The end is nigh!

The end! The end is near! Ahhhhh!

Not like THAT, you know, but like, the end of The Shift. It's, like, SOON. And it's like, WITHIN SIGHT.

In the last month I've written chapter 8, 9, and 10 and begun writing 11. And that's, like, WAY MORE than I've done in the last six months. Or, so it seems. I always get this way when I get to the end of the story. I furiously write and write and write until I literally burn out all of my little writing wheels in my head. I've written something between 11,000-12,000 words in less than 30 days. Which, while 50,000 words is my personal record (thanks, NaNoWriMo!) It's certainly a new level of normal productivity for me.

According to my own personal goal of finishing writing this story by the time summer starts, I have another 3 or 4 weeks to write another 2 or 3 chapters. And one of the chapter's dialogue is already entirely written and I'm thinking of making the penultimate chapter one that I've already finished writing, but will edit extensively to fit better into the story that I've actually written.

The most recent chapters have been an exercise in "See Stefanie highlight important shit!" and "See Stefanie skip centuries in each chapter!" I hope people don't get too lost!

I'm off to type up more of chapter 9, which I think I am almost finished with. Chapter 10, I realized rather late, is about 7000 words long! I have my work cut out for me.

April Challenges bring May... Productivity?

My good friend Ally and I are doing a series of challenges this month! So hopefully I will be writing a little bit more. We're requiring each other to post at least three of the stories. Possibly 5. And a sixth, if we're super productive. They'll be one-shots, 500 words or less.

More on that later, I suppose!

In other news, I'm almost finished with chapter 10! I'm loving the way it's turning out... and I can see the end in sight! (Of the story as well as the chapter...)

Thoughts on (being almost finished with) The Shift

Tonight, I sat on my friend Ally's (CSG4ME) couch and talked about fanfiction for probably four hours. Yeah. We drank beer, too, if that makes us sound cooler or something. We swapped favorites, talked plots, and generally enjoyed dorking around. Also, I shared some of the things I'd written lately - including a one shot I have fondly dubbed "Delusions, and Other Matters of the Heart". I'll let y'all simmer in the sheer glory of that title for a moment. ;)

I have a goal. I do not know whether or not this is an achievable goal or not, but it is a goal. My goal is to have The Shift finished (not edited) by the time school ends, or around then, so that I can start posting during the summer and writing the second fic, The Battle. Realistically, I have only a good three chapters in me for this story, and I'm progressing rather well at the speed I'm going. My new notebook is filling up, almost a third full, and I have some really fun ideas in store.

Writing this first story has been a little bit of a struggle for me, just because although I know exactly what I want to happen doesn't mean I know how to write it right. So much of what I establish in this story will be crucial to the next two and the balancing act is drives me a little crazy at times. It needs to be there, it cannot be subtle, but I cannot beat my readers over the head with it like a ton of bricks.

Legolas' story is really what I thought of when I first got the idea for this probably three or so years ago, and so it is really important to me that I get this right, so I can do it justice. His particular journey through the War of the Ring is unlike any other story I've read, and I hope that everyone will like it. I hope that it will be a new take on something many people have written about.

Anyway, I typed up chapter 8, and I am working on typing chapter 9 while I write chapter 10. Legolas grows from an infant to an adult in probably thirteen chapters in this story, so I apologize in advance for the number of ridiculous jumps in the timeline. (Don't worry - I clearly mark what year scenes take place!)

Spring Cleaning

Similarly to how some people go through a fit of "Spring Cleaning" I've been hit rather violently with a fit of Spring (Break) Writing.

I bought myself a new journal at Target the other day and decided to buy it. (It was cheap, it was on recycled paper... you know. Just doing good!)

Having given myself a deadline (and then totally failed at keeping it) I know I just needed to give myself a good kick and it would all come pouring out of me. There are, of course, no guarantees that it will be any good, but I needed to at least try and push the story along.

