#Why did I write this instead of working on my NaNo project?

[tumblydovereviews]

What Failing NaNoWriMo Taught Me

This is a change in subject from the usual media posts, but I wanted to try and broad out the scope of my writing a bit.

If you are even remotely familiar with the online writing community, you will probably know what NaNoWriMo is. Every November, writers from all around the world scramble to start an all-new story and to finish that very story by the last day of the month. And, did I mention that this novel needs to be 50,000 words at the least?

Being the bored person I am, I decided to take a risk and try the challenge out. And thus, half my October was spent forming a new world with new characters and a unique plot. On November 1st, I gathered up my supplies, booted up my laptop and started the grand journey into the wild west that is NaNo season.

Obviously, if you read the title of this article, you would know how that went.

I wrote only approximately 29,000 words for my novel. That's it. Out of the 50,000 words I was planning on writing, I barely made it half-way through.

But yet, despite my technical failure, I don't think competing in NaNoWriMo was a complete waste. I learned quite a few lessons from the journey, both writing and non-writing related, and I'm here to share them with you.

Hydrate, hydrate, HYDRATE: Like many others, I have trouble keeping a consistent amount of water in my daily diet. Somedays, I'll hardly drink any at all and on others, chugging down is all that I'll do. A few years ago, my lack of hydration actually landed me in the ER on an IV. Most of the time, we are taught only to drink water to keep our bodies going. But, I learned that when I was sufficiently hydrated while writing, I could go on for much longer periods of time compared to when I was thirsty. As it turns out, drinking water and fluids can also have a positive impact on our brain function!

Create goals based off your personal style: I'm not too bad of a chronic procrastinator. Like all of us have, occasionally I'll put projects aside towards the last minute, but for the most part, I'm a pretty good worker. My problem is working consistently- I concentrate much better in controlled bursts of time than in a long session, but at the same time, I don't like leaving work unfinished. If I start a chapter, I'm going to finish it no matter what, for better or for worse. For NaNoWriMo, I decided to aim on finishing at least one chapter of my story per day. That way, I would have a manageable amount of work while still staying productive in the process.

At the same time, life is WAY more important than writing: Throughout November, Thanksgiving, school, and the start of the holidays in general impeded my ability to write as much as I could have. And that's okay! Writing is just one part of my life, not my entire well-being. I try to divide the different aspects of my life into certain 'parts,' from my academic part to my author part for tumblydovereviews. This helps me to throw away any worries I mayhave about another 'part,' and instead focus my whole self onto one part at a time.

Grow a closer bond with your characters: I loved my characters. I thought about them throughout the day and as I wrote. I came up with their favorite activities, movies, and foods, and imagined scenarios for them in my head. In a way, this made writing them easier as I knew more about how they would react and why.

And, if no matter what you try, you still fail NaNoWriMo...: That's okay! Remember, the entire point of this challenge is to have fun while also completing a story in the process. No matter what happens, I'm proud of you for trying. You're doing great!

Will I decide to complete NaNoWriMo again next year? It remains to be seen. But one thing remains clear: even through my failure, I still love to write. I still love to read. I still want to create stories and worlds and essays. And, nothing will stop me from doing that.

[reliablejoukido]

NaNo Project Update #5: Week 4/Finale

"Somewhere Only We Know" Chapters 11-16

Chapter 11/16: Hikari and Takeru, mostly Hikari POV - 100% COMPLETE!

Chapter 12/16: Daisuke and Ken, both POV - 100% COMPLETE!

Chapter 13/16: Miyako and Koushiro, mostly Miyako POV - 100% COMPLETE!

Chapter 14/16: Ensemble adv cast, mostly Taichi POV - 0%

Chapter 15/16: Sora and Joe, mostly Sora POV - 0%

Chapter 16/16: Ensemble 02 cast, Mimi & Joe - multiple POV - 0%

I set out at the beginning of NaNo to write only SOWK, hoping to finish the story. Obviously it didn't quite work out that way, but I'm happy with getting 3 out of 6 chapters accomplished. I will make a more comprehensive project update soon, but in essence, I'm taking a break from writing this story until the spring. I WILL be posting the 3 finished chapters much sooner though.

_____________

"The Universal Language of Friendship" Chapters 1-6

ON HOLD - about 35% done

Still on hold. Still not feeling it. But I do have plans to return. Thank you to everyone supporting me.

_____________

"(Don't) stop flirting" - Daiken oneshot (rated M)

100% COMPLETE!

I'm really proud of how this one turned out, even though it was relatively short.

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"Bar-Crossed Lovers" - Daiyako multi-chaptered (rated M)

100% COMPLETE!

I got this one up past 11k, which helped my NaNo numbers a lot. I adore Daiyako/Daimiya and I want to explore this ship more in the future. At first, with this fic, I was worried everything was too way silly. But then I realized I didn't have to make it serious if I didn't feel like it. So this is the most unabashedly romcom-y story I think I've ever written. And I've written a lot of romcom.

_____________

"Backstreet's Back" (working title) - Daikenkeru oneshot (rated explicit)

????%

I've had bits and pieces of this Daikenkeru threesome fic written for a few years now. Most of my writing for it took place after I reached 50k, but I'm still counting this as a project I worked on during NaNo. The fic is chaotic and sexy and weird. And if you know the real reason why the working title is "Backstreet's Back", I love you.

I want to take my time during December on this one, since I'm technically supposed to be taking a writing break. I'm sure there are people out there interested in reading this type of fic, so I've been wanting to actually finish it for a long time.

_____________

I accomplished 50k and beyond! All in all, my first NaNo was pretty fun. Everyone in the Camp Digimonth server was wonderfully kind and supportive, as well as my followers and mutuals here on tumblr. I'm really glad I took a chance with NaNo. I have to admit that I did get stressed out a few times trying to stay ahead of the game with my wordcount, causing me to panic about how I wanted to move forward with the month. But talking it out with encouraging friends was a blessing.

Work projects, my cousin's wedding, the 02 film, a bad headcold, Jou Weekend, and Thanksgiving all threw hurdles at me, both good and stressful. But I prevailed and I'm proud of myself. I still can't believe I decided to work on 5 projects over NaNo instead of one, but I think in doing that, it helped keep the momentum going. Whenever I got stuck on something with SOWK, I was able to pick up a different project and work from there. And all of those separate projects were something exciting to work on.

Anyway, I hope everyone who participated in NaNo 2023 had a good one, no matter where you ended up progress-wise with your projects. And a BIG thank you to everyone who was supportive of the people doing NaNo this month!

[ramblingkat]

I’ve got so much writing to do before the end of the year. First is Nano(oh man, why it is almost November? Where did the rest of 2023 go?) That’s fifty thousand words. Then there is Ichigobowl. Which has a check in during Dec that equals about ten thousand words there.

Then there is my seeeeekret project. Which is going to be about 24,000+ words. And, and the end of it all, UraIchi PC 8. And fuck if I know how many words there.

So, at a minimum, that’s 84,000 words that I will write between now and the end of the year. Plus any other projects or one shots I work on.

Time to whip out my spider fingers and get to typing. Instead of being a distracted lump of procrastination. Maybe I’ll sneak up on all these words.

[quaranmine]

alright, stats time. numbers! percentages! analysis!

GO ME! i finished my writing challenge last night. though i have done them before, i have never had a 30 day streak--my longest was 11 days, previously.

NANOWRIMO "GOAL": 50k words in a month. lol nope i didn't even plan to do that but that's the perspective i'm putting the post in

MY GOAL: add 30k to IBW.

fail. i added 5.2k to IBW in the end, the equivalent of finishing just one chapter. basically, I completed 17% of my goal. not something I'm happy about but i did inevitably mostly get past a thing that was giving me trouble.

