#like getting back to my rewrite of Tales Of A Frozen Sailor or The Hidden Royals my Shipwreck story

[allisonreader]

Well I've reached success in finishing a very rough, quick telling of my Inklings story. This story really would benefit from more details than I've currently got written, but I simply don't have it in me to go that indepth. Not in a way that would do it justice currently.

One of the ways in which the story is messy is definitely my tenses. It's kind of mismatched at the moment. I go from explaining what's going to happen in the future to a more present tense of things happening right now, in probably a very passive voice. And a bit different from the first bit of story.

I'm not fully sure how I'm going to solve this, other than possibly trying to change the whole story to past tense. But I'm going to leave it for a couple of days before working on it again.

As the story stands at this moment, my story stands at 3266 words. Two thirds of this has been written in the last two days during the evening (for me) sprints. I have a feeling most of the editing/rewriting will take place during sprints as well.

I still think that I'm going to take the whole story and repost it as one story once it's cleaned up a bit. I just think that it'll make the most sense in the long run.

[allisonreader]

With the Inklings Challenge slowly starting to ramp up, I once again find myself musing about it as I start my own preparations for it. (Both for myself and what I intend to do for my sprints blog.)

I really do look forward to this each and every year since the first year that it's been held. Like I've already been counting down since last month and have been so grateful for the start of the figuring things out now that's been happening.

I've participated each year so far (and fully intend to do so again this year), and have enjoyed it each time. So far I have been on Team Tolkien (for the first two years) and Team Chesterton (last year), though I have written for each team (Team Lewis had a portal story from me for Christmas the first year, though I don't think that the story in general was overly Christmas in theme).

I was extremely grateful to have ended up on Team Tolkien the first year, just because time travel (beloved) is probably my favourite of all the genres. (I still think it's funny to this day that I thought that I would never write time travel, as much as I loved reading and watching time travel stories.) Which is how Tales Of A Frozen Sailor came about as an actual story instead of just a concept discussed between a friend and myself. (I always feel like I harp on and on about Tales Of A Frozen Sailor. But I'm really proud of it and the fact that I essentially finished it in a year, even if I'm slowly working on rewriting it now. For me, 30,000 words is a lot, especially for some of it which really hit well in the end. Anyways I'm still incredibly pleased with how it turned out and hope that others enjoy it as much as I do.) I was extremely happy that for the first time writing that I was in a comfort zone so to speak, though I did still challenge myself with Tales Of A Frozen Sailor.

For that first Christmas challenge, I wrote Of Rainbow Portals. Which I still like the concept of but not thrill with my end execution, but maybe I shouldn't speak about that because I haven't read it in a while. I think the idea is interesting but poorly explored and after rereading it again, definitely not my favourite piece of writing. But it's also not something that I'd like to go back to and flesh out more or try to get more in line with my original vision.

After that it was Team Tolkien again. I have to admit that I had been a little disappointed that I didn't end up on a different team, as I felt more ready to challenge myself a bit more and had a couple of story ideas that I wanted to try and explore. But I made the best of it and it in part lead to my decision to chose secondary world instead of time travel. The story being essentially what would be near the end of The Hidden Royals. With this story I had a hit with the little dragon Lalawa (honestly took a lot of inspiration from Toothless in How to Train a Dragon for her). I just knew that I wanted her to be intelligent and be able to recognize a family of the proper royal family. Again really quite pleased with the way this one turned out (and the fact that it didn't end up being another 30,000 word story). Also, Lalawa came kind of out of nowhere due to a very particular dragon post that had been going around at the time. There had been no thoughts about adding dragons to any part of this story before then, and then she ended up being one of the best parts.

For Christmas I dove back into Tales Of A Frozen Sailor, with a part that I hadn't managed to include previously, but I had always intended as part of the story initially. Don't have much more to say about that one.

Then last year I ended up on Team Chesterton. I was definitely grateful to get to try a different team. I tried to write three stories and didn't finish two of them. I'll probably try and go back to them at some point, but probably won't be for a long time currently as Tales Of A Frozen Sailor, The Hidden Royals (in thought, if not pen to paper), and different fanfic ideas are more of a priority to me currently. But the one story I did get finished for intrusive fantasy ended up better than I could have expected. Especially as I had never actually intended to write it and was written in one session. Minimal editing too. I was so nervous about it but it was exactly what I wanted to be like in tone. A story told almost like a tumblr post that you would come across in the wild. That it could almost be real and it's just a story that a friend is passing on.

For Christmas I followed in my path from the year before and went back into the story from the year before. James' Christmas locked up in the prison/dungeon cell. And how those a around him had dealt with it.

So it will be interesting to see what stories are created this year. I tend to read most of them every year. I'm sure this year won't be any different.

