Life Stuff
2020 is coming to a close, thank goodness! But it’s not over yet! This month started out with some good news, compared to what I was getting for a good long while, there: I was getting recalled to work! It wasn’t completely for the whole day, but it was enough, and I didn’t mind a bit! (After the first week, they bumped me back up to my full hours anyhow, so that’s that!The way they’re working the hybrid model is a group of up to 10 kids (there is currently eight in one group and 10 in the other) coming either Monday-Tuesday or Thursday-Friday, so it’s two small groups, they’re only in the building till 11:30, and then after my lunch, I spend about two and a half hours doing projects for teachers! Pretty easy, if you ask me. It’s certainly a lot easier to keep track of eight little kindergarteners than sixty-plus second-graders! And having only one recess in the day helps it not feel like I’m constantly going in and out of the room or spending half my day outside when I’d rather be in the room teaching a group!
So that was the start of my month, and it ended with the Thanksgiving holiday. Yet another in a long year of holidays which we would normally use as an excuse to get together with family or invite friends—but which we ended up spending as the same household group we’ve been every other day... Still, we did end up gathering as a family (except those that were sick, too far away, or did not want to take the risk) and that was lots of fun! The kiddos enjoyed seeing their baby cousin, and especially the amazing presents that “Nona and Papa” brought, like this sweet new ride for the two-year-old!
So that was the start of my month, and it ended with the Thanksgiving holiday. Yet another in a long year of holidays which we would normally use as an excuse to get together with family or invite friends—but which we ended up spending as the same household group we’ve been every other day... Still, we did end up gathering as a family (except those that were sick, too far away, or did not want to take the risk) and that was lots of fun! The kiddos enjoyed seeing their baby cousin, and especially the amazing presents that “Nona and Papa” brought, like this sweet new ride for the two-year-old!
The other thing that pretty much monopolized all my free time this month was NaNoWriMo—It’s largely due to this that I have such stellar numbers as far as word-count goes, but still didn’t quite get done the reading I wanted to be able to accomplish—only three books, which puts me at a total of 40 books for the year so far—which means I need to complete 10 books in the month of December to make my goal of 50 books! I hope I can do it, considering that I won’t have to push myself as much for writing in a “normal” month as I have in this last month!
Words Written: 50K (I did it!)
Books Read: 3/4 (so close!)
Writing
Adventures in NaNoWriMo: Fugitive of Crossway
For Princess of Undersea it was all very straightforward because I could make my main character a mermaid and basically tell the story most of the way through, only deviating with the changes that I decided to make, and whatever came of those. In Fugitive of Crossway, it's a little different because the story in question is Pinocchio who is, of course, a puppet whose ultimate desire is to be a "real boy" and all the pitfalls of the fact that he is a puppet of "very little brain", to borrow a phrase from A. A. Milne, and therefore susceptible to every negative trait and temptation toward laziness that besets a boy. It's a cautionary tale, but in Italian, not German (like the Grimm's fairy tales), so instead of getting right to the point with everything it meanders, it disguises the message it's trying to send behind extreme scenarios and florid descriptions--so how to "re-tell" that, exactly?
Well, the closest I can really get is to pick up where "The Castaway and The Carnival" left off, and show Simon as the "grunt man" in Twyner's carnival, and attempt to show both sides of Pinocchio's personality in both Simon's lapse from the studious, ardent, yet under-privileged boy of Overcliff, where he was meant as a foil to contrast Prince Nathan's happy-go-lucky, lackadaisical attitude, to someone who would just rather not work so much, who wants to just get home by whatever means possible. It's almost as if the hierarchical social structures of Crossway have rubbed off on Simon, and he's adopted the mindset of "if I don't need to work, why should I?" because that's the way people on a higher "social rung" behave. He's unwittingly become a "puppet" of the culture around him. It was easy to be "the responsible one" around someone who had all of his needs met without any sense of responsibility, but when the tables are turned and everyone around him seems to put in a lot of work to benefit those in higher standing than themselves, without ever getting anywhere, he finds it easy to "blend in" with them, slipping into their habits of only working when they're "supposed to", and finding ways to make it easier on themselves whenever they can.
Not that this is something I'm going to bring out blatantly in the narrative--just one of those subtle, meta-things that I'm almost using as an excuse as to why I'm not exactly following the actual plot of Pinocchio. (And I may or may not have come up with this whole dissertation off the top of my head as I'm writing it right now... Just saying...)
