#i have over 20 pages of notes and didn’t even outline the whole plot yet

[saltpotion]

why am i incapable of coming up with a fic that isn’t extremely complicated

[theastrophilearchitect]

I started writing a book.

And I’m mad about it, because I just started this post, brought up a new tab and lost it because I didn’t save my draft.

Anyway. That’s a thing I did. Wow.

As of this moment, this post won’t be going up until April 19th, but I’m starting writing this at 10.30pm on Sunday, February 21st, 2021. I’ve done a lot in the last couple weeks, and I want to have some record of all I’ve accomplished without just letting most of it fade over the next two months.

I’ve always wanted to be an author. From when I was reading under my covers with a torch past bedtime, through the years I wanted to be an artist, through the years I wanted to be a lawyer. It’s always been there - no matter what primary career path I went down, I wanted to be an author. The last few years, I’ve been invested in becoming a biologist, and that dream really took a backseat.

In the start of this lockdown, my mental health went downhill, and some advice my therapist gave me was just to prioritise myself. It sounds simple enough, but, even in my free time, I’d been focusing on schoolwork - revising constantly for exams I’m still not sure are actually happening. (Boris Johnson is apparently making an announcement tomorrow about beginning to ease lockdown, but we’ll see) So, on Saturday, February 6th, I started an attempt to coalesce the ideas I had floating in my head into something tangible.

I’ve tried to write books countless times (not technically countless - I have all the documents on my laptop, so I could if I wanted to), but mostly, I’ve never gotten further than a couple bare plot points and some characters, maybe some ideas for subplots, before I’ve stagnated and given up.

Three times, I’ve finished a skeletal outline. Twice, I’ve started to go back over those outlines only to realise they made no sense or just seemed week, and simply not cared enough to fix it. Until now, I guess.

February 6th, 7th, and fast-forward to my week off beginning the 15th, up until the 19th, I kept developing this concept I’d managed to form, but I was struggling to establish a coherent plot. I had up until and including a midpoint (which was later condensed into just a first act), but everything after that was just a void. I began searching for some skeletal structure I could apply to it, both to work on pacing and fill in the blanks. I tried several, and got a little further, but was about to give up hope.

Then I remembered a video by Katytastic I’d watched years ago about the 3-act, 9-block, 27-chapter structure she used, and couldn’t see the harm in giving it a go. And something clicked.

You can find the video here - the structure’s detailed and easy to follow, plus she even gives an example of using it to generate a plot.

I started binge-watching her writing vlogs in the background, and even started using her same writing program, Scrivener, which just made every a thousand times easier by taking away the need to juggle a billion Word documents. It’s fairly pricey, but I’m currently using the 30-day free trial - it’s 30 days of use, not of ownership, too: if you use it every day, it lasts 30 days, but if you use it once a week, it lasts 30 weeks.

Where Kat used the 27 parts the structure broke down into as chapters, I chose to refer to them as beats, and separate chapters later.

On Saturday the 20th, I finished defining my scenes and started writing an actual draft. I wrote two scenes, putting me at a collective word count (not including notes, synopses, etc.) of 2,580 words.

This morning, Sunday the 21st, I started over. I hated my opening. I’m not going to go through the mess of today’s process, but I currently have around 80 one-line-outline scenes, split into 3 acts. I wrote a draft of my prologue and detailed-outlined (which I’m mentally referring to as zero-outlining because it’s similar to how Katytastic does what she calls a zero draft, but is very much outlining, not a draft) two and a half other chapters. Scriver also tells me how many words I wrote in total, across notes, character profiles, location lists, a document I’ve named ‘Train of Thought’ for my ramblings as I go etc.

Today, I wrote a grand total of 4,141 words, which, rather counterintuitively, puts me at a draft total of 2,598. That makes sense. Anyway.

There are a lot of unknowns in the world right now, and I have no idea how much time I’ll have in the next six months to invest in this project, but I’d like, at bare minimum, to have one complete draft by the start of the next school year in September, which gives me just over 6 months. Which is probably too much time to actually motivate myself, but that’s not the point.

A manuscript needs to have a minimum word count of 50K words to be considered a novel, so, even though my ultimate goal for this project is around 80K words, 50K is going to be my goal for this draft.

I’m being optimistic about sticking with this.

Tuesday 23/02/2021 - Word Count: 3,099 I wrote nothing yesterday; planning to focus writing solely on days off rather than work days, but last night, watching through the incredibly long queue of Alexa Donne writing videos, I came to the conclusion writing every day, even just a little, would be the best way to ensure I keep working on this, so I set myself a goal of just 500 words a day.

Wednesday 24/02/2021 - Word Count: 5,350 After doing a little bit of maths as to how long this outlining and draft would take me if I were to only write 500 words a day, I decided to boost that goal to 1,000. I got started around 1pm today, online school draining me so much I couldn’t face another two hours. I worked on and off until 6pm, and around 4.45pm, I finished outlining Act One!

Thursday 25/02/2021 - Word Count: 7,022 I continued my scene outlining into Act Two, but I hit a brick wall around the midpoint. I have to write chronologically - some people jump around, but I have to write linearly, or it feels like I’m trying to make something in a void. It just doesn’t work. I didn’t know how to get from one scene to the next - there were so many things I needed to establish to get there, but I didn’t want to backtrack. I decided to re-jig the whole thing, but, after dinner, I realised I didn’t have to, and instead, decided to just start a draft, conscious of the things I need to establish as I go.

Friday 26/02/2021 - Word Count: 8,208 Starting draft one, I rewrote the prologue I’d already written, technically putting me to my second draft of it, because I’d been thinking about it for days and just wanted to revisit it, and it was so much better. Then I moved on to chapter one, but decided I wanted to re-jig my chapters. While outlining, I’d split the whole book into only about twenty chapters, but decided to go for shorter ones for more effective divisions of the story. I got most of the way through the first scene of chapter one, but basically ran out of both time and motivation, since I hadn’t heavily outlined that scene. in total, I wrote over 2000 words today, but because I only increased the prologue word count by about 100 words, it didn’t do that much to the total count.

