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Nothing major to say today; no real time to write it.

This past week has been insane with massive work hours, doing extra whatever at work, and preparing for a major work presentation for tomorrow. I haven't really had time to work on anything else - including X-Future board postings.

Oh yeah, and my husband bought us tickets for an amazing concert that we went to last night. So, Happy Early Thirtieth to me!

I DO have stuff to talk about still, even though it won't be about my writing. The thing though is having the time to write it. I'm still doing last minute tinkerings of the presentation, plus I'm a bit wiped from the concert, and I have work tonight, as well as pick up MadDog24 after I'm done so he can spend the night. The three of us - Me, Hubby, and MD - have to be up and out the door by 6:30 tomorrow in order to get to the presentation on time. Joy. So I'm constantly on the go until about 10:30 tonight.

Crazy, hectic week!

I'll be attempting to write a legit blog post after the presentation is over tomorrow. Be on the look-out for that tomorrow evening.

World Building Pitfalls Chain Me to Fear

I've been stuck in my world building. I've been stuck with my X-Future reboot. I've been stuck in my collab with Ronoxym. I've just been stuck.

I tried to move through it by going back through some of my old world building notes. I found the pile of print-outs I made up back in 2008 when I first started building Amara's world. That's right, I've been world building for six years! I have print-outs of maps. Tons of maps. I use them as study materials. I use them to figure out how our world looks. I use them to study how natural landforms are placed. I study the shape of coastlines and the twists of rivers. I study the boarders of countries and states. I even have print-outs of Middle Earth from Lord of the Rings and Alagaësia from Inheritance Cycle. This way I know how even fictional worlds are laid out.

I have notes on the statistics of different states: rough state width and height, overall square feet, square feet of water vs. land, tallest mountain, deepest valley, etc. I have notes on medieval through Victorian England - mostly population density and the like. I have all these stats and real-world examples to try to help me make my maps and my world as realistic as I can.

This attention to detail will better immerse my readers and players. It will prevent those nitpickers out there from dissecting my work and pointing out how inaccurate and implausible everything is. I don't need a reader to be ripped out of my story because I have a desert surrounded by a rainforest without any magical explanation as to how that would ever work. I don't need a reader to wonder how a character can cross the entire country - on horseback - within a week when it's the size of Texas. I don't need a reader to explain in an online essay how implausible both my population density and technology level are given the rest of the surrounding environment.

In other words. I don't need any noticeable goofs if I can prevent it.

Which is probably why I'm stalled.

Fear.

Every writer fights against it at some point, and this is my time I guess.

Yes, I am concerned that while I have a small following swearing up and down that my writing is fantastic, what if they are the minority? I mean, my stories aren't exactly breaking records for readership. Same with this blog. On the flipside, what if I am as good as my fans claim, but only if I have the crutch of a pre-established world? What if once I move away from fanfiction and work on my own original works it isn't as compelling; entertaining?

My biggest fear is that I literally cannot move away from being a fanfiction writer. That it's so ingrained in me that I unintentionally write something that is just a thinly veiled version of another tale. I'm mostly interested in writing a high-fantasy tale heavily inspired by D&D. That's the main reason I'm building Gyateara in the first place. However, what's going to keep me from being just one of the numerous others who end up writing a dumbed-down Lord of the Rings? How do I avoid my tales being unfavorably compared to the Grandfather of High Fantasy? Or have critics call me out as simply transcribing a D&D campaign?

What if - in an effort to avoid being compared - I go too far away from the inspiring source, and then my world doesn't work. What if there's a flaw I didn't notice, or it just isn't as intriguing as Middle Earth?

And because of this, I'm stuck. I'm afraid of coming up with something new because it either sounds stupid, or it's too tedious a task to attempt, or it ends up just sounding like Lord of the Rings anyway...

What got me focusing on this fear this week?
Reading those notes I printed out in 2008.

It was shortly before the third book in the Inheritance Cycle was released. I had printed a few things off as warning passages for my own world-building, and I had forgotten about them - to an extent. The first was a short online essay explaining how the author was able to use the few clues Christopher Paolini put in his books in order to figure out things such as the size and population of Alagaësia. The essayist Shinobaka continued to state that Paolini was vague enough in his writing for it to not be that big of an issue, but made a huge mistake in both creating a map of Alagaësia and then including it with the books. Now Shinobaka could truly figure out the estimated land-mass and population of the continent. Based on these facts and the map, Shinobaka was able to note that Paolini's description of both The Empire and it's army were insanely disproportional, both to each other and to the rest of the continent.

Shinobaka's calculations had the whole of the continent about the size of France and Germany combined, the Empire about the size of Italy, the mountain range the dwarves lived in as well as the woods the elves lived in both at about the size of Romania, the large desert taking up at least half of Alagaësia as about twice the size of Iceland, and the independent nation of Surda as the size of Denmark. Very cool that Shinobaka was able to figure out these real-world figures. As I stated at the top of this post, I am using the same tactics when building Gyateara - using real world figures of what I want and then transfer those stats in to my world.

However, the ability to find real-world correlations also gave Shinobaka the ammunition to attack Paolini's inability to thoroughly think through the logistics of what he wrote. For starters, the army that attacked Surda - most likely just a portion of the entire Empire's available military - was larger than virtually any in human history. Especially when coupled with the Medieval Age, which is the closest to resembling life in Alagaësia.

[Most] of the examples of armies [the same size Paolini gave in Eldest] come from the Muslim world, which at its smallest controlled an area at least seven or eight times that of Galbatorix's empire.

Shinobaka continued by attacking the general population density of Alagaësia.

The closest population figure yielded by a quick internet search was one of about 5-7 million people in England circa 1300. Since the Empire is somewhat larger than England, we can estimate its population at about 8-9 million, making Galbatorix's draft seem like 100,000 men were taken from New York City overnight...

There are a total of ten large cities in the Empire, including the capitol, and five smaller population centers. Simply put, this is a ridiculously under-populated country. Going by the apparent technology levels of the humans, Alagaësia seems to be about on par with Europe circa the 11th century, yet maps of the British Isles circa 802 AD, Italy circa 1050 AD, and even Greece circa 362 BC show much greater population density.... The population density...that most closely resembles [The Empire] is the island of Sicily circa 1050, which is [smaller than Surda]. A country that coincidentally has six major cities despite being a fraction of the Empire's size.

