Aqua Regia

Haha, I’m only 10 days late, right?

No, but seriously, November was as enriching a month as I’ve had in, well, probably a year (since last year’s NaNo). I wrote, I laughed, I met some amazing writers in my area, and I had a ton of fun.

But I didn’t hit 50K this year.

My valiant effort netted me 30K (And bonus! Several novel ideas found space to germinate!), but I think I vastly underestimated the difficulty of starting and stopping a hundred times by doing Flash Fiction. Of the seven categories I wanted to attempt, I only hit 3.5 of them. Science Fiction, Cyberpunk, and Fantasy all got 14-15 prompts done, and Superhero got about 4. I never touched Arthurian, Retro Futurism, or Steampunk.

So I’m going to chalk the writing part up to good experience. Crafting good Flash Fiction is hard, and doing that many was probably not a realistic goal for one month. If I committed to flash fiction again during November, it would be with an understanding that I probably wouldn’t shoot for 50K. I missed the feeling of being able to sink into the words and let them flow over you. By the time I could hit a writing sweet spot and get into my groove…the prompt was over!

Also, it didn’t help that I got a light bout of food poisoning mid-month! It kind of was the prompt for me to allow myself to let my issues with my format take precedence. And since I didn’t feel good, I went on a Glee-watching binge on Netflix (super fun show, btw!)

But November certainly wasn’t a total loss! As Municipal Liaison for my region, I had an absolutely awesome time organizing Write-Ins. In total, I put together nine events including the Kick-Off and TGIO (Thank Goodness It’s Over!) events.

One of the best things to spin out of last month, however, was that several of my writers have taken it upon themselves to found a twice-monthly critique group called Mark My Words! One of my biggest lamentations after each November (aside from the fact that I’m suuuper drained all December!), is that I have all this built up creative energy, but nowhere for it to live once NaNo is done. I’m hopeful that this group of talented writers (some of them are even published!) can help me hone my craft and get things ready for publication.

I’m still hopeful I can craft five to seven good superhero Flash fictions to put up on Amazon later this month or early January! Wish me luck!

Only one more year now until the big three zero next October. I will be expecting my fandom grandpa card to come in the mail about that point.

I spent my birthday at work this year, unfortunately (Plus overtime, argh!) Which is pretty much as lame as it sounds. My coworkers were nice and brought in some pies for my birthday though, which was really nice. Still, it's the first time in a few years that I didn't take my birthday off and go visit my brother or parents. While nothing could compare to seeing Sarah Brightman in concert like last year, it would have been nice to at least get out of town for a few days. As it was my parents and I kind of celebrated a few weeks ago when I was visiting them.

And they got me a Kindle Paperwhite! I definitely need to start utilizing it, because damn if I am not drowning in a sea of paperbacks. Every time I visit a Friends of the Library store, it is pretty much guaranteed I was walk about with $5-10 worth of books, which at the crazy-low prices stores like that sell for, is like five to eight books. So hopefully going forward, new stuff will be on the Paperwhite, while select series will get the hardcover treatment. I feel like I'm kind of over the mass market paperback. The type is too small (fandom grandpa card!), and they just don't hold up that well. It's actually kind of sad, because they used to be my preferred format due to the price, but Ebooks are generally cheaper anyway. My brother also sent along the third Ranma 1/2 Blu-Ray set! Those are really, really gorgeous sets. Viz did a fantastic job on the packaging for them.

Another November of NaNoWriMo starts tomorrow! I'm hoping to attend the kick-off party this year as well, because I totally enjoyed the write-ins last year. They were a great motivator to keep me on track. This year, I'm planning on taking my Genderbent Oz idea through the hellish November ritual. We'll see if I can win again this year!

I've been on a huge Transformers kick lately. It all started with finally finishing Transformers: Prime, the CG show that came out a few years ago now. The best way I can describe it is: this is what you thought you were watching as a kid when the 80s show came on. Great plotting, great characters (and a thankfully smaller and more varied cast that is differentiated enough to keep easy track of!), great production values! Afterward, I watched Season One of the 80s show on Netflix...and kind of had to stop there. It's like, all the cool ingredients are there, but they never really come together well. Without good character writing to drive the story...it's actually a little bit boring? All these transforming robots have made me want to go back and check out the mid-2000s "Unicron Trilogy" of shows, though, which were adapted anime series. And of course my beloved Beast Wars. :D