MY SECOND GOAL: add 30k aggregated to any projects

total word count: 21,366. that's techinically a fail but i'm not gonna count it because i reached 70% of my target wordcount AND THAT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME!!! 70 is a passing grade afterall :] if we want to put this in perspective of nano, i basically completed 40% of nano, which is great for a first-ever run (especially since i have never completed a 50k fic so far, let alone in a month. baby steps for me, i just do not write that quickly.)

MY THIRD GOAL: write something every day

SUCCESS! i did do that and i am very proud of it. it was shockingly hard sometimes. during the challenge i was like "i am never doing this again" and now literally less than a day after im like "hm i should do this again next year!" why am i like this? who knows!

So, let's look at other stats.

Number of fics worked on: four. (IBW, grumbot fic mainly, hitchhiker's au, and tumble town gothic)

Fanfic started and completed within the month: do you see no ghosts in me at all? (13,651 words). This means that ~64% of my time was spent on this fanfic, compared to any others (if we go by word count, as i don't remember which days specifically were used on this versus the others)

Average daily wordcount: 712 words. again, to reach the 30k goal i needed roughly 1k on average per day, so this is again about 70% of that. It is worth noting that my average for my last writing challenge in the spring was 548, so I did much better on average this month despite being forced to do it in a much longer streak. that's probably because the 0 wordcount days in the last challenge dragged the average down, so writing every day helped me a lot.

Lowest daily WC: 131

Highest daily WC: 1897

i think both of those were the same fic actually (grumbot fic.) the low wordcounts mostly represented lack of time, as i would stop writing whenever it got so late that i started falling asleep midsentence. however low wordcounts on IBW mostly represent lack of inspiration, except for the day 30, where it represented research.

all in all, i think it was a successful challenge. i'm still in writing mode and was already thinking about what i could do tonight, which is great because like...i am no longer beholden to this challenge but am still wanting to keep going (i'll just likely not force myself to do anything anymore if it's like 11:30pm and i havent done anything. i will just go to bed instead.)

the main lesson here is that i can Do Things when i want to really force myself to do, which is good because i often doubt my own abilities especially in connection with my writing. it's very personal compared to other stuff i do, so i very much love and appreciate everybody's support and kind reviews because i straight up would not be here or doing any of this without you. like i would have just gone back to hide under a rock lol.

i feel like completing these challenges gives me a lot more confidence in myself and my abilities, and gives me momentum to make consistent progress on my works even when things are a little rough. sometimes in writing you just Gotta Do It even if there isnt much inspiration, because it'll unlock the way for other scenes where you DO have inspiration.

now then. if someone can tell me why i was able to fully complete inktober for two years in a row, and pull off two of these writing challenges in one year, but CAN'T stick with actual responsible adult habits--

[duhragonball]

UAWC Update: 24,112

I should reach the halfway point by the end of the day. I feel like the 20k to 30k part of these 50k challenges is where I struggle the most, but so far it's not too bad. The bigger problem is that I'm not satisfied with what I'm writing.

Part of the point of this exercise is to emphasize quality over quantity, and that's a bitter pill for writers to swallow. I guess that goes for all artists. If a painter did some some sort of 50,000 brush strokes challenge, they'd probably spend much of the time trying to make sure they're the right strokes. There's a good-faith understanding that no one does a writing challenge and just types "the" over and over again for a month.

And that's why it's so important to let go of perfectionism and trust your own process. If you sit there and wait for the ideal style and plot layout, you'll never get anything done at all. It's like Sean Connery said in "Finding Forrester": Thinking comes later. I should really watch that whole movie instead of looking up clips on YouTube.

I'm also reminded of that chestnut I liked about how your work will always seem a little tired and predictable to you because you already know the story. It'll be more fresh and spontaneous to your audience, and that's just something you can't experience in the moment. This is why it's good to go back and re-read your own stuff years later, when you've mostly forgotten everything.

And that's fine and all. I must have internalized this to some extent, because it feels like I'm getting the word count going with a lot less grief than I've had in past years. The Nano years helped a lot with that, but the whole Luffa project was started on the same philosophy. This was all based on a DBZ OC I came up with twenty years ago. I thought about writing the fic in 2006, but I never got anywhere with it because it seemed too big and I didn't know how to do it right. By 2015 I realized that if I kept putting it off I might never get it done at all, so it was better to do it half-assed. Nine years later, I don't have any regrets, because at least I have something to show for my effort. And at least 95% of the best ideas I've had were things I came up with while I was working on the fic.

But all that said, this stuff I'm putting together now, it just feels like something's missing. I'm doing a lot of exposition and a lot of telling-not-showing, and no matter how much I dress it up, it's still just a conversation, and it needs to be more than that, and that's what's got me down.

Also, half of my output has been writing posts about Daima, which has been good for me on a lot of levels, but it also bugs me at the same time. Writing about someone else's story is much, much easier to do, so it feels like a cop-out. And most of Daima so far has been characters trading exposition, but it works when Toriyama does it, and I can't figure out how to duplicate that mojo, even as I actively try to study it.

Then again, maybe that's an appropriate place for me to be at the halfway mark. At least I've got a handle on the problem, which I wouldn't have been able to say on October 31. So I guess I'm going back to work...

Well, I should eat lunch first.

[nailamoonsi]

2 and a half years worth of Blue Horizon book 1 pitches (mostly Pitlight) [and a bit of light novel and book 2]

The first "pitch" ever, and it mostly dealt with draft 1 of Blue Horizon book 1--back when in my mind I fancied writing a simple novella with the dads, Ranvir and Armando, before tackling an epic novel project after that (but that's now book 2).

I realized a lot in the process of figuring out book 1 through 2020 and 2021, however, and it quickly grew into a monster of a project--yet another epic science fantasy book for the series in my head. In my head I think of it as "the prequel novel." However I've long called it "book 1" online, so it'll stay "book 1." (It is complete but not yet published.)

Some parts of the pitch above barely has anything to do with book 1 as it is now...for Ranvir and Armando and friends. Weirdly, it might work for characters who show up later within book 1.

The moodboard above I'm very fond of as the first moodboard ever, and it involved the Chandrani family's energy re: ocean and water as well as a concept for "a wide open world." However I rarely wound up using it compared to the later regulars. (And apparently never for pitch practice again or any pitch event.)

A big note for all pitches is that any photography is by someone else and gotten from free-to-use stock image sites like Pexel and Unsplash BUT any drawn art is mine.

Above is the first times I tried bringing up the eerie aspect AND the soft aspect of Blue Horizon book 1. This was my experimental stage in all ways--a pitch with a mood and my first attempt at a "typical" moodboard, though obviously I wound up dropping these moodboards immediately. As can be seen with the moodboards I would settle on hereafter, I did need this stage to understand what I really wanted to go for!

As for the pitches--in the former, it basically revolves around the way the reader first walks into the novel, so to speak. In the second, it hints something about Ranvir and Armando, and brings up the Protector of Worlds without naming the role.

THIS WAS THE FIRST DEBUT OF MY MAIN 2 MOODBOARDS!!! And the first Pitlight I ever took part of in 2022. It somehow got to 23 notes without retweets (that 1 is for a quote retweet).

This was a quick Nanowrimo write-up--I can tell why people didn't take to it, but I guess in terms of pitches, I was learning and it didn't really matter, especially in the early days. Currently I'm doing Camp Sapphic instead.

This was the first time I referred to the Protector (of Worlds). It's technically a typical storyline across epic fantasies and many other types of stories--a "chosen one," so to speak, but in reality this is a job that's passed from person-to-person in their world, and was once representative of their place in the galaxy.