Couple this with the five major dwarven cities and the six major elven cities, and...[Galbatorix] is pretty well outnumbered.

The second article that I printed out as a bit of a warning of "what not to do" was the Wikipedia article about Alagaësia itself. Some time between 2008 and today, the individual article about Paolini's main continent was taken down in favor for a more broad article about the book series itself. However, I do still have that print out of the original article, and on the first page it has yet another pitfall: possible proof that Paolini didn't pay too much attention to our world when creating his own - either that or he wanted his just THAT fantastical...

The Beor Mountains are the tallest mountains in Alagaësia, being over ten miles high (nearly twice as tall as Mount Everest, the tallest mountain on Earth)....

So Paolini has an entire mountain range that is - according to Shinobaka's calculations - about the size of Romania, and every last one of them are not only taller than Everest, but nearly TWICE as tall. It makes me wonder if the man just threw large numbers out to make everything seem daunting without actually taking the time to note how plausible such numbers were.

As much as I know these pitfalls, and as critically attentive to details as I am, I still fear that I'll make the same mistakes. Someone will point out that my towns are too close to - are too far from - each other, or the rivers aren't flowing properly, or that the population is too small or too large. There will be something I'll forget about since there is SO MUCH RESEARCHING I'll need to do to figure out the real-world correlation.

And I SUCK at research. Always have. I always seem to find the hardest and longest route to find the information I want. I'll spend five hours on Google trying to figure something out, and then Hubby will swing by my computer, type in one thing, and BOOM the answer I need.

However, even if I do manage to get my world built and it feels authentic, there's still that original fear of it being a derivative of some other better-known work. Even in the criticism section of Inheritance Cycle's Wikipedia entry there is a listing of people noting the series being little more than a rehashing of stories such as Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Dune.

Who's to say my works won't be the same way? Especially when most of them DO start off as fanfiction. I mean, the story I originally built Gyateara for was nothing more than a massive hybrid of stealing components from the first Fable, Ocarina of Time, Inu Yasha, Vision of Escaflowne, and Fushigi Yuugi. There was even a very subtle bit of inspiration from friggen The Little Mermaid.

Yes, authors do get inspired by other works around them. It's common practice. It's one of the main reasons people don't read fanfiction of their work if it's ongoing; they don't want to unintentionally be influenced by a good story they read.

However, how do I know I'll be able to keep it at being INSPIRED by these components and not end up like Paolini - writing a story with blatant influences from the source material?

All I can really do is know what to avoid, and pray the daunting task of actually avoiding it won't keep me frozen for too much longer...

What about you guys? What is your fear about your work? What's keep you chained in place? Let me know in the comments section. Maybe stating our fear will help us overcome it.

Writing Focus on the X-Future

I've avoided the dreaded "Zero-Day" this week, but only barely. Also, I managed to do so with the amazing talent of still avoiding any actual work. Shame, considering last week's post.

I've finally done something else with Lia on the board, but only barely. Essentially I had her again go through some mental turmoil while she walked to a picnic meeting place with Ripley. So... some minor character development with even less actual action: walking through campus to a meet-point.

I also advanced Willow a bit more on the mission she's currently on. Yes, most of it was just like Lia: inner dialogue and reactions to what has already happened. However, I did finish with her actually DOING something! Whoa! Yeah, she's gonna try to disarm some guards. We'll see how that goes.

Along with some moderately simple posts on the forum I've also began recapping the forum for ChibiSunnie. She has all of the X-Future: Snippets in queue; waiting for me to update X-Future: The Second Generation Begins enough that the snippets will no longer contain spoilers for her. She's less concerned about actually coming across plot/character spoilers and more concerned about being lost while reading the snippets since she doesn't know the events leading up to them.

Well, since I'm taking forever to update TSGB - more on that in a bit - I offered to give her the super broad strokes overview of the forum. Essentially what I wanted to do with TSGB in the first place. I'm trying to do so simply from memory, and I'm attempting this for two reasons. One - the same reason it's taking me forever to update TSGB: there are a LOT of posts to sift through and try to re-organize in posting order so I know exactly what happened when. It's a daunting task that my lazy butt wants to avoid having to do until I have my netbook back. That way I don't have to spend hours sitting at my computer, but I also don't have to worry about having to transfer files back and forth between the desktop and Hubby's laptop. The second reason for trying to recap for Chibi simply based on memory? Because obviously only the major events will stick with me. Therefore if I don't remember it happening on the boards it isn't something essential for Chibi to know; it won't be something that affected much on the board and/or something that would come up in my snippets.

She joked about how "brief" the broad strokes recap of the board would be:

Chibi: I'm just a bit scared to ask for it since it might be like a 500 page document given how many pages of info you gave me just on how to draw the characters.

This is the picture she was talking about. Her X-Mas card for me.
Each character had over a page of description so she knew what they looked like/how they acted...

I of course had to throw out the rebuttal:

Me: It probably WILL be about 500pgs when all is said and done. XD That's the issue with a 2yr time span and 37 characters.

Add in that I clearly haven't mastered the art of succinct writing yet... Honestly, with the amount I've written for her so far, the 500pgs isn't too far off of an estimate.

Perhaps it would be better if I made a video of myself rambling off everything and sending THAT to her instead.....

The only other writing I've done this past week has consisted of the most minor of advancements in the X-Future reboot idea. Phfylburt apologized for not being as involved with coming up with world building ideas, but I assured him it was alright. First of all, he has his own manuscript he's working on and should concentrate on. Secondly, this reboot concept is honestly more of my baby, and I'm just Shanghai-ing him and Hubby for the ride. So I totally get that this is mostly my solo-project to start off with. Hubby and Phfyl are just around as sounding boards to figure out what ideas work well. I'm sure once we have a firmer concept figured out they'll become more involved.

Anyway, in the Marvel universe you have two different terms for those who are genetically different than the average human population. Those who were born with these genetic differences - such as the X-Men - are called mutants since it was a mutation in their genes that caused the difference. However, there are also a vast amount of characters in the Marvel universe that are born as normal humans, and then they are exposed to a mutagenic that altered their DNA. Characters such as Spider-Man, The Hulk, Fantastic Four, and Deadpool. These characters are called mutates since they were mutated after birth, instead of born with a mutation.

