This week has certainly been interesting and weird. To be honest, a lot of it had been a bit of a blur and it feels like it's flown by. And while January usually feels like it lasts for an eternity, I still can't believe that it's already February. I think it helps that I've been really busy this week, and also my memory is probably on the fuzzy side because, as you may have guessed from the title, I've been ill through most of it.
Yeah, I couldn't quite believe it myself. I'm one of those people who almost always never gets physically ill. I know from the way I've talked in some of my author's notes that doesn't look like the case, but usually when I say I've been ill in an author's note, it's down to mental illness or because I've had a stress induced headache or something. But I almost always never catch bugs or colds. And (touch wood) I've never ever had the flu in my whole entire life. I think what did it for me this week was karma.
I was just having a casual conversation with TLOS21, and she mentioned that she had caught a cold. I then essentially started bragging about how I hadn't had a cold in well over a year at that point, and that I almost never catch them. Well...guess who then caught one a few days later? That's what I get I suppose. Though I have been quite lucky in that it wasn't a severe one that left me unable to breathe through my nose. My nose has been pretty much okay. It's always my throat and ears that suffer when I have a cold. I've had a horrible tickly cough nearly all week, my throat has been sore and congested, and my ears have been all stuffy and started making those annoying popping sounds that they do when they get like this. But whatever, no big deal, I can usually handle a cold.
It didn't really effect my ability to work much, so I got on with writing and other things that I needed to get done. However, what did mainly effect my writing this week was some huge technical problems I've been having. Because I'm rubbish with computers, I had to wait for my boyfriend to be available to try and fix it for me, and even he didn't really have much of an idea of what was going on. My laptop always stumps him which just goes to prove how horrible it is. It literally took my laptop ten minutes to re-start. Pretty sure computers in the nineties booted up faster than that, and I'm sure I remember my family's windows 98 computer loading much faster. Plus, my charger isn't working properly anymore in that it picks and chooses when to work. At first I thought it was just worn out or that I had damaged the wire somehow, but that doesn't really explain why it chooses when it's going to work.
Needless to say, I'm gonna have to start trying to save up for a new laptop, which is annoying, because I also want to try and save up for a new bed and a Nintendo Switch. It's times like this where I really wish I could win the lottery. Everything always seems to break on me when I'm broke and struggling for money. I need some new clothes as well because they always keep seeming to rip or go missing. No joke, half of my wardrobe is missing at this point and I have no idea where it's all gone. I swear there are goblins that break into my house and just steal all of my clothes.
So yeah, my laptop issues lead to the latest chapter of Madness Within being delayed. I had originally planned to get the chapter done for Monday, but because of my laptop playing up, that didn't end up happening. I managed to get the next chapter of Chat Vert done pretty much without a hitch, and you can now read the latest chapter by clicking here. I didn't manage to sit down this week and write some chapters for that story in advance like I had planned, as once I had finished one chapter, all I wanted to do was just collapse and sleep.
Thursday rolls around, the day I had suggested on Twitter would be the day that the next chapter of Madness Within got uploaded. I had to get up super early that morning as I had an early, long meeting that I needed to attend. I had only gotten four hours of sleep that night because I was really anxious about it, so I was tossing and turning pretty much all night, not helped by the fact that I was struggling to breathe thanks to all of the stupid congestion. Luckily, the meeting went okay, though it was exhausting, and some rude guy stormed in and interrupted it while he could clearly see from the window of the office that I was in the middle of something. Not to mention, he knew what type of meeting it was as well and that it was an extremely private thing. Yeah, I was not happy. I don't think it helped that I was grouchy from a lack of sleep.
When I got home, all I wanted to do was collapse in bed and go to sleep, but I knew that I had said I would get the chapter finished for that day. I was beginning to feel worse and worse. I could barely keep my eyes open, my stomach was playing up thanks to my earlier anxiety attacks, and I was just feeling downright rotten. I tried to force myself to keep writing though, however, once I wrote the same sentence five times, I knew I was in trouble and that I couldn't continue. I wanted to get the chapter done, sure, but I also didn't want to do a terrible job at it.
