writings of mysterious happenstance.

Discussion in 'Make It So' started by OtherCat, Aug 15, 2018.

  1. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    This particular thread is going to be for story ideas/snippets of fic/worldbuilding/The World Building You Come Up With When You Are Miserable and a Teenager/And so on.

    I am struggling with writing more original fiction for my Patreon (or possibly to self publish where ever you do self publishing). The struggle comes in when I tend to have trouble completing or continuing stories. (This was also a problem I had with fanfic, that I eventually overcame...more or less.) I am sad you can't post Porn on Patreon, because I think I am getting pretty good at the Porn. (Actually getting to the Porn is still pretty obnoxious though.)

    I am currently exasperated with a the project I began last year, but which got sidelined because I was stressed and had a bunch of doctors appointments, was getting started with re-applying for social security and trying to get my housing and foodstamp ducks in a row.

    The project I was working on previously was The Forest Room, which involved a cabin in the woods, a mysterious pact made with something that might or might not be a demon, and an equally mysterious portal to another world. I managed to get two or three chapters done before I got distracted by everything else.

    The current story idea:
    It’s an arranged marriage story!

    Plotpoints:
    • that this is some kind of peace treaty/alliance marriage between a line of evil (for a value of evil) sorcerer kings and a good kingdom (for a value of good.)
    • halfway between the kingdoms the “bride” tries to murder the sorcerer prince.
    • also the bride is actually the actual bride’s twin brother in a dress.
    • (meanwhile the princess is impersonating her brother, of course.)
    This causes a number of headaches that the sorcerer prince does not want to deal with, and in fact would like to dump in his mother’s lap and let her figure it out. However he is an Adult Now and must discover his wife’s motivations, what parts his royal parents’ in law or members of the court or religion may have played in his wife’s decisions, and whether this treaty is worth breaking or not.

    He questions the twin brother, and sees that this little plot is desperation and panic, not politics. (Mostly.) He decides to continue the charade of the twin being his sister. (As you do.) The twin brother is of course, mildly freaking out. (As you do.) The prince wants to see how far his wife can continue the charade, because frankly, this is hilarious. (Also he Has a Concern due to having a parent whose culture has multiple genders.)

    I have a teeny bit written already, that I will post next.
     
    • Like x 1
  2. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    Note: This tiny bit I have written is not even close to being a rough draft. This is the squished together version of what should be two or three sections, even though I wrote it all at once.

    Prince of Crows (working title)

    Possibly, the wedding went too well, Jann thought. Possibly, everything had gone too well for everyone, up until the assassination attempt, which hadn’t gone well for his wife of seven days. Jann sat down on the cot and studied his wife. Lethia of Carlon, semi-paralyzed by the enspelled wedding ring, glared back defiantly at him and his bodyguards. “I thought we were starting to get along,” Jann said. “Especially when you invited me to your tent.”

    “I’d rather die than lie with the son of a demon whore,” Lethia said, voice shaking, and face pale. She was clearly terrified, but also intent on egging him--or his furious bodyguards’--into furious action.

    Furious action that his guards were only too happy to provide, given their expressions. “My father’s not a whore,” Jann said, because it was funny. “Or a demon, really.”

    Lethia stared blankly at him for a moment, before flushing red. “Don’t mock me!”

    “I wasn’t,” Jann said, and stooped to pick Lethia up and set her on the cot. Lethia cursed him at length, struggling but still paralyzed by the spell. “The spell will wear off in a few hours,” Jann told her. “I’m sure you’ll understand why I won’t be sending you your lady in waiting.” More cursing. “Tol, please get a couple of the women among the guard to see to her highness.”

    Tol saluted and hurried off.

    Jann hastily summoned other members of his guard and hurried to find the lady in waiting. The lady in question was in fact waiting with a couple horses and hastily gathered supplies near the picket lines for the horses. She was saying something about a picnic to one of the horse girls. When she saw Jann approaching she went pale and leapt on one of the horses, and urged it into a gallop. The horse girl, immediately understanding this was some kind of escape attempt, mounted the remaining horse, and tore after the lady before most of his guard could call for horses to be saddled.

