<–The State of the Writer: 4/30/17          The State of the Writer: 5/14/17–>

A weekly post updated every Sunday discussing my current writing projects and where I stand with them.  This will include any and all work(s) in progress (WIP) be they creative writing, essays/analyses, or reviews of any type.

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*****Warning:  Discussions of rape as it pertains to The Broken Rose.*****

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 268,653
Prior Word Count: 268,665
Word Difference: -12
Status: Editing
Progress: Posting Chapter 9

Posting a chapter is a days’ long project.  I’ve done so here, on AO3, and Deviant Art.  Only tumblr is left.  Even though I don’t use tumblr as often as I used to, I still like to keep up with my posting there, since it’s a decent repository for fanfiction. Just in case you’re curious.  This is how long it took me to edit each chapter so far:

Chapter 1 – 5 days
Chapter 2 – 33 days
Chapter 3 – 31 days
Chapter 4 – 2 days
Chapter 5 – 10 days
Chapter 6 – 53 days
Chapter 7 – 43 days
Chapter 8 – 42 days
Chapter 9 – 43 days

Total Editing Days – 262 days
Average Num. Days per Ch. – 29

Why am I like this?  I’ll try to remember to put the editing duration for each chapter.  I don’t know why I’m such a numbers junkie, but I just love facts, figures and excel spreadsheets.  It’s also boggling my mind that I’ve spent nearly a year in editing o.O

Chapter 10 is going to be another long edit like Chapter 8.  There’s a lot of chaff to weed through, and I’ll probably end up cutting out quite a lot.  If I’m lucky, I’ll get to start that tonight or at the very least prep it.

I received a very nice email through my WP contact feature from someone who was only mildly familiar with the name Final Fantasy.  She liked the fact that I threw in bits and pieces of the back story, since she was then able to understand more of what was going on.  She also had a critique I 100% agree with and thought of previously, but was either too lazy or too forgetful to remedy.

Aeris wouldn’t call what happened to her “rape,” because rape denotes a violation and a crime.  While she obviously hated what she was subjected to, it occurred for so long that she would lose all sense that it was a violation.  It would just become part of her horrible, torturous life, and what constitutes a crime is utterly contingent upon the society in which the crime occurs.  Since the “society” she was forced into saw her as property, what they did to her wasn’t criminal (to them) even though it was obviously wrong.  Absolute right and absolute wrong aren’t contingent upon any societal mores, and hurting anyone in such a way is a clear violation of human rights.

That term “rights,” (which I attempted to define in Chapter 9) is often misunderstood.  People often think that rights are granted by ruling bodies, but this is erroneous.  Rights are protected by ruling bodies, and how they’re given is much more philosophical and up for debate.  Most people agree that all living beings have the right to not be tortured or abused, and all people should have equal rights; however disagreement springs up at the extent of rights people should have.  I have some pretty strong opinions about this, but I don’t want to get too political, so I’ll leave it at that.  The main point is I had Aeris using the term “rape” when she wouldn’t see it in that connotation.  The better term would probably be “use.”  That both better encompasses how she would comprehend it in addition to paralleling with both her and Sephiroth’s past.  I’ll have to go back at some point and edit again, and I do need to repost some chapters, as I’ve done some work on them since initially posting.

Quote: “I’m a monster, Aeris.  You didn’t see them.  You didn’t see their faces.”  *They forget what I am.  They forgot what I did, but I’ll always remember…*

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Project: Game Review
Title: World of Final Fantasy
Status: Editing
Current Word Count: 5154
Prior Word Count: 4405
Word Difference: +749

I think I’m all but done with this review save for the edit.  I am debating whether I should add something in, something very interesting I found when I was looking up Shelke’s origins.

She’s originally from Final Fantasy VII: Dirge of Cerberus, and like everyone else in the FFVII universe, she has a horrifying back story.  I’ve heard a lot of bad things about Dirge, but the more I read about it, the more involved, in depth, and heartbreaking the story sounds.  The Shinra messed up so many people, and it puts a bit of a pall on the fact that everyone considers them “good” in Advent.  I agree that they’re no longer involved in human experimentation or doing things to harm the planet, but that’s really only because Sephiroth killed the president, the world was nearly destroyed by meteor, and geostigma occurred, so that served as their wake up call.  It’s also possible that Avalanche succeeded in at least informing enough of the population about what they were doing, which would be a PR nightmare, and the demand for a better energy source forced them to examine and alter their methods (I don’t have much faith in large corporations to just up and change their profitable platforms on a whim, call me skeptical if you wish).  Anyway, what happened to Shelke was not only monstrous, but what she gained from it reminds me of something else.  I’m debating whether or not I want to discuss that in the WOFF review or save it for when I (eventually, you know in twenty years) watch and review Dirge.  We’ll see how I feel during the edit.

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Project: Book Review
Title: The Mabinogion Tetralogy
Author: Evangeline Walton
Status: Planning

After nearly a year, I finally finished this compendium of Welsh myths.  I’ll be working on the review this week and probably at least setting it up tonight.

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What are you currently working on?  Is it a creative writing project, essay, review, or something else?  Have you just started something new or are you wrapping up a long term project?

<–The State of the Writer: 4/30/17          The State of the Writer: 5/14/17–>

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