sleeplesspotato

I wasn't completely offline this past month, but I kind of subconsciously disengaged; I'm not sure why, exactly. Maybe I was just tired from constantly logging into NaNo and other sites to post updates and catch up with forum threads. Now that Camp NaNo is coming up again, I feel like I'm going to go back to that old daily rhythm, but I'm not sure yet.

I've been trying to plan the original thing I wanted to write for Camp NaNo all month, and it's been all over the place -- I rewrote my main character thrice and one major supporting character twice, and I still feel like I haven't quite gotten the right feel for either of them. It was like I had a character who had wandered in from an entirely different story; I can probably write that story someday, but it's not what I want to work on right now. I guess this comes of having the setting coalesce first before the characters: I keep thinking that I need a specific type of main character who can thrive in it, otherwise it doesn't seem to work.

Recently I started trying to follow the 7-point story structure exercises, which has you start at the ending, then you figure out a beginning that contrasts with that ending, then you jump back and forth between different plot points until you have something that hangs together. It seems to work well for me since I also think non-linearly. I'm not sure if I can finish this planning in time for Camp NaNo, though a nice side effect of learning this way of structuring plots is that I'm excited to get back to the Castlevania OT3 fic; it's like I found something that will help me figure out how to make all the subplots that I came up in April and May hang together (or not -- I probably have to prune them), and I'm actually looking forward to the revision and draft 2. (Or maybe I've just gotten enough distance from it that I want to work on it again after getting so tired of it.) I might decide at the last minute what I'll work on during Camp NaNo, but either way I'm grateful to have enough ideas to work with and the opportunity to work on them.

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As for my plants, only the ginger has survived since my last post; the mold hasn't come back, thank goodness, even if it's been raining off and on for the past few weeks. Last week I started regrowing leftover green onions in tiny jars on the kitchen windowsill; they've grown really well -- the tallest ones are more than 8 inches tall -- and I'm starting to wonder if I should move them to a pot. The last batch of green onions in pots didn't do so well, though, so I'm still hesitating.

It's almost midway through May, and I'm getting close to half of this month's 15k word count goal; I'm maybe a bit less productive, though my NaNo stats page tells me I've gotten faster (from 8 to 16 words per minute). I'll probably go a bit over 15k again this month. ^^ My main concern is that I've come up with a bunch of subplots for the Castlevania OT3 fanfic and they're all a mess right now; I'm planning to follow the advice to take a break after finishing the draft before going over it during revision so I can look at it with relatively fresh eyes. I get the feeling that the revised version will be longer because of the restructuring, which will probably mean adding new scenes to bridge the gaps. It's going to be a lot of work, I think.

I tried looking for new groups to join in the NaNo forums, and so far I haven't had much luck; the ones I joined during and after Camp have gone inactive, and I haven't found another one that fits. I did find a writing buddy of sorts, though right now she's busy with other things and we don't talk as often. It's kinda lonely. ^^;; I guess I'll keep looking, though it helps that I'm not as dependent on the external motivation as I was during Camp last month. Maybe the writing habit is finally taking hold.

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The weather has been hot recently, and it seems like the plants haven't reacted well; the leek, dill, and kale seem to be wilting. :( The ginger finally grew some leaves a few weeks ago, which was a welcome surprise -- it took almost a month, and I wasn't sure it was growing at all. Its first leaf yellowed pretty badly at the tip, so I moved the pot to a shadier spot where it seems to be doing better. It has since put up other leaves and seems to be fairly healthy. I hope that means I'm doing something right. ^^;;

The dill pot has become home to a thriving community of tiny pale insects; I'd read that dill attracts different kinds of insects, so I left them alone, though I wonder what they are. They haven't migrated to the other pots yet, and I'm hoping they don't.

I know the Castlevania anime wasn't trying to be historically accurate, and I know I shouldn't expect much, but nevertheless I keep thinking things like "Alucard is having breakfast in this chapter, what did they eat in 15th century Wallachia" then getting lost in internet rabbit holes before remembering that the anime just went "Fuck it, let's have him steam a fish and eat it with fresh tomatoes." Tomatoes that wouldn't have been eaten during that time period because there were toxic and inedible varieties. (Though I suppose Alucard would have some resistance to toxins because he's a dhampir?) Then there's the castle's kitchen complete with a modern stove and oven and even a bamboo steamer from who knows where, and...I can't. I just can't. There's dimension-hopping shenanigans in the plot -- maybe the castle can pop into the future for a bit so Alucard can grab some stuff before heading back to the 15th century because reasons? I mean, why not at this point?

