll have a breakthrough.

On the plus side of everything, this one shot is a beast as well. I'm like, super writing! So, it may be seven months between posts, but when I publish a new story at least you are contently reading for like a half-hour.

Another bonus for you guys. I like to post extended Author's Notes here, so when I post the Valentine's Day story tomorrow I might have ANOTHER blog update as well! So check that out tomorrow or Wednesday! Whoot!

Before I leave, I want to give a quick Shout Out to my darling DarkAngel1326. I spent Saturday doing what she calls a "Writers' Conference" and what I call a "Sounding Board". Basically, writers talk through their Writer's Block. The author throws out ideas he or she is thinking of, and the other writer(s) will give input, or advice, or play the Devil's Advocate in order to make sure the new idea won't cause plotholes. You can also use these Conferences when you have NO CLUE what to write next. The author will explain why he/she is stuck and the other writer(s) can then throw out ideas of where to go. It's a great use of "two heads are better than one". It's basically what I was doing when I put the call out on Facebook for a guy's perspective.

Anyway, the reason I bring this up - aside from giving advice to writers who are stuck as well as further explain what I've been doing all week - is to state that the poor girl is nervous. She recently posted her second chapter to Keep Love in Your Heart, and it is NOT a popular ending to the chapter. Trust me when I say that it is a unique take that not many writers would be willing to do - due to the unpopularity of the key element. Also, trust me when I say the story will be GOOD and will be WORTH IT! So please, give the girl some love!

She also recently posted a story that I've personally read about six times. Check that one out too!

She's also keeping a similar Writer's Blog on her DeviantArt account. CHECK HER OUT, CHECK HER OUT, CHECK HER OUT!!!! :D

Well, I super need to get back to work on my story if it's ever going to be posted tomorrow!
Bye--- Oh wait... Coach Wittenberg has something to add real quick... Coach?

"Well, kids, it seems that the New York Giants have again beat the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Four years later, for the second time, repetitively. And that's great! Because the number one thing is winning! Well, maybe my wife Trish. No, definitely winning, and THEN Trish. Well, maybe winning, then Air Hockey, and THEN Trish. It's close. Trish, winning, air hockey... It's close!"

Um.... Thanks for that, Coach. Why don't you sort that out while I say goodbye...

So yeah! My Giants won the Super Bowl and I'm on a writing frenzy! February is looking good! :D

And Time Flies By... But Maybe Some Writing CAN Be Done

Man, I did NOT think of a good time to get married and move! October is the busiest wedding month! Plus, there's the craziness of packing, moving, unpacking, AND Halloween! Once THAT holiday is over, here comes Thanksgiving, and my family visiting! And THEN Christmas comes marching around the corner, along with the craziness THAT holiday brings... as well as MORE unpacking/organizing the new house, and going down to visit my family. New Years is just a few short days away and I still don't really have much free time to do anything. February has Valentine's day. And March has my sister's birthday and St. Patrick's day. I'll have to check my calendar, but April MIGHT bring Easter... either way, it will DEFINITELY bring my Mom's birthday. On top of that, it will also bring another ScriptFrenzy month! So there goes ANOTHER month of not writing! If May doesn't contain Easter, that MIGHT be the next big break I get. Funny how 1/2 the year has a holiday every month, and the second 1/2 only has Independence Day on the Fourth of July - unless, of course, you're also counting Memorial Day, Labor Day, etc.

January seems to be my only reprieve from the holiday season. So I guess I'll have to make the most of it!

I FINALLY got around to skeleton-ing the next chapter. Perhaps I can write it before a YEAR passes... sheesh!

I never heard back from that supposed Beta. Oh well, I *DID* overwhelm her with stuff. On the plus side, Good Old Delaroux popped on by and read my blog, and she gleefully volunteered to be MY beta! haha. ChibiSunnie also stopped by and ALSO volunteered to beta! I love my girls! Unfortunately, they too were just as stumped as me as to how to finish the chapter, but it is as I always say: "You never know where the seed for a great idea might come from!" Saying some of the dumbest things just in passing might be just the direction you need for the lightning bolt from your muse to finally strike you! Just spitballing with those ladies got the juices flowing and I think I finally know what to do with the story! So... YAY!

NOW my only problem is that I dove a little too deep. The chapter as a mind of its own and became its own story! The chapter needs chapters! Normally I would break this chapter up like I did when the Sweet 16 chapter ran long. However, I pigeon-holed myself in to this "every chapter needs a parent song" format, and so I can't really split the chapter up. So now I think I'm gonna do what I tried to avoid before... I'm going to make it a bam-bam-bam kind of chapter. No delays, just in your face "HELLO! YOU NEED TO BE SOMEWHERE ELSE RIGHT NOW!"

I had a subplot all figured out and everything, but having a subplot that is only relevant to one chapter, and centering on OCs that we'll only see for one chapter seems a bit much. I'll spend too much time - and force the readers to invest too much emotion - on a situation and characters they won't see again. INSTEAD! I'm going to eventually write this chapter as it wants to be: it's own story. I'll elaborate on the events that occur, but it has to wait for now. Dear lord, this story births so many plotbunnies! I already have two "spin off" stories bouncing around in my head!

I'm not going to know until I write this bugger how much I'll like writing the chapter the way I must, but it's better than postponing any more, right? Plus Delaroux is finishing up her story Something to Return to. True, she's already being a busy-little-bee and working on ANOTHER story, but perhaps once she's done with this main story I'm beta-ing for I can concentrate on my OWN story, instead of investing so much time in the wonderful Flite11 universe she created!

Delaroux - don't get me wrong, I LOOOOVE living in your world, which is why it's so hard to leave! XD I'm not blaming you, chica, for postponing my writing, I charish every minute with your story, I'm just saying that sometimes a writer finds something so grand they forget about their OWN stuff... ya know? BAAAH! I should have deleted that last paragraph... now she's gonna feel guilty again! *runs away crying*

ANYWAY, I guess what I'm trying to say is... Since the job hunt thing seems to be flopping, I might as well use my time wisely and write. ^_^