I figured I would just have to rest and finish it off today instead. I ran myself a nice hot bubble bath and just laid curled up in bed for the rest of the evening, and to be honest, I don't really remember most of it, I was that loopy with tiredness at that point. I do remember annoying the hell out of my boyfriend by babbling on about random facts and philosophical questions. But I passed out soon enough and managed to sleep for a lovely ten hours, meaning that today I was well-rested, happy and ready to go. I still have a bit of a cold, but it's much better today. The latest chapter of Madness Within has now thankfully been finished, and you can read it by clicking here. I'm going to try and do a much faster update next time to make up for my shenanigans lately.
Speaking of Madness Within, I now have a poll open on my FanFiction profile where you can vote on whether or not I should write a sequel. When I first planned the story, it was originally just meant to be one story with no sequels or anything. But I also had to omit a lot of the ideas I had for the story due to a lack of room which always bothered me, because I always thought one idea would be pretty interesting and almost crucial to the story. That's when I was just laying in bed a few days ago when an idea hit me. Why not include some of these ideas in a sequel? It would totally make sense as well. But then I was like "hmmm, should I really write a sequel?" Would Madness Within just be enough on its own? I know that less is sometimes more. I started getting paranoid about milking it, so I then thought it might be best to get you guys to help me decide.
So please please please, if you're a fan of that story, vote in my poll and help me out. I'm such an indecisive moron and unless I get you guys' opinions, I'll always be paranoid. I figured it would be best to do this now rather than when the the story is over, because with the idea I have with the sequel at the moment, I need to alter the ending of the story accordingly. So if you can, please vote in my poll by going to my FanFiction profile by clicking here. You'd be massively helping me out if you did. Thank you, thank you!
It's a shame that I couldn't be more productive this week as it was snowing where I live this week. I don't know why, but I always get more productive when it's snowing or raining. For most people it usually seems to be the opposite. It was a shame that it didn't stick for the most part. Though I hear America are having some pretty extreme cold weather at the moment. The pictures on LycoRogue's blog, The Rogue's Scribe, looked so beautiful.
Speaking of LycoRogue, her story, Woven Heartstrings, is now finished! I haven't read the final chapter yet, but part of me is almost putting it off. I'm going to be so sad yet happy that the story is ending. I really can't believe that she could be so nice and create this story for me. It's so perfect! If you guys haven't read it already, then you should definitely go check it out. I can't recommend her work enough because she is such a talented writer. So if you're a sucker for love-square fics, mainly MariChat, then please read Woven Heartstrings. It literally nearly made me cry in parts, which is difficult to make me do. Does that give you a sense of how amazing it is?
I also really enjoyed our little debates that we had on my In Defence of Marinette posts on my blog. Part two is now out by the way, and you can read it by clicking here. Feel free to comment and let me know your thoughts on my opinions and analysis of things. I won't be offended if you disagree with me. That's what debate is all about. But unfortunately, I don't think there will be anymore fan theories and general thoughts on the show from me, as it's definitely looking like we're finally getting quite a few new season three episodes. If the schedule I'm seeing is true, it looks like I'm going to be very busy writing episode reviews this month. So be sure to keep an eye out for those which will hopefully be released every Monday after a new episode has aired.
To be honest, because I've been sick, I haven't really been up to much else this week. Though I did start learning Spanish again through the app I talked about last week, Duolingo. It was actually a lot easier than I remembered. So yeah, I'm now starting to learn two languages again. I know I said I was going to learn French and Japanese, but for some reason, I found myself doing German and Spanish instead. Oh well. I'll get to French and Japanese at some point. I doubt I'll ever be fluent, but I at least want to try and learn enough to get by. I wish the UK would make it mandatory to learn other languages at school like most countries do. We don't start having to learn a language until we start high school, but that's only for about two to three years before we can drop the class if we want.
I'm becoming addicted to playing video games again as well these past few months. For the longest time, I lost my passion for them, probably mainly down to depression and stuff I had going on in my life at the time. But lately, I'm really re-discovering my love for them. I finally started playing my favourite game, Stardew Valley, this week since I had the urge to run away and start a new life. Sometimes I really wish that I lived in that game. Though to be honest, I'd probably be really bad at everything in real life. Even though I'm obsessed with breeding slime in the game (no clue why, I like all the pretty colours I guess), I'd probably get killed by one straight away in real life.
