After spending a good hour rereading old stuff and poking and prodding stories, what do I decide to work on? A totally pretentious story that I started just because I found the very formal and flowery writing found in Victorian letters amusing. So of course I started coming up with a crazy plot to justify using these totally ridiculous letters. And now I'm writing more on it.

Sigh... at least I'm writing something.

Dear writers,

Despite what you think, it is possible to write an entire slash story with character development, plot, and even hot porn in less than 20 chapters.

No love,
Tsaiko

I swear, am I the only person who likes one-shots or multiple chapter stories that are complete in less than five chapters? Do such things not get written much or are the delicious tags just biased towards the longer stories? Because if I see one more story with 50+ chapters and seven sequels, I am going to hurt someone.

This is not helped by the fact that half of them are written in first person. I like first person in a lot of things, but in my porn is not one of them. I can count on one hand the number of porny first person stories I have enjoyed. There's just something very... off putting about reading someone getting off in the first person.

Bah.

Just about everyone says that the werewolf smut is "A++, must continue" material so I will endeavor to work on it this week. The story is about as close to PWP as I tend to get, which will be a nice change from starting/working on anything plot driven. I basically started writing it because I went on a werewolf reading glut and was disappointed in what I was finding. Which of course makes me want to write that.

I'm seriously considering looking up wing sex stories just to see if that will inspire anything. After the werewolf one is done of course.

I also have my thesis proposal presentation on Wednesday. Which means I desperately need to put it together today and tomorrow. Yeah for procrastination!

Finally, for the first time in a month I have come into the office and not been cold. Everyone in this area called and complained on Thursday about the temperature. It seems to have worked. Ahhh... blessed comfort.

If I were writing a story about a werewolf detective and his hot partner being locked in a room by an evil villain on the night of the full moon where the werewolf detective's "primal instincts" take over, what would I name him and his partner? And then if the werewolf's ex shows up to watch, what would I name him?

Hypothetically.

PS - a name for the villain would be awesome as well because I am drawing a big old blank. Not that I'm writing this as we speak *cough*cough*

EDIT: And there certainly aren't a few paragraphs of porn ( under this cut )

I will not start another WIP. I won't. I won't.

I did no writing this weekend. On the plus side, it was very relaxing. On the minus side, I about drove myself nuts. I might need to start fitting writing in. Somewhere. In my crazy, crazy schedule.

But it will not be another WIP.

Not even if it involves fur-lined loincloths.

Not even if I could do something 3x better than some of the stories I've been reading.

Must. Stay. Strong.

Every time I look at my new LJ layout, I have to wonder how many people think that it's picturing the northern lights.

Then I have to wonder how many people realize that penguins are only found south of the equator.

This is why my LJ is now named what it is.


Also, learning InDesign through the crash course method is not recommended. Before I have to have this poster done, I will figure out how to put borders around text boxes.

I gave the presentation for my part-time job today. Everyone told me it went well, but I'm still unsure of whether it went well or if people were being nice. Sigh. Also my laptop decided to not play nice with the wireless or vice versa. Anyway, something horked but I did manage to work around it.

Also, my uterus has the worse timing ever. -_-

Wrote one werewolf drabble and am going to see if I can get another done tonight. I'm contemplating starting a sequel. This is all the fault of you people asking about Gene and Jesse's adopted kids. My goal is to do at least one a day. So if I don't do another tonight, I'll have at least completed my goal.

I have been working on the Desert Bride story all afternoon. I finally managed to finish the first part and now only have two more parts to go before where I started writing this thing connects with the actual beginning of the story. This is why I try to start at the beginning. So I don't have to go back and write things out of order. Less confusion that way.

I am also having the hardest time remembering that Amenan's country (loosely based on Egypt) is east of the country where Osmond's sister is to wed. That country, BTW, is loosely based on Tunisia (not exactly, I'm mixing and matching my cultures which I'm allowed to do because it's my damn story). For some reason I keep wanting to stick Tunisia off in the Arabic pennisula and keep saying Egypt is west of it. I must have corrected myself about half a dozen times in this story already.

Let's not even talk about the sheer number of plot holes I've had to spackle over. It's not pretty. This is what I get for just writing and not actually working out the plot before hand. I'm hoping that does not come back to bite me in the end. Especially since I only have the vaguest of notions of where this is going.

I'm sad to say I know more of what happens to Nankah after this story finishes than I do about what happens to Osmond and Amenan. Sigh... it's hard to believe she was the character I came up with first.

Now back to work. I'm hoping to keep updating this thing up until I have to eat dinner and go to class.

You know, most people when given a assignment of writing a paper that is 3-5 pages long, have to figure out how to make the minimum requirement of 3 pages without looking like they are padding the paper too much. Me? I have to make sure I don't exceed 5 pages while still managing to put everything I need to say in the paper.

This is what happens when you a) are a writer, b) like explaining things, and c) do way too much research into random topics for stories giving you more perspective than the average person on why there are holes in the paper.

Also, I have an idea for a yaoi story based on chess pieces. I'd ask you people to stop me from writing something like that (especially with all the WIP's I already have going), but I really know better.

Back to getting this paper done before it's due tomorrow.

A couple of weeks ago when I posted about sabertooth cats hunting in packs, I also mentioned two other jokes from my terrestrial paleontology class. Since a retelling of these jokes has been requested, I will not provide an explanation.

( Man, if I only have 23 hours in day... )

( The 'Oh Shit' turtle )

Why is it that some stories, the names for character just come to me and in other stories I spend an entire 2 hours just trying to come up with three names? It's so damn frustrating. And when I finally get three names nailed down, I decide I don't like one of the names and have to start over with that one. I use to keep a list of names that struck my fancy (still do... somewhere), but after awhile I started reusing names. That's all fine and dandy as long as I'm writing for me, but people notice when I have four different characters named Rioran.

