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!

Uuuuugh I totally gave in to my Oz fic rabbits. Most of this was on a little bluetooth keyboard I used with my tablet during vacation, so apologies in advance for any weird spelling or nonsensical bits I didn't catch.

( Follow the yellow brick road! )

Greetings all!  I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season and accomplished everything they hoped to this year!  The tail-end of 2013 has felt ridiculous fast to me.  Perhaps because I spent November in a NaNo-induced haze and a late Thanksgiving shortened the Christmas season?  IDK, but I somehow feel flabbergasted that New Year's Eve is already here.

I guess the only place to start with a true review of 2013 would be to go back and review the goals and plans I made for the year at the end of 2012:

( Cut for long ramblings! )

Whew!  That was super long!  Anyway, onto goals and generic year-long plans.

January: Finish posting Heart Stone, finish and post Queen Kale.  Start Paleo eating.
February-August:  Work through How to Think Sideways.  Self-publish a flash fiction collection.  Take a bloody vacation somewhere (Anime Expo?)
September-December: NaNoWriMo prep for original story.  Start revisions from first novel.  Self-publish second flash fiction collection or short story collection.

Big goals: Follow paleo eating plan for three months, then evaluate.  Shift original fiction writing into gear.  Spend way, way less money on toys.

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. 

Epilogue Time guys!  This officially pushed everything over 80,000 words now. :D
I'm definitely taking a break from fic at this point.  I'll probably start cleaning this up and posting it all to FF.net or AO3 sometime this weekend, but for all intents and purposes this pretty much wraps up my DF fic universe.
Actually, I'd like to do some original stuff now or wrap up a few Jewel Riders related stuff.

( Epilogue (Babies Ever After) )

The main story is pretty much done, though I will be posting it in several parts due to LJ's size restrictions.  Now to start a short epilogue, though!

( Prompt 30: Oasis (Pt 2) )

Feels like forever since I wrote a personal entry here.  Everything's been Dragon Flyz fic for the last few months!

Speaking of the fic, I'm currently working on the last chapter.  The fic as a whole just passed 65,000 words the other day, so I'm at least 15,000 over goal (which is fine, of course, just unexpected!)  I waver between being pleased with it and incredibly irritated with it.  The words definitely aren't flowing as well as before!  I'll probably tack on a nice little Epilogue at the end as well, just for fluff's sake.  I really want to finish it up by the end of the month, but it might run a few days over into April.

Speaking of April, I'm planning on starting my How to Think Sideways class as well.  I've been a member for ages, but was never able to set aside time to do the lessons properly, but as it was one of my New Year's goals, I'm definitely going to tackle it this year!  I'm borrowing my Dad's Nook reader, which means I get to use it to read lessons on.  Definitely nicer than trying to print out the 50ish page lessons!  The teacher/author is Holly Lisle, and we had a short exchange over email after she recognized my email address as a character from one of her books.  I was finally able to tell her how much her books have meant to me, which was really fulfilling after basically lurking around her website/blog for years.

I was able to see two shows recently that I've wanted to see for ages - the first was Beauty and the Beast Broadway, which came to Sacramento.  It was really enjoyable, but so many kids!  Kids literally being passed back and forth over the seats between family members and loudly wondering where Belle was every time she was offstage. XD  That's what I get for going to a matinee performance, though.  It was lovely to hear "Human Again" in its original incarnation, and "Be Our Guest" was a fantastic showstopper number!  The girl playing Belle really sounded like Paige O'Hara too, which was a major plus.

The other show was Jerry Seinfeld Live!  (In my po-dunk hometown no less!)  He has long been my favorite comedian (considering I basically grew up watching his show), and it was good to know that he is just as funny in real life.  It was basically an hour and a half of nonstop laughs, and by the end of the night I had cried from laughing so hard and my cheeks hurt from excessive smiling.  The person who got our tickets also somehow scored front row as well, so I could even see facial expressions!  I've never been in the front row for anything before, so that was a real treat.

Further off news: in late June/early July I'll be going on a mission trip with the church to Fiji.  This was originally going to be a family thing, but after my Mom broke her leg in early December last year, she bowed out from going.  So it's going to be Dad, my brother, and I, and possibly one of my old friends.  Along with about twenty or so other people from the church.  I'm looking forward to it, but also fairly apprehensive as well.

In books, I just finished the excellent Legend and Prodigy by Marie Lu.  Very well done post-apocalyptic YA stuff.  A little more grounded than Hunger Games as well, which I liked.  I also just started Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers; I'm about 150 pages in so far, and it's great!

In anime, I just finished Princess Tutu.  Yes, the name sounds ridiculous, but if you like fairy tales, storytelling, ballet, or classical music at all, I highly recommend it.  Oh my goodness does it employ its classical soundtrack to use well!  It basically put me back on a classical music kick.  It's very meta about fairy tales and stories as well, which I absolutely loved - it pulls from things like The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and Hans Christen Andersen to build a beautiful and somewhat dark new fairy tale.  I mean, it's main character is a duck named Duck who transforms into a girl who transforms into Princess Tutu.  How can you not love it?

Anyway, hopefully the next time I post will be the end of my Dragon Flyz fic! Cheers!

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 )