So this pitch very much focused on Ranvir and Armando right as I was finishing up Part 1, which is largely THEIR story arc! I'm very affectionate of it.

For a few posts in the early days, I kept reusing the first digital Armando and Ranvir art I ever drew. ; v ;

This was the first time I brought up the Mysterious Children (they keep appearing before Ranvir and Armando at different ages). This wasn't the first time I utilized this moodboard--the first time was January 2022!

But as people can tell at this point, this moodboard actually represents Alejandro Altaha and Antonio Chandrani-Rivera! Specifically, the sun, moon, lavender clouds, and the white clouds with shadowed figures skating across them with a teal sky surrounding--the shadowed figures are Ale and Tono.

I reused the same pitch for the later November Nano:

--this year however I'm doing Camp Sapphic and have let go of Nanowrimo due to its controversies. Edit in the evening is that this was the first time I got an agent like!

Even though this was extremely exciting and kept me going, I'm solo self-publishing Blue Horizon.

Next, back to summer 2022 pitches:

This was something I was hoping people would like, and in the end wound up one of my most popular pitches! :D This focuses on the warmer side of Blue Horizon and brings up a key character we all know by now--Antonio Chandrani-Rivera--for the first time!

(I'm unsure how much agents can gauge from this pitch, but I do like the feeling of it though and thus obviously used it for Pitlight.)

The rest under a cut because honestly I'll admit this is insane long.

This was the first time I brought up the children borne by magic lore! I forgot I did that when I looked back at old posts like 2 weeks ago. I'm actually surprised it got 11 likes, as I wasn't sure how people would see the children borne by magic subplot. Noticeable through the webcomic already!

So these two pitches are nearly identical; I was just worried one of the first pitch wasn't specific enough. However the first pitch got more retweets, likes and views, LOL. (It's an interesting situation--I think sometimes you wind up lucky with pitches.)

It'll become noticeable that I wanted to start referring to Antonio and Alejandro's conflicts, but Layla and Alia are major characters too, and thus I tried to put Layla in as well. However, at one point, people mentioned Layla comes off a bit random at the end of these sort of pitches. :"3c I do get that, but aw...

Overall, I realized what was best to focus on--Ranvir and Armando and their son (a.k.a. a direct connection) Antonio Chandrani.

MY FIRST OFFICIAL AGENT-RELATED PITCH EVENT... QueerPit! Official pitch events have been sporadic on Twitter since around 2022 but I was happy to catch this one.

Since I wound up emailing a lot of agents I decided not to take part in that many official agent-oriented pitch events in the end--my last was only my second one I believe, a.k.a. DVPit (unless I've blanked out another agent-oriented pitch event on Twitter). Those I won't show here directly from DVPit on Discord but from what I dropped for Twitter afterwards.

FOR THIS ONE... It was the first time I ever pitched... THE LIGHT NOVEL (also completed but unpublished). Just wanted to try.

This wasn't a real pitch exactly, and I dropped it on Twitter on September 28, 2023! However, this was the first time I brought up the scope of the epic science fantasy book 1 and its LGBT romances. My last Main pitch for Blue Horizon back a few days ago focuses on that too.

SO THIS IS THE FIRST OF 2 NEW PITCHES THAT I CRAFTED FOR BOOK 1 IN THE DVPIT SERVER ON DISCORD FOR THE OFFICIAL AGENT-ORIENTED PITCH EVENT, DVPIT...

For some reason neither were very popular on Twitter, but I like both of them a lot. My guess is due to the decision to try using a video for this one and a cropped art for the other one. [I did get agent likes...for the pitch I reused from QueerPit 😂 (which thankfully also got agent likes). However, I'm solo self-publishing Blue Horizon, as most of y'all know.]

Above is the first moment I was stressed, but thankfully by early this month I wound up cheery again.

So this was my first serious dud pitch after a very long time (i.e. my first Nano in March 2022). This one isn't the one I dropped on the actual NYEPitch day (also 1 like)--I'm embarrassed to show that one, but I was excited over people having fun about sun mage OCs at that time around the original day of January 1, and didn't think about terminology (I paid attention for my book)--since I use the term "water-bearer" and "ocean-bearer" a lot in my book, I ORIGINALLY used the term "bearer of the sun" for Alejandro [who's part of a binary star system] and "moon-and-sea-bearer" for Antonio in the pitch. (I do not use anything near "bearer of the sun" within Blue Horizon's epic fantasy books as I don't want to use similar terminology used in a popular published book.) I realized my mistake very late and changed it on January 5th, after 4 days! There's also the fact that this wasn't a pitch for book 1--I wanted to relax and try a first and second-to-last pitch for book 2~

However, thankfully that started my artist adventure because I got gloomy over only getting 1 like for the original and decided I wanted to destress.

I think it's also partly due to my showing up late and not participating with others due to it (I was feeling nasty tbh), possible shadowban (my posts at this time started plummeting in views compared to before in the months prior), and not specifying in the post that it isn't a sudden change from book 1 pitching, but a random attempt at a book 2 pitch.

It's because I got really emotional over finishing a story arc between Antonio and Alejandro for book 2, essentially.

THIS WAS THE SECOND DVPIT PITCH I CRAFTED IN THE DVPIT SERVER, AKA FOR THE OFFICIAL AGENT-ORIENTED EVENT... The only change from DVPit server is that I used Antonio's surname there, a.k.a. used Antonio Chandrani.

This IS about book 1; the epic science fantasy is a multi-POV book. I liked this one too, but I'm guessing either Antonio's depression era POV or the cropped-looking art made it not appetizing? This pitch is essentially a flip in perspective to Ranvir and Armando's perspective, and done partly due to my admitting that obviously Antonio Chandrani-Rivera (and Layla Chandrani) are the "traditional" main protagonists (though it's a very ensemble cast-oriented epic science fantasy book [and comic]).

This was for ChaosPit. Pitch as badly as you can, iirc.

SOOOOO AFTER A LOT OF STRESS AFTER AUGUST... I'M GLAD MY LAST PITLIGHT AND PITCH EVENT FOR BLUE HORIZON WENT OFF WITH A BANG...!!! On April 6th:

FOR THIS LAST MAIN PITCH FOR BOOK 1, I really really wanted to show off the "epic science fantasy" scale as well as mention tons of BIPOC and LGBT characters existing in it! (Calling back to that earlier proto-pitch.) I'M REALLY GLAD IT WAS WELL-LIKED.

I liked being able to use those emojis, too! They just feel like they give implications and have a weird or '90's clipart vibe together.

This is still the same Pitlight! I just wanted to try pitching the completed (but unpublished) light novel before I stopped pitching for Blue Horizon. Surprised and glad it was liked more than I expected! :D

Since it was my last time pitching for Blue Horizon after 2 and a half years, I wanted to drop one pitch for Book 2~! The first story arc is pretty serious but I thought it'd be an interesting note for anyone curious about Blue Horizon book 1 and the light novel.

AND FINALLY... I originally wanted a "cyclical" ending to all those months and even years pitching by utilizing my first Pitlight pitch ever (which was never reused in the interim).

It would've looked dreamy like this. However, I f*cked up the pitch due to changing the first sentence BUT MAKING A HUGE ERROR. LAST PITLIGHT WAS FUN. That's all!

[marvellousstawler]

Halloween 2023 but the post was due yesterday

As a result it's not themed, sorry, no Halloweeny business from me, my life is almost constantly spooky themed so there's no point. I'll have you know that I did wear a werewolf costume to my important government job though. I was softly encouraged to remove the lipstick-and-eyeliner cheek scratches, but allowed to keep the fluffy mitten-hat.

Art I'm going to tentatively declare that what I've been doing this week counts as art. Actually I'm going to rescind my tentativeness because it absolutely does.