The really fun thing about this story, though, is the dual plot-line! I have Mellisande the Mobile Storyteller/Librarian/Bookseller, who is part "Blue Fairy Stand-In", part "gratuitous self-insert", and all-in-all a fun character to write! She's writing about Simon and Yssandra, you see, but she doesn't realize it because she's given them different names. It's not quite a "Stranger Than Fiction" moment, because Mel only "sees" the actual narrative in bits and pieces, and she tries to put the scenes together in some sort of reasonable plot--kind of like me! I took a few opportunities to depict Mel in her writing element, the way she puzzles over the things that she's seeing--but how those play into what happens to Simon and Yssandra and the rest, well, you'll just have to wait for it to be released so you can find out for yourself! The fun thing is that Mel has received a letter inviting her out to a small village on the far end of Outwest somewhere (a place I picture as resembling Australia's Outback--just a vast, largely uninhabited (those parts of it that are actually habitable in the first place) space in the middle of the continent, where not much goes on that anyone really knows about) and that's going to connect to when I write book 3, which is going to be set in Outwest, itself! That being said, only time will tell if Mel actually makes it out there, but the way I look at it, every time Outwest is mentioned becomes a bit of foreshadowing for Book 3!
That being said... I made it to about halfway through Chapter 4 (out of 11 or 12) and it's definitely going to need some editing, but it's on its way, and I'm happy!
Blog Serial Focus: Clan of Outcasts
Then there's the Elvendom contingent--I randomly decided to throw them in because there were a grouping of Fae-looking characters who all had similar design of contrasting lines on their faces and pointed ears, so I decided that this would be a new realm of "maybe enemies, maybe allies" and their influence would be felt all around (like poor Erlis, who's spent so long as a half-dragon, trying her best to remain human and almost making herself sick because of it; she tries a "cure" made by combining her blood somehow with Elvish blood, and while that takes care of the symptoms, it also starts slowly turning her into an Elf, first in appearance then in her senses as well--which itself presents a whole new subplot to pack in there on top of everything else I'm trying to do with this series... This was what I worked on during the last month, when I wasn't able to make progress on Fugitive of Crossway, so that's where I'm at on that front!
Seven installments deep and hoo-dawgies! Season 3 is definitely nothing like the first two of this series!
It's interesting because some of the flashbacks are re-capping stuff from three years ago, and others are at points during or before the timeline of the first two seasons, showing where the new characters come in--and I'm realizing more and more that I may have gotten too ambitious with this plot line. It was all nice and poetic to distribute the main characters from the first series into the different regions of The Realm at the end of the second series... but now I have to be careful with who I'm sending where and how many characters I have in the vicinity of one another at all given moments, because I am too much invested in continuity to mess up my own!
It's interesting because some of the flashbacks are re-capping stuff from three years ago, and others are at points during or before the timeline of the first two seasons, showing where the new characters come in--and I'm realizing more and more that I may have gotten too ambitious with this plot line. It was all nice and poetic to distribute the main characters from the first series into the different regions of The Realm at the end of the second series... but now I have to be careful with who I'm sending where and how many characters I have in the vicinity of one another at all given moments, because I am too much invested in continuity to mess up my own!
So far, I've got new Gifted characters like Risyn (successor to Korsan) and Anahita, who haven't gotten a lot of "airtime" just yet (but I'm probably going to make up for it at some point in the future, just you wait!), and then I have unGifted characters in just about every location (except the Wilderness, because that's now a community excusively for Gifted people, so the unGifted have no reason to be there) like Gavin (in the Forest), Hayden (in the Harbor), Sir Landis (at the Castle), and Markus (who is not really Gifted per se, but he's a cyborg, kind of like Denahlia!).
Bits 'N' Bobs
There were a few other things I tried to use as a way of leveraging my word count this month (as I narrowly squeaked by at the last minute, truth be told!)
I made progress on the short story "The Runalongs", which was inspired by this post where three or four people talk about experiencing the same phenomenon of imagination during long car rides. When I'm done with it, the story itself would probably fit into an anthology with a "folklore" or "creepy" theme, because the imagery is kind of frightening at first glance, but I'm keeping it also kind of tame by holding onto that "warm and cheery" aspect, like a thing that is bizarre-looking and almost threatening on the surface, but once you see the way it is comforting and nurturing, it loses some of its horrific factor.
