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Hey.
Do you know what day it is?
Yes, it’s a Tuesday. What else?
Okay, the date is October 13th. What happens on October 13th?
Why, the birthday of one of my favorite fictional characters:
^_^
*ahem* Okay, now that my moment of fangirling is out of the way, onto business:
1) I once again apologize for my complete lack of regular updates here on The Cat’s Cradle and on my Inuyasha fanfic “Nakishojo,” especially after promising that I wouldn’t make folks wait 7 years for a story to be completed. At this time, I’m not sure how I’ll be able to address this in a meaningful way, but I’m working on it. On a side note, one of my fanfic watchers told me about a Fandom contest on Inkitt.com and suggested that I enter my Final Fantasy VII story, “Hidden Light.” It’s now up on Inkitt with some minor editing to help improve the prose. If you’re interested (or bored) stop by and leave a review or “heart” it. It does require you to log in, but if you don’t want to create an account, you can sign in with Facebook or Twitter. The contest ends on October 21, but “Hidden Light” will remain on Inkitt for reader enjoyment.
2) I’m still slooooooowly grinding through editing Ravens and Roses, but everything is going much slower than I anticipated. My sense of focus and drive regarding writing is at an all-time low. (There have been a lot of really upsetting family problems for the last few months, so that might be what’s been sapping my creative energy.)
3) My antidepressants have been great at motivating me to take care of daily business around the house like dishes, laundry, yard work, general cleaning and tidying, even cooking. So I’m keeping up with housework… but it feels like that’s been at the expense of time and energy that should go to writing. I feel like I’ve still not gotten a handle on proper time management, even though I put Cold Turkey on my computer to keep me away from Facebook, I hardly watch any TV, and I barely read anymore. (I can’t tell you how many books and movies I’ve checked out from the library lately that get returned weeks later unread and unwatched. It’s maddening.)
4) Speaking of time management… I became obsessed with the Wii game Link’s Crossbow Training after playing it one evening with my Pens in Space group. I bought my own copy and have been playing it daily for over two weeks. It doesn’t require hours of gameplay, it doesn’t have complex stories or quests to keep track of, and it has very simple goals. It’s great for instant gratification. I can hop on for 15 minutes, play a few rounds, and then walk away to do something else. It’s great for de-stressing at the end of the day.
5) I’m still losing weight! During the last part of the summer and early fall, I took a 1-mile walk almost every day. Now that it’s cold out, I’ve been using my weights and my brother’s elliptical machine for about 30 minutes daily to keep in shape. So many people have asked if I lost weight or have complimented me on it… I feel very proud of myself. Hopefully I can continue this throughout the winter so I don’t back-slide.
6) National Novel Writing Month is just around the corner and I plan on participating this year! (Did I mention that before? I think I did…) Anyway, I won’t be working on Ravens and Roses during November, at least not with editing. I may try to write some of the scenes that I need, but I feel like I need a mental break from Marina. So, I’m following a suggestion made by Dad and Richard and will attempt to write a novel with minimal prep and polishing to be sent off for publication as quickly as possible. Something simple and probably sub-par, but as they pointed out, if a crappy, modified Twilight fanfic can hit it big, why can’t I? So I’ll be using one of my unpublished fanfics as a base and modifying it from there into a somewhat-trashy steampunk romance. (I thought about trying to write a Regency romance, but I don’t think I could pull that off convincingly.)
7) With the return to NaNoWriMo, the Legendary Novel Writing Challenge will be up and running again. Hooray! I missed doing LeNoWriCha, but it isn’t suited for tracking progress through editing, so I’ve left it dormant for a while. If NaNoWriMo is a little too intimidating, or you don’t have enough time to write 1,667 words a day, or if you want something like NaNoWriMo at any time of the year, give LeNoWriCha a try.
I think that brings everyone up to speed. See you on the flip side!
The Cat's Cradle : On Hiatus! 