Life Viewed Through an Amber Focus

It's been so long since I've posted anything on here. I don't even know how long. I don't know if anything will come of it or not, bit I have this INSANE plot bunny running around in my head that has characters from Supernatural, Buffy, Angel, and Dr. Who. But Supernatural is from dimension 1, most of the Buffy characters are from dimension 2, the rest are from dimension 3, the one Angel character (not Angel) is from dimension 3, and the Doctor who character, possibly two, I haven't decided yet, is/are from dimension 4. There is also a 5th dimension. Supernatural is dimension 1 because it is the only one that will run true to it's TV show universe up to the point of this story. Buffy's storyline and the character from Angel's storyline will have diverged. The Doctor Who character or two will probably fit right back into their storylines due to time travel.

Time runs at different speeds in each dimension, but it also gets messed up a little with what happens in the story, so it takes place late in season 5 of Buffy, but doesn't match what season of Angel it would be then. It takes place post season 5 of Supernatural, even though that was years after Buffy ended. The Doctor Who character/s was/were well after Buffy ended and might have been congruent with Supernatural, I'd have to check. Not that it matters, time and dimensions have run amok.

So far I've written a little over 1000 words. I wrote it on the 12th, my 53rd birthday. Maybe I gave myself a present, getting back into the writing game. I need to pull my thoughts together more and try to iron out an outline. I haven't written anything at all in maybe two years, I think, so anything that gets that going again is a good thing, even if it ends up going nowhere. Even if I do write it, I'd have no idea where to post it. I don't know if there will be enough Dr. Who content to put it up on Teaspoon. I have stayed far away from the Supernatural online fandom for the most part. It might be great at conventions, but online it got a little crazy. I'd read a bit here and there, but I didn't participate in conversations because they often devolved into fights between factions.

I was active in the BtVS fandom back in the day under a different name. I didn't write in it, but that was bulletin board stuff and there were a lot of word limits due to space constraints. LJ, while it existed, was not then what it became later, and I wasn't on it until well after I started posting DW fic on Teaspoon. When I was in the Buffy fandom, Google was a brand new sparkling baby, having to compete hard with Ask Jeeves. Most people still didn't know what it was when Willow said her famous line about "googling her" in Conversations with Dead People. Now people don't know what Ask Jeeves was.

I only ever wrote one Buffy fic and that was a fix it fic for myself, because I hated the whole way things ended with Spike and Buffy's last scene in season six so I rewrote it so it didn't happen, but Spike was still driven to leave and get his soul back. I was so angry that those writers would do that to them. I was content to read others' stories. Nothing really got me fired up to write until the end of season 2 of Doctor Who. That broke me and I wrote fix it after fix it. But I digress.

Anywho, I'm going to give it a whirl and see how it goes. It may go nowhere at all. I'll see if I can get a few chapters banged out in the next few weeks before I'll even think of actually posting anything. Don't want to just post an introductory chapter and never post anything on it again. And yes, I know I have about 3 or 5 other stories that I need to finish, but there are not "finish me" plot bunnies nipping at my heels. There is this.

I've only ever written one crossover fic and it was a one shot with Claude Raines from Heroes and Rose Tyler from Doctor Who. This is not a one shot. I don't think it will be an epic, but it will definitely be a decent multi-chapter if I can get it off the ground. I'll write if for me if for no one else. I love these fandoms and I love writing. If anything can get me back in the habit so I can get back to work on novel writing, I'll be more than happy to pound it out.

Working Title is Dimensions Torn Open.

Sorry, I don't even remember how to do a cut so you all aren't hit with a wall of text. Is there anyone still around who can remind me?

Well, I've almost finished chapter twelve of Three Hour Tour. I have about 600 words to go. The plot is moving along quite nicely. I hope to get it finished in the afternoon and beta'd in the evening.

I did spend some time working on plotting the novel, too, but not as much as I'd hoped. Devian's storyline is being stubborn. That's usually a sign that I don't like something, but I'm having a hard time figuring out what.

I've started planning my spring and summer garden. I don't think I will grow as many types of things this year as usual. And I'm going to grow a lot more onions. I almost didn't get a bag of candy sweets this year, it was the last one they had, so I am going to grow 3 units (about 50 to 60 plants per unit). They keep for a long time. I've had them keep 6 months before sprouting. It could be longer, but I've always used them up by then. It's the only sweet onion I've ever had that kind of luck with. Most sprout much faster. That's a year supply. And when they start to sprout, I can chop and freeze them.

