the shower story

My total for last week is 4589 words. Comparatively low for me, but I'm okay with that because it all feels like progress. For one thing, my untitled Yami story is growing a title! I'm calling it Stigma. For now, anyway. Up til last week it was just "the shower story," because it's based on a scene from one of my old notebooks in which Tsuzuki and Hisoka are about to get in the shower together.

My task in writing this story is to figure out how they got to that point. Since I want the lead-up to flow seamlessly into the existing scene, so it's been a matter of plotting in reverse. I started by going through the shower scene and picking out elements of dialogue, situation, relationship dynamics, and so on.

Much as I tried to be systematic, though, it took a lot of writing and throwing away to get to a beginning for the story that has the right vibe to set up the mood of the later part of the story. As tough as it is, though, I'm really happy with how it's starting to come together. Of course I'll be even happier when the boys start coming together...

carbonmade rocks!

My current work contract is coming to an end at the animation studio where I work, so one of the things I absolutely had to get done last week was get my portfolio online and updated and looking reasonably professional.

I'd been putting it off because, while I technically can build websites, and have done so in the past, I was dreading the actual image gallery part. Lucky for me, I discovered carbonmade.com.

It's a portfolio service that lets you put your images up for free, in a very professional looking format. They also have a paid version that allows more images, but the free one was perfectly fine for what I needed to do. So carbonmade gets a big thumbs up from me, and for anyone who's interested, feel free to check out my spiffy new animation portfolio!

Word count

I was sick with an Evil Virus this week, so I was amazed to tally up my word count for the week and realize that I still got just over 7,000 words written, across three different projects.

Embarrassingly, the vast majority of that, around 4,500 words, was written for my untitled project, though the actual chunk that I'm keeping is under 3,000 words. I wonder if an inevitable part of writing consists of churning out scenes until something actually seems to fit. Maybe it is, though I can't help wondering if there's some way to shorten that process. Perhaps it's a skill that comes with experience?

On the plus side, I was typing along on Lucidity this week and suddenly realized that I have one scene left to go in Act 2, which means I am halfway through the first draft! Act 2 is a mess at the moment, with randomly placed chapter breaks and a number of original characters who don't actually have names yet, but that's okay... it's progress, and I'm really excited about it.

My favorite line is from my untitled story, so far called "the shower story" on my hard drive.

Hisoka stilled beneath him, his eyes taking on a look of expectancy. His body felt hot through the layers of their clothing and he was all sinew and sharp angles, his lean chest rising in sharp, quick pants.

I so love writing from Tsuzuki's POV...

weekly word count

Favorite line of the week:

Hisoka's body, frozen as it was at a hormonally inconvenient age, was not to be trusted at the best of times. Sharing hotel rooms with Tsuzuki when they were out on cases together had become its own special kind of torture.

My butt is being kicked by an Evil Virus this week, but I still managed to get a decent chunk of writing done. For Lucidity, my "A" story, I got 4,669 words written. For my untitled "B" story, I wrote 2,315 words, and for a third story, tentatively titled Scorched Earth, I wrote 1,379 words. So for the week of March 2 thru 8, that's a grand total of...

8,363 words. Yay, me!

weekly word count

So this is my word count report for the week of Feb 23 thru Maruch 1:

For Lucidity, my "A" story, I wrote 4,767 words. For my untitled "B" story I wrote 2,356 words, though not all of those will actually end up in the story. But I still wrote them. So that brings my word count for the week to... (drumroll please...) 7123 words in total. Go me!

word count quandry

Today I wrote just over 900 words on my "B" story, which is based on a scene I found in one of my Yami notebooks. The scene in question falls somewhere near the end of the story, since it involves Tsuzuki and Hisoka gettin' busy with each other, I've been working backwards from that point, trying to figure out how they got there.

This, I'm finding, is not such a simple thing to do! In fact, it's quite a challenge. Over the past couple of weeks I've written several versions of what I keep hoping will be the beginning of this story. I like several of them, but none of them "feels" quite right.

I'm wondering if I should still record those scenes as part of my weekly word count? I'm 99% sure that they won't end up in the story, but they are still part of my daily writing practice in the sense that I showed up at my keyboard and wrote them. So I'm leaning towards counting them in the sense of "words that I wrote this week," and then maybe having a separate counter for my actual projects.

Either way, I find that keeping track of my words per day is really motivating. Even if what I wrote today doesn't end up in the story, I can still say I accomplished something.

Random Generator Recs

I love random generators. When I'm stuck for ideas, I often hit my favorite random generator sites for just that perfect bit of random serendipity that will get my brain bouncing off in fresh new directions. Here are a few of my faves:

Seventh Sanctum - there are (seemingly) a billion different generators here, on all kinds of topics from the bizarre to the hilarious to the downright... useful. My favorite area to visit on this website is the section called "writing," which has several random plot-generators, in various flavors.

Nine Frenchboys - has a comprehensive selection of generators on all kinds of things, from settings to costume ideas to character profiles. For those who, like me, write in anime-based fandoms, I particularly recommend the Japanese Male and Japanese Female name generators, which will happily spew out as many names as you need for all those pesky incidental characters.

Cool Bits - this is my favorite plot generator of all time. As the name suggests, it generates the "cool bits" for your story and leaves the rest to your imagination. There's something so evocative about the way the prompts are worded that my imagination starts running wild. (Even when it doesn't exactly make sense.) Here's a random example:

Your story begins with a woman who dresses sensibly for battle in the ocean. The antagonist is a priestess who is motivated because they've always wanted to be a hero. Plot elements include overcoming an age difference in a romantic relationship and premature greying.

Next time you're feeling stuck for a story idea, give it a whirl. It's guaranteed to get you thinking in avenues you wouldn't have come up with on your own, and you never know--it might be the inspiration for your next novel.