Writing

The State of the Writer: 9/23/18

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<–The State of the Writer: 9/9/18          The State of the Writer: 10/7/18–>

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

Finished Projects: 5

I wasn’t sure whether or not I should count finishing and posting a chapter of The Broken Rose as a project, since the story itself is one, but I guess I could consider it a finished part of a huge project so I’ll allow it.

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 257,319
Prior Word Count: 258,319
Word Difference: -1000
Status: Editing
Progress: First edit of Chapter 12

It’s been over a year, but I’m finally back to editing and posting chapters.  I still need to update the story on Deviant Art, and I’ve decided I’m just going to directly post from here onto tumblr.  DevArt is already a pain in the ass to post to, and since I can take that shortcut with the little t I’m going to do it.

Aeris has a big choice to make in this chapter, which is currently entitled “Ways and Means.”  I’m 90% good with that title since it fits with the happenings, but doesn’t give anything away.  There’s a lot of extraneous stuff in this chapter, so the delete button has been my friend.  I like how it tightens up the narrative.

I haven’t done a snippet in a while, but a comment I received this week made me think this one would be appropriate.

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The Broken Rose: Chapter 11 – Dear Aeris II

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The Broken Rose Page

<–Chapter 10                                                                                                                                 Chapter 12–>

Disclaimer: Final Fantasy VII, its characters, and settings are all property of Square Enix so I can take no credit nor claim any ownership of that. I do take some credit for the story’s plot.
Banner Artwork Disclaimer:  The featured artwork for the banner is entitled White rose I and was created by the very talented Deviant Artist RemusSirion who was gracious enough to grant me permission to use it here.  The picture has been slightly altered from the original. All rights belong to the artist, and links are included for both the artist page and the work.

*******MAJOR CONTENT WARNING*******

Consistent and sustained graphic descriptions and mentions of rape/ sexual assault, sexual slavery/bondage, slavery, human trafficking, physical abuse, graphic descriptions of violence, mental abuse, emotional abuse, psychological abuse, body shaming, starvation, torture, forced pregnancy, forced childbirth, miscarriage, forced miscarriage, abortion, and other potential disturbing and triggering topics.

Aeris’s second letter of self-reclamation.

Chapter 11 cover

A white and pink rose sitting by what looks like a glass necklace. In the top right corner Chapter 11 Dear Aeris II is in dusky pink.

Dearest Aeris,

It’s been fifty-five days since last I was used, and I never will be again.  My general promises that every day and every day proves it more true. I’m his Aeris and his alone.  Brutal men can never have me.  I cry and cry when I think about that…how I’ll never again be abused.  I’m his.  I’m his.  I’m forever his.  He guards me.  He shields me.  I’m safe.  He tells me the best and most wonderful things like just how cherished I am.  He could hurt me so badly, but he hasn’t. He won’t.  He’s gentle.  He’s careful with me.  I live in a palace by the sea under his endless protection.

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The Broken Rose – Update

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 4 Comments

At the very least I can claim this accomplishment for my vacation: I finished my revisions for The Broken Rose and just completed re-posting them here.  WordPress doesn’t change the date of the original post, which is the reason for this update with convenient link in tow.

I do have Chapter 11 finished and with any luck I’ll have that posted before the week is out.  I also need to do the re-posting for my other sites, but that’s also a task for another day.

Thanks as always for your continued interest in this fanfic that turned out to be much more involved than I ever though it would be!

The State of the Writer: 9/9/18

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 4 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 8/26/18          The State of the Writer: 9/23/18–>

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

Finished Projects: 2

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 258,319
Prior Word Count: 259,639
Word Difference: -1320
Status: Preparing to (Re)Post
Progress: Early chapter review complete

Extremely realistic painting of a white rose with pinkish interior with the artist standing in the right cornerI don’t even remember when the hell I decided to go back and do this revision, but I think it’s finally done.  I completed a third edit of Chapter 11 yesterday, and while I think it would benefit from a fourth, there’s no reason I can’t start reposting the beginning chapters at this time.  This week’s plan is to figure out the best way to do that, since it has to be done on multiple platforms.

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The State of the Writer: 8/26/18

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 5 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 8/12/18          The State of the Writer: 9/9/18–>

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

Finished Projects: 5

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction (FFVII) Novel
Current Word Count: 259,639
Prior Word Count: 261,248
Word Difference: -1609
Status: Review
Progress: Chapter 11 First Edit

A lot of cuts these past two weeks.  I decided to move the nail polish thing to another chapter (…it’s amazing what writers deem important lol), because I think it would better serve in a place that’s not introspective and more active.  I’m in the process of doing the first edit, and it’s only been difficult because I’ve been so tired.  But I persevere.

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Final Fantasy Character Assessments: Celes Chere

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Final Fantasy Character Assessments

<–Squall Leonhart                                                                                                              Freya Crescent–>

*Potential spoilers for everything involving the topic character and their game.

CW: Discussions of depression and suicide.

Name: Celes Chere
Game: Final Fantasy VI
Job: Imperial General
Age: 18/19

Major Arcana: The Hanged Man – Picking Celes’ card was so much harder than I originally thought it would be.  I’d pegged her as either The High Priestess or The Empress since those are the typical female defaults, but Celes isn’t a “typical female” (whatever that means anyway).  She’s a woman general, a typically masculine job, and she’s young, really young.  Everything about her seems to exist as a unity of opposites to Terra, the other main female character.  She’s heavenly (Celes as in “celestial”) to Terra’s “earth;” ice to Terra’s fire; and she’s a high ranking military officer to Terra’s bondage.  Of course Celes is bound herself even before her arrest, which is proven by her very imprisonment .  She acted on her conscious after disillusionment with the Empire and wound up sentenced to death.  Her entire existence, occupation, and powers were entirely predicated on the Empire’s whims, but it isn’t until she defies Imperial orders that she understands that…and realizes that even someone completely raised and indoctrinated into a regime can still be themselves.  There’s an ineffable quality to a person that can override even the deepest programming if pushed to the limit.

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The Rising Author Tag

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Borrowed from Writer Michelle Payne whom I think combined it with another tag from two other bloggers 🙂

What’s your current WIP about + what are you working on with it?

We’ll do my original story and not The Broken Rose even though I’m not technically working on it right now, but I hope to return to it soon.  The working title is The High Archon changed from The High Lord, though it could always change again.  It’s about a young woman who’s betrothed to the de facto ruler of the world in a sort of Belle Epoque/Golden Age era, though that doesn’t prevent something horrible from happening to her a year before she goes to fulfill the betrothal.  The act changes her entire life view and potential trajectory, and the novel is about the incongruence between how she thinks she’ll be treated and how she is.  It’s a…shakeup (I hope) to typical paradigms, though it has a lot of the things I love to both read and write about in stories.

Right now I have a little bit of the beginning written from last years NaNoWriMo, but that might be scrapped in its entirety so I can begin again.  I need to figure out how I can establish the world but jump right into the plot.  I’m not going to get rid of what I’ve already written (perish the thought!), but I may have to rearrange the order of things a little bit.  I hope to work on it before November this year if possible, but if not I’ll do what I did last year and take a blogging hiatus to work on it.

Show your WIP’s aesthetic in images or words (or both)!

She doesn’t have elven ears, but that’s almost exactly how I picture her face.

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