First one is fairly straightforward. Because I'm too cheap to buy one, I made a pinboard out of spare cardboard wrapped in cable tape to facilitate my now-much-larger pin collection following PAX. Now my whole room stinks of the tape but it's worth it because the pinboard works very well and I didn't spend a cent. Well. On the board. Maybe don't ask about the pins.

For the next one, some backstory: Pokémon has permeated my mind for about four-fifths of my life, I own and have completed at least one game from every generation since 3 including rom hacks, and I have not once actually completed the pokedex. So that is what I have endeavoured to do -- take Young Marv's stockpiled trove of TCG cards both real and fake, and arrange them in order to create a physical pokedex. Every card that I don't have, or that the mystery box of 80 random 2nd-hand cards I bought online can't fill, I will have to draw myself. So we'll see if Future Marv can complete that one before she expires too.

Writing Okay so it probably started with a conversation with a coworker/new friend following my declaration of the physical pokedex project, about the various overly convoluted fan theories I have about Cynthia (Pokémon) specifically, which led to me discussing those with Sammy (my best friend for whom I'm using a psuedonym because she's on here and she doesn't need her brand poisoned by mine), which led to us yes-anding each other about it way too hard, which led to "what if Cynthia went back in time in Pokémon Legends Arceus instead of Akari," which led to a short improvised script of a moment between Cynthia and Cogita which was way too sweet and impactful, which led to "oh no I might actually have to write this fanfic now," which led to Sammy's simple, one-word reply: "Nano!" So a big thank you/fuck you to Sammy for removing my excuse to put off this fic just like all the others. Way to keep me accountable for my own work, you wonderful asshole.

I'm very excited because this has all reignited a love for Pokémon which I had feared was suddenly and resolutely dead. Why? Well, it's because of a cruel prank. Some people at Nintendo pulled a fast one on everyone a while back, trying to convince the whole community that there are nine generations now, when everyone knows that there are only eight, and the series ended with the release of PLA, and the end of the anime. It seems that some people in the community have been completely duped into believing that "Gen Nine" is real, and it's pretty mean-spirited of the people responsible to give them false hope like that. Which made me pretty upset, evidently. So yeah, it's good to put that negative episode aside and go back to focusing on my bullshit about Cynthia, Cogita and the male one, and all the lore around them I can squeeze into a fanfic.

Reading Okay, apparently I have failed to placate the nostalgia beast by managing to feed her a goddamn unicorn -- the last copy in the only store I found that sold it, of a volume of the YGO manga (a manga with a bajilion volumes) featuring my favourite duel of my favourite character, who of course is Mai because I'm only allowed to stan semi-irrelevant blonde ladies in all forms of media (it's a real burden). No instead, the nostalgia beast was so ravenous that she made me fixate on finding two YGO structure decks, at the only store I found that sells them (bit of a theme in this city), to subject poor Sammy to playing a game with me because I've never tried. And in all the nostalgia beasts constant squawking, I forgot to pick up those copies of Donuts that I was going to get last week.

Oh what's that? You want to actually know what I read? In the reading section? Well, exactly one volume of Donuts Under A Crescent Moon, hours and hours of lore and theories written by Sammy over text, and an obscene amount of info on YGO archetypes that had me saying "fuck this, I'll get a structure deck" within half an hour.

[siamusotima-aranea]

On Halloween the kiddo got a full sized Caramello candy bar. The only Caramello Candy bar, which made it valuable. I wanted the Caramello Candy bar, but so did the kiddos friend (Who was dressed as, I quote, “Yas-afied Walter White”), and of course, the kiddo intended to take the best offer. I searched through my hard earned goodies,(Because yes, as a soft faced individual measuring in at the modest height of five foot one, I still pass as a child for occasional discounts and candy, so I did indeed trick-or-treat with them.) and offered up several of my less cherished fun sized candies and a rice crispy treat, but Walter White offered a haul of similar value and then some, this sparked a bidding war in which I eventually realized that I am indeed an adult, and can just go an buy a Caramello Candy bar the next time I am at the grocery store, for like a dollar. 

So I let Walter White win the candy bar, but kiddo wanted us both to be happy, and suggested we split the bar. This was a very sweet (Ba-dum-tish) but flawed suggestion, because as it was a Caramello Candy bar, filled entirely with loose runny caramel, the situation had the potential to get sticky.

Having made already made peace with the loss, I simply told them “No no, it’s fine, don’t split the baby, just keep the whole thing.” Which is, I think, a bible reference. Which, even with the proper context, was a pretty fucking weird reference to make, that neither child even questioned for a second. 

I later confirmed that they had no idea what the fuck I was talking about, never heard that story before, but just ran with it.    All this just to say, I had a nice Halloween.  

[piratewithvigor]

How I listen to each of my favourite bands (a bullet point piece)

Aerosmith: They're on the radio. It's the fifth time today. Somehow never the same song. Until tomorrow, anyway. One will make you homesick. One will make you sit in slack-jawed awe of Joe Perry. One will make you curse the day he was born. They all make you love him. In the back of your mind, your thumbs hurt.

The Beatles: You have all the studio albums on your iPod nano with the scroll wheel. It has 2GB of space, so there's nothing else. You sing along to the songs with your best friend in 7th grade during school. The teacher tells you to keep it French or to shut up. You switch to "Michelle" because you're 12 and a smartass.

Bon Jovi: You're on the bus home from a long day of fifth grade. When you get home, the same old, same old. You don't know it yet but this is the beginning of your depression. As you graduate from Crossroads to a 2-Disc Best Of, everything feels worse. You work on a puzzle in the basement and even though maybe no one will ever love you, Bon Jovi understands.

Buddy Holly: For the first time since high school started, you have a friend. She's wonderful and she understands you. Maybe there's 3 time zones between you, but it doesn't stop you from digging a hole deep into a fantasy world that you live in for months with her. Buddy's music is simple and the records are bright yellow. Maybe everything will be okay.

David Bowie: You didn't care when he died. You didn't know better. You got a CD of greatest hits for your birthday two months later. You still didn't understand the fuss all too well. A few tracks pop out at you and you get the album that features them. Dad insists you listen to the album in the dark on the floor (he doesn't say while smoking weed, but if it were the 70s, you would have). Finally you understand: David understands you.

Def Leppard: You're 13 and trying to find your place in the world. Trying to make a name, so you write. As the characters who make no sense are fleshed out in 1667 words every single day, the drum loop that finished Pyromania follows you around.

The Doors: You don't know how Jim Morrison came into your life. Maybe it was by an experiment gone wrong or a curiosity. Your classmates question why you're reading a book with a shirtless man posed as if being crucified. You don't know how to answer that you think you might be him. You hadn't believed in reincarnation, but he sparked something inside you. You can feel consciousness slip away when he plays his game called 'Go Insane'. You hold a Celebration Of The Lizard for a poetry slam and the adrenaline pushes you through your fear. You feel Jim's words in your actions for years. He watches you when you sleep.

GNR: You send your siblings out of the basement. They aren't old enough to hear swear words in music and you want to listen to Appetite in the dark. You want to jump on top of the couch and punch the floor. You can feel Axl's anger and it courses through you.

Journey: You've been told you look like Steve Perry. You aren't sure if it's a compliment or an insult. You think you sound like him. You know all the words to Don't Stop Believing at the school dance. Your first memory of your boyfriend was him singing it at the talent show. Your last memory of him is singing I'll Be Alright Without You, severing the final tie. Wheel In The Sky opens your next day. Things don't feel okay anymore.

KISS: You're 4 years old and your Dad is watching the scariest freaks you've ever seen on the TV. In the next scene, the scariest one is sitting and talking to people who look like your grandparents. You forget about them for 7 years. They show up again in your newest hyperfixation and you give them a chance. The freaks who once scared you strip away your fears and set you free.

