Starting to do some prep work to get back into writing stuff.
( Click through for a few more paragraphs )

So in my previous post I said I was either impatient or Humble Bundle and StoryBundle weren't doing NaNo bundles this year. Well, it looks like I was impatient as StoryBundle has a bundle up now. Given that Humble has two book bundles ending today in a very short time (indeed, ending early in writing this) they might also soon have one up.

What's in the StoryBundle bundle?

• Drawing Out The Dragons: A Meditation On Art Destiny, and The Power Of Choice by James A. Owen. I haven't read this one but it has 4.6 stars on Amazon and a print copy would basically cover the full price of this ebook bundle. (Kindle format only $4.99) Looks like it is less a how-to ____ and more a how to get in the mindset to ____. Plus a bonus how to draw a dragon chapter if the table of contents is to be believed.

( The remaining items tucked under this link )

*wanders in and brushes dust of the journal*

Oh, hello there. If you follow me over on the fediverse you might recall that a while back (oh, a month ago already? Okay, a month ago) I commented that I was looking at starting in on a journaling* game and had settled on a game by Dice Problems written for the 2021 Carta Jam, Help! I Have A Crush On My Rival?! Which is basically what it says on the tin. You come up with a character, who has a rival. There is a playing field made up of standard playing cards. When you flip over a card you look up the suit-color and value for a writing prompt about an interaction involving the rival. There's a little more complexity than that, but not much more than that. When you reach the end state of the game you work out how or whether the relationship between the protagonist and rival changes.

So, I had mentioned in the couple of posts I made over on the fedi that I had two things delaying me. First, well to quote myself, Surely there is nothing unusual about ones first thought after considering starting up a journaling game be, "Okay, so first I need to write a python program that creates a card deck, deals them out into a layout and stores the state to disk. Oh, and a CLI for interacting with it." Right? Which I haven't done nearly us much as I wanted with (barely anything in fact). Partly due to getting sick in the meantime (Yay antibiotics? Even if they have un-fun side effects) and partly from getting barely any non-work keyboard time. But I do have a bit of python that will create and shuffle a deck of cards, I basically just need to add a bit that deals out a playing field and then presents it to you in such a way that you can pick a card to flip over (oh, and also store the unflipped/flipped state of each card?). Not difficult. I just need to sit down and actually do it.

The second thing delaying me was the need to sit down and actually do some research. Basically I decided that if I was going to do something involving rivals I'd go with a character idea I had a few years back who either resides in the Polychrome Heroics universe or in a nearby timeline. The setting was not really the need-to-do-research part (although I should go back and do some rereading in setting), it's that the first mental image I got of the character informed me both that they are a budding gadgeteer/tinkerer and that they have two prosthetic legs. If I was going to write about someone being blind, well that's right in the family, I think I could do a halfway decent job of not embarrassing myself. But no one in close family or acquaintances has a prosthetic limb. Now that I'm posting this here I'll repeat the request I'd made over on fedi, if anyone reading this either uses a prosthetic limb or otherwise has knowledge and they'd like to either pass it along, share a good source of information, or go, "Oh my goodness, please, please don't invoke stereotype/pet-peeve X about this," feel free to comment below or send a message. I think I've read enough not to be utterly ignorant now, but I'm not going to claim to be any kind of expert.

Anyway, I'm going to poke some more python code and work out more about the rival and hopefully not be all that long before I post something.

*Interesting tidbit: Unsure whether the proper spelling would be journaling or journalling as spellcheck doesn't like either, I could have turned to a dictionary but instead went to the ngram viewer to see which occurred more frequently. Prior to the 1990s the prominence of one over the other seemed to flip flop from time to time. Then in the mid 90s journaling with one L shot way up on the graph while journalling stayed about the same. So, yeah, apparently journaling with one L is the widely accepted version. At least in the corpus used by google's ngram thingy.

In my previous post I said on of my NaNo plans is working on an RPG setting book. In addition to that I do plan to work on some prose. Specifically I want to continue what I am refering to as the Magic School Doofuses (Quick and Dirty, Piece of Cake, Just Purr-fect, and Consequences, note the last two involve an involuntary physical transformation and students (+staff) not being nice).

As a bit of last minute #PrepTober/#NanoPrep I'm throwing the door open to any questions for the cast of the stories to help me get back in their heads.

A Writing Index and Landing Page

Partway through 2011 I started semi-regularly writing short snippets of fiction, over time this has build up to where it can take a while to hunt down something I wrote previously. That calls for... An Index and Landing Page! I am putting this together initially as a single page. The remainder will likely soon go under a cut. Post-Dating to the end of 2013 to keep it at the top of the recent posts page. Indexes first, followed by a setting list.