I've also been checking out some great anime lately through Crunchyroll.
--Chihayafuru was definitely a best-of-decade level title. I haven't enjoyed a series so much in a long, long time. Yes, it's ostensibly about an obscure Japanese poetry card game, but actually it's about the characters and their wonderful interactions. This series made me feel bubbly and effervescent every time I tuned in.
--Love Live! School Idol Project was a great deal of fun too, witch catchy choreographed musical numbers and fun characters that really wormed their way into your heart. The first season concerns a group of girls who become 'school idols' (singers) in order to bring prestige to their school and save it from closure. The second season follows them as they attempt to win an idol contest called (what else) "Love Live."
--Monthly Girls Nozaki-kun is a hilarious high school comedy (no really, it actually is funny unlike so many other 'comedy' anime) about a girl who discovers the boy she's crushing on is actually the author of a well-regarded shoujo manga. When she tries to confess, it comes out like she's asking for an autograph, and then she somehow ends up as his assistant. This show lives and dies by its comedy, and let me tell you it is gold. The facial expressions and general wackiness remind me of Ranma 1/2 or Ouran High School Host Club, two of my favorite anime comedies.
--Then there's Glasslip. Oh my goodness was this boring and obtuse. The only good this was the background art. This series was my biggest disappointment in aaages. Being from the people behind Tari Tari, I thought I would enjoy it...but ugggh. All I could think of during this series was Scuttle (from the Little Mermaid) saying "Nothing is HAAAAAAAAPENING." Stay away, friends.

Anyway, that's all for now. Better go to bed and get some sleep before blasting off with NaNo tomorrow!

So today I passed the 50,000 word mark on a story I have been writing for five years.  FIVE YEARS.

I decided to finish my Jewel Riders fic Heart Stone: A Tale of Tamara for NaNoWriMo this year (word count for the month as of today: 19,720).  Now, I have hit the 50,000 word mark before with another fic project (last year's NaNo project), but those Dragon Flyz fics were interconnected shorts rather than a single narrative.

Am I happy with everything written thus far?  Of course not.  But I've wanted to see this project through to completion for years now.  Kind of my little contribution to the Jewel Riders fannish community (small as it is!) on the web.  Unfortunately though, I think I've also been using this story as a mental crutch to prevent myself from starting anything really original.  (Sort of like a "See, you can't even finish that darn fic!  How could you see an original novel to completion?")  So NaNo provided a wonderful way to both look back and hopefully move forward with my writing at the same time.

The fic is ballooning to fill the provided time and space, but I really would like to have it completed by the end of NaNo (and not have it eat up half a year like all my Dragon Flyz fic!).  Then, I can clean it up and post the rest.   It's certainly not perfect, but I'm proud of it nonetheless. 

It's DONE.  *throws confetti everywhere*  The entire thing ends up clocking in around 78,000 words.  The final prompt alone is a little over 18,000 words.  Eheh...I got a little carried away. XD

( Prompt 30: Oasis, Pt. 3 )

Thanks so much for reading!  Now to finish the little epilogue!

Ehehe...I'm still not done with this blasted story.  Getting there, hopefully by the end of April!

It's definitely going to be over 10,000 words by the time I'm done, and since I know LJ won't take that big of a block of text, here's part one.  As usual, little to no editing has been done (I'm too tired right now, really).  It's jumping all over the place; I feel like an ADHD goldfish trying to keep track of everything.  If you see weird continuity errors, please feel free to point them out!

( Prompt 30: Oasis, Pt. 1 )

Barf, this took forever.  I'm not totally satisfied with it, and I think I jumped heads a few too many times, but dang is it hard to write a television style battle from one person's perspective!  This one really got away from me in length as well.  I've been thinking I'd finish it over the last three days, only for the story to just keep adding to itself. XD  But we're nearing the end, folks!  Only two more to go!

( Prompt 28: Crusade )

So here's the beginning of Homeland, the five-part finale to this series of stories.  This picks up pretty much directly from where Search left off.  I'm hoping to wrap a lot of stuff up in the next few chapters.  Then comes the unenviable editing process. XD

( Homeland Part One: Reunion )

Sooo...I'm still continuing with my Dragon Flyz NaNo stuff.  My goal is to finish it all by the end of January, so hopefully that will happen. (Then I can really and truly catch up on all of awesome stuff that you guys are doing in the comm!)

( Prompt 24: Taxi )

Storm and Strawberries are interconnected, with Beach loosely connected.  Strawberries might be one of my favorite pieces from the whole of the prompts!  Weapon is another that I really enjoyed (Heh, Cifex strikes again!)

( 15: Storm )
( 16: Strawberries )
( 17: Weapon )