#luna’s romantasy wip

[moondust-bard]

Did I mention there are pegasus shifters in my romantasy wip? Because there are! The former child horse girl / magical girl tv show fan in me are having a great time, let me tell you

There all fun colors, too, which I especially love

[i-had-bucky]

I hit 55k on my tkini novel wip today! Which is my thesis novel for my MFA! I have one more class left in that, which starts in two weeks. The first draft is neaaarly done, I have just 30k or so left on it. Then revisions!

I also started my space werewolf x sentient construct romantasy (yes i'm calling it a romantasy even tho its in space)

Peek at that under the cut!

Lou Talbot was stranded. 

No ship. No crew. Not even a blaster to her name.

Just a freezing wasteland, a gaggle of refugees, and an invasion force of Arlocki sentinels. 

Her Luna app dinged loudly, a full Earth moon blinking merrily on the screen, its happy wolf face giving her heart eyes. 

“Goddammit,” she sighed as the tremors started. All of her nerves lit up like fire, her bones cracking, claws breaking through her fingers, and her sight blinking out as her eyes changed. She doubled over, clutching herself. “Oh, fuck my life,” she groaned, stumbling forward so that she was in front of her charges.

[hazelmcnellis]

🖎 #Autorenwahnsinn - Tag 24: #WIP / Mein "work in progress" ✍ . Aktuell arbeite ich an 2 romantisch-fantastischen Romanen. 😎😍 Und beide sollen noch dieses Jahr im #Herbst hinaus in die Welt! 🙆🎉😄 . Das #Werwolfprojekt ist dabei das ältere der beiden Manuskripte. Das habe ich schon 2015 begonnen. 😱🙊 Etliche Schwierigkeiten und Schreibkrisen später, nähere ich mich nun endlich der finalen Fertigstellung. 😍😄 . Inhaltlich geht es dabei um Sebastièn Bacarière und einen verhängnisvollen Wolfsbiss im Jahr 1897. 👌😏 Sebastièns verzweifelte Suche nach Heilung führt ihn direkt nach Elberfeld - das heutige #Wuppertal - und zu Luna Wilk, die aber ihre ganz eigenen Probleme hat, da sich ihr Bruder Julian auf einmal äußerst rätselhaft benimmt... 😱😈😎 Erscheinungstag: 13. #November 2017 (was übrigens der 120. Jahrestag der Einweihung vom #Märchenbrunnen im Wuppertaler #Zooviertel ist 🖒😉). . Ganz anders ist dagegen das #Elfenprojekt. 😏 Darin fällt Prinzessin Ariana beim #Lesen (😍😅) unversehens in eine ihr fremde Welt hinein. Dort begegnet sie Kieran Maktùr, einem Dunkelelf, der ihr alles andere als freundlich gesinnt zu sein scheint und dessen Welt von einer unheimlichen Schwärze bedroht wird. 😈😱🤔 Ariana hat nur einen einzigen Hinweis, um den Weg zurück in ihre Welt zu finden: einen roten Faden. 👌😎 Erscheinungstermin: #Oktober 2017 (wahrscheinlich rechtzeitig zur Frankfurter #Buchmesse - die ich btw plane, am Messesamstag zu besuchen 🖒😉). . Was meint ihr? 😶 Klingt das interessant für euch? 😉📚😇 . #autorenleben #schreiben #buch #buchliebe #bücher #bookstagram #bookish #comingsoon #romantasy #fantasy #phantastik #selfpublisher #bücherliebe #lesefreude #lovemyjob #fbm #fbm17 (hier: Wuppertal, Germany)

[moondust-bard]

Luna’s 2024 Romantasy Project Diaries: Day Four

Zero-drafting will commence today! How exciting. And anxiety-enducing.

Do you get nervous before starting a new draft? I sure do.

To me, it feels something like the jitters I always get just before walking onstage to perform: butterflies fluttering erratically in my stomach, my head all fuzzy and dizzy.

I worry I’ll fail. I worry I’ll give up. I just… worry. I even worry it’ll all go too well. That’s anxiety for you.

Maybe I’ll try fast-drafting this first installment of my project. That way, I’ll have less time to be nervous; hopefully, I’ll be too concerned with actually finishing the draft in a timely manner to leave space for doubt and self-criticism.

One of the main reasons I’ve chosen to undertake this project is to allow myself space for self-indulgence and to learn how to tolerate imperfections in the early stages of my craft. I also decided to pursue this project because l want to practice writing romantic chemistry, study more traditional story structures, and build a writing habit. I think fast drafting would suit most if these goals.

Is anyone else here on writeblr trying new writing habits related to their year’s goals?

Wish me luck, moonbeams!