Because Legolas' character in The Shift grows from an infant to an adult throughout the story, I sometimes find that he gets stuck at a certain age and I have to force him to grow a little. It's hard to make him grow too fast and develop in the way I need him to (for purposes that will be explained in The Battle, the story from his POV).

So while I've been writing, I've been trying to get as much of this done soon. My goal is to begin posting by the time I go to England this summer in July. I have another few chapters to go, so I think that's reasonable! (This also hinges on Siobhan being a good and timely editor!)

Another thing I wrote this week (in addition to the two chapters, chapter 8 and 9) was a one-shot I'm (perhaps temporarily) calling "Love, Delusions, and Other Matters". I am overly fond of this title, but it is not quite as succinct as it could be. It is from Legolas' point of view and accompanies chapter 8.

So I'm going to go type up these chapters and perhaps do some preliminary editing. I have something like 6000 or 7000 words (I think) to type up. We shall see. I will update later?

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Some other matters! You see up in the corner there is a lovely "Subscribe" box in which you can enter your email address and receive these updates, few and far between though they are!

Also shiny and new is my official The Hobbit Ivy twitter account! This is so that you can see what I am working on as I am working on it! I will endeavor to tweet this as it happens. Linked on the side will be my personal twitter, which deals with matters mostly non-fanfictiony.

Whomp Whomp

PseudoWriMo was kind of a bust after the first 10 days or so. Whomp whomp!

As soon as I can get past finals (finish the 13th) and a friend leaves town (the 18th) finishing this story is ON.

ON, I say!

Will write more as it happens...

PseudoWriMo update #1

So, "PseudoWriMo" (as I am calling it) is going ridiculously well! So well that perhaps I am a little afraid of how it is going to crash and burn in the near future?

I've finished with Chapter 4 and am already a page and a half into Chapter 5. The Shift covers almost 2000 years of time, from when Legolas is born until just before the War of the Ring... so it's kind of bizarre to write that Legolas is born in chapter 3, grows from infant to toddler in chapter 4, and is 15 in chapter 5. But I am pushing myself along just so I can meet my deadline in December!

If I can write 15000 words by the end of the month, I can (at an average of 2500 words/chapter) complete 6 whole chapters by the end of it, pushing me to chapter 10. By the end of December (because PseudoWriMo pretty much will become PseudoWriMos so I can finish!) I can make it through to the end of chapter 15, which is all I have mapped out at this point. Chapter 15 is already scripted (you will understand why soon enough! And by 'soon' I really mean 'within a year or so'), so really I just need to make the intervening chapters something of interest, right?

Anyway, with a final word count goal of 2500 today, I am at 2859! Perhaps I will push myself a little farther and write more of chapter 5, because I'm on a roll tonight!

More soon enough. Enjoy your weekend!

Some News!

By in large, I have been almost entirely inactive in the way of posting on this blog because, honestly, I have been almost entirely inactive in the way of writing. Writing = fodder for posting to le blog. I've written a whole paragraph ("a whole paragraph!" they shout, "nothing more than that?!") but it is Novembertime, and Novembertime, as I am sure you know, is NaNoWriMo. (NaNoWriMo is National Novel Writing Month, which is a month-long effort to write 1667 words a day to complete a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month. You can read about my NaNo exploits from last year here.)

Now, before you jump out of your chairs and cheer for me, let me strap you back in and disappoint you from the getgo by saying NO, I will NOT be participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Last year proved to me what a disaster it can make of my studies and I cannot allow myself to be sucked into that, no matter how tempting it is that it is November 1st and I am not writing a new novel.

Although I will not be participating in NaNo this year, I will, however, use this time to write. In the spirit of NaNo, I hereby promise that I will write at LEAST 500 words every day from November 1st to November 30th, which brings me to a total tally of 15,000 words by the end of November. (500 words is about a page.) This is totally doable. It will force me to continue writing the story, which has been at a standstill for a good few months now.

I still have a deadline of December 31st for this story, and goshdarnit I will be MAKING that deadline. December only involves classes till the 3rd, final exams until the 13th, and then sweet, sweet freedom.