All the same, I enjoy learning about the various historical tidbits that I come across, such as physicians forbidding people from eating breakfast for health reasons (see this paper and this article) and wine bottles (or decent ways of preserving wine, for that matter) not being a thing in the Middle Ages. The castle cellar full of wine bottles is another ahistoric thing, though Alucard being drunk a lot towards the end of season 3 apparently isn't, since wine was safer to drink than water during that period. Come to think of it, rewatching the anime while thinking that everyone is probably at least a bit drunk would make certain plot points a lot more interesting.

Anyway, it's been weird trying to balance what I've found out through casual research with what I remember from the anime while writing an AU fanfic; I don't want to disappoint any readers who actually know their history, but at the same time the source material itself is already anachronistic to begin with. I've mostly been trying not to pressure myself too much -- I just want to finish this and get it out there -- while enjoying the things that I learn along the way.

I'm not sure if I can post regularly, but anyway it's good to be back, at least for now. ^^;;

Some things I've been doing:

- Revived my sketching habit: mostly figure drawing practice and studies, occasionally trying to relearn watercolors. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed this even if I repeatedly run into the limitations of my current level of skill.

- Got back to the Castlevania OT3 fanfic: I got stuck around halfway through chapter 3 and was blocked for a long time; recently I was able to pick it up again and filled out a beat sheet with most of the plot. I've signed up for Camp NaNo and will try my best not to fixate on scenes (which is why I usually get stuck) and hit my word count. Fingers crossed that I've prepared enough material to finally get me through this first draft. (The full plot might exceed the word count I set for Camp NaNo, but either way I'd just be happy to hit that word count.)

- Started growing some vegetables: I've been meaning to do this for a while; I finally got around to it, though most of the time I don't really know what I'm doing apart from following whatever guides I can find online. ^^;; Currently I have a tiny village of seedlings (and a weathered but ruggedly determined green onion grown from a root end) in pots.

- Got into Tarot: I wasn't a big fan of Tarot in the past; I've just always been aware of it thanks to my mother, who has been doing readings for years. Recently I found a couple of decks that I liked (one featuring watercolor cats, another inspired by Santa Muerte) and was able to get them relatively cheaply, so I started doing simple 3-card readings. So far it's been quite helpful -- my readings tend to surface what's on my mind, or what I'm aware of but am not paying enough attention to (or ignoring because of various reasons). I'm glad I got both decks. <3

Delayed post by a day, was too sleep-depped to focus. :( I was able to write, though, in spite of how I've been stumbling over the current scene in my Buddha Cafe fanfic.

It's partly that I'm not trans, and I haven't been able to find a sensitivity reader yet -- maybe this is just not a story that I can or should write, even if I feel like I'm writing from a similar place of vulnerability. It's partly that I haven't worked a retail job before so there are a lot of details missing from my mental image of it (which mostly consists of what I've seen in media and other people's complaints about what it's like). It's partly that I'm unable to stick to an outline; I write like a clumsy person trying to find their way through an unfamiliar forest at night, with all the ensuing blundering around and doubling back. It's partly that I just want to get my ship together at the end, and I haven't figured out a way to do that that makes sense.

My stories and characters all have their own lives, and mostly I'm just along for the ride. Sometimes I realize that what they do isn't really suitable for a cohesive narrative. When I try to force them to do what I want, they die, or turn into something else entirely. If I'm the deity of my own worlds, I'm quite incompetent at imposing my will on my subjects.

Nevertheless I keep going back to it because I can't go without for too long. Some stories just need longer to finish fermenting in the back of my mind; sometimes I need to change my point of view, and that takes a while. I don't know if this second draft will be ready for a beta (if I ever find one) by the time I finish it, but I can probably keep going until I reach that point, even if it takes longer than I thought.

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Btw I'm jonesing to get started on one of my Omegaverse plotbunnies, either the KakaIru one or the KibaShino one. Maybe I should -- they're somewhat clearer in my mind than the Buddha Cafe fic -- though maybe I should finish the Buddha Cafe draft before starting another one. I'm guilty of starting a lot of different things and finishing only a tiny fraction of them; I want to break that pattern as often as possible.