Day 232

Wandering Affection AU

Word Count: 39,630 (+379)

I am still trying to edit Wandering Affection while I am hitting these challenges and the formatting is a wreck. I don’t know about you but every time I see something is wrong, my brain just stutters to a halt before rebooting. At least the first two minutes before I actually work through it for about half an hour to an hour.

I wrote pieces of it while I was working at my previous job and sometimes the transitions aren’t quite smooth when I was emailing it to myself.

I am off to bed now; remember, stay hydrated everyone!

Day 230

Wandering Affection AU

Word Count: 38,789 (+682)

I have been writing this for a while and I got curious about Wandering Affection. I completely forgot what personality my characters have, and the plot, so I am slowly reading the draft from chapter eleven. Dialogue isn’t as fluid as what I write now, and it’s been about a year since I wrote that portion. Simply means that I’ve improved and I forgot about one of the side character’s personalities in this. I’ll have to find another way to word some of his sentences where he should be cursing, but the man abhors it.

Day 229

Wandering Affection AU

Word Count: 38,107 (+461)

I had a heart palpitation earlier today when I couldn’t find the original Wandering Affection document. I found the first draft, but it slipped my mind that I wrote a second draft and I had about 30,000 words missing. I found it in my computer and I am so happy. I didn’t write in that manuscript, I am hyper-fixating on this AU since I want to write a budding romance with gratuitous flirting rather than self-exploration with romance as a secondary force.

Even so, I love both versions of Wandering Affection and trying to give it some love as I was focusing on The Forsaken Tale.

Day 228

Wandering Affection AU

Word Count: 37,646 (+1,725)

I was writing well into the night yesterday and already hit my word count. The moment I woke up I was in the flow state where words are actually flowing and chaos is ensuing into this.

I am straining to keep myself from continuing on because I am near the end of a scene. I’ve heard a technique of stopping yourself while you have an idea of what to do before hitting that writer’s block.

What I Did Yesterday and Today

D&D

Yesterday I didn’t post anything because the only thing I wrote was backstory for a potential Dungeons and Dragon’s character who is going to be a phantom thief, think Catwoman from Batman except she leaves a calling card after stealing some jewelry. I had inspiration from anime for this because Magic Kaito holds a special place in my heart. However, instead of finding a magical gem that grants immortality my character is going to be stealing anything that is cursed in that particular persona. Any other personas it’s free game.

I find it interesting that in the TTRPG the closest approximation of what I see in anime or manga is the Arcane Trickster Rogue or Thief Rogue. Thief Rogue subclass is a bit lackluster for me, and I want to do some magic, even though the stats I rolled for my character are kind of trash.

Also, ironically enough they have a subclass called Phantom Rogue, where you play someone who slept on a grave and received powers of communing with the dead. You can steal souls of creatures that died within 30 feet of you when you hit level 9 in this subclass and at level 13 you can turn intangible like a literal ghost! I played a character who climbed out of her grave 10 years later (similar to Jason Todd) but doesn’t know who murdered her. And will never know because I made it ambiguous about which one of her athletic rivals hired some assassins because she kept taking the gold. Also the GM has put the campaign on an indefinite hiatus, which is fair, but I don’t know whether or not to dust off this character chatersheet from dndbeyond.

Book Rec: Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

I just finished reading a book called Attachments by Rainbow Rowell today and came home to write. I need to tell my friend Grace about it, there are a couple of tropes in there that I think she’ll like: slow burn, meet-cute, and secret identity. Cyber watching is a theme as well, since the protagonist Lincoln is a security officer.

I would love to include a spoiler but I don’t want to give everything away. The chapters are short and dialogue is dynamic. I loved the premise of slowly falling in love with someone, although it was kind of creepy that Beth didn’t know about it; however, Lincoln does say that his job feels wrong. The interpersonal relationships he forges throughout the novel vary, and he feels like he is an authentic human with his personal struggles. This man is awkward, shy, curious, and slightly jealous. You can see his growth and I feel like the ending was a bit rushed with two scenes, I don’t want to spoil it, but if you guys want to check out the novel, you can get it from the library, kindle, or other websites you find your books at.

I think I’ll read more books if I know what TV or literary tropes are present. I don’t have the time to figure out what I’ll like. Sometimes when you read a book that has an amazing summary, but after a few pages, 30-50, you aren’t interested in it or there are themes in there that you weren’t expecting and you get triggered by it.

I feel if there was some website that has tags regarding themes or tropes that a novel contains someone is able to find something that interests them. You know the saying, “Don’t judge a book by it’s cover,” but shouldn’t that also apply to the summary? Jk Jk.

But in all seriousness, I do want that website to exist. If it does, can someone send a message? I’ll be on that site faster than a cat stealing your chicken. Imagine finding all these hidden gems as you navigate through themes and tropes that you love? I picked up this book because I enjoy Rowell’s writing and I am glad I did it.