wordwhacker

I had a nice little writing session today - it was good to get gently swept up in it and just type away for 40 minutes or so. I also did a little preliminary D&D work with one of my players.

Bit of a wild day emotions wise - starting to do the real work of applying for housing, which is DRAINING. Going to take a few minutes now to get caught up on dishes and then... maybe a hot cup of miso soup for this post-storm night, and an early-ish bedtime. I can try, anyway.

I! Started! Writing! The Thing!

Got about 800 words written, and oh man - listen, I love NaNo, but it is NICE to feel like I can take my time a little, y'know? Go back over a paragraph and feel out different things, read back and make little edits here and there. I poked at it for an hour and started to get a feel for it. I am not obsessing about whether or not it's perfect. It's not. But that doesn't mean it isn't good, or at least a good first go.

Now that I've got a bit of a start, I may try to give myself a little more time for the next few days until I get it done. But if not, I'll at least take a little time to either add on, or flesh out things that I encounter or make up as I go. (A couple of details and characters already popped into my brain... and also there may be another element to the ending now that I hadn't considered before. Interesting!)

More work on the same prompt, from January 1st of this year!

Felt a little disconnected today; I'd hoped to give myself a little more time and freedom tonight, but that's okay. I got some other things done, that I'd been putting off. I ate good food. I stayed on top of my dishes and such. I remembered that I need to give myself time to take a shower and read before bed.

New month, new challenge! I'm spending at least 10 minutes every day revisiting a prompt from last month. No other restrictions, as long as I'm working on it in some capacity.

Today, I did some additional brainstorming and character fleshing-out for my January 1st Prompt. Original post and prompt is here. Today's brainstorming is behind the cut!

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Wow. Second to last prompt.

Had a nice day today - some outside time and a little physical activity, good food, nice social times on a couple of fronts. Now I have a bread rising, and I'm feeling a little sleepy. Going to pull a quick prompt and then maybe think through some possible food for next week before making it an early night.

For the first time, I opened one of my expansion packs for the Story Engine: the Sci-Fi expansion called "Written in the Light of Strange Worlds." They say you can use this deck alone, or mix it with the original deck; I think I'm going to keep it separate for now. Let's do a little Sci-Fi prompt!

DAY THIRTY PROMPT:

An experimental pilot wants to unseat a politician with a hidden compartment, but the blowback will fall on their closest friend.

Okay, I want this to be a sort of mad-cap space adventure action comedy. What I need to figure out is what the friend does; maybe an aide to the politician, who enlists their childhood friend to be a pilot for hire. But they have ulterior motives, and essentially wind up kidnapping the politician, hoping to get a good price for their release. But there were more groups at play than they realized, and now both legitimate and shady back-door organizations are losing their shit. They're on the run. And their friend is dealing with the fallout. Ultimately the friend needs to decide if they're going to sell out their childhood friend, or - given everything they're learning now that this person's shady dealings are out in the open - maybe they help them get away with it, or at least make sure some change comes of this mess.

Needs some work in the details, but it could be fun. Very tired now - sleep soon.

Bit of a grumpy day today - not too bad, but just... a few moments of frustration, you know? But I went for nice walks and ate good food and I have laundry on. I'm taking care of myself. And after this, maybe a little reading and a video game.

But first!

DAY TWENTY-EIGHT PROMPT:

An unlucky god wants to establish loyalty through a letter, but it will turn them into someone they never wanted to be.

This just screams Terry Pratchett, right? The tone of it - this God trying to lay down the rules of worship in a letter, but they always just leave enough ambiguity to cause problems. So they keep sitting down every milennium or two to try to fix things and every time it just introduces a new problem. So finally they sit down to pen a letter that they hope will eliminate all possibility of people misinterpreting, or finding loopholes... and to do this, they basically became a lawyer. Bereft of the warmth and love they once wanted to shine down.

The structure of this one could be fun - almost epistolary, each letter just getting more and more grumpy as they have to correct peoples' misinterpretations and twisting. And there has to be a running gag, that can get called back at the end, after the full lawyer-ese takes effect.

Yeah, okay, this is fun.

Getting close to the end! I guess I'm going to have to decide what I'm doing in February soon. I like the short time commitment, at least for something I can reasonably expect to keep doing every day. Maybe I will take 10 minutes every day to work on one of the prompts - it can be a fresh one, or one I've poked at before. And it could be outlining, brainstorming, fleshing out the concept, changing things up and reworking things, or even writing a couple of paragraphs to get a sense of the style.

Hmm.

Anyway, prompt time!

DAY TWENTY-SIX PROMPT:

A tender punk wants to restore former glory with the help of a basement, but they will have to confront prejudice.