Even though it doesn't really affect anything since Deadpool is the only mutate in the X-Future universe - and he most likely won't be brought over since you really can't re-create Deadpool without it being obvious it's him - I still wondered what humanity would call the mutates in this new, original world.

Since I'm strongly leaning towards calling mutants "Glitches" since their mutation is brought on by a "glitch" in their DNA, I continued the computer metaphor to state that mutates had their DNA "hacked" and altered by a mutagen. Therefore, mutates would be considered "Hacked". It's a bit of an odd title since it's passive. Mutants are Glitches. They are that term. It's an active term. However, mutates "were hacked". They aren't called "Hacks" nor are they called "Hacked". They were passively "hacked". Even those who may have done it to themselves through experimentation or as a means to turn themselves in to a Glitch for power - people such as The Incredible Hulk or Captain America - would be considered people who "self-hacked".

In and of itself, the differentiating between mutants having an active term and mutates having a passive term - as if they're victims - could say a lot about the non-accepting world X-Future takes place in. So I might keep the terms as such. I might even go further and if we come up with a plot where people are actively attempting to create mutates the mutagens they come up with could be considered "viruses" or "backdoors" or "trojans" or some other term for something a hacker uses to gain access to your system.

The other minor thing I thought of was how to "introduce" mutants to this near-future world. Is this fictional world so different that mutants just sprang out of nowhere? Were they all the result of nuclear fallout? I personally liked to think that mutants in this story are like homosexuals in reality. They've always been there, even in ancient times. But for some reason they stopped being seen as a rare phenomenon and became the focus of social inequality. I need to research this more to truly see the "evolution" of homosexuality becoming socially accepted, but I would love for mutants to be the same way in X-Future.

Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia have all passed in this world. Sure, they are still holding strong with some ignorant people, but for the most part there is equality between all races, both sexes, and regardless of sexual orientation. So now it's the mutants' turn to raise their voices and plead for equality and acceptance in a world that fears and hates them.

I mean, even if it is an original take, it's still based on X-Men, and what is X-Men without the social commentary and not-so-subtle racism/Holocaust allegory?

Now, if I can just get myself to focus on more Gyateara world building....

The Equivalents Between Exercising and Writing

Had another “What is my life” breakdown last night. But you folks are forced to read my “woe is me” tales far too much already for me to really get in to that yet again. Just know that I’m struggling to get past it, but I am getting past it. I’m hitting the world with more determination in fact.

First up, I broke out the good old Wii Fit and synced it with our WiiU. I used to do this thing all the time leading up to my wedding. Even though it was a family gift from my mom for all three of us – me, her, and my sister – since I seemed to be the only one that ever used the Wii Fit relatively regularly my mother told me to take it with me when I moved away. I used it a bit during the half-year that I was unemployed right after the wedding. Then I finally got a job, the house fell in to disarray, and I stopped using the Wii Fit under the excuses of “There’s no room for me to really move in order to properly use it” that lead to “Since there’s no room I should use the time cleaning instead of trying to work out” which usually lead to “It’s way too late at night now for me to exercise, plus if I do after going to work and then cleaning I won’t have any time left to write.” Not that I ever really did write. I usually just plopped next to Hubby on the couch, watched some well-deserved TV, and messed around on Facebook.

Fast-forward to about mid-April. I had the livingroom spotless and had an urge to make sure the Wii Fit board would still work with the WiiU – I had forgotten that the WiiU has a backwards compatibility mode that allowed you to revert to the original Wii format. Well, after about an hour of both researching online how to clean out battery corrosion and then successfully saving the Wii Fit board, I used the game for the first time in over a year. I set up my Mii and did the initial Body Test to see my BMI, my weight, and test my balance. Then I put it away.

Jump ahead again to about mid-May and you’ll find Hubby and me participating in a new health-incentive program I’m running at work. The concept is that you earn points – max 6 per day – for eating fruits/vegetables as well as working out. You also earn either one point at the end of the week for maintaining your weight, or two points for losing weight. These points are then accumulated for one of three charities: American Cancer Society, AmericanRed Cross, or Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. I chose my personal favorite charity: American Cancer Society. Therefore, the points I earn go towards that charity’s net amount. At the end of the program all of the points earned by every participant across the whole company are added up. Then the points earned for each charity are divided by the number of participants who chose that charity in order to figure out the average amount of points each charity collected. The charity that earns the highest average points receives a $5000 donation from the company. The second-place charity receives $2000, and even the final charity will have $1000 donated. It really is a great way to help others while helping yourself.

Well, over the past two weeks since the program started Hubby and I have been kicking butt in the fruits/veggies department – which in and of itself is impressive since we rarely had any over the winter – but I’ve been slacking in the exercise department. The only time I earned any exercise points was when I was running around to the point of sweating at work. I would go “eh, that counts” and call it a day.

Today I changed that! Today I actually took out the Wii Fit board and used it for more than a glorified scale; since my bathroom one and the one in the breakroom at work are 10pounds off from each other, and I’m not sure which one to trust. Today I actually spent about an hour working out. About 30min with aerobics and another with yoga. Go me!

Each activity in Wii Fit is only about a minute or two long. Most are no more than 4min, unless you do something like “free running” in which you set how long you want to run for and then just jog in place for that long. My point is that I can do essentially the same thing as the push-up scenario in the No More Zero Days concept. “Heck, I could just get on the ground and do one push-up so I don’t have a Zero Day,” turned in to “Well, heck, I can start up the Wii Fit and just do the Body Test.” The hardest part about using the Wii Fit is having to dig the board out of the drawer I keep it tucked away in, and then starting up the program. It takes about five minutes. After those five minutes of starting the darn thing up it seems a waste to just do the Body Test. So I do one game under the Aerobics category. None of them are all that challenging. You only burn about 20calories with each game. Then you think “that wasn’t so hard. That was actually kind of fun” so then another game is played, and another. I switched over to Yoga as a cool-down, and went through each pose even though I really only wanted to do the ones to work out the tension in my shoulders. Next thing I know I’m doing the free run for 10min and chugging a glass of water after a nice workout.

Now here’s the part you’ll care about: I did the same with my writing.