Saturday 27/02/2021 - Word Count: 11,050 I got some chores done Saturday morning and focused on finishing my book so I could include it in my February wrap-up, but I still had time to get some writing done around mid-day. My goal was just to hit 10K this weekend, but I though I could do it in one day. I wrote about 1,000 words before feeling a little word-drained, but took a break for lunch, got back to it and wrote 2,400 words. Though that only added a little over 2,000 to the word count, it took me to 10K! I’m 20% of the way to being able to call it a novel! We’re in quintuple digits!

And then eight hours later, I wrote another thousand words and got to 11K.

Sunday 28/02/2021 - Word Count: 13,722 I spent most of my Sunday morning writing, though it took me more than two hours to write about 1500 words, though it only added about 1100 to my count. I decided to set myself an overall and weekly deadlines to hold myself accountable. Due to the fact I don’t yet have a clue how many words this will work out as, I decided I wanted to have either a complete first draft or 100K words (which I doubt I’ll reach, but it seems like a good way to make myself finish the draft before my deadline) by the end of April. Which works out to a little under 1500 words a day, or just under 11K a week, which is perfectly doable. Bearing in mind my current word count is including outlines, but I still believe in myself.

I wrote another 1600 words later, which took me to 14K, until I deleted the 300 word outline I wrote for one scene, but I worked out my words per day for the next two months with the assumption of a 10K word count as of March 1st and a target of either a complete draft or 100K words by the end of April, so I’m nearly 4,000 words ahead of schedule. Which gives me 6,606 words to write this week, instead of 10,328. (If you couldn’t tell, I like numbers. They just make sense to me.

Monday 01/03/2021 - Word Count: 15,005 I didn’t quite hit my daily goal, but I was completely leached of motivation today, I’m ahead of schedule anyway and I was only under by less than 200 words. It’s alright. But, hey, we hit 15K! Two days after hitting 10K!

Tuesday 02/03/2021 - Word Count: 21,119 This was an insane writing day. My end-of-day target was only 16,480, and that was still ahead of schedule - if I was sticking to the 100K by April 30th, I’d only actually need to be at 12,950 today. This was the best writing day I’ve ever had. I wrote before school and during breaks, which kept both my writing and working momentum up.

I didn’t read a page of my current read, but I wrote a total of 7,681 words and increased my wordcount by 6,114 words, or literally an additional 40.75%. I hit 20K three days after hitting 10K, and am 42.238% of the way to being able to say I wrote a novel, be it a shitty first draft that won’t be complete at 50K words.

I also finished chapter three, which I’ve been working on for three days and came out ~5,000 words, and wrote chapters four and five in their entirety.

Note to self: this is day 10 of vaguely outline-drafting this project.

Wednesday 03/03/2021 - Word Count: 23,364 I've only written 490 words today, as of writing this update, but I just wanted to make note of the fact I've done some calculations, and can reasonably finish my draft this month. I'm still not completely sure how long it'll work out to be, so I can't quite work out my daily words to finish on the 31st, but if I stick to my current 1,475 words a day, I'll hit 63,894 words by the end of the month, which is a little less than I imagine this draft will be, but if I stick to that as a minimum, my first draft won't have to go into April.

I'd like to post this later this week, but I already have a post for this Friday, so God only knows how long this will be by the time it goes up. So far, I've written 1,900 words today, and I don't think I'm out of fuel yet, but I'm stopping because I need to read today, and I'd rather not burn out. I'm over my goal, anyway.

Oh, also, I'm nearly at 25K, which is halfway to a novel, but I haven't broken into Act Two yet, which means this book will be 75K minimum. I'm going to do some maths and work out how many words a day to hit 80K by March 31st. 2,030. That's doable. So I haven't read, but back to writing for like ten minutes.

I've now hit an additional 2,245 words for the day, though I wrote a total of 2,663

Thursday 04/03/2021 - Word Count: 25,415 I've decided to work out how many words I need to write each day to hit 80K by March 31st, and watch the fluctuations. (I like statistics). It should steadily go down throughout the month if I surpass it each day. Today's minimum word count is 2,023, already seven words less than yesterday's. How exciting.

The last scene of Act One was very heavy on world-building I haven't yet figured out, so I stuck what was meant to happen in brackets and just moved on, meaning I have now broken into Act Two!

I think, during the week, I'm going to focus on just meeting my minimum word count rather than exceeding it, just to save fuel for the weekends, when I can write so many more words.

And, we hit 25K! I'm halfway to a novel!

Friday 05/03/2021 - Word Count: 26,693 In complete honesty, I'm beginning to lose momentum. Maybe it's just today, but I don't really want to write and feel like I need a break, but I'm going to make myself write anyway. I'm going to make myself keep writing until this draft is done, however shitty it may end up. I really hate first drafts.

When you say 2,000 words is only 7-8 pages, it doesn't sound like that much to write per day but my god. Luckily, most of the stuff I've had to save to a Pinterest board called 'Writing Motivation' says if you write when you don't want to, it should pass instead of worsening. I wanted to hit 35K this weekend, but I'm not sure I'll have the momentum. I'll at least hit 31,270, though, which is my minimum goal for this week. I'm still over 700 words off my goal for today, but I'm taking a break because my head is foggy and there's still eight hours left in the day. Besides, 700 after dinner is easy. She says, realising she's probably jinxing it. Oh, well. 80K by March 31st would be difficult, even if I weren't going back to school soon, but that's a stretch goal. 100K by April 31st is my minimum, and I'm 9,000 ahead of where I need to be for that.

I think I’m stagnating because I’ve hit the ‘Fun and Games’ section, which I find really boring. I’m going to try to keep going with it, but I may just skip it and come back later.