I'm getting another period piece here. Punk vs Disco, moving into the 80's, both are starting to be left in the lurch. But who will destroy capitalism, fight white supremacy, and be gay without punk and disco? I like the idea of keeping it a little larger than life, not gritty and realistic. A great basement venue just went up for grabs - and the two factions are vying for who gets to open a literally underground punk or disco themed club. The punks have the most prejudice to work through, but maybe if they can get past their outdated ideas about dancin' and fuckin' they can come together to STICK IT TO THE MAN? (Maybe there's a ticking clock element - the club is going to get bought and bulldozed to make way for... *shudder* CONDOS! Oh noes!)

This is very silly but I don't care.

Whoo, lot of stuff done today - and I found out that I'm going to be moving sometime before the summer (I'd been thinking about it anyway, but the universe gave me a wee kick in the butt about it). Everything's fine, I'm in good shape, getting a good reference, and I have LOTS of time. But it's still a bit of a curveball and I'm going to let myself be a bit thrown off for a bit. I'm allowed! (Also I may have edited my grocery order and added in ice cream and chocolate and treats. I'M ALLOWED! :D)

Anyway quick prompt because I'm feeling a little tired and I want to get to bed at a halfway reasonable hour.

DAY TWENTY-FOUR PROMPT:

A forgotten beast wants to create a masterpiece, but it will gain the attention of their enemy.

Oh man. Phantom of the Opera vibes on this one, eh? Maybe a Nosferatu-like vampire that earns their living by ghost writing. But they've been working on a novel that they want to publish THEMSELVES. Maybe their enemy is a Omegaverse Lady Whose Name I Just Remembered But I Don't Want To Type It kind of person - someone who has had their books taken down for "copyright infringement" and caused problems for the publisher. Since they're ghostwriting it hasn't affected them directly - but what if the two identities become linked? Will she try to have the "masterpiece" taken down by her army of fans once she has a target?

Anyway, I feel like there's something fun there. No more brain now. Sleep now.

Bluhhh SO TIRED. Just finished running a great game of D&D. Brain dead. Quick prompt.

DAY TWENTY-TWO PROMPT:

A rival wants to destroy someone's dream with/for a device, but they must reconcile with an old enemy.

Can't decide if the device is going to be the weapon/means for destroying the dream. Maybe a literal dream. Maybe it's a litte "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and wow I must be tired because I just "got" that title for the first time. Anyway. Maybe it's a recurring dream they've been having, something that haunts them, a memory of someone who hurt them. So they decide to purge the memory, but the only person who can do it is their old rival; the person we were in contention against to perfect the technology. We held the patent but couldn't make it work; they were able to swoop in finish what we started. Maybe that's what we want to erase. The knowledge of how close we were. Maybe we reconcile... or maybe it's one last jab, something we know they'll remember but we won't. The hurt they caused. It will be their cross to bear now.

That went places. It wound up being more interesting than I expected. Neat. Sleep now.

Twenty days! I feel like I'm heading into the home stretch now. Glad I kept this very constrained, it's been nice to have a little goal every day but not be crushed with a sense of dread and wasted time. Anyway, let's get to it - maybe another circle of fate tonight? (I have expansions that I will try to use before the month is up, too.)

DAY TWENTY PROMPT:

A holy assassin wants to gain freedom with a daredevil, but they must leave the familiar behind and face the unknown.
A peaceful daredevil wants to get revenge with an assassin, but they will have to endure something that repulses them.

This one took a little while to come together, as the "circle of fate" often does. It took some rotations and card swaps - and then the aspect cards helped me to put everything in place. It's pretty high concept at the moment, but I know one thing for sure: this is a lesbian love story.

Our assassin has only ever known the Holy order. They're the hand of the church, silencing people. The daredevil is... an adventurer, really, someone making their way in the world by taking risks others don't want to take. Their only rule is that they don't want to endanger anyone else. They were orphaned, largely due to a dark moment in the relatively near history in which the Church silenced a great many people. It's possible the assassin's family was killed then, too - their memories are fuzzy.

They meet, and fall in love (in secret, OF COURSE) and realize that the only way they can be together is to run away together, a terrifying prospect for the assassin who has never known any other life. But unless they destroy a philactery of the assassin's blood, they could be tracked. The keeper will need to be... dealt with. The assassin is ultimately prepared to do what is necessary, but she can't destroy it herself. It's warded. So the daredevil will need to infiltrate with her, and will need to be witness to the things the assassin will do. Maybe even participate. The church deserves it - hell, maybe they can leave some lasting damage. But since that night, the thought of witnessing it is... distressing. Can she see it through?

That one went a little harder fantasy than I originally thought, but I'm cool with it. Eleven days to go!