Just like with the Wii Fit, the hardest part is taking the time to just start the darn thing up. Especially since I’m doing a lot more writing in Google Docs, so that I can share my work and get feedback. Now I have to start up my computer, and then the internet, and then Google Docs, and then a new file – or bring up an old one to fix/continue. It takes about five minutes, and so once I push myself to put in the effort to “just write for a little so I don’t have a Zero Day” I suddenly feel like the set up would be a waste of time if I didn’t put in x-minutes in to writing. Next thing I know I’m doing the 10min free run – or in writing terms: I’m working on a fight scene.

I suck at fight scenes.

Like, majorly. Just as I need to train in running because I have absolutely no endurance – like, I can get winded going up stairs if they’re steep enough, even if there’s only about 20 of them – I need to work on fight scenes. Again, just like running, I have the basics and I can do alright when I need to, but certainly nothing to really brag about. “Oh man, I was able to jog in place for 10min.” Ignore the fact that while I wasn’t exactly winded, it did take about three minutes for my breathing to go back to normal once I was done…. “Oh man, I wrote a fight scene.” Ignore the fact that everyone just dodged everyone else’s attacks until the hero finally got the winning blow in.

Exercising and Writing. They go hand-in-hand and I can certainly apply the same tricks to both activities. Something that I need to do more often in fact. More exercising. More writing. More motivation to do something productive both on my days off and on days where I have a short shift.

That being said, I’m proud of my pathetic fight scene, just as I’m proud of my “almost-two-miles” jog. Because they both mean that I pushed myself, and did so after actually getting my lazy butt in gear and doing something I should every day.

Bet you’re curious about the fight scene, huh? Well, like I said, it was pathetic, and it was mostly dialogue. It’s not even done yet. It’s going to be another X-Future: Snippets once I have it to a point that is publishable, and it’s – surprise, surprise – a Trish snippet. Her confronting Devon. A woman who can only stab things and create fire is going up against a man who can manipulate fire and is just as skilled as stabbing things. She’s not going to really get much headway there. Likewise, Devon is trying to use fire against someone who both controls it and is completely fireproof. No dice there either. Both parties need to rethink their strategy. Right now it’s “whomever can Stabby-stabby first wins.”

I’ve also been slowly working on the collab with AngelBlood666. I had a grand old time last week when I created the joint Google Doc file. We would essentially IM each other by writing in the file, and because it’s all in real-time you can watch the other person type. It’s amusing to watch how fast someone else can type and how quickly they pick up on their typos.

Plus, AB666 is a nutjob who had me in stitches most of the time. His online persona may seem dark, and some of his stories may be too, but don’t let that fool you. AB666 himself is a riot.

It seems a bit silly to admit this since it’s a play that takes about 3hrs to perform, but it’s taken me about that long to “convert” the story in to modern language since I write out the gist of what is happening and how people are reacting. Oh yeah, did I mention that I’ve only managed to “convert” two scenes?

It would have been faster if I literally set it up as a script and “translated” the dialogue in to modern language. Instead I have passages such as “Theseus tells [Hermia] that she must either die or become a nun. If she won’t marry Demetrius she won’t be allowed to marry anyone.”

Oh! And speaking of Demetrius…. I never before picked up on how much of a jerk he is! Either that, or I completely forgot that part of the story. He’s just this major… well, I’ll use “jerk” again even though I could use more colorful language. Although the idea of a love-square works wonderfully for the Helga > Arnold > Lila > Arnie > Back to Helga dynamic, having Arnold as Demetrius might not be the best idea. AB666 and I are going to have to take a few artistic licenses with the original story so that Arnold as Demetrius is still his lovable “underdog” self. That being said, Lysander is a fantastic character that you can really sympathize with, which isn’t really Arnie at all. So more liberties will be taken so that Arnie actually has a personality…

We’re still trying to figure out the exact format of the story as well. Do we want a straight cross-over? Leave the story-more-or-less the same, just with Hey Arnold characters instead? Did we want to change the names to the Hey Arnold equivalents, or do we want to do the same thing as in the “What’s Opera, Arnold?” episode and make strange name mashes, i.e. – CarmHelga or Ruth McCarmen for Carmen, Don Arnold for Don José, or Curlmillo for Escamillo? Do we have it set up very much like "What's Opera, Arnold?" and have the characters dream/imagine they're in that play? Or do we create our own story loosely based off of  the concept of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"? I mean they sort of had love potions in the show before in the episode "Helga's Love Potion", but that turned out to be a grape soda placebo. Since everyone under the love spell had no clue what was going on a placebo effect won't really do much.

Eh, we'll figure it out.

Finally, I made some - not much, but still better than none - progress in my pantheon building for Gyateara. Namely, I've come up with a list of the most commonly used "Godly Domains" that appear in both D&D and Greco-Roman faith. Domains such as "Sky" or "Wildlife" or "Roads/Travel" or "War", etc. My next task is to try to figure out what gods I create will be in charge of what domain(s), and if they are in charge of multiple domains, how are they connected. I also have to be sure that all of the "Cleric Domains" in D&D are represented by the "Godly Domains" so that the cleric-specific spells in D&D can still be used if/when I run Gyateara as a campaign setting.

Well, I think I've sat for enough. Time to get my lazy butt back in gear. To writing and exercise and productivity!

Moving Forward with Collaborative Writings

Once again I find myself with no motivation to write. Normally I have all of these ideas, and I'm just geared up first thing in the morning. That's the main reason I chose to shift my updating to Wednesdays - a day which I can write in the morning. However, I'm just so drained and sore from work lately. All I want to do is curl up in bed and forget there's anything outside of it. No dishes. No laundry. No cooking. No cleaning. No bills. No work. And, sadly, no writing either. Mainly because that requires sitting at the desktop, which is killing my back right now.

Yet, here I am. Once again using the "just write a little" method to push me along. Using that drive of having SOMETHING posted every week for you fine folks to get my butt moving. Now, to do the same with my non-blog writing.

To be fair. I DID do so yesterday. After literally two full months of not knowing what to do with her, I FINALLY role played as Lia. I didn't do anything major, but I did get the girl out of her damn room finally! No one is really on the boards anymore, and so who knows if I'll actually have anyone besides Hubby to interact with, but it's out there. We can start to move on.

Speaking of which, Ronoxym finally moved on with our collab - sorta. As I had mentioned last week, I had finished re-reading the first two-thirds of our story and had tons of notes. So many that I felt it would just be easier to restart the story with the typos and missed punctuation fixed, and then reposted up on Google Docs as something we could both edit.