Led Zeppelin: Your imagination was just opened to the possibilities of stories beyond the realms of reality. What you thought you never knew opened you to a new layer of your past that you didn't understand. The tendrils of influence wrap around every part of your future.

Motley Crue: The writings paint them as the villains. In many ways, they are. In just as many ways, they're the same scared kids you are. For better or for worse, they bring you into a community. There, you experiment hurting yourself in ways therapists don't look for. The greatest friend you could ever want.

Ninja Sex Party: They're a rock band for kids who don't understand rock bands. You have no physical media for them and it feels like you may never get the chance. Copies are limited. So your spotify is thick with every song they've ever recorded. They're fleeting and they're your rock.

Queen: You know just a little too much about them. They're bigger characters than the radio lets them be. You love Bohemian Rhapsody before you begin to hate it before you learn to love it once more.

Rammstein: As they bleed for their art, so you bleed for yours. Perhaps out of spite, perhaps out of desperation, but plague cuts your work short. It cuts you from the glory you could have had. The first album you've ever waited for the release of by a band.

Reckless Love: Never before has a band felt so attainable and yet so far away. Your family doesn't understand them, so you hide them away. The only recklessness was falling in love.

Rolling Stones: Angie helped you through more than you know. The lips are on your tapestry for a reason. You were blind for so much for so long. You never gave them a chance. They're using their chance now.

Rush: Once shrugged-off nobodies. You gave them a chance out of curiosity and desperation. Now you can't understand the possibility of never having liked them. They brought you your first great grief and your first proof of miracles. The red star of the solar federation burns bright. Assume control.

Styx: You're standing in the snow. The bus is an hour late. You can't contact your parents because they took your one method of contact as a punishment for not making your bed. You're listening to a Greatest Hits on your iPod. Crystal Ball. It's an hour. Blue Collar Man. You get home and no one noticed you were late. They're eating without you. Suite Madam Blue.

Tom Petty: The news hits you. Your throat is blocked and you don't say anything. You listen to I Won't Back Down before telling your Dad. He was the first you experienced while being a fan. He wasn't the last. You torture yourself artistically in his honour. You attend a tribute concert and scream yourself hoarse.

Tuff: You want to leave home and block out all the memories as best you can. Stevie makes it impossible. But he's also one of the only ones there as all your best friends who aren't online forget your birthday. He acknowledges you.

Van Halen: The grief is insurmountable. For weeks afterwards, Eruption makes your heart sink. 5150 makes you cry instead of imagine pleasant nonsense as it once did. There is no comfort. If he can go, what's stopping anyone else?

The Who: Maybe they got to your head a little. You were sitting in a room in school for hours each day, completely alone except for Tommy playing on your tiny laptop. No supervision. No classmates. Just your monstrosity of a project and Tommy.

[nanowrimo]

No Publishing Journey Looks the Same

To find an agent, or to self-publish? That is the question many authors ask themselves. Whichever way you choose, no publishing journey is easy—and no publishing journey looks the same. Today, long-time Wrimo Elayna Mae Darcy, author of Still the Stars, shares their publishing journey, and the things they learned along the way: 

When put under a microscope, NaNoWriMo turns out to be much more than an annual writing event—it is an idea that contains vast multitudes. As individuals, it teaches us the joys of dedicating ourselves to a task and striving to achieve it. As writers, it provides us with a community of like minded dreamers and word weavers to lift us up when all feels lost. And as I recently learned, the Wrimo’s journey also proved to be an unlikely mentor on the pursuit of self publication.

As a seasoned Wrimo with seventeen years of participation under my belt, the NaNo Way comes easy to me now. Pick an idea, chase it with reckless abandon for 30 days, revel in whatever I manage to accomplish at a brewery with writing friends when it's all over, repeat annually. But as my boy Obi-Wan Kenobi would say, NaNo looks quite different “from a certain point of view.” 

I’ve spent many a noveling month working on writing and rewriting the same book, a project called STILL THE STARS. And as I tackled it November after November, I also did massive amounts of research on the publishing industry. I wanted to devour as much information as I could. How to query, what’s it like working with an agent, what’s the revision process like with a professional editor, the list goes on. By the time I started querying, I thought for sure that this established, tried and true path was the only one that could lead me to success for my fictional work. I used the same focus and determination from years of NaNo noveling and directed it all towards this new goal.

But as rejection after rejection from agent after agent rolled in and the years wore on, there was a strange, familiar feeling that washed over me. It was the same sense of doubt I’d get when a NaNo project would hit a wall. It was a feeling of hopelessness, of wanting to just defenestrate the whole book and take up knitting instead. I began questioning why I was even bothering in the first place when it felt like the universe was holding up a giant sign saying NOPE. NOT FOR YOU.

If you’ve ever participated in NaNo, this is a feeling which conjures to mind the soft, aching lyrics that go, “Hello darkness, my old friend…” As this feeling started taking up all my energy, I very nearly gave up. But then I took a step back and asked myself the age old question, WWNMD? (What Would NaNoWriMo Me Do?)

“Our resilience is one of our most powerful weapons.”

Every time those feels hit in November, or I have to experience one of my Phillywrimos or writing sprint buddies encountering them, I am conditioned to respond with resilience. To just keep putting one word in front of the other, even if I end up needing to spend ages editing it later. One of the most valuable pieces of writing advice anyone ever gave me was, “You can’t fix a blank page,” and that is something that has been reinforced into my DNA with each passing November, as I manage to rally out of that hopelessness and keep forging ahead. 

What I needed was to apply this same energy not just to the act of writing, but to my publishing journey as well. The road to publication is just as fraught with road bumps, dark nights of the soul, and plot twists that would make even Agatha Christie’s head spin. But we don’t give up, do we? NaNoWriMo teaches us that. That our resilience is one of our most powerful weapons.

That’s why I finally decided to change course and pursue self publication. Because the truth that no one wants to tell you in an age of endless blog posts about “How To Publish Your Book In X Easy Steps” is that no writer’s journey is the same. Just because your favorite author managed to land an agent after a frenzied few weeks of writing one manuscript or because someone else you know stuck with querying 500 times over 10 years until they got their yes, does not mean you have to. Your journey is yours, just like any first NaNoWriMo draft that you’ve poured your soul into. 

That’s why despite lots of folks trying to convince me otherwise, I decided to Kickstart my book to self publish it and set up my own indie publishing imprint. Is it a traditional path? Maybe not. But NaNo has taught me that my story matters, no matter what path I might choose. I can take those same lessons learned in the writing of my stories and let them grow beyond the page into an education for the self publication journey and beyond. I encourage you to do the same. 

Don’t let anyone tell you what your publishing journey “should” look like, because whoever offers that advice is lacking the one thing that you happen to be the only person in the universe to have—yourself. Don’t be afraid to chase something like self publication even if industry experts are telling you you’ll never make it that way. Because if NaNoWriMo has taught me anything, it is that even if the story doesn’t go the way I planned, it doesn't mean it wasn’t worth writing. The journey alone is always worth it. 

Read Chapter One of STILL THE STARS here & support the campaign on Kickstarter!

Elayna Mae Darcy (she/they) is a queer YA author, poet, and filmmaker from Philadelphia. A self proclaimed NaNoLifer, Elayna has participated in the annual event ever since she was 14, and currently serves as one of the MLs for the Philly region & a sprint leader on @NaNoWordSprints. They are the author of two poetry collections, UNRAVELING LIGHT and DARKNESS UNDONE, the sci-fi short story, CONTINUUM, and STILL THE STARS will be their YA debut. You can learn more at elaynamusings.com or find them on twitter at @elaynamae.