I've had no other weird ghost experiences this week, thank goodness. I still have no explanation for what happened to me last week. It was so weird. It's definitely made me a little more open minded to the possibility of the paranormal being real. Though to be honest, I have always said that if paranormal stuff is real, then it's just science that is yet to be understood. After all, we don't know everything about the universe we live in. I always wondered if ghosts were a paranormal universe that was colliding with ours and we were seeing the shadows of its existence. That's one of my theories anyway.
On the topic of the paranormal, I haven't really had much of a chance to plan some more of Immortal Bond this week. I once again seem to have hit a dead end with it. LycoRogue keeps offering her help to me, but I keep not taking it as I know she's a fan of the story and I don't want to spoil things for her, but at this point, I am on the verge of accepting just to maybe have some fresh eyes look at the project. Maybe she can figure out where I'm going wrong with anything. But at the moment, I think I'm just going to keep doing more research. I'll see how things go.
Also, chapter seven of Destiny's Dance has now been cleaned up and polished, and has now been re-uploaded onto FanFiction. You can also now read the chapter on AO3 by clicking here. The same goes for chapter eleven of Madness Within. The polished version is now available to read on FanFiction as well as AO3 which you can read by clicking here.
Anyway, that's pretty much all I have to talk about this week. I hope that you guys are all doing okay. I have a bit of a busy week next week, but I'm hoping that won't affect my writing too much. I'm hoping to update Madness Within a bit more frequently as well as get some chapters of Chat Vert written in advance. I'm going to keep planning Immortal Bond as well as my other future stories as well. See you all again soon.
Pixie out.
Yeah, I couldn't quite believe it myself. I'm one of those people who almost always never gets physically ill. I know from the way I've talked in some of my author's notes that doesn't look like the case, but usually when I say I've been ill in an author's note, it's down to mental illness or because I've had a stress induced headache or something. But I almost always never catch bugs or colds. And (touch wood) I've never ever had the flu in my whole entire life. I think what did it for me this week was karma.
I was just having a casual conversation with TLOS21, and she mentioned that she had caught a cold. I then essentially started bragging about how I hadn't had a cold in well over a year at that point, and that I almost never catch them. Well...guess who then caught one a few days later? That's what I get I suppose. Though I have been quite lucky in that it wasn't a severe one that left me unable to breathe through my nose. My nose has been pretty much okay. It's always my throat and ears that suffer when I have a cold. I've had a horrible tickly cough nearly all week, my throat has been sore and congested, and my ears have been all stuffy and started making those annoying popping sounds that they do when they get like this. But whatever, no big deal, I can usually handle a cold.
It didn't really effect my ability to work much, so I got on with writing and other things that I needed to get done. However, what did mainly effect my writing this week was some huge technical problems I've been having. Because I'm rubbish with computers, I had to wait for my boyfriend to be available to try and fix it for me, and even he didn't really have much of an idea of what was going on. My laptop always stumps him which just goes to prove how horrible it is. It literally took my laptop ten minutes to re-start. Pretty sure computers in the nineties booted up faster than that, and I'm sure I remember my family's windows 98 computer loading much faster. Plus, my charger isn't working properly anymore in that it picks and chooses when to work. At first I thought it was just worn out or that I had damaged the wire somehow, but that doesn't really explain why it chooses when it's going to work.
Needless to say, I'm gonna have to start trying to save up for a new laptop, which is annoying, because I also want to try and save up for a new bed and a Nintendo Switch. It's times like this where I really wish I could win the lottery. Everything always seems to break on me when I'm broke and struggling for money. I need some new clothes as well because they always keep seeming to rip or go missing. No joke, half of my wardrobe is missing at this point and I have no idea where it's all gone. I swear there are goblins that break into my house and just steal all of my clothes.
So yeah, my laptop issues lead to the latest chapter of Madness Within being delayed. I had originally planned to get the chapter done for Monday, but because of my laptop playing up, that didn't end up happening. I managed to get the next chapter of Chat Vert done pretty much without a hitch, and you can now read the latest chapter by clicking here. I didn't manage to sit down this week and write some chapters for that story in advance like I had planned, as once I had finished one chapter, all I wanted to do was just collapse and sleep.