Saturday 06/03/2021 - Word Count: 28,150 So, I did not get the extra 700 words in. Before dinner, some stuff I had to deal with came up, and by the time it was done, I just wanted to go to bed, so I did. Today, I'm going to try to make up for it, which I think is reasonable because it is now the weekend. I'm still kinda exhausted this morning, but I'm going to do my best, and my wrist hurts, but I'm not sure why. You'd think it would be from all the typing, but only one wrist hurts - you know what? Never mind. They do both hurt. I'm just not sure why, but it doesn't hurt typing this, so that doesn't make any sense. Anyway, to hit my word count for the day, I need to write 2,555 words, which doesn't sound like too much, but it kinda is because I'm primarily writing Act Two at the minute, and for every thousand words I write, I lose like 400 from my outline. You'd think I'd just not include my scene outlines in the word count, but it's too late for that now.

I'm thinking this over, and I really don't think trying to write 80K by the end of the month is going to be good for either my motivation, mental health, or ability to function back at school, so I'm going to stick to 100K or a finished draft by April 30th, and re-work out my goals from there, based on yesterday's word count, so I'm not making myself do catch-up today.

So, to hit 100K by April 30th, I only need to write 1,309 words each day (which will decrease over time because if that's my minimum now, I'll probably surpass it, decreasing the amount of words left etc.). That's so much less pressure.

God, I really don't want to write today. I just want to watch YouTube and Netflix and read.

Okay, so here's the thing. I've been working on this story straight for three weeks and I'm kinda exhausted of it. I'm not done with it, not at all, and I want to keep working on it because it exists, which makes it workable.

I watched a writing vlog by ShaelinWrites yesterday, and she said she writes different projects at once, alternating in week- or multi-week-long blocks. I think I might try that.

My plan with this post and the following updates was to keep updating it until the day it goes up, the day after which is when I begin drafting the next, but, since I may be switching projects for a while and this is really about the project I've decided to dub 'Bay Tree' (which is just, I guess, a pseudonym for here because while I have no idea what it would eventually be called, I know that's nothing like the title I'd want to give it) so I'd want to start a new post for a new project.

I'm now doing a little outlining instead of actually continuing writing, but I think this will help me, though I'm still not certain about whether or not I'm going to directly continue with this specific project for the minute. Instead of setting daily goals based on a target, I'm also just going to say 1,000 words a day, and see where that takes me.

I've just been outlining into Act Three, and I've met a major plot stumble, but I'm going to work that out and explain what I'm doing in my next writing update.

So, go drink some water, eat if you haven't eaten in the last few hours, stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself how wonderful you are and how much happiness you deserve, and, if you want to write a book, stop thinking about it, and go write.

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #1- Meeting All Our New Friends

Okay, let’s see what happens when you give one man way too much power over a franchise, and he doesn’t use it for evil.

Before we get into the story, let’s take a look at the cover art! MTMTE, as well as its sister series, Robots in Disguise, started off IDW Phase Two, a brand new run of main comics to replace the by-then completed The Transformers (2009). To celebrate this momentous occasion, each comic’s first issue got FOUR separate covers, which could be combined to create a large, overarching image. MTMTE’s looked like this when all the covers were put together.

The cover art here is by Alex Milne, who is on as the main artist for the series, but he’s not on issue #1- no, for our foray into this comic run, we see the return of Nick Roche.

The last time Roche and Roberts worked together was on Last Stand of the Wreckers, and other than MTMTE #6 and the Revolution one-shot, they won’t be teaming up again within the IDW run.

On a potentially-related-but-more-of-just-a-humorous note, it seems that Roberts is a huge stickler with his scripts, going into what sounds like an honestly horrific amount of detail for each individual panel. The average comic script is either between 20-23 or 28-30 pages long, not counting title and credit pages. Roberts has been cited as sending in comic scripts that approached 50 pages.

Which, if you know anything about the scriptwriting process, is a little… yeah. It’s a very good thing Roberts seems to be able to take criticism.

ANYWAY.

IT’S TIME.

The Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye- Liars, A to D Part 1: How to Say Goodbye and Mean It- holy fucking shit that’s a long title- starts off with the Story So Far, a comic book classic to catch readers up on what’s happened prior to the issue. The very nature of a Story So Far will become plot-relevant much later down the line, but as is, it’s just reminding us what happened during Phase One, in as basic a point as it can.

And then the credits are right underneath.

I can’t even imagine how friggin’ good seeing this printed must have felt.

So, what’s going on in the premiere of the sad, gay, space comic?

Not my phrasing, by the way, but the Wiki’s.

So, the war’s over. What does that mean? Well, a lot of things, honestly, but the first thing we’re given in terms of what changes to expect with everyone’s favorite space robots is in relation to their wardrobes. Yeah, without a war to fight, what’s the point in having relatively identical blocky armor that protects all your insides? It’s time to get skimpy.

Rodimus has switched out his toned calves and discernible ankles for the Uggs that are now positively iconic to his character. Drift’s mass has almost completely gravitated to his thighs, making him the curviest thing this side of the Milky Way. Ultra Magnus didn’t get the memo about not needing to be in uniform anymore, I guess, but somehow I doubt he owns anything casual.

Rodimus, Drift, and Magnus are holding a rally to invite Autobots to come on their party-barge to find the Knights of Cybertron, in an effort to heal the planet, because Rodimus took one look at post-war Cybertron and said “no thanks.” Honestly, I think most would, if these properly colored characters are any indication.  

Just the Autobots, by the way. We aren’t ready to be friends with the ‘Cons just yet. Swindle did some major damage on that front.

Prowl and Wheeljack are off to the side discussing this turn of events, and while Wheeljack seems to think that a lot of folks will be boarding the ship and getting the hell out of dodge, Prowl’s expecting nothing to come of it.

So, that was yesterday. What’s going on today?

Inside Kimia, there’s a dead guy. He wasn’t dead when he was brought in, but he is now. Who is he, anyway?

Oh, he’s one of the NAIL protesters, and he died because he was protesting by way of transforming on the steps of Autobot HQ, until his transformation cog burn out. Yep, that can kill you. Ratchet’s the one who performed the autopsy, as per Metalhawk’s request- he only wanted the best of the best on this.