[sleepyowlwrites]

Sleepy's 2021 writing wrap-up accompanied by a little salt but mostly cheerful exhaustion

this event was hosted by @ecwrenn thank you darling. I think I'm late but I only like being early to work. and this is not that.

I don't keep any kind of proper track of my word counts or progress, mostly because I don't really care - I know that I wrote this year and that's good enough for me, word counts are not a motivator - but also because I am disorganized and scramble around afterward of anything to clean stuff up.

here is a very general assessment of the writing that I did this year.

January - I wrote some poetry and meandered around in Youth Story (then temporarily titled Project: Black Rose) and Anxiety Story.

February - I existed, I think. it was around this time that I played (find the word) tag with Maybe Sorcery a lot. also somewhere in here I think we became soulmates but I'm not sure. that might've happened earlier.

March - I made a new wip intro for Anxiety Story (the title is Every Other Star is Silent) and promptly didn't work on it (the wip) for the rest of the year. this is fine. it's a heavy wip and I wasn't up for it. then I made a way-too-early-I-don't-know-what-I-was-thinking wip intro for Magick Story (the title is Spider Silk). I have worked on this wip but only in the worldbuilding department.

April - I did Camp Nano and wrote 21,079 words. it felt great. I tried to do the same in May.

May - I did not write 20K, 15K or even 10K. I started to suspect that I was experiencing some creative burnout. (not quite. I was, at the time, enjoying making doodle art of other writers' wip titles. that was fun and easy.) instead it turns out I was just having a WRITING BURNOUT and subsequently-

June - I didn't really do any writing until the very end of this month was I fell in love with a character and decided to write a study fic of him. and then I did that. after editing it's now at almost 8K. so that's cool.

July - finished that above fic, worked on Youth Story. at some point I made an intro that I worked very hard on. it's already not up-to-date so it's gone now, bye-bye. I have an informal one that works a lot better, and character intros! I worked on those in-

August - still loved that character so I wrote a sequel to my first fic, which is currently being slowly edited and sits at nearly 11K. the character intros were all created and gradually released in-

September - which was a funky month because my sister got married. this has nothing to do with my writing but it happened. by the way, I've been writing poetry all year. most of it is not up on tumblr, but I'll share almost anything in a find the word tag. seriously. I get a little crazy with those things.

October - it actually took me until this month to finish that sequel fic. by this time I have also created 200 wip title arts. also also I've been writing this ridiculously complicated crossover fic in my friend's dms and that makes it into find the word too. also also also I turned 28. hooray.

November - I was very busy at work and wrote poetry and did some tags and eventually realized that I would have to be on hiatus since I couldn't really write or post like I wanted to. oh right, at some point I decided I was finished with Youth Story draft 0. it's at like, 26K? I can't check right now because the docs are closed. I feel like my laptop just sneaky updated because why else would they be closed? unless a ghost did it.

December - I did almost zero writing because I worked overnights at work and just got more and more exhausted as the month went on. I wrote three? four? tiny flash fics and a tiny bit of poetry and then Christmas happened. and just finished happening, for me.

to sum up, I've written probably approximately 55K this year, which I believe is less than last year but whatever! I don't care. I wrote things, and they meant something to me, and also to some other (wonderful) people who said very nice things in tags and such and that's all I want, really. I just want to write things and enjoy it, and I did. so 2021 was not my favorite, but it had good in it. some of it I made by myself, some of it I shared with others, and some of it YOU - writeblr - gave to me. Thank You.

Love, Sleepy

[wild-chaser]

why I don't NaNo anymore

I have waited till the end of November to share this because I did not want to disrupt anybody's NaNo writing momentum.

If you took part in NaNoWriMo and wrote some words, no matter how many, congrats and you can be proud! This is not some post that will try to show that NaNoWriMo is bad and we should all boycott it. (It's not, it's amazing!)

But this is a post that will describe

how I "won" NaNoWriMo and it left me drained instead of satisfied

It was 3 years ago and I got really hyped. Did a very solid Preptober, found people from my area that participate, informed my friends that I will be NaNo-writing for real that year. I was all in.

I had made a solid outline, got inspired by some YouTube channels on writing, found some music, all that. The Snowflake Method, the Snyder's Beat Sheet, the Hero's Journey - I had gotten through it all.

Daily goal of 1667 words had been met and the story had been progressing, but after just several days of this grind, I started jumping between some older unfinished projects or starting new ones, just to get those words while not working on my novel any longer.

But why? Why did I want to escape my own novel that badly?

Simple: I did not feel it anymore.

I don't mean that the story itself started boring me, that I wanted to drop the entire project - quite the contrary! Now, 3 years later, it is still in my head and I just recently started writing it anew!

I ain't quitting this story (ever)!

But during the NaNoWriMo, it was just too much and too quick. I had some scenes visualized before and those got written quite nicely. But most of my story was just not put together scene-by-scene, most of that was only 'this and that has to happen, but I don't know how'. And as I was trying to come up with those 'hows' on a day-to-day basis, rushing just to get those words out there, I started getting detached from my own story.

I started feeling like a liar.

I don't know whether you share that sentiment, my fellow writers, but every time I write down a scene that I don't feel in my core, it makes me feel like I am telling lies.

Obviously I know that writing is literally telling lies - we tell stories about non-existent people and places - but as long as I can feel the scene and feel the emotions, there is something real about it.

But if I tell a story that I am not feeling, it makes me a cheat, even if just in my own mind.

I couldn't keep up processing the story with the speed that NaNoWriMo demanded

when a plot problem arouse, I had to speed through it, no matter whether the solution I came up with satisfied me or not

when my solution did not fit, the story started drifting away from me

the more it drifted away, the less I felt it

the less I felt it, the less I wanted to write it

on the last day of November I ended up with a story that did not feel like my story at all

with a story I wanted to print out just so that I can burn it to ashes

with the story that I would not re-read and edit even if somebody put a gun to my head

with the story I desperately wanted to write and yet had to take a 6 months break to even start thinking about again

All of that is not NaNoWriMo's fault. The initiative is good and full of positivity.

It just didn't work for me.

So if it doesn't work for you as well and you want to talk, message me.

Or if you just want to let me know that I am not the only one who finished NaNo and instead of being over the moon, just ended up being drained.

[chewingthescenery]

why all my wips hate me | Writing Update

(hey so note from the future I started writing this post so long ago - when I first decided to revamp my writing life. It’s been like six months since then. So like, that’s why I start using my shift key halfway thru)

the problems

remember when i did that whole wip intro for that one camp nano novella and then never talked about it again? well, it’s because i had to kill it before it killed me. from the start of this blog, pretty much all i’ve ever talked about was all the wips that i never fucking finish. i’ve only ever had two wip intros that were about finished projects. and those projects all had something in common: they were songs. they were poems. they weren’t fiction.

i’ve always wanted to write fiction because i’m a writer and that’s what writers do. i wrote poetry and songs a lot - wrote collections of poems and albums of songs - but that didn’t matter. it was about the fiction. the fiction that i never finished. every novel: abandoned, picked up again, revamped, abandoned. every short story: first draft half finished, never edited, hidden away in shame. 

with fiction, i was always wondering “am i reading enough? am i writing enough?” meanwhile, i was writing “sublime,” “frolic,” “Too young.” “Loveless,” “even if you’re not,” and “i hope you’re haunted”. then there was the poetry collections “Godworship,” “The Science of Lust,” “Anhedonia,” and “humans have the wrong anatomy”. all finished. how could i fall on my face with fiction so often, but not with anything else?