Thursday rolls around, the day I had suggested on Twitter would be the day that the next chapter of Madness Within got uploaded. I had to get up super early that morning as I had an early, long meeting that I needed to attend. I had only gotten four hours of sleep that night because I was really anxious about it, so I was tossing and turning pretty much all night, not helped by the fact that I was struggling to breathe thanks to all of the stupid congestion. Luckily, the meeting went okay, though it was exhausting, and some rude guy stormed in and interrupted it while he could clearly see from the window of the office that I was in the middle of something. Not to mention, he knew what type of meeting it was as well and that it was an extremely private thing. Yeah, I was not happy. I don't think it helped that I was grouchy from a lack of sleep.
When I got home, all I wanted to do was collapse in bed and go to sleep, but I knew that I had said I would get the chapter finished for that day. I was beginning to feel worse and worse. I could barely keep my eyes open, my stomach was playing up thanks to my earlier anxiety attacks, and I was just feeling downright rotten. I tried to force myself to keep writing though, however, once I wrote the same sentence five times, I knew I was in trouble and that I couldn't continue. I wanted to get the chapter done, sure, but I also didn't want to do a terrible job at it.
I figured I would just have to rest and finish it off today instead. I ran myself a nice hot bubble bath and just laid curled up in bed for the rest of the evening, and to be honest, I don't really remember most of it, I was that loopy with tiredness at that point. I do remember annoying the hell out of my boyfriend by babbling on about random facts and philosophical questions. But I passed out soon enough and managed to sleep for a lovely ten hours, meaning that today I was well-rested, happy and ready to go. I still have a bit of a cold, but it's much better today. The latest chapter of Madness Within has now thankfully been finished, and you can read it by clicking here. I'm going to try and do a much faster update next time to make up for my shenanigans lately.
Speaking of Madness Within, I now have a poll open on my FanFiction profile where you can vote on whether or not I should write a sequel. When I first planned the story, it was originally just meant to be one story with no sequels or anything. But I also had to omit a lot of the ideas I had for the story due to a lack of room which always bothered me, because I always thought one idea would be pretty interesting and almost crucial to the story. That's when I was just laying in bed a few days ago when an idea hit me. Why not include some of these ideas in a sequel? It would totally make sense as well. But then I was like "hmmm, should I really write a sequel?" Would Madness Within just be enough on its own? I know that less is sometimes more. I started getting paranoid about milking it, so I then thought it might be best to get you guys to help me decide.
So please please please, if you're a fan of that story, vote in my poll and help me out. I'm such an indecisive moron and unless I get you guys' opinions, I'll always be paranoid. I figured it would be best to do this now rather than when the the story is over, because with the idea I have with the sequel at the moment, I need to alter the ending of the story accordingly. So if you can, please vote in my poll by going to my FanFiction profile by clicking here. You'd be massively helping me out if you did. Thank you, thank you!
It's a shame that I couldn't be more productive this week as it was snowing where I live this week. I don't know why, but I always get more productive when it's snowing or raining. For most people it usually seems to be the opposite. It was a shame that it didn't stick for the most part. Though I hear America are having some pretty extreme cold weather at the moment. The pictures on LycoRogue's blog, The Rogue's Scribe, looked so beautiful.
 |
| Our rubbish snow |
I also really enjoyed our little debates that we had on my In Defence of Marinette posts on my blog. Part two is now out by the way, and you can read it by clicking here. Feel free to comment and let me know your thoughts on my opinions and analysis of things. I won't be offended if you disagree with me. That's what debate is all about. But unfortunately, I don't think there will be anymore fan theories and general thoughts on the show from me, as it's definitely looking like we're finally getting quite a few new season three episodes. If the schedule I'm seeing is true, it looks like I'm going to be very busy writing episode reviews this month. So be sure to keep an eye out for those which will hopefully be released every Monday after a new episode has aired.
To be honest, because I've been sick, I haven't really been up to much else this week. Though I did start learning Spanish again through the app I talked about last week, Duolingo. It was actually a lot easier than I remembered. So yeah, I'm now starting to learn two languages again. I know I said I was going to learn French and Japanese, but for some reason, I found myself doing German and Spanish instead. Oh well. I'll get to French and Japanese at some point. I doubt I'll ever be fluent, but I at least want to try and learn enough to get by. I wish the UK would make it mandatory to learn other languages at school like most countries do. We don't start having to learn a language until we start high school, but that's only for about two to three years before we can drop the class if we want.
