<–The State of the Writer: 4/22/18          The State of the Writer: 5/20/18–>

A biweekly post updated every Sunday discussing my current writing projects and any completed the prior two weeks.

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Finished Projects: 4

Tags: 10 Things That Make Life Worth Living – 4/24/18
Awards: Liebster Award #4 – 5/3/18
Tags: The Writer’s Tag – 5/3/18
Book Reviews: The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau – 5/5/18

Two tags and one award out of the way means I can check three things off of that combined list.  The book review took so much longer than I anticipated, and I now want to do a book to movie comparison.

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Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 261,419
Prior Word Count: 261,491
Word Difference: -72
Status: Revising
Progress: Third edit of Chapter 3

I might be done this revision sooner than anticipated.  I was trying to remember why the hell I’d decided to do it anyway, and thankfully I was smart enough to leave myself a checklist of what I wanted to update.  It seems as though there were portions of the beginning I wanted to change for better accuracy.  This leads me to believe the chapters after 4 may not really need an update, though I am finding I’m doing more refined editing as I go through.  which is never a bad thing.  I’m hoping I can convince the perfectionist side of myself that I don’t need to go over the first 10 chapters (again) with a fine-toothed comb, but she’s a stubborn bitch, so I hope she can be persuaded.

I think the big spur for continuing on came from seeing/reading an update of The Broken Orrery by CymbelinesHalo, which is the best written Aeriseph fanfiction I’ve ever read.  I believe the last time she updated was in 2016, and after reading it I, er, well I got a little jealous of some of the adulation she received in the comments.  Now granted, I’ve heard the same thing about my stories, but…I don’t know.  Initially, it made me feel super unworthy to write Aeriseph stuff until I remembered I’d heard similar praise, so yes, TSN has emotions and some of those emotions are envy.  This is also an author who has never answered any of my PMs, which could mean numerous things or nothing.  She may not have time.  She may be shy.  She may just want to write and doesn’t really know what to say.  I know I always try to interact with anyone who messages me about my stories (and I’ve gotten some intense fangirling directed towards myself, which makes me feel…weird), so yeah.  I had a moment of insecurity, but all is well now, and I’m reevaluating my revisions.  I really want to continue posting new chapters as soon as possible, and I’ve had to reassure some people that I certainly will.

Project: Story Audio Recording
Title: Northern Lights
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Status: Prepping
Progress: Recorded blurb

I finally made an “official” recording for NL.  I did one for the blurb you see above.  It hasn’t been edited yet, and the reason I use “official” is because I have a shit ton of recordings for Northern Lights on my iPhone.  The one I did through Audacity needs to be edited as I figure out which one out of the five I did I’ll use.  I also need to figure out what music will be in the background and what images I’ll want to use for the video.  All of this is making me think more and more about starting a Patreon, since I could potentially offer certain recordings for rewards, but you all know I have to plan that out carefully before it’s initiated; it’s just speculation right now.

I want to parse out the best version of the blurb this week and then go from though.  Oh FYI I know little to nothing about audio editing, but I have some resources.  Audacity is fairly easy to use; there are lots of tutorials; I’ve used Windows Media Maker before to do slideshows; and I’m more than willing to learn.

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In Progress

• Paper Mario: Color Splash Review – It’s still in my drafts so I’m still working on it.  Unfortunately, the days it’s been on my to-do list have been not so good days so no progress has been made.  I have a good deal written, I just need to finish it up.

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I really want to start working on a new novel, but I just can’t work it into my current schedule.  It’s why I’m trying to catch up on book reviews, tags, and other things and also why I’m looking deeper into my revision of TBR.  I take my time with writing, and most of my novels are two year projects from start to “final” edit.  This is one of the reasons I’m not out there giving George R. R. Martin shit about not finishing The Winds of Winter and/or working on other things, because I’m constantly working on other and/or smaller things.  I’m fairly certain the people complaining are not writers and even if they are, they haven’t written anything a fraction as complicated as ASOIAF.  While my work doesn’t scratch the surface of the complexity of his, I at least fucking understand how difficult it is to keep that many balls in the air.  Huh, I wasn’t expecting this to turn into a rant, but there you go lol.  

Anyway, thank you all for reading my blathering.  If you didn’t do so, I’d just be talking to myself 😀  What creative stuff have you been up to?  What obstacles, besides time, stand in your way?  Let us bemoan our fates together, brethren!

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<–The State of the Writer: 4/22/18          The State of the Writer: 5/20/18–>