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I'm not going to start this blog off by saying that it's been a while, because I seem to be doing that too often with my blogs.
Agh. Shoot.

My Nanowrimo 2010 failed. I got further than I did in 2009, but I still didn't reach the winning line. Well, my beloved puppy-dog had to be put down and I never got to say goodbye to him. It really hit me hard. I loved my dog more than anything. He was the coolest dog and I'd been proud to have him as my own. I don't even want to get another dog, ever, because none will ever compare to how awesome he was. I also received somewhat... devastating news about someone very close to my heart, and it took the wind out of my sails and left me unable to write for a long time.

That aside, big things happening this year. I went on holiday overseas for a month, I got married, I moved house, oh, and I have baby number three due in a month.

Also, our motherboard bombed on me when I got back from holiday and I think I've lost all my fanfiction work. I can't find it anywhere. Which... is something I try not to think about a lot because I had over 30 fanfictions I was working on, each in different stages of writing, and I can't remember bully-beef about any of it. I guess it's partially a good thing, because I've been working on my originals more frequently without the distraction of fanfiction.

I do want to apologise to my readers. I do read your reviews, and I appreciate each and every one of them. I'm sorry I haven't been able to respond to them personally as I used to. As you can imagine, I'm being kept quite busy with two little kids and another one due soon. I've only been able to find time to update this blog now - that says a lot about where my times goes.

I am keeping your reviews in my inbox, and once I can work out a routine in the next 5-6 months, you bet I'll be replying to them. Regardless if you'll have forgotten what your reviewed by then, I feel I owe it to you to at least say thanks for the R&R.

I'd also like to let you all know that I'm not abandoning any of my fanfictions. Yes, I've lost all my work, and it is going to be absolute hell trying to get cracking at them again, but they will be completed at some point or another. I tend to write fanfiction when I procrastinate with my originals, but considering how little time I have to write anything at all lately, I don't even have time to procrastinate anymore. But the fanfics will be finished. I never leave my work unfinished. It's just a matter of WHEN.

xoxo
 
With fanfiction.net having a couple of glitches in the server that sent me on a nasty trip of paranoia that people absolutely hate me enough to have my account deleted, I've had an awakening of sorts. So, it turned out it was just a glitch in the system and it's been sorted (bravo to support, those guys are ace) but it had given me a big push back.

I have no backup of my fanfics, and I've got quite a lot of fanfics. When I realised that I might have lost years of work, hours of merciless writing, days and weeks worth of time spent plotting, all in less than a second, it made me detach myself from my work and kind of brace myself for it mentally. It would have been like losing a part of myself. Any writer who has accidentally hit the delete button or had their work somehow lost in cyberspace will know this feeling of having lost something you could never recapture.  Sure, you could rewrite it - you are the author, after all, and your stories are extensions of your being. But you'll never get it quite the same as it once was. It loses that special element of raw emotion that you first wrote it with.
I'm digressing.
 
Like I was saying before I threw myself off course, I distanced myself from my work so that I wouldn't have an emotional breakdown. I'm still a bit detached from my writing at the moment after the initial terror and then relief of the glitch, and it's given me a new pair of eyes to look with.

I was ranting about how Enji has stolen the limelight in A Futile Second Chance (FSC) and how I was going to wrap up his scene/story before shifting the focus back to Dante. Now I've realised just how much I was babying that story. It never even occurred to me that I could cut out Enji's story completely and just move back to Dante, because I ended the last chapter on a note where I could go in either direction. As the author, I feel the need to show Enji's side of things - probably because I spent so much time writing for Enji that it would feel like a waste not to. As a reader, I'd lose interest when everything is all about Enji and there's not enough Dante. The fic is about Dante being forced to take Enji in and uncover the secrets behind the kid, after all. Enji's had his chapter or two of fame and served his purpose in that way.

So I'm cutting out Enji's bits - however much research and thought I put into making his first encounter with Vergil wicked. It's cut. It's gone. Bye-bye. I'll put those useless scraps in my Untold Tales folder. 

Now I just need to get back into Dante's head and start cracking at the next chapter for FSC. :)
 
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Linkin Park has been snapping their music through my headphones and into my ears while working on my fanfics. Like artists would listen to music to fit their mood and set the pace for their work and fuel the right emotion behind each stroke, writers listen to music too. 

Some songs have inspired a fic or two, namely I Hate Everything About You (3 Days Grace) and Shards of Nostalgia (Broken - Lifehouse). Other songs stand as inspiration for a paragraph or a chapter. 

So, why am I rambling about songs and moods and writing? Well, Linkin Park has served me well as of late. The Catalyst from their new album A Thousand Suns fits my Ragnarok fic like a glove. I have an insatiable desire to constantly try something new, to do something that no one has done before. To go where no man has...never mind, I'm not quoting star trek in my blog. With my apocalyptic fanfic for the DMC fandom, the ending is going to be a shocker. If readers go 'how could you do that?!' then I do believe I have accomplished my goal. 

That aside, I have some beta work I need to get cracking at tonight, and the new chapter for IHEAY that I have yet to start from scratch. But first! Enji has been begging me to finish the next chapter for A Futile Second Chance. So has Dante. The irony! I'm planning on redirecting the attention back to Dante. There's been far too much focus on Enji, and he's had me write several chapters where it's all Enji Enji Enji. I don't have a problem with it, but Dante does. He's my lead, and he should stay my lead. It's only fair. That and it confuses me and puts me off when writers bounce from one character to the next like a rubber ball on a trampoline. I like for there to be order, and a single voice that speaks out above the others. At least, that's how I like to write. I've nominated Dante my main character and worked hard to have the reader empathise and love my version of him by hampering on Dante, Dante, Dante in the first few chapters. Then Enji grew up and sprouted a big mouth, and now I'm stuck with Enji and Nero and no Dante. 

*Cue fangirl rage*

It's all part of the story. Is it integral to the plot to write what Enji gets up to? No! This is much more about how Dante acts and thinks around Enji than it is about Enji himself. So heads-up to my FSC readers - Dante's coming back, all glorious six feet of him!

I'm also going to do a few fics on the newly released and revamped Dante. If you're a fan, I need say no more. Whether they'll be crack fics or serious business, I can't be sure yet. I love Dante in every shape and form! Though I'd have to wait and see what Ninja Theory and Capcom smacks together for us. So far the only thing about the new DmC game  that appeals to me is 1 - it's all about DANTE! (hyper fangirl cheer!), and 2 - he's chained to the walls and looks roughed up. He also seems helpless and out of his mind. Ahem. I'd like to know when Ninja Theory decided to break into my secret room and drag my tortured Dante out for the world to see! That aside. 

He's chained to the walls.
I'm sold! 


Well, I have this fetish, see. I'm a sucker for strong guys getting beaten up or pretending to be fatally tortured to the point of total weakness. I say 'pretend' because they always get up and kick some mean booty at the end (and send me into a fangirl squeeing fit). Similar to what I did with Mikael in Illusion Collides. This new game has it! Now I don't need to go play DMC3 and purposely let those octopus floaty things grab him from behind and squeeze/shock the crap out of Dante. I like seeing him squirm. And groan, and scream (and my goodness, he screams in the trailer @.@) 

If you didn't think I'd like that type of thing, you either haven't read my work or you haven't read my work.

Anyway. Hold onto your heads, though. There's a chance we'll get our silver haired bad boy back near the end of DmC. Let's just hope he kicks the smoking habit too (which I reckon he will - it'll also explain his craving for pizzas. Substitute one addiction with another, right?)

Happy reading & writing!