    Meanwhile, the flock of crows that had been following their procession back to Akuran took flight. Jann watched the fleeing horse and the pursuing rider through a thousand or so eyes. He was at the center of a mind made up of hundreds of crow-minds, instincts and impulses. He told that mind “annoy that [rider], stop that [horse].”
     
    • Like x 1
  3. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    In other news, I keep starting new fan fic projects when I should be writing others. (To be fair, the older projects are nearing completion. Actually getting them completed is really hard though, so I keep getting distracted.)
     
    • Witnessed x 2
  4. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    Just a small aggravation: I am running out of space on a dying, ancient and no longer built because the company went out of business laptop. Therefore I need to update things to my portable drive. But not yet because everything is slow. (Also I have errands and chores I'm doing first.) So...All the fanfics I'm currently working on, all Homestuck because I am still hamsteak trash, I'm going to stick here, until I can update everything to the portable drive, and figure out what just needs to be on the drive and what doesn't.

    two for mirth

    The Iron Castigation of Heretics reaches Earth, and Gamzee wants to see them both. Karkat’s reluctant about the “both” aspect of the visit. Dave is so comfortable with his family; Karkat doesn’t want to do anything to mess it up. “You’re not messing anything up,” Dave says, leaning against the dresser and watching Karkat pack. His own belongings were already stowed in his sylladex. “I mean, except for the awkward guilt stuff, and that seems to be an eternal state for you.”

    “Urgh. Tell me you don’t resent being ordered around,” Karkat says. “Tell me you wouldn’t like to stay with your family a little longer.”

    “Well yeah, but still, awkward guilt forever. I get second hand shame just looking at you,” Dave says with a headshake and an exaggerated sigh of dismay. “What the fuck am I going to do with you?”

    “So, you’re not upset about having to come with me?” Karkat asks in what he immediately realizes is a horrible, embarrassing, transparent play for pity, even as he says it. “I mean, in the sense you could have had an even longer visit if my moirail hadn’t summoned you, along with inviting me to come visit.”

    “It’s not a problem,” Dave says. “Do you really think I wouldn’t want to go with you up to the Iron Castigation?” His question comes with a sly little smirk. “We could try out that bed Master Makara bought for me.”

    “You have extensive experience with that bed,” Karkat says, pretending not to get what Dave was implying.

    “Not with you in it,” Dave says in a suggestive, teasing tone.

    Karkat can’t help the smile. “Your lines still need work.”

    “Also, it’s not like we won’t be able to go back, right? You’re still Emissary Nubhorns, right?”

    “No.”

    “Bedhead,” Dave says with a grin.

    “I think that’s seven letters. Also no.”

    “I like Loudyell the best anyway.”

    “Still not happening. Yes I’m still the Emissary, that didn’t change. It was probably one of those situations where Gamzee went, ‘I’m going,’ and the Empress did all the diplomatic stuff and sent it all ahead by ansible. Figuring out the dyadic relationship between Grand Highblood and Empress is hard, it’s hard and no one understands and no one fucking bothered to write it down the first couple times around.”

    Dave snorts, and hugs Karkat from behind, pressing his face against the back of Karkat’s neck. “So visiting is pretty much on the table, right?”

    “Yeah,” Karkat says, and smiles.

    Safety Dance
    ==>AR: be on top of everything

    Both Dirk and his brother are worried about the intervention for similar, but not identical reasons. Dirk is mostly worried about Dave, Jade and their friends getting hurt. He also isn’t exactly sure this is the right tact. He’s afraid that this might snowball in unexpected ways, or result in a new war. Dirk’s brother is also worried about a new war, and the methods you’re using in this intervention. The elder Strider brings up history and how similar “military interventions” have gone wrong.

    (He is also worried about “spin.” He has tried hard to make you seem benevolent, or at least indifferent to continuing HIC’s vendetta against humanity. Attacking a community, even if the community is toxic is not benevolent or indifferent.)

