lucathia

Ahhh, people can already validate and win NaNoWriMo! I'm still far from that. Definitely waaaay behind this year. Still attempting to finish but uh, it's looking quite impossible at the moment. I tried writing on my tablet when I wasn't home. It was super hard. I spent way too much time wrestling with the writing app since whenever I started a new paragraph, the app made it so that I could no longer edit anything in the previous paragraph! Trying to write on a tablet was even harder than writing on paper. At least I can cross things out on paper and add arrows when I want to insert stuff. I ended up thinking maybe that was a good thing. That I couldn't go back to previous paragraphs. Since that meant I wouldn't be able to waste time on editing. Still, I don't write that way. I had lines I wanted to add in right away! Now I've forgotten them...

I'm doing terrible writing.

Me: I need him to use his magic somehow!! He hates using his magic! Grrrr. How long is it going to take him to finally use his magic? It's only been 20k words since magic was even mentioned...
*randomly exploding table*
Me: Okay, that works...

Strange writing is strange.

"Duck!"

As there were no quacking birds in the vicinity, Tekatme took that to mean "kneel down!" so he immediately squatted down. Just in time too, because there went a flying banana.

A flying banana?

"Did you throw that?" asked Tekatme incredulously.

Because I wrote this strange tidbit, I was dreaming about ducks at night. The quacking kind. Hahaha...

Random, but I tried out Skyrim a bit (not my game, I don't own it) while stranded away from home. I very gleefully picked out an appearance for Ikatchi, the elf from my previous NaNoWriMo attempt. But I didn't even get to finish escaping before the game crashed. D: (Just my luck, since it's never done that before!)

Oh dear. I think I'm doing worse than last year! I started 5 days late last year and was 8000 words or so behind because of that, so I tried my hardest to catch up every single day by writing at least 1,667 words a day and almost always more than that to shrink the gap. This year though, even though I haven't missed 5 days in a row, I haven't pushed myself to write 1,667 words a day either since I don't feel as pressured. Yet now... *watches the par line grow farther and farther away* It's not a good sign when the gap is slowly and steadily growing... and my calendar is littered with yellow boxes!

Story-wise, I find this year's a little harder to write because there's actually more of a plot that I'm trying to make work while I just rambled with whatever came to mind last year (making it so that even though I reached 50k last year, the story didn't really go anywhere, and nothing concluded in 50k...). I was so happy when one of the characters started saying stuff that I can so use later on. I poked at the epilogue for this year's NaNo a bit more yesterday too. The epilogue kind of makes me gleeful. I wonder if it counts as a cliffhanger, haha... Now, if only I could write all the in-between stuff and get around to the epilogue! (But watch, I end up writing stuff that contradicts the epilogue...)

I kind of realized that so far, there hasn't been a lot of fantastical elements in this story... it sure doesn't read like a fantasy story this year, even though this should also be counted as fantasy in addition to being young adult. o____o;;

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Non Nano-related stuff
-new layout! OMG! After how many years? Five? I nuked my old layout since it wasn't working correctly anymore for some reason. I've been tweaking this layout for quite a bit, thought I wouldn't change my layout after all, but then decided to switch because the old layout stopped working. This one can still use some tweaking. I feel the font is too light for me, especially the bold. I can stare at the Twelve Holy Knights all day though. |D If anything doesn't display correctly for anyone, let me know! I've only used my own browser and computer to view this...

-yuletide nominations have closed! I can't wait until sign-ups open~. *refreshes the community* There are at least 5 fandoms nominated by other people that I'm interested in requesting myself. So hard to decide which one to pick from those as my fourth fandom! Maybe I need to resort to tossing the names in a hat. Or maybe I should choose two out of those five fandoms and drop one of the fandoms I nominated myself... /indecisive

-I tagged two of my fics on AO3 yesterday with Legend of Sun Knight - Yu Wo and 1/2 Prince - Yu Wo since I feel these two series should also show up in the books & literature section of AO3, especially since the light novels are the main (and more detailed) source while the manhua versions are based on that source. My LSK fics are also largely based on the novels instead of the manhua since the manhua isn't very far yet. I see that both fandoms now also show up in the books & literature section. This makes me happy! (perhaps I should've just contacted support about this to clarify that LSK and 1/2P are both novels as well as manhua)