i realized it was because i treated fiction like it was sacred. “real writers write fiction.” “the only work i do that matters is fiction.” “i’ll only be accomplished once i write a novel.” i also treated reading novels like it was sacred. i kicked myself every time i had to return a book to the library without finishing it. so what the fuck is wrong with me? GAD is my guess, but the jury’s still out on that one i guess. 

so what do?

my first step was dropping all those fiction projects that drained me so damn much. i’m freeing myself to put all of my focus into my new project: doing whatever the hell i want! i had to watch a lot of @coffeeandcalligraphy videos to reach that conclusion. 

and then i had to ask, “wait, do i even like fiction?” there are a few books i do like, yes. i really like “On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous,” “The Bell Jar,” and “My Year of Rest and Relaxation”. but, with everything else, there are times were i’m completely obsessed with how the best songs/poems/tv shows work, but does that happen with fiction? or am i only obsessed with the idea of being able to make a fiction piece that works? writing fiction feels more like a duty than a hobby and, honestly, that fucking sucks. 

i also realized that i treated fiction like prose instead of like a story. and don’t get me wrong, prose gets me out of bed in the morning, but novels are supposed to tell stories. but when i try to read a book, i’m doing it because it’s what i’m supposed to do, and when i try to write a book, i’m doing it because that’s what i’m supposed to do. so what do? don’t write fiction if i don’t actually want to. don’t write it if i don’t get a thrill from doing it. 

in a certain tumblr post i’m sure you’ve all read, someone said that if you don’t like what you’re writing, something’s wrong. i realized what was wrong was not some gap in my knowledge of craft or some ill-conceived plot - it was the fact that i wasn’t writing because i loved it. i was writing just to prove it to myself that i could. and that’s some deadly pride. so now, the rule is, i’m not allowed to write a fiction unless i actually want to, unless i have a story to tell. and i’m not allowed to read unless i want to read, unless i’m not even thinking about that stupid fucking goodreads reading challenge. 

but without fiction, who am i? 

someone with a whole lot of wips to talk about 🤠

fuck yes finally

SONGS + ALBUMS:

So, along the lines of only doing what I want cause I’m the writer and I make the rules, I’ve decided to only write songs the way I want to write them. According to everyone online ever, you write the lyrics and the melody of a song at the same time. Problem is, I get most of my song ideas on the bus or in the middle of the night—i.e. not the best time to be singing into your phone. So I’ve just been writing the lyrics and decided I’ll only add a melody when I feel like it. Revelatory, I know.

With this ingenious process, I've started writing another ep, this one called "Baby blue". It's an indie folk, Daughter/Lana Del Rey/Hayley Williams' Flowers For Vases-inspired litany of self-loathing and codependency. Yes very on brand, I know.

POETRY:

So, “humans have the wrong anatomy” has grown in the middle of the night. It’s shaping up to be the size of an actual chapbook at this rate. Also, the title is actually in title case now.

SCRIPTS:

I am addicted to teen drama. There’s two I’m sitting on right now - CRICKETS, SICKLY GREEN and MANNEQUIN CHILDREN. And! There’s also? An animated film? Which is a reimagining of “Tangled”??? Yes you read that right, it’s not a reimagining of Rapunzel, its a reimagining of Tangled, the Disney movie.

GAMES????:

So. You see how fast my brain comes up with shit when I stop writing fiction? There's a? Social simulation art game? That I'm making a pitch for? Its called "dawn breaks like a fever". Well actually, that's the short version of the title, the full one is "dawn breaks like a fever & you are no better for it".

~~also I might start planning a dating sim soon too~~

FICTION:

When you take so long writing a single Tumblr post that you outgrow the very premise of it. Anyway! I write fiction again! 2 books and a short story collection that’s too much of a mess to ever be called a book. The novels are “Carrion Crow” (which is actually a novella) and “Terrestrials”. These are books I cannot shake for the life of me, at this point they’re extensions of my person. And short stories! I’ve been writing one or two of those. My main problem is that, sometimes, in an attempt to achieve the Short I end up forgetting to include the Story, so... (No but fr my short stories at some point just sound like personal essays where I’m just straight up lying)

The end!

[transmasc-wizard]

You mentioned your Nano project this year is your first time writing mystery. I've always wanted to write a mystery! What is your process (for now)?

thanks for the question! I'll try my best to answer, but as you pointed out... its my first time lol and im kind of just stumbling in the dark.

so, because i'm me, i plotted as much of it as i could. I actually ran out of time, but even though i don't have the whole book outlined, i have the whole mystery plot outlined. Because if you try to write a whodunnit without knowing whodunnit, you will cry. Even if you make it through draft one, it'll be exhausting adding every bit of foreshadowing because you had none because you didn't know what was happening. (i have a post on plotting here, be warned tho, it is... Long.)

before that, though, i READ MYSTERIES. Whenever im about to write something, i read in that genre. So i read mysteries and thrillers--Karen M McManus (i think thats her name?) has some good ones, Kayla Ancrum's Darling is great, and They'll Never Catch Us (cant remember the author name) is a good one too. I also read some Nancy Drew i had lying around. I do this because it's hard to write a genre without being familar with it--that's why im doing a thriller instead of my sci-fi idea, actually, because i... havent read enough scifi yet.

and right now im kinda just accepting that i have a brand. Not... literally, because nobody is allowed to read my drafts, but. Like. I have a style and a way of doing stories. I accepted that because i'm me, i inevitably made it a supernatural thriller, that there would be a lot of fluff, because i tend to write like "fluff-violence-fear-fluff-action-violence-fear-violence-fear-fluff", and that because i haven't done this before, my mystery-thriller is going to be very tied to fantasy--the thing i have done before, numerous times.

After i did Those Three Professional Steps(TM), i just... started drafting. I'm averaging 1400 a day, which is making me prickly, because normally i average like 1800. It probably has to do with the fact this is a mystery and i'm out of my zone. I like to fast draft all my projects, which is why nano is my favourite lol.

OH AND VIBES, vibes are important. most mysteries also have a sense of thriller, and vice versa. Know if you want it to be "cozy but mysterious with just a slice of fear, mainly around the climax", "every second is terrifying, they're on the move, the clock is ticking", or some place in between. That'll help when drafting. I think.

I hope this was what you're looking for?? idk im tired and scrambled but yea. Obligatory disclaimer that im Just Some Guy and you should definitely also look at sources other than me and ignore whatever advice doesn't work for you. this is what works for me.

have a good day, drink water

[werewolfetone]

📖📕🖋️ (- @mcximilians)

Warning these answers are Longer than I intended

📖 Tell us about your NaNo project(s)! (Title, log-line, WIP page, etc.)

The title it’s going by right now is Leitner, which is the name of one of the main characters. I don’t have a wip page or anything for it because this isn’t really a writeblr (I’m going to get one soon! but this isn’t it), so I haven’t done one. The main plot involves Ernst Leitner, a promising young German doctor who negotiates a contract with Lord Leonard Tateley, an ambiguously supernatural English duke, to act as his patron in his endeavour to find a way to “cure death,” which is a goal he (originally) pursues out of a desire to help people, and anger at the medical technology of the Napoleonic era and the fact that doctors keep killing people instead of saving them. He moves to London and is given access to Tateley’s prestigious library, where he works with graverobber Richard Asadi, former whaler Francis “Monty” Carter, and his neighbours Sylvia Pernet and Deirdre Mannick to achieve this goal, and eventually, through trial and error, they manage it. For a while everything works fine and everyone benefits, until Ernst’s increasing recklessness towards death causes the accidental death of a worker who also happens to be heavily involved in the kidnapping of the son of a recently killed MP. Suddenly powerful figures are very interested in Ernst’s actions, including, most pressingly, a young criminal who was also involved in the kidnapping, and is very eager to keep the worker’s death covered up. There’s also the fact that the allies Ernst chose all have ulterior motives on their own, which range wildly from “trying to con him out of money” to “trying to use his work to summon Lovecraftian monsters,” and may not all be completely (or at all) trustworthy. The main theme is the idea of when someone crosses the line from “noble goal with maybe some bad things” to “Jesus fuck they might have had good intentions but need to be stopped,” and it’s illustrated in the three most major characters: Ernst, who has a goal of “helping people” that is considered near universally good; Tateley, who has a goal of “making the world ‘right’” that is considered good from his perspective; and Deirdre, who has a goal of “destroying everything” that is considered near universally bad. All three go absolutely off the rails bonkers and cross the moral event horizon, but the central question is where that happens and why we identify it as happening there in particular.