Too bad the best of the best is starting to slump. After a brief scare with Rigor Morphis- the stiffening of the corpse into the body’s preferred mode- Ratchet explains to Bumblebee that his hands have started seizing up, and that’s why he’ll be leaving on the Lost Light with Rodimus. He just can’t do the work anymore.

This news is not well received by Bumblebee, who’s just about had it with everyone up and leaving him all by himself with the mess that is Cybertron.

Phase Two will not be kind to Bumblebee.

Bumblebee accuses Ratchet of having been insnared in Rodimus’ siren song of reclaiming the Golden Age, but c’mon, this is Ratchet! He’s too cynical to fall for that. He’s more interested in finding the Autobots who’ve been lost over the millennia to the war. Ratchet’s already well aware of the true purposes of this little galactic road trip, almost like he’s read the plot outline.

It’s about helping people, and adventure, and being unapologetically gay and sad in equal measures.

Up in the sky, Cyclonus is displeased. He spent six million years in the Dead Universe, under the control of a madman, waiting for the moment he could return to his beloved homeworld, and what does he get? A ball of half-baked primordial cookie-dough, and it’s not even chocolate-chip like he was expecting; it’s fucking oatmeal raisin.

Mmm, that is some tasty panel-breaking right there.

Of course, the I/D chip might not have worked anyway, seeing as Cyclonus got a little bit of a boost when Vector Sigma ejected everyone during the Matrix incident. It’s doing some weird stuff to his body, on top of whatever nonsense existing inside the Dead Universe does to a person.

Cyclonus is about to head over to the Lost Light- apparently he and Rodimus made a little deal off-panel- when he detects a familiar life sign and decides to see what that’s all about.

Over in Prowl’s office, things are tense. He and Chromedome can’t even look at each other, as Chromedome reveals that both he and Rewind are jumping on the Lost Light. Prowl doesn’t like this, not one bit. He needs Chromedome, needs his skills, his expertise. He tries to appeal to Rewind, knowing who wears the pants in this relationship.

Or, well, he tries.

Prowl, they’ve been married for over 250,000 years.

In all seriousness, this is slightly before the first tentative steps Roberts took towards making the franchise as gay as he possibly could, at least when going by the story’s chronology. The thing about professional comic script writing is that plotting/planning goes for a ways beyond the current script one’s working on, so that everyone knows where everyone else is. Considering the somewhat congruent nature between MTMTE and RiD, planning ahead was especially important.

Chromedome and Rewind were originally (like, first draft originally) meant to be best friends. This was to fill a void in the department of close relationships Roberts felt within the Transformers franchise. Then Roberts saw how handsy he’d been writing them during plotting and realized he’d made something a little different happen. Which still sort of went with what he was going for, just in a slightly different fashion. Chromedome and Rewind are a rare case of a writer NOT leaning into the “they’re just bros, bro” mentality and just letting the characters be together as romantic partners.

Also keep in mind that it would be another three fucking years before the United States would legalize same-sex marriage, which is where the IDW offices are located. You gotta ease that sort of change in, that way nobody realizes what you’re doing until it’s already been done, then you can go hog-wild. We won’t be hitting critical mass on the homonormative civilization that is IDW1 Cybertron for a solid year or so.

So this bit of dialogue is just the start of the setup, and the “best friend” line is either a leftover from earlier versions of the script, or Prowl really just is that big of an asshole.

Rewind is, of course, recording everything taking place on his handy-dandy little head-mounted camera, because history is his business, and he’s not going to stop recording for the likes of Prowl.

Rewind doesn’t like Prowl very much.

It would seem that the feeling is mutual.

Chromedome suddenly remembers that trying to reason with Prowl is like talking to a brick wall, and the two of them leave. Prowl responds to this slight by yelling in the hallway and then flipping a table.

I sure hope y’all like running gags.

Of course, Prowl wouldn’t be Prowl without having a few contingency plans in place for when things don’t go his way, and he makes a call to his inside guys to “load the cargo.”

That’s not ominous in the slightest.

Six million years prior to all this nonsense, a tiny little dude fell in a hole and broke his legs trying to get to work.

This is Tailgate, and he’s seen better days. Not many, mind you, but at least a couple. He was making his way to the launch of the original Ark, when he decided to take a shortcut that would change the course of his life forever. Hence the whole “stuck in a hole” thing. Still, he’s got to get out of here, because without him, the entire expedition is doomed!

For being an idiot, Tailgate’s pretty smart- he figures that if he sets off his energon rations, it’ll blast up through the roof of the cavern he’s in and someone will be able to find him. Good thing energon’s so incredibly volatile.

Speaking of volatile, let’s jump back to the present and check on our buddy Whirl.

It looks like Whirl also got a makeover between series, because he’s now sporting a much sleeker, angular frame, complete with long, tapered head.

Whirl’s currently busy thanking his new friends for spending so much time with him. It really meant a lot to him, their patience. Not many folks have been patient with him before.

Of course, it probably helps that all these guys are dead as hell.

It’s time for another Roberts’ staple- the suicide attempt. We won’t be using the robot-equivalent to Multiple Sclerosis though. This go around, we’ll be using a classic: self immolation!

Title drop! Bet you weren’t expecting it to have such a dark connotation, huh?

Cyclonus interrupts Whirl’s monologue and suicide attempt. He thought he’d seen his best buddy, Scourge, on his tracker, and his immediate response is to lurk in the shadows looking like a night demon wearing a party hat.

Fun fact: a group of Sweeps is called a Spring Cleaning.

Scourge isn’t here, and he won’t ever be. Scourge most likely died off-panel, never to be seen again, assumedly because nobody wanted to write for him. I think it’s the nails, puts people off.

Whirl doesn’t take kindly to the intrusion, and responds the only way he knows how.

It’s always embarrassing when your self-immolation gets interrupted, but maybe try taking a first deep breaths before committing to more war crimes, Whirlybird.