    You argue about it.

    DS: why a military intervention

    DS: why specifically lafayette

    AR: It happens to be the closest community and one we have the most information about.

    Build a Life From Scratch

    You don’t go back to the house immediately. Instead, you end up camping out with Catskin--Meulin--who gives you some pointers on controlling your powers. This takes a few days of figuring shit out and asking lots of questions. In exchange, Meulin asks you lots of questions. Things like what you remember of the game, things about your world.

    Your sleep is still fucked up; Highblood lurking in your dreams of the kid’s fucked up quest planet, along with other assholes you’ve never met. One’s a skinny troll guy with red and blue eyes and doubled horns. The other’s shorter and wider across the shoulders, his horns short and poking out of the hood he’s wearing. There’s Meulin too, writing down the speech the short horned troll is making to the little red crocodiles.

    You wander further afield and the younger version of you confronts you on from the top of a gear. “You’re picking stuff up from her,” he says.

    the heroes of the imperium and the av club

    The Condesce spent a lot of time debriefing you about the wigglers; their ages, their strifekinds, their former lusii. She mentioned that every last one of them was a Descendent of you, Kankri, the Dolorosa and even Darkleer and a few others, and that was something that was more than a little disturbing, though not unexpected, from what Kankri had told you about his visions.

    (You’re a little excited, actually! You wondered what your Descendant was like. Well, everyone’s Descendant.)

    “The sprats are going to be terrified and hostile,” the Condesce had said. “They don’t have their lusii, and some of them killed each other--no, don’t even ask. I got bitty-nubs getting them up and together for you and the eventual media circus, you just got to explain shit to them and Pounsel them.”

    There is also a pr0n for the karkat thirst server, but I deleted it on the server because I will probably rewrite it. (It did not get the immediate reception other parts did and anxiety! brain decided Everything Sucked Forever and All Must Be Destroyed. Writer brain allows that it needed more work and while not good, wasn't bad either.)
     
    Last edited: Aug 16, 2018
  5. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    Okay so, Mom decided I was Going to Be a Writer because obviously, I Liked to Read. This made it actually very difficult to write because of course I was not sure if I was able to write. On the other hand, I had a very active imagination that came up with "worlds" very easily. (Coming up with Stories on the other hand was a lot harder, at least until I started writing fan fiction, when I was roughly in my twenties.) I did make some effort to write stories as a teenager, but I also had to be careful because of course, every story I wrote, ANYTHING I wrote was secretly some attack against family members. (Add this to being a teenager, depressed and angry a lot and a lot of what I was writing actually being Cathartic and you have a mess)

    One of my story/plotlines involved an undead/constructed creature named Tatterwing (without playing d and d I somehow came up with a goddamn dracolich) that was partly created from the murdered soul of an evil sorcerer's daughter. Another story/plotline involved a shapechanger from a species with a strict caste based society. (Shape changer had The Angst because while they could shapeshift they could could not do The Magic because they absorbed magic.) I also did a setting that was meant to reflect Brian Daley's Magic Tapestry book (basically it was a place where other bits and pieces of other realities got dumped.) but someone I know said seemed more like a Jack L. Chalker setting, which kind of made me low-key scream in horror because I am not a fan of Chalker.

    This is a round about way of saying that the very extra "Tatterwing" backstory has somewhat attached itself to the "crow prince" story idea, and has mutated. We have a living sorceress who is living because the "demon" she was sacrificed to was actually a god ganked from some other pantheon. (god decided he/she likes sorceress better.) There are also some minor characters who have introduced themselves and I need a better working title, or at least a better end title.

    That is to say, she's the main character's mother. And I have a whole backstory taking shape in the princes's background, which is complicated and full of polycule parents and siblings, some of whom are gods. As you do.
     