30-Day Writing Projects:

• Using Ravenswept's 30 Day list: LJ Link, (No DW copy currently)


• Using Aldersprig and KC_Obrien's 30 Day list: LJ Link, DW Link

Prompt Calls:

• Prompt Call #1: Rebirth, Renewal, Rediscovery (LJ Link

( Further links under this cut )

Title: Cody's Dream
Fandom/'verse: Addergoole
Notes: Starts early in Year 9 of the Addergoole School, some bits may be confusing if you haven't read anything else in the setting. (In addition to Addergoole/Fae Apocalypse being aldersprig's creation, so too is Yolanda. Lemon and Hylakaros come by way of rix_scaedu.
Summary: The event that sets about changing Cody from passive geek girl (as seen in How to Trap A Cody, set despite the title after Cody's being magically bound as an older student's servant for the year) to the girl in the maybe-canon Family Ties who was described as 'scary girl' by an Agency trained cat person, "She was all covered in blood you know. Most of it probably wasn't even hers." Cody shows up at a few points in aldersprig's Addergoole: Year 9
Warnings: Set in Addergoole, a high school for unusual students with practices much of the pre-and-post apocalypse world would object to (about the only way to be expelled is to kill another student). In particular in this story: two fights and a teenage pregnancy.
Words: roughly 3500


So this is what a lucid dream is like. Cody was surprised that she didn't wake from that thought or the surprise that came along with it. Everything felt real. Full of the little details that separated dreams from reality. The peeling anti-corrosion paint on the metal struts of the bridge she stood upon. The stray dogs in the vacant lot in the distance on the other side of the river. The faint smell of smoke from the fires started by the battle in the distance.

Fire? Fighting? How am I so calm? As if that thought threw a switch she could hear a soft whispering in her own voice even if her dream self's lips didn't seem to be moving.( Click here to continue )

Title: Untitled
Fandom/'verse: Urban fantasy? Werewolves anyway.
Notes: There was discussion several months back about how much of werewolf fiction plays off bad knowledge of wolf pack behavior (much stemming from an article on wolf behavior that was not merely contradicted by others but pretty much disowned by its own author). This started things percolating in my head and here's the opening with about half of what I've written.
Summary: Jacob's off balance when his secret is out and he's being called a hero
Warnings: Non-graphically described injuries and a few expletives
Words: 1400-ish


The first thing Jacob noticed was the sound of the car engine. Then the blanket that was wrapped around him making him feel like a mummy. Then Travis excitedly calling out, "I think he's waking up!"

"Easy son, you're in rough shape but we'll be at the doctor's soon."( Click to continue... )

I have a few new things percolating their way towards being posted but that doesn't mean we can't have fun with stories that have already been posted. So go ahead and ask my characters anything*.

My fiction landing page is substantially out of date, so here are some helpful tags:

• Writing


• 30 Days of Flashfic


• 30 Days of Flashfic: Second Semester (Aldersprig and KC-Obrien's prompt list)


• Character-a-Day, seven characters over seven days with a setting created throughout.


• Fantasy


• Science Fiction


• Super Heroes

Preference is for responses on Dreamwidth. LiveJournal seems to keep losing my sign-in.


* - Ask anything, but the character might not know the answer, might have reason to prevaricate/lie, or might get censored to avoid spoilering. **
** - No guarantee asking characters questions will result in new fiction, but it will bring them back to mind and who knows were that will lead.

So my muse came and told me it had another great idea...

Muse: Heyeeee! I just had another great idea!
Me: Is it going to lunch?
Muse: Who cares about lunch. You should do a Tarot serial!
Me: ?
Muse: Create a cast with some spreads, then use a single card or maybe three to influence scenes.
Me: I see.
Muse: That's all you have to say? This is an awesome idea!
Me: it would keep wordcount going.
Muse: I'm still going to bug you about the other idea too.
Me: of course you are...

Now partly I'm a little worried that my muse decided to enter sounding like a Ree from the Eva Fic, Nobody Dies. I'm not sure if I'm up to having a Ree in my life. But this does seem like it could be fun. Now the current serials I'm reading are fantasy or urban fantasy so I'm thinking something science fiction-y.

I don't have a paid account, so no fancy clickable polls for me, answer in comments instead. Strictly a reader advisory poll, reserve the right to go off in any direction, (blah, blah, boilerplate here) but which possibilities sound good to you? Multiple answers allowed. Further comments welcome.

• A) Adventures of a Tramp Freighter


• B) Official exploration ship


• C) Independent exploration ship


• D) How'd we get on this spaceship?


• E) One of the above, but fantasy adventures in space


• F) ________________ (fill in your own idea)

Title: Just Perrfect
Fandom/'verse: Magic School Doofuses, my current title for the stories of Jamsa and Nicolai at a school of magic.
Summary: Jamsa asks a favor of his roommate Nicolai
Note: Follows after Quick and Dirty and Piece of Cake. Title spelling is intentional
Warnings: Violation of consent/trust. Jamsa's a jerk (then again Nicolai as well) (I think they might well both be Slytherins if at Hogwarts)
Words: 1146

"No."

"Why not?"

"Why should I? Every time I have helped you this semester you've criticized me. Not one word of thanks. I don't know why you are even asking me."

"No one else would do it."

( Click here to continue reading... )