While these two morons fill the post-Bay movie explosion quota, Red Alert’s hard at work screening the passengers on the Lost Light. Currently, he’s checking Brainstorm, who’s making it as difficult as possible, both legally and emotionally. Red Alert waves him on with a grumble, without even getting a peek at what’s inside his mysterious briefcase.

Up next is Swerve.

His legs are so jacked, it makes me a little uncomfortable. Glad to see Swerve’s body reformat went swimmingly- seems he went for the classic “tires in the shoulders and ankles” model.

Oh hey, it’s Rung! Hi Rung!

This series will not be kind to Rung.

While Cyclonus and Whirl terrorize the folks just trying to get on board the dang ship, Rodimus is feeling rather pleased with himself with the turnout. Drift strokes his ego a bit, because they support each other, but things are still weird because Drift doesn’t know who he is as a person anymore, and Rodimus has a guilty conscience mixed with being the Matrix’s golden child, which really fucks with a guy’s head.

Ultra Magnus goes through the list of the folks joining their quest, and starts running through all their demerits and crimes like it’s his job, because it is. We get a little peek into Magnus’ world view and then it’s back to the Whirl and Cyclonus show.

Also, Drift doens’t have a nose right now. He’ll get it back in time for the next issue, don’t worry.

Over with the flyboys, Cyclonus has decided to land and attempt to reason with Whirl. Not that he couldn’t totally kill Whirl if he wanted to.

He just doesn’t want to.

No, Cyclonus is far more concerned with his meeting with Rodimus, the one that he’s already friggin’ late for thanks to the detour he took checking that life signature. Whirl doesn’t care, far more worried about the fact that Cyclonus saw him talking to desecrated corpses and, far more importantly, vulnerable.

Look at this jackass’ ensemble- demon helmet, a crop top, a skirt and bellbottom pants. What an icon. He and Eugenesis Wheeljack should trade fashion tips.

Whirl still isn’t done with him, even after scraping him across the side of a mountain. Feeling especially artsy, he scoops Cyclonus up and jumps into the air, since he apparently has a hundred-foot vertical leap.

Back in the past, things aren’t going so well for Tailgate.

More cool panel stuff going on here- every time the panels have had rounded corners, it’s been when the scene takes place in the past. Now that the last panel has proper right angles to it, Tailgate’s in the present with everyone else. That middle panel probably covers a couple million years, at least. Poor guy.

Up on the surface, Ratchet’s met up with Chromedome and Rewind, and they’re all walking over to the launch site, Chromedome bitching all the while about how they’ve got to use their legs since Rewind’s alt-mode isn’t a vehicle, but a USB.

Chromedome seems to have forgotten that his tiny husband is small enough to probably just ride on top of his alt-mode, if not directly inside, most likely due to his larger-than-life personality.

Whirl and Cyclonus fall out of the sky before Chromedome can say something that’ll get his ass divorced. Cyclonus gets knocked out cold, having taken the brunt of the impact. Unfortunate, seeing as Whirl’s taking the time to make up lies about him.

You thought I was kidding when I said the armor was skimpy, but here we are, with a shot of Whirl’s battle thong.

Ratchet, who knows Whirl, because he knows everybody, tries to talk him out of straight up murdering Cyclonus. Whirl doesn’t like it when people try to talk him down, and is about to turn on the good doctor, when Tailgate enters the scene, by way of explosion.

Whirl doesn’t handle explosions terribly well. Probably why he was going to use one to kill himself.

With Whirl knocked out, Ratchet and the power couple pull Tailgate out of his hole, where he manages to ask about the launch before freaking the fuck out and fainting at the sight of a rather dead-looking Whirl. To be fair, I can’t think of a whole lot of folks who’d survive getting their tits blown off with enough force to clear a tunnel in solid rock.

You said it, Rewind.

Ratchet grabs Tailgate and Whirl and brings them onboard the ship, seeing as Tailgate seems to want to be there, and Whirl’s too dangerous to be out of sight. They just kinda leave Cyclonus on the ground. I doubt the two guys who were on Kimia last month really want to deal with him.

Rewind breaks off from the group to see his dealer. This dealer isn’t selling the good kush though. He’s got something far more incriminating to offer.

But we don’t get to find out what the fuck Rewind just bought from Swindle for a few more issues. Rest assured, it’s nothing good.

On the bridge, Rodimus is in his captain’s chair, ready to captain it up. The Lost Light raises into the air, as Bumblebee and Prowl watch on, about to exit the atmosphere and begin a adventure filled with hijinks and mild peril.

And that’s a series wrap on everyone! I hope you enjoyed this wonderful one-shot written by James Roberts.

What do you mean there’s 56 more issues?

Alright, let’s see where this goes.

Back on the bridge, there’s alarms and sirens out the wazoo, as things have pretty much immediately gone to shit. The quantum engine the Lost Light’s outfitted with apparently went off prematurely, rocketing them into a completely random quadrant of space.

Also, there’s a hole in the ship, and vacuum physics are doing their thing.

This series will not be kind to Rodimus.

The Lost Light touches down on the planet they popped back into existence over to start looking for all the guys who got sucked out of the ship. They don’t have to look long, seeing as they’re all burning up in the atmosphere.

Welcome to the Lost Light. It’s a friggin’ mess.

Back on Cybertron, the aftermath of the explosion is seen, as Bumblebee and Prowl listen to a message that seems to imply a lot more heartache in the future.

Prowl, you could at least pretend to give a shit.

That’s the end of the story, but not the end of the issue. In the back of the book, we get a welcome letter from James Roberts himself, thanking the reader for taking the time to read the beginning of MTMTE, and holy shit does he really try to sell it to you. This is a guy who wants you to be excited about the story that’s coming your way, because he’s excited about it. He’s a big dork who loves Transformers, and he gets to write about them for the next six years! That’s awesome. 

[lettersofsky]

For the "Get to know the Author": all of them. Every single one. Because I adore you and love knowing more about you.