I've picked out what I think I will grow, but now I need to sketch it out on my graph paper garden notebook. I am getting anxious for spring. We haven't had a super cold winter. No snow and only a few nights with a hard frost. Mostly it has been wet or overcast. I am hoping that means spring will come early this year. But then I always hope that.

I am so tired of this flipping cold. I'm coughing again and it is keeping me up. The trip to Seattle really set me back. It is making it impossible to work on the book. I lack so much focus. I am, however, dreaming this series in my head like crazy. I don't generally remember my dreams, but this week I have and they are very vivid. My main OTP has been very active in my dream life. Which is great, because I am remembering it all, but I don't have the energy to write it out right now. I am jotting notes, but that is the extent of it. I really hope I remember it all.

If I still feel this crappy after Christmas, I will drag myself to the doctor and make sure this didn't do something dramatic, like turn into walking pneumonia. I probably need steroids and antibiotics. If I get the former, I should get a boat load of writing done, though.

We did find a doctor who is willing to do the surgery on my daughter at Virginia Mason, despite the risk factors. So the trip to Seattle was worth it. VM is much better than the UW doctor, who didn't care at all. The doctor gave her nerve pain blockers since opiods don't work. First relief she's had since she was 16. She's sleeping through the night again.

They will be calling later this week to schedule the surgery. I am just so glad someone is finally willing to do something.

It's been a crap week for writing. Well, the last seven days. I did write chapter sixteen and then got about 1000 words into chapter seventeen and decided that I didn't want that scene to happen so early in the story. So I put the scene in my cut scene folder and then stared at the new blank chapter seventeen for a long time and then closed it up and then promptly came down with bronchitis. Or what I think is bronchitis. It might just be the creeping crud, but it hurts in the bronchials, especially when I cough, which I am trying not to do, but it is almost impossible. Add to that that I am allergic to most cough medicine/cough drops and I am pretty miserable. I'd make up a batch of elderberry syrup if I felt better. I hope this leaves soon. I hate feeling like my temperature is 8000 degrees.

I have been doing a lot of plot thinking though, which is about all I have been good for the past three days, although I did manage to make dinner tonight (thank you Instant Pot). I've got more and more things figured out. I don't think I am going to finish this book as quickly as I had hoped, but I am making progress and I think I just have to give myself a break. I can make up for it when my brain isn't busy trying to leak out my ear. Which really, really needs to stop like yesterday.

I hope I wake up feeling better tomorrow.

It is just after midnight and I got so much accomplished yesterday. I wrote two chapters and 882 words into a third. My total word count for the day was 5663 words. I have hit 40,000 words. 40,938 to be exact.

I have been watching this writer Chris Fox on youtube. He talks about achieving something called flow state, which I have definitely been in before. And was certainly in yesterday. It's when the words just pour out of me, like the story is writing itself.

He also does something he calls writing sprints. I tried that and it was particularly effective. I am glad to really be making some progress the last few days after all my time off.

My wrist hurts really badly, though, from all the typing. I will ice it. Hopefully I can write tomorrow. The only reason I stopped was because I am tired and need to go to bed. I could totally pound out another chapter, but I have to take care of myself or I won't be writing at all.

I have completed chapter twelve. I am glad that I am continuing to make progress at my less manic pace. It's like I've calmed down into it and while I still want to get it out of my head, the urgency to write, write, write is no longer driving me. I am steadily producing and I think that is better for both my mind and my poor hands. Current word count is 31,682.

I think I am going to not do NaNoWriMo. I don't think I need the added pressure on myself to write. I am writing just fine. Maybe I could produce the word count, maybe I couldn't, but for me it isn't really about that. It's simply about getting the story out at a pace that I am happy with. And since I am currently doing that, I don't see the point. I am motivated now and just don't feel like I need further motivation or the possibility of crashing and burning under the pressure. Not to mention my need to edit after letting chapters sit for a couple of days.