I just wish these characters would stop being difficult and make with the porn already.

Now that the internship project o' doom is out of the way, I find myself with a lot of free time. I should write. I want to write. But every time I start to write, I have a moment of "Oh god, what else do I need to be doing?!?!?" and then an equally befuddling moment of "... nothing."

My brain is still hard wired for stress and deadlines right now. I'm hoping I can at least sit down tonight and get something written.

I should say something about the fact that I'm always slightly surprised when people like the stuff I write for myself. The stuff I write for other people usually has some sort of romantic plot as well as a story driven plot. It's all the yaoi, yuri, het stuff. The stuff I write for me is usually sci-fi or fantasy and has no romantic plot. I rarely post it, but when I do, it seems well received. I still can't quite wrap my head around this.

When did I start to assume that people wouldn't want to see anything from me other than romance? I wish I knew.

I kind of wish I could sew and still went to cons because I think it would be fun to go as maderr's character Koray from her series Black Magic. People would be totally baffled about who I was and I would get the added pleasure of pointing them to Maderr's fic. Alternately, I wish I could sew and had some where to go for Halloween that would justify me putting that much effort into a costume. I'd especially want to do the outfit he gets when he becomes High Necromancer.

Why yes, I am a dork.

The good news I found some bits of Race the Wind that I thought I'd lost, so I can work more on the later chapters. The bad news is that I'm going to have to renumber those later chapter because what I thought was going to take 1-2 chapters is in actuality going to take closer to 4-5 chapters. Er.

Still have written the bridging chapter(s) between what I've posted and the three later chapters I've written. I swear, I'm going to actually finish the story before I finish the middle chapters. And then it will be frustrating because none of the later chapters make sense without the middle chapters and I can't just go ahead and post them for comments. SIGH.

Life is hard.

Don't you hate it when a story just will not cooperate? I have the coolest idea (although I know trying to explain it to people would make it sound really corny, hence the temporary title of 'Vampires... IN SPACE!') and I just cannot get a plot to work with it. I swear I have started something like seven stories based on this idea, and I get about a page maybe a page and a half into it only to have it keel over and die a horrible twitching death. What gives?

Anyone else ever get a really good idea, but not a plot? Did you give up? Eventually get a plot to go with it? Beat the keys on your keyboard until through the sheer force of a thousand monkeys something resembling a story came out?

Any hints? Tips? Tricks?

...

Bueller?

Well, publishing something on the web through Google Docs is not as reliable as they would have you believe. I checked the Ghost story this morning to find out it was only something like three paragraphs long. WTF? I seem to have fixed that error by republishing the thing, but I'm not too pleased. At least you can now see all three pages of it as opposed to three paragraphs.

I checked the Desert Marriage story as well because now I'm paranoid. It seems to be fine.

Sigh.

Oh well. Work is at a standstill, so I think I'm going to do some writing today. And since I'm at work and don't have access to my files, I'll probably work on one of those two stories. That is assuming I don't get assigned another project.

EDIT: How the hell did ever instance of the word "necklace" get replaced by the word "lace" in The Desert Marriage story? O_O

- Good friends will answer the phone and when you say, before saying anything else, "Not even chibi-Dean is worth an entire pack of creepy fucking kids" will not only know who you are and what you are talking about but will assure you that the next episode is much better. (Hi shoiryu!)

- Good friends will also call you when they hear that tornados went through the city you live in (they hit the far side of the city from us, so we were fine) just to make sure you all right. (Hi lighthawk!)

In other news, I had forgotten what it's like when a fandom just totally eats your brain and will not let up with the story ideas. That's kind of where I am right now with Young Avengers. It's been a while since I have felt the thrill of being able to inflict a captive audience with my fanfics. It should not please me this much.

I posted links to the two stories I've published using Google Docs in my profile. I only have one scene done of the Ghost Story and a few pages on the Desert Marriage story. I figured sticking the links in the profile would let everyone who wanted to read them do so without me annoying people who want to wait for the finished product. As the warning states, I'll write on these whenever I get the urge and edit them as I go. It's more so people can see the kind of notes and the process I go through when writing. Enjoy!

(feedback is always appreciated, BTW).

So I drove to the internship (an hour drive) yesterday figuring I was going to a interview about the job. Nope. They decided to hire me based on the phone interview. This instead was a fill out paperwork, meet people, and get a brief orientation on the project meeting. I was there an hour and there's a meeting next week. Between now and then I have to review the protocol they have written and do as much of the GIS parts as I can. Whoo boy. Talk about sink or swim, because I've never written a protocol before. I am kind of glad they didn't attempt to write it themselves because the project leads no nothing about GIS. It's a little bit scary, but is going to be awesome experience. Best of all, once the protocol is in place I'll only have to drive down there once a week and the rest of time I can work from home/on campus.

Got my grades in today. Two A's and an A+. I maintain my 4.0 in graduate school for yet another semester. ^^

I have been very derelict in posting a link to Forbidden Fruit translated into Vietnamese by the very lovely and talented shiyuri_say. She's asked me if I know of any other short, non-graphic stories that she could translate. Any suggestions? I'll pass them on to her.

Finally, writing is going very slowly. My muses are coming back but getting words down on paper is like pulling teeth at this point. I need a week or so to develop a stable routine. Once that happens things will get better. My first task? Finishing the last of the Witch King stories and starting on the next series Wild Witch.