    Last edited: Aug 27, 2018
  6. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    I am kind of squeeing over Jumping Jack Trash's stalemate verse. Mostly because the orcs he came up with are EXACTLY the kind of orcs I want to see? These orcs have a culture and a worldbuilding that is much, much different than the (kinda creepy) "primitive society" worldbuilding they get. And he just kind of slides in all this worldbuilding and characterization in just a few lines. Krate has a parental side that won't let him ignore a possibly dangerous cursed kid, even if human, Enki has a "good heart" that won't let him ignore someone in need. T

    hese guys might be slated to be the "bad guys," but they aren't exactly what you expect. I have feels about "designated evil" species okay. My feel can be boiled down to "fuck you, no."

    For this I think I can mostly blame Raymond E. Feist, David Eddings and even Andre Norton a little bit. But maybe Raymond E. Feist the most, because his books were pretty formative for me, and also because it was the first incident where I saw that "inherently evil species" did not mix very well with the concept of "cultural differences."
    (This is mostly because I despised the human Tsurani invaders, was annoyed that the "good" elves" were all blond and the "bad" elves were all brunets and extremely fascinated by the more or less undead "absolutely evil" valheru, while one of the heroes of the story was being slowly possessed by one of the valheru.)

    We can maybe also blame Katherine Kurtz's Deryni books, but I don't know how much of them I read. I just know that the magic users are persecuted as being evil, and somehow they're all Catholic and yet not even on Earth or something. This is a long way of say I am just stupidly impressed/fascinated with the stalemate worldbuilding and want more, please.
     
  7. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    So, I'm working on the excel doc for the marriage alliance thing. So far, I just worked on the back story and some other story ideas I had. I need to make things a little more organized though. The backstory has expanded a bit, and I actually want to try writing some of it out. I'm definitely getting character voices, and the prince has suddenly acquired two (technically) older half sisters and two younger sisters.

    The back story relationship is a polycule involving the sorceress, a trickster god, his/her wife, and the shaman sent off on a quest to find out what the hell happened to the trickster god. (Answer: he rescued a bunch of mercenaries, was captured and ended up in a goetic summoning manual because of a wind/bird demon who got him pregnant: don't ask.) Their face book pages relationship status is "it's complicated."

    The prince and his sisters were all very strange and freaky to the sorceress-queen's nobility. Lots of rumors and speculation, and no one knows what the hell to do about the sorceress being bff with a trickster god they still think is a demon. The prince and one of his younger sisters were both preemies. The prince only survived because the sorceress got up and invented a way to keep him alive with magic. (This lead to rumors he was undead and so on.)
    The prince's eyesight is damaged and his lungs aren't great, but he can play warrior-mage for a few hours before he needs a lie down.

    The prince's older sisters are his closest allies/his left-right hands. One of the younger sisters is in a marriage alliance with another kingdom, the other is off Learning How to be a Shaman.

    I'm sticking in little pronunciation guides with the kingdom names and some of the worldbuilding details in the excel doc. I'm still figuring out how to use excel to organize my worldbuilding notes.

    I need a better story name though. I am not great at story titles. They are almost as hard as writing good summaries that sell the fic. (Speaking summaries that sell the fic, I need to work on the summary of one of my long fics.) It can take me a couple tries before I can come up with a good summary.
     
  8. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    I've been working on the marriage alliance fic project, which means I'm poking at an open excel sheet trying to figure out how to best turn it into a worldbuilding worksheet. So far I have the backstory/outline sheet, a character sheet and a sheet that's going to be for the various nations/kingdoms involved. Probably other sheets will list or expand on other stuff. (I really do like the worldbuilding part of a project.)

    So, The first character I'm making a profile of is Jann, the sorcerer prince.
    What I got so far:

    Jann
    Appearance: Tall and slim but lots of lean muscle. Slight squint even with his glasses, a slightly quizzical and amused expression. Black hair kept back in a braid, amber eyes. Slightly crooked nose due to accidental shield bash during childhood shenanigans involving pots stolen from kitchens. Weak lungs and bad eyesight due to having been premature. Scars on hands, arms and legs, most of them from childhood shenanigans, some of them from combat.