I have a very bright and sometimes precocious nine-year-old in my story that I am having fun with, especially the way she interacts with the adults. She grows up to be very important and will have a great impact on many things, but I have to be careful to include her without allowing her to take over. I keep telling her she will have her time later. But I am also building an important friendship for her with one of the adults who really gets a big kick out of her and encourages her to have opinions. It's quite necessary character building, but I have to get all the other characters' character building done, too, and she just wants to have it all. LOL

She'll go on the back burner after chapter thirteen for a while, though, while her older brothers take center stage. As it should be.

Chapter ten is now complete. It was emotionally draining because I had to put a little girl at the mercy of my big bad. And I had to make her parents make the decision to put here there. It's right for the story, though, and I knew it was coming from the beginning. I didn't actually have any trouble with writing it at all. That chapter came out in 90 minutes of writing and I only took a brief break after the first hour of writing to eat and give myself a little time to get over it and then finish up the chapter and then it finished quite easily.

I won't write anything else on the book tonight, though. I'll start fresh on chapter eleven tomorrow when I've slept and refreshed. It should write quite easily as I have it completely thought out in my head already and it is a much brighter chapter.

Chapter Nine if finally done. I had to rewrite about half of it, because I did that thing where I was rushing the plot. It is something I do often and I really have to catch myself and stomp all over my writing when I find I'm doing it. It's sort of like when I have the tendency to go way too dark on things and then have to remind myself that I am writing a romance adventure story not a horror story. Although it is okay to throw in little bits of horrifying behavior here and there, I can't twist characters so far that they are complete monsters. There has to be at least one redeeming quality, you know, so they are just mostly monsters.

So even though my big bad is pretty evil, she absolutely loves and adores her husband. It's not like I want to humanize her much, I certainly don't want anyone to feel sympathetic towards her, but having someone without one redeeming quality is like having someone who is perfectly beautiful without a single flaw. There's nothing less relatable in a story than that. Do we really want to read about someone who is absolutely perfect both physically and personality-wise? Or 100% evil? I don't. My big bad's motivation was always power, but it was power she wanted to share with the man she loved. I do think I will have to find one more thing that softens her a little bit, but not so much that you don't get that she will do whatever it takes to reach her ultimate goals.

As I head into chapter ten I am going back and forth on a plot point on whether or not I want to be cruel to two of my characters. I think it would make the book better if I do it, but I just hate to put both of them through it. They are star-crossed and I don't know if they will ever be uncrossed.

My theme song for my big bad is Control by Halsey. It is perfect.

Book Three intruded today and it wasn't going to let me write chapter seven until I got out this huge scene. It was massively emotional and by the time I was done with it I was gutted. I mean, tears streaking down my face and having to go in search of my husband to talk me down, gutted. I love this couple so much and they simply can't be together and it is breaking them both down so much. I feel so bad for them and they aren't even real people. But if I didn't torture them it would not be the love story it is. That was close to 1500 words.

Meanwhile, I had a massive revelation about another character which led to so much back story that I'm not sure what to do with it all. It might lead to a prequel to the trilogy or it might just be flashbacks. I do not know. This thing has a freaking mind of its own. This wasn't an actual scene, just a series of ideas that cascaded that I had to get down. That was another 1000 words.

So I didn't get anything done on chapter seven yet. I may still write some tonight, but I have to ice my hands first. Chapter seven is now being quite insistent since the other stuff is now out of the way. At the very least I will get it done early in the afternoon tomorrow. I have nothing on the agenda but writing for this weekend.

All of this story is just whirling and swirling around in my brain and making me so happy and giving me feels and making me just so joyful to be lost in it all.

I wrote 1500 words on chapter six today and I know exactly what will be happening in the rest of the chapter and all of chapter seven, so I'm good to write for a good chunk of the day tomorrow. Or later today, since it is one a.m.

I also came up with a very evil plot twist for the the second book. One of those ones that just make you go, "Ooooooo," and shudder a bit. Or at least it makes me do that. It was one of the loosey goosey places in the plot, one that just sort of had a place holder idea that was very general and this made is super specific. So I filed that away and got back to writing.

I did have to ice my hands last night because I've been doing so much typing. It was a lot easier to write for days on end before the rheumatoid arthritis began to flare up a year ago. Still, I will persevere, because right now it is a choice between doing that or sacrificing my mental health.