#have i mentioned i have roughly 30k words in draft already

[iturbide]

like tbh the biggest thing I want to see with edelgard? is her learning to trust people and being forced to build a foundation of openness and the ability to Ask For Help when she needs it. and re: the agarthans issue, she definitely needs it.

like especially too if there was ever the chance for her to speak with the other lords, I'd love to see a process around edelgard having to adjust and challenge herself and maybe even freak out a bit because she has to take these chances. I want to see byleth, whom shes probably attached to because theyre so.. neutral, outside of what shes been dealing with, be more forecful with facilitating her reaching out. I want to see dimitri taking a chance to talk to her, I want to see her be able to hesitantly discuss different aspects of her experiences with both him and claude but maybe find out some specifically with claude because he would understand them better and to see them connect over it. I want to see hubert, too, eventually have to come around and I want to see conflict because of that. hell, I feel like hubert having to reckon with edelgard's new course of action and all of those risks could be good grounds for like, having dedue pull him aside for A Talk because MAN do I think those two would actually have a lot to talk about.

this isn't even getting into the eventuality of ferdinand involving himself and by extension causing problems because he's direct and insensitive at times and he'll also have to learn a lesson from that, but anyway

sorry bout all these even more words here but i've been having some thoughts today

Please don't apologize for these words these are excellent words and I am very happy to have them in my inbox (and now on my blog) thank you for sharing these Thoughts I delight in and appreciate the

and also have we talked about the Pre-Timeskip Fix-It? Because Pre-Timeskip has A Lot of this (and some of it is actually written already in draft)

Like Byleth being forceful in facilitating Edelgard's early meetings with other Lords

Also Edelgard opening up a little to Claude and him going full conspiracy theorist and sharing with her

Or how about Edelgard actually apologizing to Byleth and Dimitri

in fact, since it looks like this hasn't gotten posted yet -- how about the lead-up to that apology?

“You still haven’t apologized?”

She did not flinch.  But she did let her gaze wander over his shoulder to a passing student, which might have been equally telling, judging from the way Claude groaned as he threw himself back in his chair.  “Edelgard!”

“What?” 

“Don’t you feel even the tiniest bit guilty about saying that?”

“Why should I?” she asked.  “I only tried to motivate them.”

“How was that supposed to motivate them?”

“It spurs me to think--”

“Princess, you’ve gotta stop putting other people in your shoes and try to put yourself in theirs.”

“...I don’t understand.” 

He sighed, vigorously mussing his own hair.  “Alright.  Okay, fine, let’s try a thought experiment.  Imagine for a minute that you’re an only child--”

“I’m not, I ha--”

“Imagine, I said.”

She huffed, crossing her arms and sitting back even as he leaned forward again.  “You’re an only child,” he continued, “and your mother died before you had a chance to know her.  For as long as you can remember, it’s just been you and your dad.”

That, at least, she could understand.  Her father had long been her inspiration, supporting her grand ambitions and motivating her to continue forward.  She had dreamt, sometimes, of a different life, a better life, where she might live peacefully with him…

“Growing up, you’re kind of isolated.  Your dad does a lot of work as a fighter for hire, and eventually you get pulled into it with him, but he handles all the business.  You don’t interact much with people besides him and maybe some of your fellow mercenaries, but you don’t mind.  Your dad takes care of you, and makes sure you have everything you need, and you don’t feel like you’re missing out on anything.”

She made a thoughtful sound, taking a sip of tea.  Claude seemed rather wistful, but she made no comment, simply listening to the words and trying to keep focus on the dream of herself and her father leading a happy life together, growing up under his kindness and care...

“Then, out of the blue, you get thrown into something you’re totally unequipped to deal with.  You’re expected to lead, when you’ve never been a leader, and expected to teach when you’ve only ever been the one learning.  Your dad is still there, though, and he helps how he can, but...you start to realize that he’s been keeping secrets -- and not just about himself.  You’d never even thought about it before, but you’re seeing a whole world you never knew existed, one that he lived in longer than you’ve been alive, that he could have talked about but never did.  And you don’t know why.”

She frowned, setting her cup back in its saucer.  Would her father keep such secrets from her?  Had he kept such secrets from her?  She’d been spirited away to Faerghus so quickly when the Insurrection occurred...and it had been by her uncle’s hand.  Had it been on her father’s orders…?

“You want answers -- of course you do, who wouldn’t, right? -- and he promises to tell you when there’s time for you both.  But then, when he gets back, just when it looks like things will become clearer, and you’ll be able to understand him better than you ever had before...he dies.  It’s not the end of a long battle with disease or injury.  It comes out of nowhere.  And suddenly the person you’ve had there your whole life, the person you depended on as a child, the person who took care of you then and who’s always been there for you until now, who helped ground and tether you even when things were at their worst...is gone.”