I'm becoming addicted to playing video games again as well these past few months. For the longest time, I lost my passion for them, probably mainly down to depression and stuff I had going on in my life at the time. But lately, I'm really re-discovering my love for them. I finally started playing my favourite game, Stardew Valley, this week since I had the urge to run away and start a new life. Sometimes I really wish that I lived in that game. Though to be honest, I'd probably be really bad at everything in real life. Even though I'm obsessed with breeding slime in the game (no clue why, I like all the pretty colours I guess), I'd probably get killed by one straight away in real life.
I've had no other weird ghost experiences this week, thank goodness. I still have no explanation for what happened to me last week. It was so weird. It's definitely made me a little more open minded to the possibility of the paranormal being real. Though to be honest, I have always said that if paranormal stuff is real, then it's just science that is yet to be understood. After all, we don't know everything about the universe we live in. I always wondered if ghosts were a paranormal universe that was colliding with ours and we were seeing the shadows of its existence. That's one of my theories anyway.
On the topic of the paranormal, I haven't really had much of a chance to plan some more of Immortal Bond this week. I once again seem to have hit a dead end with it. LycoRogue keeps offering her help to me, but I keep not taking it as I know she's a fan of the story and I don't want to spoil things for her, but at this point, I am on the verge of accepting just to maybe have some fresh eyes look at the project. Maybe she can figure out where I'm going wrong with anything. But at the moment, I think I'm just going to keep doing more research. I'll see how things go.
Also, chapter seven of Destiny's Dance has now been cleaned up and polished, and has now been re-uploaded onto FanFiction. You can also now read the chapter on AO3 by clicking here. The same goes for chapter eleven of Madness Within. The polished version is now available to read on FanFiction as well as AO3 which you can read by clicking here.
Anyway, that's pretty much all I have to talk about this week. I hope that you guys are all doing okay. I have a bit of a busy week next week, but I'm hoping that won't affect my writing too much. I'm hoping to update Madness Within a bit more frequently as well as get some chapters of Chat Vert written in advance. I'm going to keep planning Immortal Bond as well as my other future stories as well. See you all again soon.
Pixie out.
You write warmly and it is a pleasure to read. I look forward to more.
ReplyDeleteAwww, thank you so much!
DeleteAwww, thank you again for promoting my work. <3 Also, I can be a fan of IB AND a beta. Knowing the basic idea you're going for, and actually reading how it plays out, are two different things. If you want to keep at it by yourself, I won't be offended, but I AM here to bounce ideas off of, like the proverbial wall, to see what sticks. Should you wish it.
ReplyDeleteI also hope you're feeling better. Rest up over the weekend. I also can't wait until next weekend when we finally have the English dub of Weredad, because we need to gush (or complain ;) )! I've been slacking on my emails to you to continue our debates, but I do enjoy them as well. :)
As for sequels? When I was working on "Peeping Tomcat" I originally was going to keep it one story as well. Then I realized two major things: 1) the story would be too long if I included everything (yes, there are 200-chapter fanfics out there, but I like to stay as close to "professionally publishable" as possible with my stuff), and 2) I would need to change POV for the second half of the story. These are reasons I decided to create "One and the Same" as a sequel. People were a bit bummed with how I concluded PT because not everything was tied up in a bow (yet), but it was what was right for my story.
I think that's what you need to decide: is a sequel right for your story. If you have more story to tell, and it doesn't work with your current narrative, then go for the sequel. Some may feel like you're "milking it", but screw them. I'm sure most of your fans would LOVE for more story.
Best of luck with whichever you decide.
You're welcome! Your work is awesome and deserves way more attention than it gets! Yeah, I know, but part of me was still worried about spoiling some of the plot aspects I have planned. But I'll be sure to take you up on your offer if I continue to hit dead ends.
DeleteI am feeling much better now, thank you. I'm trying to rest as much as possible, though I'm starting to struggle to sleep properly again. Me neither! I'm super excited! I can't wait to have content to review again, especially now that I have my new format. And of course I always love our debates!
Creating a sequel would tie up a few loose ends that I have, which is why I was beginning to think it might be a good idea to write one. But I'm not sure whether those loose ends need tying up really. It would certainly make the sequel a lot more plot heavy than Madness Within which is more character driven. I'll see what my poll says and then try and come to a decision. Thank you so much for your advice! I really appreciate it!