Get to Know You AuthorYou asked for it! And now have a lot of rambly answers! Under a read-more line because I’m still a decent person. 25′s probably longer than it should be but I just love that scene, I love it so much.

1) Isthere a story you’re holding off on writing for some reason?

The Later DEEPGROUND AUthing I wanna do; it’s got all the notes and plot points down include quickrough drafts of some ‘drama’ scenes, I’m just not really ready to start it yet?I’ll get there eventually though! There’s also my own thing which exists onlyin concept design and small character pieces and that I’m far too willing toadmit that I’m not ready to start yet.

2) Whatwork of yours, if any, are you the most embarrassed about existing?

I tend not to getembarrassed over my things because even if they’re not the best thing, I’ve atleast been able to get the idea down or I’ve tried something different aboutthe thing so they’re all experience and the chance for constructive criticism.

3) Whatorder do you write in? front of book to back? chronological? favorite scenesfirst? something else?

It varies depending onwhat I’m doing; like some things I’ll start with a specific scene and thenwrite the build up for it, others I’ll write a scene I’m looking forward too,the afterwards of it and then the start, others will be chronological. The besttimes are when I write out notes for the thing then I can work out of orderwhile retaining all the few key points that I wanna touch on and where they’d fallin the timeline of the story.

4) Favoritecharacter you’ve written

Genesis is such adramatic, lit nerd and I love him. Writing him is fun because he’s just thisbig ball of conflicting thoughts and contradictions and I absolutely love him,especially the way I try to write him; kind of a more mature, softer, ‘realizedthat I’m never going to achieve this thing that’s completely out of my leaguebut hey! That doesn’t mean I don’t have achievements to be proud of!’ He’s alsoreally easy to angst!

5) Characteryou were most surprised to end up writing

I’d never thought that I’dwrite Rosso! Nobody cares to write about the Tsviets! But I am because she’s my murder girlfriend and I absolutely adoreher! She’s very much a femdom whenever I write her, it’s a thing

6) Somethingyou would go back and change in your writing that it’s too late/complicated tochange now

I don’t know? Because if Ireally have a problem with something then I can go back and redo it, which Ihave done in the past (not for anything I’ve posted here, but other things).

7) Whenasked, are you embarrassed or enthusiastic to tell people that you write?

I’m neutral about it, Ithink? Not a lot of people around me would think to ask and the one’s thatwould already know because I’ve shoved things in their face to tell me if the wordsmake sense.

8) Favoritegenre to write

I love writing fluff! Cuteslice-of-life, romance stuff! Warm feelings in my chest as I break my face fromsmiling at my own stuff! Ecto’s probably calling me a liar right now because ofall the angsty stuff I write…

9) What,if anything, do you do for inspiration?

OTP Prompts are mysaviour, I would be left with character-centric things exploring ideas I haveabout them otherwise (read Truths and Crownless)

10) Write in silence or with background noise? with people or alone?

Definitely backgroundnoise, I usually put on some music (I’ve been listening to Starset and NWTB alot lately) or a video (I like Plague of Gripes stuff, he goes a lot intocharacter development and worldbuilding). I can write around people, but I preferto be alone when I write, mostly because I kind of end up roleplaying thecharacters a bit, especially when I’m stuck on dialogue.

11) What aspect of your writing do you think has most improved sinceyou started writing?

I’d like to say that I canwrite dialogue better now but I’m not sure about that. I’ve definitely improvedwith my NSFW pieces, they’re apparently decent now!

12) Your weaknesses as an author

Dialogue is difficult. Plotsare difficult. A Decent Ending is difficult. Titles are hell.

13) Your strengths as an author

Hyper fixation on things Ilike. Willingness to completely abandon all of fanon to run with a characterizationI like. I can write dumb idiots being cute real good!

14) Do you make playlists for your current wips?

Not often, there are a fewthat I have but not many.

15) Why did you start writing?

It was a way suggested tome to help deal with depression by a councillor; they probably never expectedme to write about… what I currently do.

16) Are there any characters who haunt you?

Ravus Nox Flueret. He’s myabsolute favourite thing from FFXV and Crownless is my longest single thing fora reason! He just keeps creeping into my other FFXV stuff! Like an AU I’ve beenbouncing around, started one way and then I wondered what he’d be doing in itand the whole thing shifted to include him in the main narrative.

17) If you could give your fledgling author self any advice, whatwould it be?

Stop thinking and worryingabout the thing and just do them, it’s fine if not a lot of people see thestuff you’re doing someone definitely is and it’s probably put a smile on theirface and that’s good.

18) Were there any works you read that affected you so much that itinfluenced your writing style? what were they?

I don’t think so? Maybeand I just haven’t realized it? I used to have a very Victorian-style ofwriting (or so I was told) but I might have lost that somewhere along the way.

19) When it comes to more complicated narratives, how do you keeptrack of outlines, characters, development, timeline, ect.?

A document absolutely filledwith the information; that’s how I did it with my Bloodborne AU, just some 40pages of characterizations, backstory, weapons and their backstories, acomplete timeline of events and things to touch upon in the works. But yes, foranything that’s large and complex then I’ll just have a separate document (or two) tohave up that has all my ideas; for example, TSoaF, my Dragon AU, has the mainstory file, the info file, the draconics file – with all their designs, characterizationsand backstories, and a predecessor fic – which is only dot-points of plotpoints and will probably remain that way.

20) Do you write in long sit-down sessions or in little spurts?

Both, considering my moodand what I’m working on. If it’s a part I’m feeling up to like my smut bender lastweek then I can do the long sit-down, other times I can’t sit still and haveto get up every few minutes just to move.

21) What do you think when you read over your older work?

It pretty much boils down too,‘Oh! Look at my OTP being cute together! *heart eyes* I love them!’ or ‘… Oh,no! Why did I write that?! Now they’re crying and I’m crying and, god damnitme!’ It’s a fifty-fifty chance.

22) Are there any subjects that make you uncomfortable to write?

Some of the more extremekinks or fetishes maybe? Other than that, I can’t really think of anything.

