the trick is to keep breathing

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

( me yelling into space about my life )

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

who doesn't like lists. if you don't like lists you are at the wrong journal.

I've made a "Words and Workouts" pact with justira. Our goals are low, but meaningful: 1500 words per week; 3 workouts per week. We will have lovely charts to share. I mean to stick to this - both of them. Here are some thoughts...

• So, I am in fact wordsing again. The shameful part is that it's Harry Potter fic. HP is like my shame comfort fandom - when I am ill, I browse AO3 and look for fics with high kudos and pairings that I like, no fucking regrets. I was ill for like 93% of last week which meant I read a lot of trash. I am now writing HP trash. I don't even give a fuck. It's words and I will have fun, even if HP fandom is beyond the grave.
• If I can get moving again with the writing, I want to work on original stuff this year, but I also want to get back to dabbling in fandom - prompt memes and the like. I miss the sense of connection that comes with fannish writing. Hang me.
• Right now my workout goals are more about consistency than actual workouts. I want to focus on swimming first - that's my best and favorite sport, and why not do a workout that I actually enjoy? After that, I'd like to go back to yoga, then running and biking. Of course there's weightlifting and punching the bag in there too - I'll make a plan once I've shown that I can stick to 3x/wk for more than, say, one wk.

My other lofty goals for 2016 include:

• Start fucking going to bed on time. I want to get up earlier in the mornings but (a) I am so lazy and (b) I tend to sulk about my life late at night and stay up until, say, 01:00 in a snit of because I can which doesn't work so well when you want to get up at 06:00. If I could get my arse in bed between 22:00-23:00 I could get up earlier and either get to work earlier (to leave earlier) or have some time in the morning just for me. Either one sounds better than the usual snooze-button-festival party-of-one I have going on in my bed for an hour and a half every goddamn morning. That's such a waste of time.
• Half hour of chores every night. This is hard to keep up with because of fibro - some days I come home and crawl into bed and get up 4 hours later to eat a pop tart before returning to blankets. However, this leads to having to spend all of a weekend day catching up on chores that have slipped (dishes, laundry, mail/bills) which is equally exhausting. 30mins is reasonable on all but the worst evenings and should allow me to have more relaxing time on weekends, which is good for fibro.
• Learn to chill about work. I will never not be platonically married to this place or this job, but getting stressed leads to high interaction costs leads to overstimulation leads to me being too exhausted to fucking blink. I'm already working to set this year up as an improvement - more support, more help, less projects overall - so I need to keep to that course.
• Empty my life. I have too much going on, and too many things taking up space (physical and mental). It's time to clean it out.

More specific goals will have to wait until I have brains to deal with them.

• Battleshots


• FF Roller Derby Rydia, part of the Zeromus Haters roller derby team


• being drunk


• (drunk) (gay stylist) (spaghetti making) Trowa, from Gundam Wing


• gluing sparkly shit on everyone who stands still long enough to let me


• getting to curl Becky's hair :D


• possibly seducing Quatre's voice actor with Katy


• drinking an entire beer penis


• a round of Snirvines (this year's shot)


• Mongolian Fucking Barbecue


• cuddling


• lots of compromising photos posted to our live photo feed


• creepersharking


• HOPEFULLY partying with Hot Leia and Hot Tifa and Hot Cloud and Hard Gay