[allisonreader]

I want to write something about my writing but I also have no thoughts to transcribe down about them currently. Not in any meaningful way. Maybe I will jot down some random and unconnected thoughts that have nothing to do with each other.

The Hidden Royals. One day I will manage to figure out how I will tell this story. I often find myself thinking about it, even if I haven't written anything for it in awhile. It might have to remain on the backburner until I finish with my rewrite of Tales Of A Frozen Sailor and the rewrite of my fic Twice in a Lifetime (which I did not intend to start, but upon getting feedback on it, couldn't not start it while that was all still fresh in my mind.)

I was just thinking earlier about how one of my story ideas from preteen ish years will probably never be written at this point.

Also, I might never end up writing Guilty Conscience, which would have been the story of Ryan O'Donald (last name purposely made up as a more fictional take) which would have covered his guilt at leaving Jessica Hudson (Tales Of A Frozen) to die on/in the Titanic. It would have chronicled his increasing descent into an alcoholic, falling away from Christianity (particularly Catholic) and the split (but not divorce) between him and his wife. It would then show him trying to actively get himself killed in WWI, but failing and leaving him sober and a war hero on the other side, where he grows back into the faith and works things through with his wife. With whom he then has at least 5 children with. He's traumatized and in some ways more from the sinking than the war, though neither treating him well. But he's determined not to fall back into drinking. (Reasons why I don't think that I'll ever write this, the biggest being that I don't think that I'd want to do all the research this story would need. Seeing as I'm not Catholic, not Irish (and although I am well aware that I sort of combined Scottish and Irish stereotypical last names together, O'Donald is Irish, but I wanted his name to not fit into convention to show how fictional a character that he is.), would need to do a lot of research on The Great War and Ireland and the state it was in as the characters would be dealing with. And I just don't want or feel like trying that overwhelming project because I would want it to be so well done. Also, because this idea is so tied to the thought of the catalyst being Ryan surviving the Titanic by locking up a fellow sailor, that I don't feel like I could convert the story to one that could be told within the world of The Hidden Royals. Though arguably it could be done. Though if I did do that, it feels like it would change too much of the story, even if it's just a setting change.)

[allisonreader]

It's been so nice being able to get back to work on Tales Of A Frozen Sailor. It's so satisfying to get words down and starting to fill pages again.

Though it has definitely come to my attention that when I really want to work on The Hidden Royals again, it's going to have to be on paper and not anything digital. Typing isn't going to do it at this point. Not for where I am with this story.

Going back to Tales Of A Frozen Sailor. I'm kind of tempted to see how much I can do by my birthday this year. Because I really would like to have this rewrite done with long before the Inklings Challenge comes around again. But we'll see.

At some point I will have to work on A Different Kind of Cinderella again too. I feel like I have once again abandoned my baby as it's been ages since it's been worked on again. But that's because I had been working on the rewrite and had gotten stuck in a place. So I put it to the side and haven't gone back since.

[allisonreader]

3 and 13 for the end of year writing asks!

how did you change as a writer? did you learn anything new? started to plan instead of pants? share your wisdom!

I honestly can't say how I have changed as a writer this year. I did learn/realize that I do have a recognizable voice/style of writing, that while it has matured, is still very distinctly me. I guess that's what happens when you read out loud from one story that's over 10 years old and then read out loud a story that's 10 years newer, so that was kind of neat to learn. This year wasn't one where I've been actively trying to improve my writing but just get words down. So I can't quite say I have any words of wisdom other than when I get stuck, sometimes it helps to change the format that I'm writing in. Pen and paper to some kind of electronic or vice versa.

did you achieve everything you wanted to this year? if not, how will you go about it?

No, I didn't. But that's because if I get bored or stuck with a story, then I jump ship to another story that I do have more interest at the time. Which doesn't lead to finishing anything very quickly. But I can't complain in general about how much I've written. It's just the fact that I haven't finished my rewrite of A Different Kind of Cinderella, like I had intended to. (My personal long hall story. The one I originally intended thought that I would like to try and get published. I don't know if I ever will.)

I don't think that I'm going to have any particular goals for next year, other than to write as much as I can. Dream goals would be to finish both my rewrite of Tales Of A Frozen Sailor and A Different Kind of Cinderella done. Otherwise I'd like to make process on some of my other stories that I haven't really worked a lot on like The Hidden Royals, my shipwreck story (which I'm now considering giving a title that would reference an inside joke between my cousins and I...), The Scorn Prince, get back to The Selkie Story and The Mysterious Mansion. So working on any of those and getting some progress done on them would be wonderful. Though I will probably keep my focus on the rewrites as of now and see from there.

[allisonreader]

I am being so indecisive about what I want to post at the moment. Mostly because I want to ask for asks to be sent in to distract me from thinking about wedding things prematurely. But feel a little weird doing so.

I would like them though.