23) Any obscure life experiences that you feel have helped yourwriting?

Unfortunately, myexperience as a nurse, both in age care and in the neurological section of ahospital, have not helped me with my writing at all. Damn you, four years of specializededucation!

24) Have you ever become an expert on something you previously knewnothing about, in order to better a scene or a story?

Not an expert, but I ammore versed in kink after writing for Kinktober than I ever thought I would be.I also looked up numerous method of torture for one of my Bloodborne fics, thatwas pretty fun.

25) Copy/paste a few sentences or a short paragraph that you’reparticularly proud of

Genesis had liftedhimself to a seated position and had dropped his head into his hands, hisshoulders shaking with soft sobs. | Cloud dropped down to his knees next to theother, gazing at him in concern. “Genesis? What’s wrong?” He asked, voiceclearly distressed. | “I can’t,” Genesis whispered, voice thick with emotion. “I can’t do this anymore.” | “Genesis,”Cloud coaxed, pressing closer to the other man. “Talk to me.” | “I’ve tried so hard,” Genesis stressed, lifting his gaze to stare atCloud with wet eyes. “But I just can’t handle this anymore Cloud.” | Cloud didn’t understand what theother meant by that but whatever it was, it must have been important to causethis much distress in the other man. “Tell me about it,” he coaxed in a softvoice. “Let’s talk about it.” | Genesis shook his head sharply, a harsh noiseleaving his lips. “I’m trying to make it up,” Genesis told him, stressing hiswords in a desperate tone. “But I can’t handle having you like this anymore.”| Cloud was stunned silent, staring at Genesis’ face. | “And I know I don’t deserve to be picky,” Genesis continued, reachingout to grip Cloud’s arms in a tight grip. “You’ve been so kind to me, eventhough I don’t deserve it after I threw you away.” | Cloud felt hisbreath quickening as Genesis continued to speak, his eyes widening as he beganto realize what the other was talking about. | “I promised myself that I’d takeanything you gave me when I saw you out in the wastes. I promised that I wouldn’t interferewith your life any more than I already had.” Cloud swallowed heavily, his chestheavy as he continued to listen to the other’s ramblings. “But I can’t deal with this, I can’t handle you looking at me like I don’t mean anything to you.” | Cloudfound a harsh noise falling from his throat, interrupting Genesis’ ramblings.He dropped his own head into his hands, smothering the noises falling from hismouth. | A wounded noise left Genesis’ throat as he took Cloud’s face in hishands. “Look, I’m still ruining things,” he pressed his forehead to Cloud’s astears started leaking from his eyes once again. “I just keep hurting you, precious.” | Cloud shook his own head softly, pullingaway from the other’s hand to stare at his face, admitting in a soft, fragilevoice. “I had Mako Poisoning,” Genesis stiffened, freezing at his words. “I, Iforgot everything. I don’t remember ever meetingyou before.” | Another wounded noise left the other man before he was wrappedin a warm embrace and pulled into the other’s space.

I’m also really proud of AnOld Hurt (a KH fic) in general. I just really love how it came out and how Iwrote Xemnas in it, it’s really great.

[jam2289]

Creating a Comic Book - Dungeon Buddies - Part 1 of ?

I'm writing a comic book.

Here's how it happened. I was at a 5X5 meeting in Muskegon, Michigan, that's a uniquely structured venture capital seed fund. It's fun to go watch the presentations. I saw a few people that I know: a guy that I used to work with at Muskegon Community College who I found out was an original founder of the Muskegon Inventors Network, a guy that I went to a political training course with in Grand Rapids a few years ago, and Michelle.

I know Michelle through Toastmasters. She thought it was funny that I was an English teacher and writer and that I would write the shortest notes when I gave feedback on speeches. She was a judge at the venture capital fund meeting and asked me how my writing was going. I told her about the stories I'm editing for "Horror Without Borders", the weekly article I'm writing for 88.9 Hey Radio, the speeches I'm writing for the Potter in the Park festival, and a few more things I'm working on. She said that she had someone that I needed to connect with who had an idea for a comic book.

Chuck and I emailed a bit and arranged a time for me to meet him at his house. I thought we might talk about the idea for a couple of hours maybe. There had just been an ice storm. I needed to get gas on the way and the gas station near my house was out of power. The next gas station had power but their outdoor card slot wasn't working because it was frozen. Luckily, I made it. We ended up talking about all sorts of things for 5 hours. That was a month ago.

Since then we've been sending messages back and forth, and met at Lange's comic book store to go over things. Chuck had the kernel of an idea, but he needed a writer to really bring a narrative together. He's an illustrator. I've been trying to lay out all of the information and options and get my mind wrapped around this story idea.

I've been playing with documents for sharing information between us. I think I may need to create a story bible, where you have all of the information that you need to track through the story so you don't contradict yourself about clothing, or money, or eye color, or whatever. I might do this in a grid format. Then there's the big one, the script. Comic book scripts are written a lot like movie and television scripts, with some variations.

Chuck wants this comic book to be able to be done in print format and as an electronic format. In the electronic format there will be a whole page that is broken up into three even pieces. This allows you to easily zoom in on each of these three sections if you're using a phone or tablet. I have to make sure when I'm thinking about the panels that I don't break a piece of dialogue or narration between these pieces, and that the pictures won't be broken up in an odd way.

I think this might be quiet a clunky process because the idea isn't fully coming together in my mind. There are a few things that you can do in this case: 1) You can wait. This is fairly common, even among great writers. Mark Twain often did this, there was one short story that he thought about for 12 years before he took the 4 hours to write it. Michael Crichton thought about "Jurassic Park" for 8 years before he started writing it. 2) You can stumble forward. The process probably won't be as smooth this way, but the progress will be much faster. This is the only real choice I have here, and that's good because I have a tendency to think about things for years. That's a good way to really mull over your ideas and come up with unique things, but it isn't very productive.