[moondust-bard]

Just a fun little update for the moonbeams: my regency era dragon-shifters wip is now set in the same universe as my new romtantasy wip, except they’re about 200 years apart.

I wanted to create centuries-old world-building and incorporate noble family dynasties, soooo… yeah

Side-note: should I do a wip intro for my interconnected romantasy standalones series? It’d be very basic and not at all character-focused, since each novella features a new couple.

[moondust-bard]

New OC Tag!

I was tagged by @angelofthemornings — thank you!

I’m tagging @saintedseraph and @likegemstone and anyone else who wants to give it a go!

Rules: Pick an OC and post a song you relate to them, an image that represents them in some way (aesthetic, picrew, art, etc), and a quote of dialogue or narration from them. Totally feel free to expand and explain!

Meet Juliet Caplan from the first installment of the romantasy wip series of standalones I’m drafting

Song

The power of youth is on my mind

Sunsets, small town, I'm out of time

Will you still love me when I shine

From words but not from beauty

My father's love was always strong

My mother's glamour lives on and on

Yet still inside, I felt alone

For reasons unknown to me

This song is 100% on her daily playlist. She’d say it’s like it was written just for her.

Art

Here she is, in all her picrew glory

Snippet

I roll my eyes— not at her, of course— in exasperation at the exhausting night no doubt ahead of me. Hours of feigned smiles and forced laughter, insincere inquiries and backhanded compliments await. Only the consumption of far too many flutes of champagne and whatever decadent treats the caterers whipped up would soothe the trepidation and tension writhing inside me. This is assuming, perhaps foolishly, that my mother allows me to sample any of the delicacies on display just mere floors below me.

[moondust-bard]

Sneak a sims 4 reference into my romantasy wip? Me?

Yeah, I did.

[moondust-bard]

Luna’s 2024 Romantasy Project Diaries: Day Three

Today’s the day! I’m structuring the modern romantasy Romeo and Juliet retelling.

I’ll be testing out Wells’ seven-point story structure for the first time. I’m using it to organize my interconnected stand-alone stories, tweaking it just enough to work effortlessly for romance plots.

Typically, I structure my stories intuitively, weaving in twists and tension when I sense they’re needed. Since I’m creating so many stories set in one world and focused so heavily on character bonds, I decided I should be more intentional and organized when it comes to structure and plot.

I’ve always been a plotter, don’t get me wrong. Pantsing is still as foreign to me as flying a plane. I am, however, learning to plot and plan using a method not created by me, for me.

Growing pains to be expected.

I relish the new experience, though. Nothing’s worse than feeling bogged down and bored by my own writing routine.

I’ll check back in when this first story is structured— which might take me until tomorrow, mayhap. My sister got us tickets to see a musical for tonight.

See ya after I finish outlining, moonbeams!

[moondust-bard]

Luna’s 2024 Romantasy Project Diaries: Day One

Today was dedicated to moving everything from my notes app brain dump and sorting it all into a scrivener file.

I almost always start a new project with a feverishly executed notes app brain dump. Then, if it’s a project I’m serious enough about, it gets shifted into a scrivener doc. All of my scrivener docs start with the same folders, which are altered to fit the wip’s needs.

Should I talk about that more? Let me know!

Anyway! I still have more info to sort. The notes app is fullllllllll.

[moondust-bard]

Well, moonbeams, my series of interconnected romantasy standalones has a series title now! I plan to announce it soon in the wip intro. Until then, check the hashtags for a hint!

[moondust-bard]

I just invented a sport for this wip. As someone who knows nothing about sports or being an athlete, just know I did my best.

And yes, the characters do play it in their human-except-kinda-technically-animal forms.

[moondust-bard]

Luna’s 2024 Romantasy Project Diaries: Nineteen

I figured out today that my brain might function best and writing seems to come easiest when I write every other day and make art in between those days— so that’s what’s going to be happening for the remainder of the month! I want to see trying it this way— on purpose, for once— will positively impact my productivity.

I’ve been accidentally doing it like this for the last week or so, and I was wondering why I felt better about my workflow than ever before. After pondering, this accidental schedule change makes up my current hypothesis.

This, brought to you by me trying to write two days in a row, it not going well, and then me angrily eating a baked good.

Time to go snuggle cats and make art.

[moondust-bard]

Luna’s 2024 Romantasy Project Diaries: Day Eighteen

Yeah, so… I slept for about twenty hours. Concerning. My temperature is at 99.0 now, though. I choose to believe my body is still recovering and just needed the extra sleep. Still have no sense of taste or smell, alas. Hope that comes back. I really like sniffin’ and tastin’ stuff.

I’m gonna ignore all my sick person worries for now and talk to the moonbeams (that’s you guys) about a cathartic writing moment I just had.

