Northern Lights

The State of the Writer: 6/28/20

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 5 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 6/14/20         The State of the Writer: 7/12/20–>

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

Finished Projects: 3

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Length: Novel
Current Word Count: 252,087
Prior Word Count: 251,669
Word Difference: +418
Status: Editing
Progress: Prepping to post Chapter 24

I probably could’ve posted the next chapter prior to this update, but I want to do one more mini edit beforehand.  I was also waiting to hear back from the artist on the picture I wanted to use, and it took me forever to think of a chapter title.  I’m pretty happy with it, but it could still potentially change in the future.  I’ll probably have it up before the end of the day.

Project: Story Audio Recording
Title: Northern Lights
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction
Length: Novel
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Status: Editing
Progress: Adding pictures for slideshow

I’m over 50 images at this point and a little over ten minutes.  It’s been going pretty smoothly since I’m at the part where she goes to the church, and there are a shit ton of images of that especially with the Remake out and all.  I ran into a bit of a snag because there’s a part where I’m thinking of a picture I’ve used before.  Now, this isn’t technically an “issue.”  I’ve already repeated an image, but I did it for a specific reason.  I’m trying not to repeat unless I’m attempting to make a specific point (whatever visual point I could possibly make as a non-visual arts person ugh, I’m going to just apologize profusely when I post this lol), so I have three options.  One, think of another image for the latest; think of another image for the older, or three, use the same image for both.  I’m leaning towards the middle choice, since I think the image would better serve where I am now and I might already have another image for the prior.  I left it last night to give myself a day to ruminate.

I’m trying to figure out ways to post this where I can just give people the password if they ask, because I know it’ll probably get flagged on YouTube for copyright stuff.  I’m not making any money off of it, nor do I want to.  I just want to share it, but it’s tricky when you’re pretty much using other artists’ stuff to showcase your own.  What’s weird is I’ve seen people selling books of their fanfictions, but I believe they’re only charging for cost, though I think that can still get dicey.  I’ll try to figure it out.  Speaking of which I have thought about printing out more copies of Northern Lights and doing some for The Broken Rose (I did NL and gave it to a friend), but I’d have to see how much it would cost.  It would be a fun project especially since my illustrator friend wants to do a picture for each chapter ♥

In Progress

  • Game Reviews: Final Fantasy VI – I’m finally on the World of Ruin, which is taking less time to summarize as I knew it would.  I’m hoping to be done with the summary soon so I can move on to the story analysis, but that’s going to take some organizing lol.
  • Blogger Tags: A Sunshine Blogger Award from A Geeky Gal – More catching up on blogger tags with yet another Sunshine Blogger Award lol.  You’d think I actually liked the sun with how many of these I get, but I appreciate everyone ♥

I’ve been thinking a lot about self-publishing my short story.  I think that’s going to be my next project after I get The Broken Rose finished up and posted.  I want to start work on my original novel after that, and I’m hoping I’ll be done TBR in time for that to be my NaNoWriMo project.  I feel a bit disorganized right now, and I hate it lol.  I have this fallacious idea that if I could just put everything in order/plan it out, my life will fall into place, but I can never quite manage to do that because life is messy.  I think I could outline a game plan, buuuut it’s not like I haven’t done that before lol.  Oh well, you have to keep your plans up to date with the times, so maybe another “WTF Am I Planning to Do Now” post wouldn’t be a bad idea.

<–The State of the Writer: 6/14/20         The State of the Writer: 7/12/20–>

The State of the Writer: 6/14/20

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 10 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 5/31/20         The State of the Writer: 6/28/20–>

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

Finished Projects: 0

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Length: Novel
Current Word Count: 251,669
Prior Word Count: 251,992
Word Difference: -323
Status: Editing
Progress: Finished first edit of Chapter 24

I finished the first edit last night, but I still have a lot to add in.  I’m trying to do the initial edit first method, marking where I need to add additional text, adding it, then doing the second edit afterwards.  I kind of think of it like icing a cake.  You get the crumb coat on first, locate the trouble spots and fix them, then do another coat.  It makes sense in my ridiculous head lol.

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The State of the Writer: 5/31/20

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 2 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 5/17/20         The State of the Writer: 6/14/20–>

A post updated every other 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
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Length: Novel
Current Word Count: 251,992
Prior Word Count: 252,140
Word Difference: -148
Status: Editing
Progress: Posted Chapter 23

Well shit…I made an oopsie.  I was so set on posting the chapter last night due to being encouraged by correspondence with my illustrator friend I made an embarrassing error.  I don’t repeat chapter pictures, or I didn’t before yesterday; however…

 

Ahhhhhhhh

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The State of the Writer: 5/17/20

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 5 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 5/3/20         The State of the Writer: 5/31/20–>

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

Finished Projects: 0

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Length: Novel
Current Word Count: 252,140
Prior Word Count: 252,353
Word Difference: -213
Status: Editing
Progress: Second edit of Chapter 23

Sephiroth by BethanyAnnie

I’ve used this picture before, but there is an excellent reason and method to my madness.  I discovered one of the readers/commenters on AO3 was none other than the artist of the glorious piece above BethanyAnnie who is both on Deviant Art, and ArtStation.  She is a freelance illustrator and concept artist from the UK per her ArtStation account, and I’m seriously thinking about commissioning her for artwork (if I can) if I decide to go the self-publishing route with any of my stories, BUT there’s more.  She’s on Archive of Our Own as OrtumnAllbones with a story called Parenthood’z Nightmare that I’ve bookmarked, which I found out during our conversations where she OFFERED TO DO ARTWORK FOR THE BROKEN ROSE.  Um ♥♥♥  So we’ve been in correspondence once I finally figured out what image I want.  She says she doesn’t charge for fanworks, but I’m honestly hoping she’ll allow me to pay SOMETHING because artists should be paid for their work.  She also has a society6 account.  Visual art is one of the most important mediums we have.  There would literally be no movies, no cartoons, no fashion, no anything without it.  The least I can do is spread the word when someone shows me such generosity ♥