    Education: Jann was taught mostly by tutors and his mother. Education divided between "things a noble should know," (debate, conversations, dance, politics, estate management, ettiquette, classics, writing/mathematics, languages) "things a warrior should know" (tactics/strategy armed combat hand to hand combat, logistics officer training) and "things a sorcerer should know" (summoning of entities, distribution and expulsion of energies, wards, knowledge of other realities, medical knowledge, illusions, charms)

    Skills: Jann can speak four languages well and two poorly. He has a good knowledge of the classics, mathematics and politics. A good dancer, bad poetry, good letter writing skills and penmanship. His usual weapons are long sword and dagger, though he has some skill with archery on foot or on horse. He's better at tactics than strategy. Hand to hand tends to be random brawling with a few actual wrestling/boxing movies. Magic skills tend to be toward illusions, distribution and expulsion of energies and medical knowledge. Languages: (need to be created.)
     
  9. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    I would LIKE to work on the Forest Room project, but it's still on hiatus. Hopefully I get further with this project.
     
  10. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    Whyyyy do I try to outline? I never outline. I am crap at outlining. And yet, I keep trying to outline even though I tend to go off the planned outline. (Technically, I only outlined the back story, but still.) I did more fan fic than original fic this week.
     
  11. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    So, in the current original project, a question:

    I have two women who are foster/adopted daughters of the queen. These two women grew up in two cultures and have all the various education required by their culture. One of those skills is music! They both drum and sing.

    And the nobles in my head are like "..."

    So: Is it accurate that pseudo euro medieval (though not quite) would find percussion an oddly chosen section of the orchestra for young ladies of savvy, charm and occasionally kicking you ass?
     
  12. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    About 625 words of the original fic, and about 1000 or so of worldbuilding/character creation/fiddling with my excel worksheet.

    I rewrote the opening. My tense is all over the place because I'm used to writing present and "you."


    “I think Carlon and Tarsill do arranged marriages the same way,” Jann’s sister had said during his brief visit to Tarsill. “You’re introduced to your future spouse, you go to parties together and then you meet the parents and try not to say anything stupid. They also try to make you convert to Sumoran. That might not be as much of an issue with you, since you’re going back to Athyr. I had the choice between Sumoran and Alethan!”

    “Which did you pick?” Jann asked with a small smile for Linea’s somewhat scandalized ladies. Speaking of spiritual decisions of such import like a housewife selecting a chicken for the pot! (Jann felt that his sister’s ladies should have been used to this by now. Perhaps she wore them out on scandal and had to get new ones every so often.)

    “Oh, Alethan,” Linea said. “The royal family is Alethan, and well it just fits better.”

    Jann nodded. “Perhaps I could look into it, and see if it would be an acceptable solution if I’m pressed,” he said.

    Linea laughed. “Father would laugh himself sick, or kill you.”

    “If I were very unlucky, probably both,” Jann said wryly. Either one, he doesn’t say. That would be a little too much scandal, even though he was sure the ladies were aware that the Sorceress of Athyr had two husbands. (Who knows how they’d act if they knew she occasionally had a wife and a husband, two husbands and one wife, or two wives and one husband.) “Is there any other advice?”

    Linea frowned thoughtfully at him. “Well, do I need to tell you to be kind and patient?” she asked. “And to actually talk to her?”

    “I think I might be able to attempt those things,” Jann said. “But,” he gestures to his eyes, his face, his clothes. He’s tall, plain and gangly, more boy than man, with a broken nose, thick glasses and a squint. His eyes were gold, and he wore the black and silver of an Athyran mage, and the silver circlet of a crown prince. No matter how he tried, his future wife was going to see an Athyran mage-prince with strange eyes. She would be full of terrible stories about Athyr, and was going to be living there, surrounded by people she was afraid of. “I’m going to frighten her.”

    “You’re sitting on the floor sorting my embroidery threads by color, and my needles by size, Jann,” Linea said. “If she sews, all you have to do is find a way to be invited into her solar, and all her fears will vanish.”

    Jann looked down to see this was absolutely true. He sighed, and the ladies gave nervous giggles. Then he squinted at the pattern his sister was working on. “Are you sure you want that shade of green?” he asked.