Although, honestly, I think it would be better if we just mailed the file back and forth to each other so we could actually SEE what we each other edited, and decide if we thought it was a good idea or not. This way we don't have all these notes back and forth debating if we should use this word over that word, or whether or not there should be a comma somewhere. I'll have to check if the "track edits" feature in Microsoft Word is also in Google Docs. The closest thing I could find - which is only available for those who can edit - is a revision history.

By the way, quick shout out to ChibiSunnie for showing me the editing feature in Word in the first place. Made my work as a beta-reader so much easier!

Alright, back to the collab.

So, I'm in the midst of updating the 13-page story, but I take long breaks due to how tedious a task it is. Plus, the whole sitting at my computer thing. Well, in the meantime, Ron finally decides to go through my epic amounts of notes on our Doc file - which isn't even all of them, all of my notes in the middle I never typed up - and edits the document to fix my concerns.

Surprised the crap out of me, actually. I was even excited Saturday night to see him logged in to the story and editing. I figured I'd have more to read during my normal Sunday insomnia.

Well, seems editing was indeed a daunting task, because he didn't update the story after working on editing the second draft. So now I have the version I was editing merged with his edited version. I have notes EVERYWHERE of portions deleted or inserted between the two. My fun task is to now go through all those edits and have a coherent draft to post up for us both to edit from now on.

Maybe Ron editing what we did so far has resparked his interest in the project that had taken such a strong hold of him back in January. Perhaps within the next week or so he'll move the story forward. That would be awesome, and might even kickstart my own drive to once again write.

Although, I do have another collab story in the works. Well, in the very beginning, researching stages. Way back in 2012 I had the fantastic idea of doing a Hey Arnold parody of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. This idea must have struck a cord with AngelBlood666, because this past week he asked me if I wanted to work together in actually writing that parody. It's a story I keep absentmindedly drifting back to, but haven't done anything with in over two years. Perhaps having a co-writer on the project is just the push I need.

So we're both re-reading the play and taking notes so that we know what we wish to do with the concept. Heck, I spent an hour this morning just jotting down plot notes on the FIRST SCENE OF THE PLAY! Act one. Scene one. I ended up with TWO looseleaf pages filled FRONT AND BACK with notes. Now to type them up so that AB666 can see them too.

This could prove so much fun!

I've also been casually working on more research for world building both Gyateara and the X-Future reworking. Not too much advancement with either one, but it's better than completely forgetting about them.

Speaking of which, as much as it's grown on me, the placeholder name of Gyateara does seem a bit heavy-handed and lazy: "Eh, I'll just mesh Gaia and Terra together, tweak the spelling, and voila, a planet name!" I'm still not 100% convinced I'll be keeping it when I eventually get to officially writing stories about it; although I might keep the name for D&D sessions. So I'm thinking of using Hubby's suggestion of rearranging the letters until I get something a bit more original, but also keeping the basis of "my planet's name is based off of Greco-Roman terms for Earth". We'll see if I can come up with anything better.

Yay, naming things....


Honestly, if I'm not at work I'm either crashed on the couch or frantically cleaning the otherwise neglected apartment. So I'm not entirely sure I'll be making much progress in writing until either a) the apartment is actually clean and I just need to do maintainence every day, or b) work becomes less frantic. I'll try though.

Until next week... let's just focus on the "try a little and hope for a lot" mode of productivity every day.

World Building and Inspiration Striking (for others)

Wow. This has felt like such a loooooong week. I legit had to read back through last week's post to even remember what I last talked about. Weird to think how slow this month has been going. Bombarding poor Phfylburt as well as Mother's Day both feel like weeks away instead of just a few days.

Actually, I haven't talked to Phfyl at all this week aside from sending him more brainstorming on Thursday. I'll get to that in a bit.

Honestly, aside from bouncing more ideas off of Hubby and having the gears grinding, I haven't done terribly too much with writing this past week. I was finishing up this little fella:

Sorry for the blurry pictures. My camera broke a few years back and I haven't had the money to fix/replace it. Anyway, that little guy up there is supposed to look like a toy version of this dude:

That would be George, my best friend's pet rabbit. The crocheted version of him is a toy I made for Bestie's first-born son. Picking out what I would make for him was part of her baby-shower gift, much like what I did with my sister-in-law and the blanket I made for my niece. It's been so long since I last saw my bestie - and it kept me so long to get down to business and make the silly toy - that the bunny also became the kid's baptism gift.

So my week was spent frantically trying to finish up the toy while working my now-normal insane hours and getting ready to trek home for the kid's baptism. Oh yeah, and be surprised by Bestie that I'm one of the kid's godmothers! YEAH! I have a niece and now I have a godson! About a month ago Hubby and I even got a hand-me-down frame for our mattress and we've been sleeping off the floor. Look at who's growing up and junk!

Alright, back to writing.

So, my time was obviously spent on slightly-higher priority stuff this past week: work, finishing the kid's toy, becoming a godmother, visiting my mom and sis, etc. Oh, and, Mom, if you're reading this I put those in order of what I did for the week. I'm not saying visiting you was on the bottom of the list....

*Ahem*

During my work breaks, however, I was able to FINALLY finish editing the collab Ronoxym and I started back in February. There were a lot more edits - mostly typos - than I initially realized, and Ron has the collab word doc set up so that only he can edit and I can only make comments on it. So, I think I'm going to have to redo it as a new word doc, set it up so that both of us can edit, and send him that as a replacement. Hopefully if he re-reads the whole thing like I did it will respark his inspiration and he can finally advance the story.

Yes, I'm trying to guilt trip you in to writing, Ron!

So, that project is done and the project of actually typing up the second draft shouldn't be too daunting, I hope. The only other thing I really worked on this week - as I mentioned - was using my husband as a sounding board.

Which brings us back to my statement at the start of this blog: the brainstorm with Phfyl this past Thursday.

Technically I wasn't really brainstorming with Phfyl as much as I was relaying over an awesome concept that Hubby came up with. See, last Wednesday Hubby and I went to go watch the second Amazing Spider-Man movie. While we were waiting for the movie to start I relayed over Phfyl's thought of a cyberpunk fantasy setting for our X-Future original reboot. After some discussion, Hubby came up with the following:

In the near-future groups of hacktivists - such as Anonymous or The Rising Tide from Agents of SHIELD - succeed in taking down the corrupt governments of the world. Not sure if it's more of a domino effect or a simultaneous attack. Either way, this results in a massive power void. The hacktivist groups decide to take control since they feel they understand what works best for the people.