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The State of the Writer: 5/3/20

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 5 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 4/19/20         The State of the Writer: 5/17/20–>

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

Finished Projects: 0

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Length: Novel
Current Word Count: 252,353
Prior Word Count: 251,945
Word Difference: +403
Status: Editing
Progress: Second edit of Chapter 23

I finished the first edit of Chapter 23 last night.  For some reason known only to past TSN, I put in things from my notes, but didn’t mark off that I’d used them so I spent an unnecessary amount of time confirming that.  But the most annoying thing was I put in something I’d already used in Chapter 24.  Thankfully, I was moving notes to that section so I happened to notice it.  It fits much better there then in where I wedged it in Chapter 23, so it was simple matter of deletion, but I’m still annoyed I didn’t do due diligence beforehand.  Oh well, what’s done is done.  I still need to center on a title for this chapter, and I *might* wind up splitting it in two, but that’s a pretty low percentage since everything just sort of flows.

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The State of the Writer: 4/19/20

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 2 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 4/5/20         The State of the Writer: 5/3/20–>

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

Finished Projects: 1

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Length: Novel
Current Word Count: 251,945
Prior Word Count: 252,040
Word Difference: -95
Status: Editing
Progress: First edit of Chapter 23

I would say I’m in the home stretch for this story because I only have two or three more chapters left, but that would be a lie.  There’s still SO much, and I might be splitting some parts up.  Something very important does happen in Chapter 23, something people have been bugging me about lol.  This chapter is…easier (?) to edit?  I don’t know if that’s the right term.  It’s more like I was reaching a pinnacle and I was in the zone when I wrote it, so a lot of it is very smooth.  There are still some patches that need some TLC, and I have a lot of things that need to be added, but it’s not like there’s a shortage of inspiration these days, am I right?

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The State of the Writer: 4/5/20

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 9 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 3/22/20         The State of the Writer: 4/19/20–>

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

Finished Projects: 1

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Length: Novel
Current Word Count: 252,040
Prior Word Count: 252,067
Word Difference: -27
Status: Editing
Progress: Prepping to post Chapter 22

I sent a note to a Deviant Artist about the picture I want to use for Chapter 22 (not the one above).  As of yet, I haven’t heard back, so I’m in a bit of limbo, though I now also realize I used a picture for a prior chapter that I didn’t ask permission for.  Oh, I credited and all, but I can’t locate any proof of correspondence.  I think that’s why I stopped posted this story on DA itself; I didn’t get permission from an artist there for the image I wanted to use.  I could just pick another picture I suppose.  Anyway, I do have backup images, but what I might do is give it another couple of days then check back to see how active the artist is.  If they haven’t really been on the sight I *might* use the picture with all appropriate credits, though I always feel like that’s dicey.

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The State of the Writer: 3/22/20

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 11 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 3/8/20         The State of the Writer: 4/5/20–>

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

Finished Projects: 0

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Length: Novel
Current Word Count: 252,067
Prior Word Count: 252,222
Word Difference: -155
Status: Editing
Progress: Second edit of Chapter 22

There needs to be a third edit, but the second is easier.  I’ve mostly smoothed out the, er, more awkward parts I’d say?  At the very least this second editing is taking less time.  I’m one session away from finishing it up.  If the third goes well, I should be posting it within the week.

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The State of the Writer: 3/8/20

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 4 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 2/23/20         The State of the Writer: 3/22/20–>

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

Finished Projects: 0

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Length: Novel
Current Word Count: 252,222
Prior Word Count: 252,492
Word Difference: -270
Status: Editing
Progress: First edit of Chapter 22

I don’t want to tell you how long it took me to locate this picture, but I feel like my embarrassment should be known.  The fact is, I was looking for another picture at the time, and I know I spotted this one, so when I started this post, I thought “Oo, I can use that one,” and then proceeded to not be able to find it again even through I went through the folder on Deviant Art that had it no less than four fucking times.  I also went through my Pinterest pics at least three before finally switching to my phone to find it so I could search for the artist’s name.  It’s easier on the phone, I think, because the screen is smaller.  My shit brain will get distracted while I’m looking for something, so even if it’s there, I’ll scroll right past it without picking it up, and it’s just…so…exhausting.  I’m pretty sure I have ADHD among other things, so I’m constantly multitasking without even wanting to multitask.  I have to keep my mind busy at all times, usually to avoid obtrusive thoughts, and that gets cumbersome when I actually need to do things like this.  Coffee helps…sometimes.

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The State of the Writer: 2/23/20

/ The Shameful Narcissist / 2 Comments

<–The State of the Writer: 2/9/20         The State of the Writer: 3/8/20–>

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

Finished Projects: 3

Project: Story
Title: The Broken Rose
Genre: Paranormal Romance
Type: Fanfiction
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Length: Novel
Current Word Count: 252,492
Prior Word Count: 252,713
Word Difference: -221
Status: Editing
Progress: First edit of Chapter 22

This chapter has some interesting challenges, and I may end up with two versions of it.  I saw someone do that once on Fanfic.net.  I was talking with The Ink Garden about my wacky timelines/AU scenarios, but it was only scratching the surface.  There are more branches than a tree, which is…kinda fitting when I think about it.  I’m trying to add any additional text in my first edit instead of after, because it just doesn’t make sense to do any kind of editing prior to including additions.

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