Ask me about the fact that I'm possibly wanting to go back to my Pixar Cars fanfic Extended Connections and either work on filling in some of the AUs contained within the fic, or even rewrite some of the chapters just in general.

Or ask me about how Lost in the Past is going.

Or ask me about A Different Kind of Cinderella and maybe I'll get back to working on it.

Maybe if there's more than I couple people interested, I could be convinced to write a piece in the POV of Lalawa biting Roland's hand. (The Hidden Royals)

Or maybe there's something about Tales Of A Frozen Sailor that I need brought to my attention.

Just nearly anything to help keep me from thinking about wedding things like I have been for the last few days.

[allisonreader]

Today I was thinking about The Hidden Royals and how I'm going to give myself a tentative word count goal for the story (at least the first part currently.) I'm keeping the goal relatively small. My goal is 50-60000 words. I know that I can reach 30k because of Tales Of A Frozen Sailor (which I do want to rewrite eventually). So hopefully that will be more than manageable. Also, to break it up smaller, if I think about my three POV characters that I want to use, it possibly breaks down to approximately 20k per POV character. Just because that makes sense to me currently.

Though I do wonder if my characters are going to seem flat because this is much more of a plot driven idea than a character growth idea. Don't get me wrong. I love my characters, especially Daniel, but none of my characters are particularly challenging what they believe. Daniel is in fact remaining steadfast in doing what he believes is correct under the threat of death. While my other two POV characters Theo and Beth will literally be running for their lives and having to come to terms with the events that have left them running and having to start over. So it's not like they're not going to go through some stuff. It just might be that it's more plot driven than character growth driven.

Also was thinking about how at least for now I think that I'm going to call the first part of The Hidden Royals; The Devoted Servant and then the second part will be The Hidden Royals, which would give the two stories their combined/series/duology name.

I was also thinking about how more or less The Hidden Royals is a knock off or play on what I intended to be the second part of my Cinderella story that I wrote when I was a kid.

A Different Kind of Cinderella was a Cinderella story which was trying to be a bit different from the typical retelling. The evil/ugly step sisters weren't step sisters, at least not only. They were a brother sister duo (the sister later redeemable, the brother not so much). I also made my Cinderella a boy whose mother remarried (but without directly saying so was poisoned by the new husband). And because I was under the age of 14 when writing most of it, there was this weird dynamic where my Cinderella (named Mathew) was actually a noble. So while his step father and siblings treated him awful and made him do all the chores, he still had to go out in public as the heir to his birth father's title. Once he was of age, then he could break free of his step father's control and step properly into his role. There's also this whole subplot with the royal family and the fact that the prince and princess are twins and the prince actually has a bit of growth over time after being a brat. Anyways there does end up being a ball but who ends up with who is kind of a twist from your typical Cinderella, but at the same time kind of not, because their is a prince and a princess. Then after the ball, is when things really start to change. As it's no longer really a Cinderella story at that point. Then there's a couple of couples who get married and that's when problems start. Royals start to mysteriously die in odd situations. (The king dies by poisoned arrows and his wife supposedly by grief but poison also has something to do with it.) The prince and his wife end up running and hiding to protect themselves and eventually take back the kingdom. And that's where the similarities to The Hidden Royals is.

[allisonreader]

Today I started thinking about my other stories again.

The ones I’ve put on the back burner to work on my inklings challenge story. I kind of feel like I need to finish Tales Of A Frozen Sailor before I can go back to my other ones.

There’s 5-6 of them, minimum, if new ideas aren’t included when they pop up. Those new ones just go onto my personal prompt list. Which has more ideas than I may ever write.

The main ones that are more or less in the works all have working titles. Because I like writing projects having titles that they can be referred to.

Two of them have a list of titles because it’s undetermined what suits them the best.

The ones that have solid titles are The Rude And The Restless (and yes, it is actually a play on The Young And The Restless, because it feels like it is a melodramatic soapy feel to it at times.), Three Lost Souls, and Guilty Conscious (which would actually relate to Tales Of A Frozen Sailor as it would be O’Donald's battle with guilt and finding redemption, definitely would need A LOT of research to give it proper justice.).

Then we get into the wishy-washy names that I just can’t quite settle on.

There’s what started out as The Royal AU turn maybe The Royal Resistance/Royal Coup/The Devoted Servant/The Hidden Royals.

As well as what was The Shipwreck AU turn Finding Her Way Back/The Lost Relationship/Torn Apart/Pulled Apart.

Though The Hidden Royals and Finding Her Way Back might be the titles that win out of those.

There’s also one that I might rewrite from a childhood story that even at an elementary school age I thought I might want to try and get published. That one is oh so creatively called A Different Kind Of Cinderella. Replacing our regularly female protagonist with a male. I don’t know if I ever will rewrite that one or not though.