Tag: writer

Okay, this month wasn’t nearly as bad as last month. Plus, I’m starting a new project, so…

What I’ve Accomplished This Month

See? Much better 🙂 I even managed to write some new words! Not on the project I was meant to be writing for, but hey, new words!

•  Changing History: Calenhiril’s Search– 8 chapters posted

This went surprisingly well this month. So well in fact that I’ve moved up my completion date to… the end of this week. Oh god, I literally have only THREE CHAPTERS LEFT… There will be a dedicated blog post when I’m done, I have too many feels.

• Paradise Found: A Worth Living For short story– Edited and posted!

Three years after I finished posting Worth Living For, I finally have the Bora Bora sequel up! Hopefully it won’t take three years for me to write the full-length Age of Ultron sequel. I’m shooting for sometime in late 2017 😉

• Double The Baggins, Twice The Took– 1 chapter posted

Once Changing History is finished (oh god…), this will be the next sprawling epic that receives my attention. Weekly posting probably won’t start until after the first of the year, and until then, I’ll be dedicating most of my new words to this fic. Not in November though. November is for my brand new project 🙂

• The Stars Are Fire (NaNoWriMo 2016)– outlining and prep underway

This is the story, all about how… wait, that’s not gonna work, let’s start again ;P

So, about two weeks ago, I was actually getting kind of depressed about NaNo. Wonderland Reclaimed held absolutely no appeal for me (you know that old saying about beating a dead horse? Yeah…) and I had resigned myself to the fact that I would be writing words on my DBTT fanfic for the month. It wasn’t ideal, but it made the most sense, productivity-wise.

Then I went to writing group. And was promptly (and rightly) shamed out of it.

I’ve been working on almost nothing but fanfiction all year. And that’s not to say that fanfiction is unworthy of my time. When I write a fanfiction, it is because I have a story to tell that I cannot imagine telling any other way. And I believe that those stories are important. They touch the lives of those that read them, and that is always a worthwhile pursuit.

All that to say, it’s still not going to pay the bills. Ever. I’ve been working so hard on my fanfiction this year because I want to finally be able to take a step back and breathe, to evaluate my time so that my fanfiction projects and my original work can exist in harmony together, side-by-side, neither one gaining complete control over my time. But getting to that point is turning out to be exhausting. My brain needs a break.

So, with the help of my group (I love you guys), I’ve decided to write a brand new novel for November. It’s a genderswapped, Hamlet in Space retelling, and I could not be more excited about it!

Special thanks go to Adan Ramie (who was instrumental in my shaming, mostly because she is probably SO SICK of hearing me talk about fanfiction ;P) and Cat Mealer (who was so excited about this idea I thought she might have an aneurysm, thanks for not dying at writing group, Cat! ;P).

What’s Coming Up in October

I’ve already mentioned that Calenhiril’s Search, the fourth and FINAL installment of Changing History will be completed sometime this week. I’m also planning to post my requisite one chapter of DBTT around the 15th. The rest of the month will be spent finishing my outline for The Stars Are Fire and writing new words on DBTT (I’m going to set an arbitrary goal of 5,000, because I like round numbers, but I don’t want to die ;P).

There will be a couple of extra blog posts this month too. It’s time for a Quarterly Round-Up (I almost forgot about this!) and as I said, Changing History will receive it’s own blog post in the next week or so.

I’m feeling really good about this month! Also, take a look at this bird!

It’s called a potoo, and they may look like Muppet characters, but I assure you, they are very real!

https://youtu.be/-FggGQ9QcWI

Until next time! 😀

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Just a warning: I was useless last month. I mean, really. I don’t know what happened to all my grand plans, but they are nowhere to be found right now. I’m finally feeling back to normal and ready to tackle my life again, but being off-kilter for a whole month really set me back.

Alright, let’s take a look at the damage and see what we can salvage.

What I’ve Accomplished This Month

Ugh. I didn’t even want to post this. It looks so bare…

•  Changing History: Calenhiril’s Search– 2 chapters posted

I know the chart only shows one chapter, but I posted the second one on September 1st, so I’m counting it 🙂 I’m not too far behind on this yet (though I’m further behind than I thought I would be) and if I post at least one chapter every week (excluding November) I should still be in a position to finish by the end of the year. I’m optimistic about my chances here, and I’ve been able to work through a lull in productivity in the past week, so hopefully this will continue on schedule.

• Double The Baggins, Twice The Took– 1 chapter posted

I’ve lowered my expectations for this story to one chapter a month, just until I can get Calenhiril’s Search finished. But I got them out of Rivendell! \o/ I’ve also decided to make this story my NaNo project this year, so that I can dive right into posting in earnest in the new year 🙂

• Wonderland Reclaimed- 3,894 words written

Here’s where my failure really shines. I had a goal of writing 10,000 words this month and I just could not push myself to it. I’m having a really hard time with this story so, as much as I wanted to be done with the first draft by the end of the year, I just don’t see it happening. I’m letting that goal go. I’m not letting go of the story, but I’m not going to punish myself for not finishing it by the end of 2016. Instead, I’m going to do my best to write at least 8,000 words a month on it until it is finished (obviously November and December will be exceptions). It’s going to throw off my plans for 2017 a little bit, but that’s flexible, I have plenty of time to figure it out.