After a bit of a power struggle between the groups and the previous government officials and supporters the hacktavists manage to become the new government. They aren't numerous enough for a different person to be in charge of each country in the world, and so they break down the modern borders and restructure the world in to kingdoms. This will give us the "fantasy"/medieval setting.

Over the generations - Hubby was thinking our story would take place in like 2250 or something - the Cyber Lords become more and more corrupt and power hungry. Eventually they become just like the governments the original hacktivists overthrew. During those same generations, citizens have become more and more dependent and trusting of their devices, and so most are easily manipulated by the Cyber Lords' "approved" information. The Cyber Lords are the best hackers in the world and can manipulate any information that goes online.

Soon, people begin to age out of the knowledge of how the world was before the rise of the Cyber Lords. They only know of the existence of the Kingdoms.

Meanwhile, due to food additives, genetic manipulation, "unclean" power sources, and pollution, mutation has switched from a strange phenomenon to an almost every-day occurrence. And the mutations become more and more extreme; such as fur, wings, high healing factor, etc.

The mutations also become more and more genetic, so if your dad had wings you have 1/2 chance of having some as well.

Because of the Cyber Lords the worlds' dialects have become more internet/gamer oriented: text/tweet shorthand and leet-speak. Due to the new modern dialect, the mutants were typically described as something similarly found in games. For instance, mutants with wings would be angels, demons, or fairies depending on how the wings looked. Mutants with super-human strength and/or fast healing would be berserkers. So on and so forth.

Along with the information distortion that all but erased the pre-cyber-world, the idea of mutants gave way to just "new races".

Technology became more and more impressive, but the average citizen became less and less knowledgeable of how it worked. They just took for granted that it did. Only the Cyber Lords and the other nobility knew how technology truly functioned any more.

Because of this, citizens began believing in magic again. This gave way to elemental-kinetics, psychics, and other "physics" manipulators to be thought of as "mages" instead of "mutants".

Thus is the setting of our Brave New World of cyberpunk fantasy while still holding on to the original concept of mutants.

Now, I embellished a bit on his initial idea; adding in things like how the mutations kick-started and why technology was considered "magic" in the future. However, the core of the above was from the mind of my husband. Man, I miss having him as a Dungeon Master...

Anyway, the concept is amazing, but there's one downside. It's TOO good. X-Future works so well and is able to be converted in to an original tale so easily because the background universe it takes place in barely affects anything at all. We can put these characters in to virtually any setting, and as long as they're able to still have the normal teenage-high-school-drama and powers/magic the story works.

The above setting is too intriguing for X-Future. You don't want to watch an ensemble cast play around in this universe without really acknowledging it. You want to explore this new world. You want to explore how it came to be and determine if it will stay as is. You want to maybe watch a Cyber Lord as he ruled. Or you want to watch a citizen become disillusioned and try to start a coup. Maybe you just want to watch a woman struggle as she's declared an outlaw simply because she wants to become an archaeologist; discovering how the world once was and how it came to be. There could even be a really cool tale if the citizens of this new world decided to rename Earth - or never refer to their planet by name - and so the reader thinks it's a tale on an alien planet. Then someone discovers the history of the world and BAM! The reader is shocked to discover that they're still on Earth!

That's what happened in one of the mangas I used to read. I won't say what manga so that I don't give away spoilers, but the basic concept is that teenagers were magically teleported in to this barren, hostile, desert-like planet with ruins that vaguely resembled modern buildings. Then, one of the teens discovered his uncle's house perfectly preserved. That's when they realized they weren't being sent to a different world, they were being sent to the future! Dun Dun Duuuuuun!!!!!

My point is that the setting Hubby came up with is almost a character in and of itself. However, the focus of X-Future is definitely on the interesting characters we all came up with. It would be way too complicated if we tried to run a story where the reader is torn between wanting to know more about a cast of at least seven people or learn more about the setting.

I am planning on slotting that idea away for some future project, though. I just need to figure out who will be the character that gets to play in that playground. ONE interesting character running around an intriguing world is a much better fit.

So.... still trying to figure out the world behind the X-Future reboot. Wonder if Phfyl has thought of anything over the past week.

In the meantime, I'll brainstorm some more with Hubby. I may even take up world building Gyateara more. Silly Hubby actually told me on Sunday "If you ever need help with naming things, I'm pretty good at it."

First of all... I KNOW he's really good at it! I love all the names he comes up with for his characters and settings. I tell him that a lot, actually! Heck, there was a month or two where he had me convinced that we should name our son - if we were to ever have one - after one of his D&D characters. Would have been a really cool name too....

Secondly: DOES HE NOT KNOW ME BY NOW!? Of COURSE I need help naming things! I frequently lament how horrible I am at naming things! Where has he been!?

That being said, he's now going to help me with coming up with names for my world building.

Before I jet for the week I do want to do a couple shout-outs!

Seems a trio of my online writing buddies are finally back in to the groove of things, plus Omnibladestrike has been chugging along with his own world-building for about two weeks now.

Friday I had a message posted on my Facebook wall:
"All right, I'm doing the '5 minute writing' that you talked about in a blog. Let's break my hiatus."

AngelBlood666 later commented that his "five minute writing" turned in to a half-hour; easily. He has since written for "five minutes" every day and is ready to do his first update in a long time. Should be up sometime today! Mad props, AB666!

Same day I also received a message from AB666's beta and the mutual friend that got us to meet: DarkAngel1326.
"You better be writing! I'm writing tonight too. Rose (my princess/undercover knight) has some stuff to say."

So glad she's getting back in to Of Blood and Honor! So YAY for her too!

The real shocker was when I received this message yesterday morning just before running off to work:
"I want to write a story, but I need someone to be my sounding board. Up for it?"

Heck yeah, I'm up for it! Especially since that message was from someone I haven't mentioned here in AGES. Good old Delaroux! I honestly have no clue how much writing she's been doing over the past year or so since I stopped frequenting the Facebook group she started up for her original characters. It was a fun time and I loved both her and the other girls I met in that group, but they would be up at about 2am role-playing. I'd spend HOURS just going back through and reading everything they've posted while I was sleeping, like the old broad that I am.