    “What’s wrong with this shade of green?” Linea asked.

    “Well, it’s wrong.” Jann said. He picked up a different bit of silk floss. “This is the one you want.”

    “They’re the same color, and you’re blind.”

    “So are you,” Jann said with a grin. He reaches out to poke her glasses, and she sits back with an annoyed look. “This green is two steps more blue than yellow, which goes with the darker green you’re using better.”

    “I’m not pulling this entire cross stitch pattern out to do over again,” Linea said. “The color’s fine.”

    “It’s still wrong though.”

    “I will tie you in a knot and hang you in a tree to dry,” Linea says in Athyran. “I will bury you face down in a bog--”

    “That’s actually a thing,” Jann said.

    “Out, you’re a terrible brother, go ask my husband advice!” Linea had said.
     
  13. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    I still do not have a proper name for the Alliance Marriage story. I am displeased. Also, I suck at titles. I got some writing done, and got some opinions for the new opening, but I got sidetracked by Porn for the Porn Channel. (As one does.)

    I don't have any "naming languages" set up, but I'm using a number of pronunciation templates, and doing some information insertion. (I try to avoid information dumping having experienced the True Horror of same because of a certain writer I read a lot when I was younger.)

    A thing that annoys me about second world/epic fantasy. There is seldom a name pronunciation key, and in fact I think it went out of fashion? (Possibly because of Tough Guide. Thank for removing a useful feature Ma'am!)

    So yeah, name pronunciation keys, several of them should be a thing. (I also think there should be entire rooms full of Rundorig.)

    I am trying to get a feel what people look like, or rather, what the various peoples look like. The Northern Barbarians Are Mostly Not White Even Though I Think of Them As Pseudo Vikings And I May Need to Research the Heida and Maybe Also Algonquin and Iroquois.

    I have no idea what the Barbarians call themselves but I know that Jaan's mom has an alliance with a specific league/confederacy of tribes and dad 2 is from that league. The Northerners tend to raid/trade but more recently are forming mercenary bands and doing more trading than raiding. (Previously their only encounter with being hired as mercenaries was "this tribe is hired to cause trouble on this border. That tribe is hired to wipe out this other tribe which would have been their inclination anyway since they've been feuding for forty years but being paid to do it is awesome.)

    I had vague "Norse" feels up until suddenly they had clan poles and the shape of their ships changed. FML. (I may also slightly want to do it because of a writer shitting on some Native American nations and exotifying others in his Change series.) Also, I was slightly traumatized in a good way by Gaslight Dogs, which was depressing as all fuck and which I may at some point try to read again despite the trauma.
     
  14. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    You may have noticed I spite write. In my defense, many of my best ideas come from things I have taken apart and reworked. I have done this since forever.
     
    • Like x 1
  15. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    I found The God Eaters on fiction press! I'm going to re-read it before trying to get it onto a PDF. There is not particular reason why I'm talking about it here rather than on the GE fan discussion thread, except this time I want to kind of do a critical analysis I guess? I am deeply admiring of JJT's writing style and I want to learn more from it. (I also want to look at other writers I like, so.)

    Writing got done! I've been poking at Safety Dance which may be at it's last or next to last chapter, depending. I also poked at the Crow prince thing. (Working Title) I also want to work on Eldritch Rhythm but before I can do that, I need to be researching of the rap and hip hop. It's not a genre I have a lot of experience with! Sadly, this does not stop Our Heroine from having hip hop as her genre.
     
  16. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    Okay so, Jennifer Roberson. She had two series she was originally Best Known For. One was Cheysuli, and the other was Sword Dancer. In Sword Dancer you have a Straw Feminist wandering into Misogyny Land with a dumbass at her side to find her brother who has been sold into slavery. (She then leaves her brother with his owner because he doesn't want to go back North with her.) There are other adventures, and the dumbass turns out to have interesting traumas similar to Straw Feminist's but my favorite character will always be the dumbass' horse.

