HELLO IM HERE TO TALK ABOUT FICTION

[seventhe]

a wild sev emerges from the depths of the ravine HI WHATS UP LETS TALK ABOUT NANOWRIMO, ORIGINAL FICTION, AND MY FUCKING SABBATICAL

SOOOOOO

i'm coming up on the anniversary of me leaving my professional industry smart person job, and it means i've been horribly and depressingly introspective.

the truth is that i don't really have much to show for it -- although that's kind of dismissive, because i do have some important things that have settled. i'm no longer getting sick every ten days, because i'm not exposed to as many people, germs, coming to the office when sick, etc, which means my shitty magnet of an autoimmune system (which has the barrier strength of swiss cheese) (and is some sort of unidentified autoimmune disorder) can stop fucking attacking itself and i can stop having fucking colds all the fucking time. my fibro has been much more manageable. my brain is in a much better state; my mental health has drastically improved, which is what you get when you get to stay in your house all week alone and surrounded by cats: although i still fight the depression and the ADHD/ExecDys beasts, my anxiety is so so much better, and just my mental state is like mostly (generally) (i guess) POSITIVE.

i also have had the time to think through lots of things and want to pursue a career i can do from the comfort of my own home, mostly because of all these benefits. i love not getting sick. i love that i can nap if fibro wears me out. i love that i can just stretch my back or go take an epsom bath if i need to, whenever i need to. i have remote writing content work that i do, and while it isn't always interesting, it's work i could enjoy for quite a while. my goal is to become self-sustaining from home.

but going back to the initial statement: i haven't lost any weight, i am no more fit than i was before, my house is still a nuclear disaster, and i haven't written a book. the truth is it has taken me a YEAR to eventually pull my poor head out of whatever ass it was stuck in and be able to just look around myself and decide to engage with life again. a year of mental healing and development. i have a lot i could probably say about this but hey! im gonna talk about good life choices instead.

so i currently write for pay. i also have fanfic commissions i am using to pay off my new laptop. i have other ongoing fanfiction projects i love. but one of the things i haven't been able to do this year - one of the things that has taken me that year to be able to really look at - is original writing. i think my new goal should be to (self)publish something -- or at least go through the process of creating and editing and see whether i like it as much as i think i might. that's the next stage in my new career that i need to explore.

so like the garbage fucktruck that i am, i've decided to do NaNoWriMo this year, in addition to the words I write daily for work and for fandom, which i'm not going to stop doing, and in addition to job hunting. My goal here is actually to force myself into more regular writing; my style right now is too much "faff around on AO3 for two days, then frantically vomit 6000 words in one day" and not enough "i will work on X for an hour today" type schedule. that isn't even a sentence. clearly i am a professional. beep beep the fucktruck is backing up

it's part of a recovery plan that i'm slowly but surely initiating for myself and i'll talk more about that process at some point because who doesn't love a good self-centered Sev Blather.

Anyway, the IMPORTANT question is about NaNo projects. I've narrowed it down to 3, because I have to start somewhere. (none of them are lesbian werewolves in space, namely because while i have the characters and worldbuilding down, the plot needs some solid work i haven't done.) Let me know what you think of the following concepts -- you don't have to vote or anything, but if something sounds interesting, I'd love to hear it.

1. Young woman working as a non-magical analytical scientist suddenly and drastically discovers she has the specific magical ability of working a season's circle with a coven of four (spring summer autumn winter; she's autumn). The season's circle is when four witches work together to create a passageway between the [land of the fey] and the human's world, allowing an (1) powerful being to step through or back. This particular circle is attempting to summon a cool demon-type dude who is powerful enough to stop an entity called the Oak King, who's basically spreading dark magic through the land etc etc. The circle has been holding on to the magic with only 3 witches but they need the 4th to complete the rite. Unfortunately, Amber has no fucking clue how any of this works and basically gets stabbed with her power; Summer really hates her for some reason; she has to come to terms with Autumn being the season of death; and who the hell is going to finish her analytical work while she spends three months in a season's circle coma? Additional options include: background romance, Gay, lots of fun worldbuilding, urban fantasy type setting where this could be the real world just with some magic bullshit.

2. Sassy idiot lady born with the power to scry into the past uses her magic and tools to make a living exploring things for fussy customers who want answers. Lives in a rough edge of town, doubles at a bar for free food, manages to get by in the grey area between the brightness of the City and the darkness of the Void. One day a scry doesn't work, which has never happened in her career, and she starts finding out other magics are failing: the bar owner's beer went off, her father's healing magic didn't come when called, etc etc. She's eventually sought out by [the equivalent of a detective] to help [a City murder case] but drags him into finding out what's going on in their small town as recompense. Turns out the two are related, but she doesn't have any other magical powers and doesn't know how to fight off this [creature] that's slowly moving in on their City. Bisexual protag and this is definitely Not Our World. Additional options include: Karma Knights (when killing someone is right, they're the ones who do it), Wild Gay Fairy, this world could easily explode if i let it.

3. Young lady was born with a huge reservoir of magical energy but lacks the ability to channel it all. Having been abandoned/orphaned (not sure yet) she's now training with the dwarves to learn how to be a healer, figuring she may as well try it. Her (erstwhile; somewhat removed) cousin has the gift to heal the earth, and asks Enna to come on her pilgrimage across the Civil Lands and into the Nolands to try to heal the damage so that the land can be used [think: remnants of a nuclear apocalypse healed by elemental magic]. Cousin, her existing band of jolly protectors, and Enna set out across the absolute disaster of the journey, haunted by demons and Nightmares, often having to invent new ways to use their skills because nobody has faced this shit yet. One part FFX pilgrimage, one part Enna finding her own purpose, one part environmentalist rants in the form of a tiny girl.

Thoughts?

[edit] markdown y u always do this to me fuck ity

Comments

[lassarina]

3 sounds most exciting to me but what is hilarious is that if you did 1 we could both be writing novels where the main character is named Amber, let's confuse the shit out of each other in texts, it'll be great :D :D :D

[goldmare]

I really like 2. I would read the SHIT out of that. Possibly because I identify strongly with the main protagonist.

[elenorasweet]

(hey nora here whattup) I think the third one sounds like a wild time, and I really love the idea of "using their magic in new and innovative ways", though I also love a mystery? What's the band of jolly protectors in #3 like?