...she had long been preparing for her father’s death.  Though he was not truly old, she had watched him waste away in the years since the Insurrection ended, until he looked far older than his years.  He would not live much longer, and that fact pushed her even now to wrap up her preparations and set her plans in motion...but what if he had died before?  At the hands of the nobles that stole his authority, or as a result of the horrors they inflicted upon him and his family?  She would have continued on…

...but her heart stumbled at the thought of such a loss, borne on top of the torments she and her siblings suffered. 

“So tell me,” Claude said, breaking her out of her thoughts, “how would you handle it?”

She steeled herself, squaring her shoulders and lifting her head.  “I would hunt down the culprit and see them punished for what they did.”

“Right away?  When you’ve got nobody to turn to because there’s this gaping void in your life where they’d been?”

Edelgard had no answer to that. 

“Look.  I don’t doubt that when Teach gets back on their feet, Monica -- or whoever she really is -- is gonna pay.  But you can’t force them up when they’ve got no ground to stand on anymore.”

[redlerred7]

Original Fiction Project Update:

So, I've made progress on that OC story I mentioned a few weeks ago.

The first chapter is drafted and sits at 20 pages and 7k words, which places it in the same ballpark as my fan fiction in terms of chapter length. And considering it only took two weeks to get it to a state where I'm happy with it, I'd say things have been going swimmingly. The one thing I'm somewhat worried about is the primary POV character. I'm not entirely certain that what I've written will get readers to care about him in the span only seven thousand words, but I'm eager to start writing the meat of the actual story so I'll just have to make do with what I already written.

In related news, I finally have a name for the project, after sitting with the temp-name of "Another Novel Attempt 2021" for the last six months. It is now named:

Tales from Terminal Terminal: Rapier Dance Requiem

There were two things that came to mind when I came up with that name.

The first is the handful of music tracks that I made over the last two years. I frequently attributed them to OCs that would eventually be in this novel.

One of them is called Terminal Terminal, a fast-paced battle track akin to the tunes found in Pokemon or Touhou Project. It's not attributed to any character in particular as so much the whole setting of the story itself. Keep in mind the different meanings of the word "terminal" and you may understand what I'm trying to get at.

There's also one called Rapier Dance, another fast-paced battle track. It's a song I attribute to Brandon Lim, one of my OCs who doesn't use specifically a rapier, but a straight and relatively narrow dueling sword that would probably be mistaken for a rapier in the popular consciousness. I'll have drafts of his new design in the coming weeks but feel free to scroll through my tagged drawings of his old designs in the link I provided.

And finally, the "Requiem" part of the title has to do with events in the story that I will not divulge (but those familiar with the word might find that it's not exactly a subtle reference. Or perhaps it's more subtle than it seems and I'm just baiting you? Only way to find out is to read it... once I finish writing it, of course)

Unless my estimates are off, I'm roughly a quarter of the way to being finished with this story. I'd ballpark my total word count to 20-30k once every scene is written, maybe more or less after I do some editing. I'll have more news of progress in the coming months. For now, I'll get back to writing.

[poisonpainter]

I know there (again) has been a lack of content lately, but this time for a good reason: I’m busy writing stories! But I’ll get to that a bit later, as today I’d like to talk about writing stuff in general and stuff I did more or less recently.

Two years ago the Bücherstadt Kurier published their March volume including my story “Nebeljagd” (Mist Hunt). This was the first of my stories that has ever been published in a proper medium and not just on this Blog or on DF.PP Entertainment or in The Forum (back when it still existed :( ). I remember being so proud of this. I remember calling my Mum right away after I received the mail with the amazing “You’ve been chosen”-line. I remember printing out the story and showing it to her and the smile on her face. I also remember what happened next. For me those two things will forever be remembered together: My first success and my biggest loss. Still, that didn’t keep me from continuing, I knew she would have (verbally) kicked my ass if I had dared to do that. Just giving up, wasn’t quite her style. ;)

It took me more than a month to at least be willing to write again, the result being “Ein neuer Tag” (A New Day), starting there a lot of my writings involved darker tones about loss, flight and/or death. Part of me used this to talk about my own experiences and thoughts, another part just found it fitting for a characters’ journey. I believe a prime example of this is Mina’s side-story from my second Advent Calendar.

I’m fairly certain that “Der Weckruf” (The Wake-up call) was the first story I published on a Blog after it all happened – in retrospective it’s quite a fitting title for the situation – not counting “Der Zufluchtsort” (The Haven), which was the last story I finished the day before it happened and scheduled for the day after. Still, from there I kind of got back into things. “Your Picture – A Story” was (kind of still is, even if I didn’t manage to write anything for it these last couple of months…) a good outlet for me to just explore different topics and characters without going into too much details thanks to the word count. This was also where you could see the changes I mentioned earlier the most.