I kept telling Delaroux that she needed to create a forum - much like X-Future - for her and the girls to role play on. I'd be able to read more at my leisure that way. Instead of scrolling on endlessly in the group set-up Facebook switched to a few years back. I still can't stand that. The old groups where everything was organized in threads was so much easier to navigate; especially when you aren't on the group 24/7.

Anyway, I'm off topic.

My point is that I'm so proud of all four of you!

Omni! I'm excited to hear what progress you've made with your world building. Perhaps we'll make a day to draw maps together.

AB666, I'm so proud that you've tried out the 5-minute writing challenge, that you've stuck with it, and that you have something to show for it. Doing better than me, haha! I can't wait to read the end result.

DA1326, I'm just amazingly excited that school let out - or is soon? - for you and that you finally have writing time again! I want to know everything Rose told you Friday night.

Delaroux, I still need to go back and read everything you sent me - probably my next task after posting this - but I'm elated that you're writing again! Your characters are always so intriguing to me. I can't wait to see what you have in store this time.

The Floodgates Are Open

Sorry about last week's rantings and emo-ness. I think I scared some people off. While I had 23 hits on my Rant About X-Future post I only had 17 hits on the My Muse Keeps Getting Hit By A Giant Flyswatter follow-up post.

I feel silly being proud of so few hits in the grand scheme of things... Still, having people reading my ramblings at all is awesome.

Anyway... My point is that I want to thank those of you still around after yet another emotional turn for the worst in my blog. I do that a lot, don't I?

I actually debated going back and taking those two posts down.

My rage and sadness faded as I vented for seven hours in my blog. Yup. SEVEN HOURS OF CONTINUOUS WRITING. They were rantings and a bit rambled and I deleted a lot before posting, but still not bad for someone who didn't want to write at all! Ah, the power of writing; journaling.

The thing is though, that with that rage and sadness gone there was no point in having those posts up. They were essentially my passive-aggressive way of slapping Phfylburt in the face, and making him feel bad about his decision. Worst part was that it worked. Worked so well that he wanted to Skype with me so he could apologize "face to face".

On top of that, I had at least three friends take pity on both me and my predicament.

So then I felt even MORE of a loser for making people either feel bad for me or feel guilty of what they had done, all because of what I had written. Again: the power of words.

Those were all reasons to just take down the posts so no one else could see my low point.

Then it hit me. Maybe that's the exact reason why I should keep them up. I know that if I went to Ali Luke's or Rick Riordan's blog and saw a post like those up it would be humbling for me. To see an author I admire admit their failings and show the open wounds of a low point.... they would be more human and my own struggle wouldn't seem so lonely.

Thing is, I'm not alone in this struggle to find myself as an author. I'm not alone in getting WAY too attached to a fictional world. I'm not alone in wondering if I'm where I should be.

You're not alone either.

I kept those posts up because I hope that one day - if it hasn't already - someone will read those low points and realize I'm in the same boat as them. We're the same. If I can make it out of this pit and actually become a professional writer then perhaps you can too.

That bit of help. That bit of connectivity that can only come from the beauty of the internet. That encouraging thought. That minor legacy. That - and the fact that I more-or-less haven't STOPPED writing since - is why I am never taking those blog posts down, or any of my emo-rific blog posts.

Future authors need to see that someone who came before them had the same struggle, and was able to overcome it. Now... to just overcome it enough that I can make something of myself!

First step in that direction? Acknowledging my support network. Well, outside my husband, of course...
My online buddy AngelBlood666 and my mentor Ali were instantly there to perk me up after I posted last week. I'm sure DarkAngel1326 would have been right in their ranks too if she wasn't about to die from schoolwork....

But the one who really pushed me in the right direction was my lovely ChibiSunnie. It had been a little while, but she found last week to be the perfect time to return to her usual "my comments about your blog are too long for the actual comments section, so I'll send them to you in an email."

It was indeed a long email, but it was filled with empathy and encouraging words - as well as concern for Lia, but I'll get to that. Out of the full email though, I thought this bit to be the part that really hit home the most. Wonderful insight about struggling to figure out if you should follow a certain path in life.

Chibi: [It's like] if you're running late for the bus and you're starting to worry you won't make it. So you briefly slow down for a sec, thinking "Why bother running if I won't make it?" Then you either give into that idea and walk the rest of the way, or you start running as fast as you can...so that you can at least say you gave it your all [to try to make it]. It sounds like you're in that brief sec part. So you need to decide if you're just going to walk the rest of the way and make writing a hobby, or if you're going to start running and at least know that you gave it your all attempting to make it a career.

I'm sprinting, Chibi! I'm sprinting! You better have a towel and water for me at the bus stop.

I have to admit that I loved that quote so much that I made sure to post it here as soon as I read it. I knew I'd be able to build a blog post around it somehow. If not, I was going to post just the quote. Didn't care.

So, like I said, I have more-or-less been writing non-stop since.

Well... world building non-stop since; to be specific.

Phfyl sent me an IM after reading my blogs in order to apologize yet again, but also admitting how humbling my posts were.

Phfylburt: For me the whole situation was a bit of a roller coaster. Cause on the one hand I felt bad that I put you through this. Then there is the other side that was kind of thrilled about it. I've never had anyone react this way to my writing. Ever. I mean granted not a lot of people have read my stuff, but still. And then you put up that second post and it was even more humbling. I mean the fact that you said you were excited when I posted something and that you were a fan was simply unreal for me. And then there was your outro paragraphs. Damn, [girl], if I don't have those similar thoughts every...day. What if I'm just someone who likes to write but isn't meant to be a writer?
So yeah. Sorry...but only kind of. And thank you for the kind words.

Like I said.... we're not alone in the struggle.

This is a guy that got me exited to always read what he wrote. This is a guy who evoked so many emotions from me last week. This is a guy who creates such awesome characters and masterful plot twists. Even HE wonders if he can make it as an author.

On the one hand you can take that as "well, then what chance do I have?" but on the other hand you can ALSO say "We're alike. So maybe I can make it too..."

In fact, a big ego boost that helped me think I can actually make it as a writer was what I mentioned at the top of the blog: Chibi's concern for Lia. In fact, I recently found out that apparently quite a few people seem to really like her.