I want this to have the possibility of moving forward as a story after this first plot concludes. That means that I want it to end without a power increase on the part of our protagonists. If their power increases after each adventure then the power of the enemies has to increase and eventually everyone is just way too powerful. This power creep is common in superhero comic books. This isn't a superhero comic book, but the problem still needs to be avoided.

I've been exploring comic books. A few years ago, after I got back from my misadventure in Africa, I realized that if I recovered I wanted to do some writing. I knew that I wanted to write in a few different mediums. But, I hadn't read in a few of those mediums. I had read thousands of books, a mix of fiction and non-fiction. I had tried a lot of other things, but I really hadn't read very many comic books, screenplays, television scripts, plays, or epic poems. Over the last couple of years I've been exposing myself to these.

It seems to me that many things in life are an acquired taste. The first 7 times that I tried sushi I didn't like it. But, after a few years of trying it I eventually tried it one time and liked it. And I liked it ever afterward. It's the same idea with these different forms of reading and writing. You have to be in a different frame of mind to read a comic book versus a novel versus a movie script. It's just different.

Luckily this process has finally come through for me. It's a beautiful thing to see something that you've been working on come to fruition. Now I have lists of favorites. The first comic book that I ever picked up and read in the store where I was like, "Wow! This is a good story." is "Venom #10". "The Secret Battles of Genghis Khan" is an amazing graphic novel, a graphic novel is the same idea as a comic book, it's usually just a bit longer and is sometimes focused on different subjects than you may associate with comics. "A Contract With God" by Will Eisner is a graphic novel that will blow your mind. It starts with a man walking home in the rain from his teenage daughter's funeral. Comics can be intense.

The first television script that I couldn't pull myself away from was the "Taboo" pilot. The show stars Tom Hardy. I'm reading the screenplay "Passengers" right now. I've tried to read this screenplay probably 5 or 6 times over the last few years. Each time I stopped a handful of pages in because I just wasn't into it. The format threw me off, then I would read a novel instead. But, this time is different. I'm truly enjoying this screenplay and sometimes stay up too late reading it.

I'm almost continually reading "Prometheus Bound" by Aeschylus at this point. The more I read it the better I think it is. It's a 2,500 year old epic poetry play, and still great, and still applies to life.

Anyway, back to my comic book. Chuck already had a name, ideas for characters, some plot and scene ideas, and a few other things. "Dungeon Buddies" is the name. It's an adventure story. For this first story arc I'm thinking that there will be 10 individual comic books of about 20 pages each. This will work well to publish them separately and to put them together into a single volume. Let's think about how these may breakdown.

The first book will start our mystery. Our two main guys are Lut and Gaza, Lut is pronounced Loot. Their names are from the Latin and have meanings that fit in with their backstories. We'll dive into that more in another article. Lut and Gaza are adventure hunters. Our story opens with them finding a magical gauntlet in a cave. Lut puts this gauntlet on and can't get it off. It also seems to be indestructible. This discovery process should work for the first book to get the mystery going.

The tenth book in the series will have to resolve the gauntlet issue in a way that our characters don't end up with more power. Somehow we have to use the gauntlet to defeat the evil plot behind all of the adventures we've had over the last 9 books.

In between the first and the tenth books there are a few things we'll need to hit on. There are two other main characters that will be joining Lut and Gaza. We don't have names for them yet. One will be a girl who will probably be a goblin, and there will be a guy that will probably be a race that we invent called Brutes. Introducing each of these characters along with moving the plot forward could be a book. I have a lot of their characteristics and such worked out in general. We'll dive into that more in another post.

So far we are up to four books: the opening, the ending, and two character intro stories. The goblin girl and the Brute could have their backstories explored in the same book that they're introduced in. Maybe the backstories for Lut and Gaza could be revealed slowly, or maybe a single book should do them both along with their meeting, or maybe it should be one each. I'm not sure about that yet.

The rest of the books will simply focus on moving the plot forward. Now, when I usually write I don't do much in the way of plotting. Sometimes I have a general idea and sometimes I don't. For this story I think I need to have a solid outline. Writers vary so much on how they do this, I've written posts breaking down the process that different famous writers use, it's all over the place. I've been thinking that I want to work on plotting more anyway, so this works out well.

I watched Christopher Paolini on a panel at Grand Rapids Comic Con last year. He's famous for writing the fantasy series "The Inheritance Cycle". He started writing that when he was 15, self published when he was 17, was picked up by a major publisher when he was 19, and is a huge international success. After that he wrote a bunch of other stuff that sucked. It was awesome hearing him talk about that other stuff because most successful people don't really dig into their failures, especially their failures after they have been successful. Paolini wrote an entire epic science fiction trilogy that he didn't publish because it wasn't good, along with a few other things. He said he finally realized that he wasn't producing good material because he had forgotten how to plot. Something to think about.

In the next post we'll dig into the characters and plot more. I have many ideas about these things, now the decisions have to start being made.

(I wish some of the writers that I love had done this when they were writing, e.g. George R. R. Martin, J. K. Rowling, Patrick Rothfuss, Ursula K. Le Guin, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ken Grimwood, etc. It's unusual, that's true. I have an unusual take on transparency, I think it's a good thing to engage in voluntarily. That's why I have four psychology profiles and my full resume publicly available on my website. I also don't believe in spoilers. If it's a good story then you can't spoil it. Many people disagree with one or both of these views of life. Luckily Chuck is fine with me writing about the writing process. I think I'm going to make it a personal policy that I only work on projects that I can publicly post like this. I basically have so far and I greatly prefer it. I've had several comments from people that are learning to write telling me how me revealing my process has helped them. It's not the same when writers talk or write about their writing after the fact. Some publishers won't accept your work if you have published it before. But, some of them will if it's on a personal blog, which this is. Time will tell if this approach leads to good consequences, but it's definitely a more enjoyable process.)

Here's that post about some of the processes that other writers follow:

http://www.jeffreyalexandermartin.com/2018/01/the-write-process.html

________________________________________________

You can find more of what I'm doing at http://www.JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com