While showering for the first time in days— thank you unusual below freezing temperatures and my house’s old pipes— I realized I could work on as many stories at one time as I want, and no one can stop me? Because I’m somehow in charge? In fact, I’m in charge of everything when it comes to my writing, because publishing isn’t my goal and I’m doing this for funsies.

This realization came after I had a mental chat with myself about why I was so reluctant to begin drafting my current story’s second scene.

I’ve been hesitant because so many characters who I plan on devoting books to in the future pop up in the next scene. I know nothing about these characters besides their names, their secret-world-building-Magic-Thing, and whatever vague inspiration I have for their specific standalone books.

I’m trying to practice pantsing/discovery-writing. Adding in less-important-to-this-specific-story world and character details is helping me stay inspired and excited to write.

A not-so-fun result of this: I’m noticing some of these little changes that color my world and deepen the characters in the current story directly impact future stories. While, yes, I am taking note of these additions in the relevant folders of my scrivener file, it’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that a few of these stories occur concurrently, and what I first viewed as inconsequential details will be important to future stories and their PoV characters.

So… I guess I’ll just let myself work on the other stories and scenes from this series(?) whenever I feel like it.

If my goal for this project is to have fun, that would definitely qualify as fun to me.

[moondust-bard]

Luna’s 2024 Romantasy Project Diaries: Day Twelve

I wrote about 250-300 words today. I’m not keeping track because, really, that’s not the point of this exercise. It is nice to casually notice I’m making quantifiable progress, though. These new words were added onto scene one. I’m an underwriter. Oftentimes, I’ll wander back into a draft before editing and pas up the scenes a bit— which us what I did todsy. One of the background characters has some interesting events going on in her life, and I wanted threads of that woven into this story so I can more easily tell hers in a future project.

Why yes, I am still sick, thank you for asking. It’s getting worse, so… love that for me. i reluctantly promised my mother I’d go to a walk-in clinic if my temperature stays over 103.0 for more than a day. I was a sickly kid; she’s still traumatized by the idea of me being ill. Unfortunately, I have way too much experience with respiratory illnesses. Thus is likely viral, which means there’s not much a doctor can offer beyond a few diagnostic tests and a breathing treatment. Mothers gonna mother, am I right?

Since I’m laid up in bed I might as well catch up on some audiobook reading and maybe finish a few book art pieces. My brain goes to that lovely “no thoughts, head empty” space when I’m creating art. My wildly spinning, fever-addled mind could use the break. I’ve been yelling at inanimate objects and meowing at my cats all day— clear signs this illness is eating my brain.

Until tomorrow, moonbeams. If I don’t update then, assume I’m too sick to form sentences and am my mother is keeping me occupied by offering me tea and guilt.

[moondust-bard]

Luna’s 2024 Romantasy Project Diaries: Day Six

I did not add many words today. Instead I mostly focused on resting my body.

My migraine/everywhere-above-the-shoulders-graine did not get better. Nor did my icky chest cough, to my annoyance. I have so much cold and migraine medicine in me. I’m at that stage of being unwell where I feel too uncomfortable to properly sleep and too poorly to focus.

I chose to focus mainly on polishing world-build-y and character stuff for the day. Might as well use my loopy, exhausted state for the weird creative boost it gives me, right?

I’ll revisit drafting tomorrow— hopefully after a decent night’s sleep. I really need to sleep. I love sleep. Big fan of sleep. Not so big a fan of whatever’s makin’ me feel like a sickly victorian governess after wandering on the desolate moors.

[moondust-bard]

Luna’s 2024 Romantasy Project Diaries: Day Five

I did it. I ripped the bandage off and sat down to begin the draft of my first romantasy stand-alone.

For some reason, starting a new draft is always the hardest part of my writing process. Logically, I know the first line I write probably won’t be the story’s first line forever. Still, I can’t help but strive to get it right the first time each time I begin a new first draft.

I wrote twenty-three words. It’s not a lot. It’s a good start, though. And more than I expected from myself, given where my head is and how my body feels.

I feel like lukewarm garbage. A rattly cough has taken root in my chest. My whole body aches at the most innocuous movements. The migraine that erupted late last night in the back of my head and temples has snaked down my neck and shoulders and into my jaw.

Am I allowing this unwellness be my permission slip to go easy on myself? Why yes, I am. Being hard on myself has never gotten me anywhere but down.

My goal for this writing endeavor has never been to take on stress and overwhelm for the sake of productivity; my goal is to form a solid habit, permit myself to indulge in a new subgenre, and expand my skillset. I can still do all of that while being kind to my haunted carnival of a body and patient with my anxious mind.

Drafting continues tomorrow. If I write even another sentence I’ll be content. I’m too tired to be upset with any amount of progress.