-bought Prince of Tennis Kanzenban s2 v8 (Marui & Jackal on the cover, Momo & Kaidou on the inside flap, Marui inside, more Marui [private clothes], and preciouuuus Yanagi and Inui age 10, followed by Kaidou age 3, and Ryoma age 0. [with Nanjirou next to him] Still waiting for my store to stock v9 which features Yagyuu and Niou!!). Also bought GFantasy Nov (Kimi to Boku on the cover! KtB pencil and poster!), Magic Kaito Treasured Edition v2, PairPuri v10 (last volume!), Dear Boys v8, and Seiyuu Ka-! v7. I considered nominating Seiyuu Ka-! for Yuletide, but decided not to since scanlations aren't as far as what I'd like to request.

Still just barely hanging on, and not caught up yet! Hope to write another 300 words before I sleep to break 10k. :3 That, or finish chapter 1. Somehow, Tekatme is completely surrounded by females in this story, though none are his age... (While my NaNo last year was very dominated by males). I am amused by this. I'm not trying to build him a harem. (someone is so going to comment on that in the story)


I've ordered Legend of Sun Knight volume 8. It's out! \o/ Cannot wait for it to come! Another reason I need to be ahead instead of behind with NaNo. I really don't see myself with the attention span to be writing when LSK v8 comes in the mail because I will so be reading that. Yu Wo already posted a blog entry asking people for their thoughts (she's very excited about the release). I find myself wanting to click on this entry, but then I don't want to be spoiled. XD;

I have hit a wall. Splat. Granted, I'm still in a better shape than I was last year when I was 8000 words behind on the 5th day because of not yet starting...but I quite deflated on Day 4 because I was only able to write 600 words that day. Day 5 went the same because of feeling down from Day 4, and I also decided that I should probably take out 900 words of my aimless writing (I moved it around though and stuck it at the end for deleting during the editing process, so I haven't removed it completely yet). I find my original writing so very boring. I currently can't seem to get myself excited about the story. Maybe a different beginning would help... but gahhh, this is exactly the type of stuff I'm not supposed to be thinking about during NaNoWriMo. Maybe I need a different mindset for this, since I feel like it took so much out of me to write 6k of original story when it doesn't feel like all that much when I write fanfic... I'm probably just stressing myself out. :'D

The plot is making itself a bit clearer to me now though. I just have to... get around to it.

I am happy that it's Daylight Savings this weekend. One extra hour! XD

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Yu Wo posted teaser #6 yesterday, the last teaser for LSK. Grisia is so despicable in it, gosh. (Well, when the 8th rolls around, at least I get to happily buy LSK v8 even if my NaNo ends in disaster. XD;).

Didn't manage to write 1,667 words for Day 2 (darn) but I wrote around 1,500 words or so. And then wrote another 100 something after midnight. (boooo) Day 2's writing took particularly long because I spent most of my time editing what I wrote on Day 1 and adding on to that. Probably not smart for the sake of my word count, but there was a lot of detail that was missing that I needed to build off of... it's also hard to break out of my habit of rereading =/ (it's how I usually write). I reread and reread what I've written and add details in each reread. The first run is always fairly bare of details.

Today what stumped me was describing smells. My protagonist, Tekatme, has a very good sense of smell, so my focus was on adding details about what he was smelling and what his nose told him about people. My writing from Day 1 didn't have any of that detail, which didn't make sense. After 3336 words, I'm still stuck in the prologue and wonder how many more words it'll take me to end the prologue (watch, the prologue turns into the entire novel, haha...).

I seem to be very big on family, Parent-child relationships. Sibling relationships. I started last year's novel with a scene between Rykatu and his mother. This time, it's Tekatme with his family. I want to bring characters from last year's NaNo into this... but the time frame doesn't fit! D:

So far, Tekatme has been complaining a lot. I wonder if he'll come off dislikable. The other characters aren't very charming either. :'D

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Stuff I distracted myself with (bad Lucathia!)
- Yu Wo posted part 2 of Female Warrior (I've already read it before, but I still reread it. *wants more*)

- Reading this hilarious, witty, Thor fic that is so much love. I really should have been writing.
The Calculator (38970 words) by katsu