Hey-o,

So update: Christmas happened. Which means I’ve been out of town which means bad wifi, and I failed one of my rules which was to update this Sunday. It also means two days were too busy to write in, and I only got about 300 words done on those two days. Never fear though. It was Christmas and I’m going to say those didn’t count cause I was lucky enough to write at all. Luckily I’ve been able to catch up on writing recently.

Another big thing, like I said, I changed the beginning of the story, which means that I have a lot of rewrites to do, but I’ve been more confident this time around. The only problem is I’m letting the rewriting take over and it’s adding to the anxiety of moving on from the beginning, and eventually I have to do that. I have this problem every time I write. I like building things so when I have to stay in them I get nervous about how it’s paced and what needs to be covered, and it’s a draft it’ll never be perfect so I just gotta do it, ya know? Gah! I will say I’m more aware of when I’m whacking my head against a wall than I’ve been, so progress is progress.

I got finished writing a new scene addressing how the forest is scary and full of monsters today that I’m really proud of. God the creatures are so cool, I’m going to have to bring them into my DnD campaign sometime…and draw them. They’re dead now, but they were so cool. I kind of just came up with them on the spot. I’ve been really into creature design lately. Something about DMing, and rewatching Avatar with Gable house, and this story that I’m working on has really got me in love with creatures again. There was a time when I was a kid that I hated everything girly and I didn’t want to be seen as girly, so I double downed on bugs and creepy monsters. And now that I have a better handle on my gender, I’ve kinda neglected my creepy side and went hard into everything cute. It’s nice to go back to creatures, it feels like childhood for me.

Oh! I finished reading a book for fun today (for the first time since the semester started). It was kind of trash, but it’s one of those series that I’m committed to. I’m like the only adult who reads this series it feels like, even though it was hella violent. The MC is totally a self insert of the author, like it’s not even funny, and she’s in this love heptagon with her bad-ass crew of the most ridiculously over-powered elves teenagers. And she’s kind of related to this unicorn pegasus? And the horse just kind of gave birth, but almost not cause she was having twins and they had to incubate the horses in a beehive because these are the last of their species and if they go extinct it’ll be bad for the elves sociopolitical image. Oh her boyfriend almost murdered his brother. Like I said, it’s a rollercoaster (and 866 pages in this one book). And people make fun of me for knowing too much about Sharknado. Seriously the bad Syfy franchises aren’t the worst part of my media diet. So after this I’m moving onto well written books.

Hey-o.

Why is it that I always get my best ideas at 1 in the morning when I’m trying to sleep and not, I don’t know, when I’m outlining?

I’m making good work on my goal right? I’m almost exactly where I thought I’d be in a week, and that’s amazing cause I’ve never set goals like that before. And I’m coming across these problems with the introduction of the book. Like one of my MC’s, Tes, has enchantment magic, she can make anyone do what she wants by talking to them, but all the characters she interacts with at the start are immune to her magic, so it’s not shocking that Gurgle (she’s one of my other MC’s, my favorite to be quite honest) is also immune. So then how is Tes stuck on this grand adventure?

I remember when I was writing the introduction scenes the first time I had trouble figuring out how to both demonstrate her power and still trap her. And I’m not one for damsels. My world is a human empire ruled by a monarch of any gender, damsels are too old school. But I think it might be the only way. Tes has to be trapped because it has to be amazing when she’s finally allowed to use her powers.

And this gives me the opportunity to fix a couple other problems with my story: namely the separation between the humans and the goblins. In the original outline I have it so that the humans live on the coast where the magic is weaker and the monsters aren’t as present as they are in the forest, but that has the question “why did they even stay?” Like this isn’t where the humans came from, it’s a failed colony. A disgrace, truly, but it’s not all the have. And there’s a lot of things I like about this original concept. I have these pier towns that are built extending over the sea and It has this prince guy feeling like he’s hot shit cause he’s the last royal, but you know what they say about killing your lovelies.