<–The State of the Writer: 10/21/18          The State of the Writer: 12/16/18–>

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

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Finished Projects: 5

• Book Review: The Diamond of Darkhold by Jeanne DuPrau – 11/10/18
• Book Review: James & the Dragon by Theresa Snyder – 11/11/18
• Audio Recording: Northern Lights Blurb – 11/13/18
• Writing: The Broken Rose Chapter 12 – 11/24/18
• Book Review: The Golden Apple by Michelle Diener – 11/24/18

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Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 255,520
Prior Word Count: 255,753
Word Difference: -233
Status: Editing
Progress: Chapter 13 First Edit

I made more progress on editing this story than I did on writing the one I’ll discuss below, but such is life.  I have a brief scene to add to Chapter 13, but preliminary assessments tell me it’s not going to be too difficult to edit and get out.

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I still need to post the last few chapters on Deviant Art.  It’s the most difficult site to put fanfiction on, though.  They don’t make it easy, which is a shame.  I also need to make sure I have the permission of any Deviant Artists’ artwork I might have used, which is another complication of the site.

Project: Story Audio Recording
Title: Northern Lights
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Status: Preparation
Progress: Planning Chapter 1 recording

I am super excited I finally finished and posted the blurb.  That only took me six months #lolsob  I actually did two versions.  The one that’s up on YouTube now and another one with licensed music that I haven’t bought the subscription for yet.  It’s…kind of ironic I suppose that I have the one with copyrighted music posted (and I hope it’s considered fair use since I gave credit and I’m making no money off of it), but not the licensed.  I plan to use the site (EpidemicSound.com) for the audio recording, but I think I’m going to wait until after the holidays to purchase a yearly subscription.  What’s nice is you can download their music prior to purchasing the license to try it out, so I’d be able to put it into the recordings, but of course I won’t actually post that anywhere until I have the proper permissions.

I have a full recording of Chapter 1 on my phone, but I’m going to do another one with my better microphone (Yeti for the curious).  If my voice behaves, I’ll do some recording on Tuesday.  Right now it’s not that great, and I know it’s because of my asthma medicine.  I’m going to try gargling with salt water tonight.  If I have to, I’ll avoid taking the one med on Monday in hopes I have a voice to work with on Tuesday.

Project: Story
Working Title: The High Archon
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Original Novel
Current Word Count: 2408
Status: Drafting
Progress: Chapter 1/Setting up the foundation

Picture Source (Upper Left) – Autumn Fairy by JanainaArt
Picture Source (Bottom Left) – Rose in Blood by Kawaielli (Deactivated Deviant Art)

I spent NaNoWriMo plodding through the first chapter of this and I’m still not finished.  Every story I write presents a new challenge, and for this one, the main characters/love interests don’t meet until about halfway through.  I wanted to give a glimpse of the main character’s life before the horrifying inciting incident because, while readers will have a visceral reaction to the attack, it’s much worse if you know the person and what they were like beforehand and how it devastates them afterwards.

Maya is a confident and talented young woman who’s been aware of her “destiny” all of her life.  While being promised to the de facto ruler of the world might be a bit daunting, it’s never frightened her, because she lives in a world with no precedent for such.  But after the inciting incident, her point of view changes drastically.  While building the foundation is a bit boring for me (and I’ll need to brutally edit to make sure it’s not boring for any readers), it’s essential to laying the groundwork for her character prior.  At least I have a lot of this earlier part physically written down from last year’s NaNo attempt, so I have some guidelines to go on.

I’ve included drafting this into my schedule along with editing TBR and working on the audio for NL.  We shall see how it goes!

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In Progress

• Game Review: Final Fantasy V – Now that NaNo is over, I’ve put this back on my schedule.  I’m hoping to have it out before the end of the year.
• Final Fantasy Character Assessment: Kain Highwind- Since FFVII and FFIX characters are out until I replay, I’ve made some progress with Kain’s.  I’ll probably do a switch off between IV and VI unless I attempt to tackle one of the four from V.

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Yes, I’m back.  As fore mentioned NaNo wasn’t as productive as I would’ve like it to have been but that’s the way it goes.  Now that it’s December of course I’m going to be busy with holiday shenanigans, but I’m going to try to keep up with writing anyway.  Editing TBR is honestly the easier project in that category since I can just sort of hop in when I have some time and go over a paragraph or two.  Drafting a story takes more because it’s the act of creation, and while audio recording might not be as cerebral, it requires much more set up and a quiet space.

How was everyone’s November?  If you’re a fellow Stater, how was your Thanksgiving?  We still have leftovers lol.

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<–The State of the Writer: 10/21/18          The State of the Writer: 12/16/18–>