February 2024 Writing Wrap-Up
Mar. 6th, 2024 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fractoluminescenceThis month has been very productive. I've worked on my writing on more days out of a month than I ever have before, I think. My GYWO counter says I worked 18 days in February, which continues to baffle me.
I did hit a wall or two. My muse wasn't working with me for a while, and I wondered if it was because I was working it too hard, but I read some fics and it got right back up it seems, so.
I finished going through The Tempest around the beginning of February - then came the moment to write. I struggled a bit - pretty much like I had for my story for the Madness & Malice zine, but I knew for a fact that I could write a story without my muse coming up with it first this time around. Yet I was worried - what was I so worried about? Looking back, it all feels so blurry. Perhaps it was more of an emotional than a reason-based reaction - maybe that's why I'm unable to recall what led me to worry in the first place.
At any rate, since things weren't kicking off in my mind on their own, I took some time to brainstorm the goal, want and need of the different characters, as well as try to figure out the structure of the story. Turns out, the timeline of Ichigo's character arc might be larger than the rest of the narrative, and the latter would hence happen within it rather than contain it. I also broke down the story into sections that will most likely have time skips in between.
It wasn't in February, but since I'm writing this at the beginning of March, I can say I've already managed to finish drafting the first section - which ended up right around the 2k mark, just as I had predicted. Everything seems to be going according to plan thus far.
Regarding Isolated, I finally tackled the renaming of Lydia's Zanpakutou, Motoakaze. I'd named her years ago, back when I wasn't clear on what Lydia's powers did. Her character has changed a lot since then, and the name I had picked no longer made any kind of sense.
Hence, her name is now Tougumo, with the kanji for winter and spider (冬蜘蛛), which is derived from her name in Bankai, Tougumo Kasou, meaning winter spider, summer grass (冬蜘蛛夏草).
I also decided to fuse the two volumes of the series that I had nicknamed Runes and The Hirakos. When I first learned to plot years ago, I had broken up Isolated into several books - but I cut several of the plot points that had led me to divide it that way some time ago now, meaning several parts of the story either lacked an emotional drive or a plot. Hence the fusing.
What was nice is that it allowed me to reorder the books so as to have YODT and the newly renamed Winter Spider, Summer Grass (which I previously referred to as 'Lydia Stuff') right next to each other, solving the issue of having a part of Lydia's storyline broken up by a piece of Ichigo's in which she doesn't feature.
So, overall, I drafted the first section of the story for the IchiBowl and switched some stuff around for Isolated. Productive month :)
I did hit a wall or two. My muse wasn't working with me for a while, and I wondered if it was because I was working it too hard, but I read some fics and it got right back up it seems, so.
I finished going through The Tempest around the beginning of February - then came the moment to write. I struggled a bit - pretty much like I had for my story for the Madness & Malice zine, but I knew for a fact that I could write a story without my muse coming up with it first this time around. Yet I was worried - what was I so worried about? Looking back, it all feels so blurry. Perhaps it was more of an emotional than a reason-based reaction - maybe that's why I'm unable to recall what led me to worry in the first place.
At any rate, since things weren't kicking off in my mind on their own, I took some time to brainstorm the goal, want and need of the different characters, as well as try to figure out the structure of the story. Turns out, the timeline of Ichigo's character arc might be larger than the rest of the narrative, and the latter would hence happen within it rather than contain it. I also broke down the story into sections that will most likely have time skips in between.
It wasn't in February, but since I'm writing this at the beginning of March, I can say I've already managed to finish drafting the first section - which ended up right around the 2k mark, just as I had predicted. Everything seems to be going according to plan thus far.
Regarding Isolated, I finally tackled the renaming of Lydia's Zanpakutou, Motoakaze. I'd named her years ago, back when I wasn't clear on what Lydia's powers did. Her character has changed a lot since then, and the name I had picked no longer made any kind of sense.
Hence, her name is now Tougumo, with the kanji for winter and spider (冬蜘蛛), which is derived from her name in Bankai, Tougumo Kasou, meaning winter spider, summer grass (冬蜘蛛夏草).
I also decided to fuse the two volumes of the series that I had nicknamed Runes and The Hirakos. When I first learned to plot years ago, I had broken up Isolated into several books - but I cut several of the plot points that had led me to divide it that way some time ago now, meaning several parts of the story either lacked an emotional drive or a plot. Hence the fusing.
What was nice is that it allowed me to reorder the books so as to have YODT and the newly renamed Winter Spider, Summer Grass (which I previously referred to as 'Lydia Stuff') right next to each other, solving the issue of having a part of Lydia's storyline broken up by a piece of Ichigo's in which she doesn't feature.
So, overall, I drafted the first section of the story for the IchiBowl and switched some stuff around for Isolated. Productive month :)