Phfyl and I were having our little heart-to-heart when he told me that he "had to" do what he did last week because "in my book, Lia is the main character, and so torturing her is part of the job." HUH!? Lia!? The main character!?

Now, I knew that she was one of the central characters right alongside Willow since I try to ALWAYS have the girls active and involved in everything on the boards. It's more fun to play like that, and it makes the characters more embedded in the overall story if they have at least a LITTLE role in everything that goes down.

But MAIN character? I didn't really see X-Future as HER story per se. However, he argued that she was essentially the introduction the reader had to this universe and it was about watching her grow - among other things. Also, poor Lia gets struck with all the feels for the most part.

No wonder The Bard and Chibi love her so much. I thought the poor girl was shoved in to the back seat once I really got the hang of Willow and created Trish. It's good to know that not only is she loved, but she's probably the most loved of my characters, at least by the readers. Part of me feels bad for Willow now - who is my favorite - but screw it; she has everything else going for her. What else does Lia have? Plus, it's awesome to see that people truly do care for my original characters!

Like I said: ego boost!

So now I'm pushing hard to ride this high. I've actually made progress with converting X-Future in to an original universe for a story reboot. As you all know, I've been thinking about this for a while. Some of the tweaking has been easy, but it has mostly been a brick wall in front of me for some time now. I even tried to use one of the weekly writing challenges during the Writers’ Huddle Winter Challenge to help me with the conversion. The challenge was to work out a mind-map. It only helped me a little and certainly did not turn out pretty at all....

Have I mentioned that I suck at making these?

Well, this past week has really made me want this to happen even with the stalled out momentum for the past few months. In truth, part of it is so I can reboot the story so Phfyl's fopaux is either non-existent or at least waits until further in the overall story before it occurs. Also in truth, part of it is so I can run Devon. Ronoxym takes too long to do anything and I see so much untapped potential in Devon. But mostly it's because I'm still not sure how to react on the forum right now, but I am still so hooked with this story.

Novelizing it as X-Men fanfiction is one thing, but I'd LOVE for a broader audience to experience this story. I also keep thinking of it as a much more visual story than what we can do on the boards. Thus my pull towards making a webcomic of it.

Now, the trick is trying to figure out how to handle making it a webcomic. I know I want to work with Phfyl on this project. He's like a walking Marvel Comics encyclopedia. He knows the best way to tell stories by way of comics. He knows the Marvel universe. He's also such a great writer; ya know... in case I didn't hit that point hard enough yet...

I also consider it a given that I work with Hubby on this. X-Future was his idea to begin with and a large portion of the cool plot twists on the board are either his brainchild or birthed from he and Phfyl collectively being evil. Even without those merits, he's also a great sounding board and support network for me.

I'd also like to work with Ron since we worked well together when we were working on that Devon/Willow collab. However, Ron clearly isn't really geared up to write ANYTHING until his life gets more settled and he has more free time. Main reason why that collab isn't done yet and posted for you fine folks to read. Trust me, I'm working diligently on the second draft of what we DO have so it can be posted as fast as I can get Ron to move.

So, I have my writing "staff" for this thing. In and of itself that's quite unique. Most webcomics are just one writer/artist. Perhaps they're a team: one artist and one writer. Having four writers and no artist though? Rough start. Taking applications...

After getting Phfyl on board with the webcomic idea, I spent the week smoothing out the edges on my concept of "classifying" mutants in to categories based on the core of their powers. I think it's a cool system Hubby helped me create. The trick though is to figure out a new collective term besides "mutants" since calling them that and having them all train at a school is a blatant rip-off of the original source material.

This is the latest snag. Poor Phfyl has spent the past week innocently bringing up Facebook, only to be bombarded with about a page's worth of my brainstorming ideas every day.

Phfylburt:
That is quite a bit of information.

Me:
I may have been thinking intently about this for a few months....

Phfylburt:
Well that much is obvious....

Do you ever sleep?....
I'm too tired to take this all in. I'll come back later and digest it all and give you a response.

To be fair.... each ellipsed comment is a separate day's response to my insane bombardment on the poor schmuck...

At the very least I am enjoying the discussion and the brainstorming. Obviously... otherwise he wouldn't have to wade through so much every day. But hey, even if he groans every time he sees another message from me at least I am writing. That's what counts, right?

We've looked up "mutant" in multiple languages and tried synonyms to broaden our search. We've thought about locations for the first "mutant outbreak" that brings them to the public eye. We've even learned a new word: Preternatural - very unusual in a way that does not seem natural; existing outside of nature; exceeding what is natural or regular; extraordinary; inexplicable by ordinary means.

We don't have one term tied down quite yet, but I'm personally leaning towards an almost cyberpunk term I came up with. It would work well with the pseudo-cyberpunk mutant classifications Hubby thought of. Phfyl, I think, is leaning more towards the Finnish translation for Preternatural: Travaton. Although, to be truly accurate, the proper translation of Preternatural for the meaning we're leaning towards would be yliluonnollinen. I don't even KNOW where to start with pronouncing that!

The next snafu would be the actual world we want to have our universe in. Personally, I've always thought of X-Future as a near-future sort of environment. Very close to the source material of X-Men: Evolution. Once I started shifting it away from X-Men fanfiction and more original work I was seeing it more of a cyberpunk story. However, Phfyl seems to be nervous that it will still feel too close to X-Men. Although slight, there's a possibility that if we follow through with this idea of creating a webcomic Marvel might notice the similarities and take it down for copyright infringement. A bit of a stretch, but still a definite possibility.

To try to prevent that, he pitched the idea of switching gear completely, stripping everyone down to their most basic roots, and converting the whole thing in to a fantasy. He even thought the idea of a cyberpunk fantasy world would be cool.

I have to admit that when I first really started hearing The Girls I was a bit upset that they were tied down to X-Men fanfiction. They are all so compelling to me that I want to write volumes of books about them. I even debated the idea of creating them in a High Fantasy world. Perhaps throw them in to Gyateara. Different continent than Amara or Natalie and Connor, but still.

I keep going back to near-future cyberpunk though, and it seems less complicated that way. Less world-building. We still have a few crucial questions that we need to answer, but it seems like a better option. I'm throwing a million options at Phfyl - as per usual - and seeing which idea sticks. The more ideas I have out there the easier they come to me. I'm liking this!

So, let's see where this takes me. Hopefully to an on-time update next week...