    In Cheysuli you have a contrived eugenic prophecy between two related ethnicities who really hate each other because of said eugenic prophecy and in which one side keeps trying to get the upper hand. This is not as interesting as it might sound because the Cheysuli boys keep getting they asses seduced by Ilhini girls, and Ilhini boys are deeply terrible to Cheysuli girls. (But then, Cheysuli boys are ALSO deeply terrible to Cheysuli girls so I guess it's fair?) Also, the Ilhini are apparently devil worshipers, yet Roberson tried, much too late to write the novel where the Ilhini viewpoint was presented fairly. (At the very end and then the Ilhini technically lose their campaign to maintain their ethnicity in the face of the mutually genocidal eugenic prophecy one side was trying to subvert (the Ilhini) and the other to follow (the Cheysuli).

    Supposedly, you either like one series or another. I am galaxy brained and can take or leave both series, which have their good moments and their bad moments. The end result is that I don't much care for Jennifer Roberson's writing for Very Good Reasons. (I tried to read her more recent series and couldn't find much to interest me, so.)
     
  17. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    Things got written this month, but not as much as I would have liked. I would like to do prompts, but I am apparently not the kind of writer who gets lots of prompts from their followers, or a lot of interaction. (I am bad at social!) I am in envy of writers who seem to get a lot of interaction from their followers, while also being relieved because of some of the more hostile asks they get.

    (I have had many kerfuffles because of social problems, my anxiety/depression/self-destructive spirals are awesome, except no, they aren't.)
     
    • Witnessed x 1
  18. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    I am thinking about the conversation I've seen on my tumblr roll about preppers and their prep fail where they fail to understand that they can't scavenge over the long term and they will need to have to create community infrastructure such as cloth making/soap/a forge/leatherworks/a mill maybe and so on. The prep fail is mighty and awesome and I can't help but think back to when I was a kid during the Cold War reading post apocalyptic men's adventure and being slightly freaked out by Certain Horrible Movies About Nuclear War. (The apocalyptic men's adventure usually had the same lack of infrastructure/belief that shit to scavenge would be lying around forever that the preppers in the argument seem to think would happen.)

    And also having detailed fantasies about post apocalyptic living, most of which involved trying to figure out how to build a house? Granted there were some "okay, where can I get clothes and stuff," and so on, but most of it was about building a garden and a house and figuring out how to take care of myself so I wouldn't need to go on long treks for things. But that's just me. (I never really learned how to sew or make clothes or anything. I am a slow learner and lessons from mother and grandmother usually resulted in tears.)

    Thinking about all of this led to Gene and Carol having an argument. I do no know who Gene and Carol are except they are both more or less preppers. Carol however knows a bit of everything it would take to create a community infrastructure and Gene does not. They argue a lot! Their communities are not that far apart, except Gene's community is not doing as well as Carol's community due to Gene's community lacking infrastructure and soap. Hopefully Carol will be able to teach Gene to be less of a dumbass.

    Another post apoc story idea I've had off and on mostly involves some people who are let out of prison (as opposed to having their brains blown out, which was a Real Concern) by the guards. For lack of anywhere to go, one of the former convicts suggests his aunt's farm. (Despite knowledge that one of his cousins lives there, and that cousin hates protag's guts.) The aunt is somewhere between prepper and hippie, and on the way protag and his friends have to fend off creepy racist asshats who are convinced they're here to Raid Their Farms and Steal Their Women.
     
  19. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    TFW no one comments on something you wrote.
     
  20. OtherCat

    OtherCat a being of mysterious happenstance

    I think I might try to do a variation of nano wrimo where I just try to make the word count, but not necessarily have it be a continuous story.

    OR I might try to do Eldritch Rhythm. (Which would involve learning more about hip hop and/or the music industry.) It is a charming romance between a demon hunter and an exasperated runaway priestess of Powers Beyond Time and Space.

    In other news, I have been doing pretty good at getting writing 1000+ words a day in some cases for jam fics but they kind of die off. It's very frustrating!
     
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