🖋️ What is the “origin story” of your NaNo WIP? (Where did the idea come from? What motivated you to write it?)

Oh god... okay, so, the idea actually came from the show Penny Dreadful, which is a crossover between gothic lit characters including Dorian Gray and Victor Frankenstein. After I finished it for the first time around this time last year I was thinking about it a lot and was like “man they really should have put Lord Henry in there along with Dorian, I’d love to see him and Frankenstein interacting,” which along with my theory about TPODG that Lord Henry is some kind of demon who directly grants Dorian’s wish for eternal life, made me think of Faust, and I was like 👀👀👀 that’s an idea. so I kind of started working on it as simply “evil demonic aristocrat + mad scientist in a soul-selling temptation story,” which was at first, you know. kind of a fanfiction. It started outgrowing itself almost immediately, though, and definitely had by the time I decided to expand the character of Deirdre from “Ernst’s love interest” to “main character who is trying to summon Lovecraftian horrors,” and at this point you would never know that any of this happened except for the fact that it’s retained the Faust-type temptation arc.

📕 Tell us about the main character in your NaNo WIP. (What’s their age? Ethnicity? Sexuality? Affiliation? Occupation? Whatever you want!)

There’s three main characters and I’ll give some basic info on each.

The first one is Doctor Ernst Johann Leitner, who is German with Indian ancestry on his mother’s side, bisexual, twenty five years old, and for a living is a medical doctor. He can be fairly arrogant and also loves running away from his problems, but is completely devoted to helping people with his profession. He cares about people too much, which is both a great trait and a flaw. He’s overly devoted to his principles and to being the force of good- though he determines what that is, not any law.

The second is Deirdre Mannik, she’s Irish, straight, twenty two, and works for a shipping company. She’s also the woman who’s trying to summon ambiguously real Lovecraftian monsters because she was raised by a man who may or may not be one and is fucking sick of the way people are running the world, so she’s decided to let the monsters have a go. She’s a very nervous person, very quiet and very polite, though she can suddenly become frighteningly ruthless if she needs to. She tends to latch on to people and is also hiding. well. a lot. behind her smile. namely, she has a very traumatic past that may have involved her being trapped under a rock for 400 years.

The last one is Lord Leonard Arthur William Tateley, an English/possibly supernatural duke, who is bisexual and a politician who leads his very own made up political party that’s also heavily involved in the story. He’s also a cane user! In personality he’s very, just, disgusted with the world around him 24/7, always making fun of it never taking anything seriously. “I thought it would be funny” is an acceptable explanation to him, as is “I didn’t care about the consequences.” He also wears this all on his sleeve and is like oh yeah. I’m an asshole. what about it. he doesn’t want you to know that he cares about his wife, Serena, or his adopted son messenger boy, Brownie.

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[ren-c-leyn]

After yesterday I'm super curious My Enemy, My Ancestor. Can you tell me more about this wip? How did it came to be? What are the main themes and characters? @writingonesdreams

Hey, thanks for stopping in ^^ This is going to be a bit of a ramble, so I hope your seat is comfy.

My Ancestor, My Enemy was a nano project. I didn't reach my word count with it, life got in the way that year, but the story was so interesting that I decided to keep it, much like The Firewalker and now Orion's Oblivion.

I don't entirely remember where my inspiration for the project came from, I know some of it was dungeon crawler rpgs, but that came later after I had settled on the concept itself. I do remember why I settled on writing it the way I did, though. Every nano I try something different with my writing. Sometimes it's a technique, like The Firewalker and My Ancestor, My Enemy, and sometimes it's an entire genre, like Orion's Oblivion. My Ancestor, My Enemy was me playing with a format I had recently learned about where a story is told from the point of view of like letters or journal entries. It sounded like fun, and then I decided to up the challenge by making it a primarily one woman cast instead of the giant casts of colorful characters I normally work with.

I'm going to preface the explanation of the story itself with: this is 100% a dark fantasy, borderline horror story, and some of what follows in this explanation is going to be a little gory. I was allowed to open my mental drawer of literal and metaphorical monsters and it got a little out of hand, but dear goodness was the result a striking tale.

My Ancestor, My Enemy is told from the mandatory field journal* of Lierin, a high ranking elven hunter, as she's sent on a mission to a human village that's under siege by her ancestors' monsters to find out the fate of one of her colleagues and, if she can, finish the mission he did not complete, which would be exterminating all of the monsters.

She finds out that it is sooo much worse than anyone had even dared to fear. It's not just a pack of monsters, it's an entire ecosystem of them living in the nearby caverns, the cavern systems her colleague disappeared in, according to the locals.

So, she goes into the darkness alone. A several month ride away from backup, she doesn't have a choice. The people are dying, being murdered in the night by these things, and she needs to either retrieve her ally, proof of his death, or proof of his abandonment of his duties. However, I'd be lying if I said that was her main interest when she first dove in. No, her main interest was butchering as many of the monsters as she can, and every time she succeeds, she dissects them, looking at what their organs are, where potential weak points she didn't find could be, and then writes about their anatomies, behaviors, environments, and how they fought in her journal.

But her missing colleague's mystery quickly starts filling her mind as she tracks him between hunts. The signs are... strange, and she can't make heads or tails of it. The deeper into the caverns she gets, the more confusing the clues he left behind get as well. It haunts her as much as the monsters themselves do, and she spends many dark nights in the caverns pondering the mystery of this place, while it ponders how to kill her.

* So, the mandatory journals link back to what I was talking about last night with the elves evolving entirely to fight their ancestors' creations. Every hunter has to carry a journal with them while on a mission, and has to record every day of that mission down in said journal. They are also expected to do what Lierin does and dissect the monsters and record every detail about them in that journal. Some of them even go so far as to draw anatomical drawings of the monster.

These journals are read through by the higher ups after the mission's completion and then stored in a giant library of these things. Young elves who are going to be trained to hunt are forced to obsessively read them for the first several years of their training to stuff their brains with the knowledge of the kinds of 'abominations' they may find themselves hunting. More experienced hunters also obsessively read these things, willingly and without a master hunter standing over their shoulders, as 1, they are pretty much the only books allowed and 2, there's a lot of different monsters and hunting techniques that could be helpful.

~

While I absolutely adore this project, as dark and intense as it is, I, unfortunately, ran into a bit of a problem half way into the first draft. I couldn't pick an ending for this story. It's not that I didn't have an interesting ending in mind. No, I had far too many and they all fit and they were all amazing, and my brain just kind of melted when I tried to decide. XD I put it off as long as I could, hoping something would come up that would help me decide, but I finally reached the point where I absolutely have to pick an ending and drive the narrative towards it. If I wait any longer I won't be able to properly foreshadow and lay down the ground work for it all to make sense. It's been sitting for awhile, so I was thinking of going back to it after I finish the first draft of Forgotten Gods, rereading it, and seeing if time and a fresh perspective might help me work out where this tale ends.

So, yeah, that's My Ancestor, My Enemy. It is definitely one of my darker projects.

I hope you have a lovely day/evening.