Another new step I made regarding my stories was/is attending a Lesebühne (Reading Stage) where I read them aloud in front of an audience (in a pub). It’s always a thrill to do that and I’m nervous time and again. Though there is rarely any feedback: A few people told me they enjoyed the stories, someone said the stories I read improved over time, another encouraged me to try my luck with a publisher, others had minor complains, but most of them said nothing. It’s still an interesting experience and with the amount of Short Stories I have yet to read (or write) I have quite some stuff still unknown to the listeners.

Speaking of trying my luck: I also managed to win Eve Estelles’s writing contest, twice, without actually expecting to do so:

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Contest #1

Contest #2

With “The Raven’s Omen” and the “Campfire Tale“, I impressed her enough to let me win and those two are also prime examples of my English Short Stories, as I usually tend to write those in German. The only downside to this is my pessimism coming into play here and telling me I only won, because (it feels like) there wasn’t much competition.

I am very pessimistic (in general and especially) when it comes to my stories, I like them, but I rarely think they’re good enough for anyone else to like them, so it came as quite a surprise when fruehstuecksflocke asked me to become a part of #Projekt24. With “Blind Date“, I hope I made an adequate addition to it. This project will soon be not just available on his Blog, but more on that when it’s officially announced. ;) With my success here I also tried to add an entry to the Literary Advent Calendar of the Bücherstadt Kurier and some people quite laughed at my take on “The Crib“.

When this year began I told you about three stories I edited/translated for another project, namely: Ein neuer Tag, “The Quest for Ore” and another one called “Verloren” (Lost). These three are for Projekt Myra as exchange for some advertisement they did and as they still wanted/liked to get more I sat down to write out another of my organ-concert-ideas (see link Ein neuer Tag) concerning the Dwarf–world, I came up with back when writing The Quest for Ore and drafting Verloren. That story, however, did not want to be a Short Story and has by now roughly 30k of written out scenes and notes under the (working?) title: Der Wunsch der Königin (The Queen’s Wish). It’s still a lot of work to do and I’m still not entirely convinced it fits into the corner of Myra that we decided on – and again, that they really like what I’m writing-, but we’ll see once I’m done. Which I hopefully will be one day and don’t let it go to waste (like Michael’s story that I still haven’t managed to properly write down). Unfortunately I’m already kind of bored of writing out the notes and missing scenes, as motivation plays a rather huge part in my process and when the voice in the back of my head tells me something is not worth doing, then I have the tendency to listen to it, which is awful and counterproductive and absolutely annoying.

Another annoying thing is me jumping between ideas. As soon as one pops up I want to pursue it and everything else is then put aside (like writing this post, when I should be doing something else ;) ). One of the last times this happened I had nearly/finally finished with last years Advent Calendar and then I somehow decided to write two more stories. The first one was the Christmas story “Santa’s Helper” that I kind of feel like continuing in this year’s Calendar, though I’m not sure if I really should – any thoughts? The other was “Winter Moon” that I did get carried away with and which now has the basics for the twelfth chapters I speculate to write under the working title “Neubrandenwolf“. Though I still don’t know whether I should publish a Chapter a month (close to the full moon) or just publish as soon as I’m finished, Twitter wasn’t helpful for that decision…

The idea-jumps doesn’t make it any easier to get anything done though, quite the contrary. They are especially awful when it comes to the Fanfictions I started over the years that are still not finished yet, especially as I kind of took a year long break from them. Though I did manage to update 3/4 stories by now, even if updating one of the stories was recently postponed by writing the first ~7k version of The Queens Wish and then finished after I dreamed about one of the characters pulling me towards him… Still, they’re a great medium where you technically don’t have to think up that much regarding the worlds you write in and just can explore different story lines with existing characters. Which doesn’t mean I did not think things through, because that would be impossible for me, as I want things to make sense, even if that makes things more complicated and nearly as bad, as if I thought up my own worlds.

Anyway, a few people keep telling me I have a talent for writing and that I should try sending stuff to a publisher, but the voice in the back of my head, still tells me that I’m not good enough, that the stuff I write is too full of clichés, too boring, too simple and that no one would want/like to read it anyway (hence the lack of motivation at times). I really don’t know whom I should listen to, but that doesn’t mean I won’t keep writing – and potentially improving. All this stuff has to get out of my head somehow. There are still too many stories left untold that I don’t even dare to think about to not get distracted by them…

But don’t worry, you will get a few things to read in the future – whether you like them or not. ;)

PoiSonPaiNter

Celebrating @BK_Buchfink publishing 1 of my #stories 2y ago by thinking about what I #waswriting I know there (again) has been a lack of content lately, but this time for a good reason: I'm busy writing stories!