I made progress on the short story "The Runalongs", which was inspired by this post where three or four people talk about experiencing the same phenomenon of imagination during long car rides. When I'm done with it, the story itself would probably fit into an anthology with a "folklore" or "creepy" theme, because the imagery is kind of frightening at first glance, but I'm keeping it also kind of tame by holding onto that "warm and cheery" aspect, like a thing that is bizarre-looking and almost threatening on the surface, but once you see the way it is comforting and nurturing, it loses some of its horrific factor.
Beyond that, the rest of my words are spent filling out interviews, promoting Princess of Undersea and also taking opportunity to network, as a writer. To see all the interviews I've been featured on, just head over to the page for The Undersea Saga and I should have all the interviews linked there! I never know what the different interviewers will ask, and very often there are at least one or two questions on there that enable me to give a deeper insight or share some behind-the-scenes tidbit that you might otherwise never hear about!
As for what I'm going to be doing for the rest of 2020... Pretty much the same thing I've been doing all this month, except there's not going to be as much pressure to write every single day, so I might just be able to get more reading done over December! I want to keep plugging away at Fugitive of Crossway, at least until I get this draft finished. I'll also be working through the Clan of Outcasts series, so that should give me plenty to do over these next few months when my brain decides it doesn't like to focus on just one project every day!
Reading
As I mentioned before, I didn't really have the rousing success in reading that I'd hoped for. I finally reached the last chapter in Anatomy of The Soul--very cool stuff I learned about the brain, about the function of memory, and about how a functional awareness of all these processes serve as a stepping stone to understanding our relationship with God, and also as a means of understanding how we perceive others, and how we can extend grace to them.
Then there was also Masked City by Genevieve Cogman, the second Invisible Library book--oh heck yes! I love every aspect of it. Not only does it deal in worlds in which fairy tale and reality have effectively swapped places, but then Cogman throws in these concepts of dragons who inhabit certain worlds with connections to the Library, and also Fae, which represent the opposite side of the spectrum of order versus chaos, and there were so many delicious interactions between characters from both the Dragon world and the Fae world that it was absolutely a delight to read!
The ebook I made it through for my "Reader's Review" this month (even though I wanted to be able to have two finished!) is Song, the first book in the Manhunters Trilogy by Jesse Teller. It's one that I picked up because of a giveaway like two years ago, because I was fascinated by the concept (I found it along the same lines as the idea that I was cooking up at the time that would become The Clan of Outcasts, and I definitely thought I needed more of that in my life!) To find out more about what I thought about it, click the hyperlink above!
Once I finish that one, there's Adaline by Denise Kawaii (Thanks to Dream With Your Eyes Open Book Reviews for posting the review of a book that I saw at my last ComicCon and got interested enough to buy it!) and I hope to finish up the year (or start the new year!) with Son of No One by Daryl J. Ball! I really enjoyed the quaint style of The Tannis Project so I can't wait to find out how he does with good old sword-and-sorcery!
As for the rest of my nightstand, pictured here are: the two books I picked up at a book sale last month, Final Witness by Simon Tolkien (actually his debut novel, before he even wrote the Inspector Trave novels, so that's cool!) and Micro by Michael Crichton; then Redemption by David Baldacci--it's the next book in the Amos Decker series, which I have very much enjoyed, so I have high hopes for this one! And then (if there's still time) I have the book I got for my birthday, Beyond The Valley of Thorns by Patrick Carman, the second book in the Land of Elyon series. I'm also still working my way through Hercule Poirot's Casebook. (Side note: I finally figured out that as I'm reading through the portions of the book that are actual separate titles as well, I can just pull that title up on GoodReads, and then it doesn't feel so much like I'm spending forever reading just this one book!)
That's a lot of books! There's no telling how many I can finish... but at least none of them are library checkouts, so if I don't end up getting through the whole pile before the end of the month (and the year!), I can just keep reading till they're done.
Wow! I think I can already say that I'm heading into finishing this year in a very different place than how I started it, on just about every front! How has this year been treating you? What have you been writing or reading? Let me know in the comments, and as always....
That's a lot of books! There's no telling how many I can finish... but at least none of them are library checkouts, so if I don't end up getting through the whole pile before the end of the month (and the year!), I can just keep reading till they're done.
Wow! I think I can already say that I'm heading into finishing this year in a very different place than how I started it, on just about every front! How has this year been treating you? What have you been writing or reading? Let me know in the comments, and as always....
Catch You Further Upstream!
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