What’s Coming Up in September

I’m still going to try to post at least one chapter of Calenhiril’s Search a week, and one chapter of DBTT around the 15th of the month. I have a goal of 8,000 new words for Wonderland Reclaimed, which should be doable if I really work at it. And I’m going to be editing the short story sequel fanfic to Worth Living For that I wrote in July! That’s something I’m really excited about and I can’t wait to get started!

I’m also preparing for additional duties concerning NaNoWriMo in November. This year, a friend and I have been announced as the Municipal Liaisons of a brand new region! We’re both very excited to get started, but it’s a lot of work and will take an awful lot of dedication and time to get set up. I think I’m going to be extra grateful for my month off come December 😉

Wow, this post was especially sparse this month, here have a gif of a slow loris eating a banana:

I need about twenty of these creatures in my life… Okay, until next time!

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Last night, at writing group, I was so tired that I actually could not imagine writing this blog post. I felt like I hadn’t slept in two weeks (mostly because I basically hadn’t slept in two weeks) and I had no more words to word. I couldn’t even Pinterest. That’s how tired I was.

Well, I’m still tired, but here I am. And now, I’m going to explain why I felt that way 🙂

What I’ve Accomplished This Month

This was the big one. 50,000 words, over three different stories, in 29 days. July has 31 days, you say? Well, thinking I was going to have plans this past weekend, I pushed through and finished on day 29 instead.

First draft of Calenhiril’s Search is completely finished. All it’s going to need is some editing and filling out as I go along. I have written the actual end of a story I have been writing for 15 years… I’m feeling… well. That’s a blog post for another time.

I wrote the fanfic short story sequel to Worth Living For. It went really well, a lot better than I thought it would. I’m very excited to start editing it, but I haven’t decided if I want to try to do that in the last two weeks of this month, or wait until September. If I get my mojo back, I will try for August, but I’m not holding my breath.

Wonderland Reclaimed. It’s a mess. It’s going to need so much tweaking and fixing and nitpicking. But Part One- Down The Rabbit Hole – is complete. Again. And I used the rest of my words (nearly 11,000!) to work on Part Three until I could work no more! I’m still a little stuck on how I want the plot of Part Three (tentatively titled Through The Looking Glass) to go. There are so many things that need to happen, most of them in the background of the two main characters’ arcs and I’m still not entirely sure how to work it all in. I’m going to let it rest for the next two weeks or so until I get my bearings back.

• Clarity– 9 chapters posted (COMPLETE!)

It’s finished! And it went really well! I got so much positive feedback and so many people that are excited for the sequel! I’m still planning to write the Age of Ultron sequel, but unfortunately it might not happen in November like I planned. I may decide to write 50,000 words on Double The Baggins, Twice The Took instead (see below). And of course this is all completely dependent on whether or not I finish Wonderland Reclaimed before November. If not, I’ll be working on that instead. Again. I’m going to be sick of this story before I even get out of the first draft.

•  Changing History: Calenhiril’s Search– 2 chapters posted

Once I finished Clarity, I was feeling pretty good about myself. So I posted a couple chapters of Calenhiril’s Search, just as a nice surprise for readers. I pretty much ripped their hearts out, but that’s neither here nor there ;P Right now, I’m thinking I will have this story completely finished by the end of the year, which is going to be weird. I won’t even know what to do with myself. Wow.

• Double The Baggins, Twice The Took– 1 chapter posted

Yes, I fell into this trap again. I just really want to get them out of Rivendell, is that so wrong? And on that note, all my characters seem to get trapped in this Rivendell vortex. Why is that exactly? Elrond?

Right, well, clearly he’s not talking. But anyway, now that Clarity is done, I feel like I can take another crack at this story. I’ll probably only post a chapter a week, because I do want to focus on finishing Calenhiril’s Search, but I hope to have this finished by this time next year at least.

• Just for fun, here’s my WordKeeperAlpha bar graph from July!

Yeah. This is why I have no more words left to word.

What’s Coming Up in August

Well, the first two weeks are going to be R&R time. I’m going on vacation, so I’m prepping for that and then I’ll be gone, spending time with fogishandsome, riding steam engines, climbing around Pueblo settlements, floating in hot air balloons, that kind of thing 🙂

When I get back is when real work will start up again. I’m still desperately trying to finish Wonderland Reclaimed before November. Preferably before October, so I have time to prep a project for November. Which means I have a month and a half to write roughly 40,000 words that I have not plotted yet. I know what needs to happen, but I have no idea how to get there. And one of my main characters has changed race no less than three times, it would be very helpful if she would just PICK A LOOK ALREADY! *ahem* Anyway, I’m going to try to write at least another 10,000 words in the two weeks that are left to me in August.

Along with that, I will still be posting at least one chapter of Calenhiril’s Search a week (sans vacation week), along with trying to post one chapter of DBTT as well. I’m rapidly running out of written chapters for DBTT, hence the possibility of writing another 50,000 words on that story in November, rather than the Age of Ultron fic I had planned.

It’s only August and I’m already looking forward to December. I’m so tired, I think I’m going to just go sleep for another couple of days.