heavenly_pearl: (Default)

...time to look back and realize just how little I've accomplished, writing-wise!

Sailor Moon
To Be By Your Side (finished, but still in the middle of posting)
Metamorphosis (unposted and unfinished)
Every Move You Make
On a Snowy Night (unposted except in this journal and [livejournal.com profile] sailormoonland and currently being expanded into a longer story)
Holiday fic for [livejournal.com profile] sailormoonland  that I can't talk about yet
Revving Her Engines
A Study of Magical Girls (and Boys) in Manga (Not exactly a fic, but, eh, I'll mention it anyway.)
Interview with Esmeraude (Script-fic)
Ode to a Prisoner of Time (Fan Poetry)
Bad Timing
Dream Journal
Maidenhead
Time, A Prison
Sailor Moon Christmas Carols (Setsuna Got Run Over By Eudial, Usagi, the Klutzy Senshi, and Deck the Cauldron)
Another entry for [livejournal.com profile] sailormoonland  that I probably shouldn't reveal yet, although I think voting is over...

Kaleido Star
Melting Ice (unfinished)

Fruits Basket
A Reason To Hope
The Bride Wore... (unposted and unfinished)

It's the traditional end of the year review meme! )
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Sailor Moon
The Night Before
Dissonance and Resonance

Entering Fatherhood (SOF Extra)
Christmas Treasures (SOF Extra)
To Be By Your Side (Not posted yet, and not completely finished, but the list is pathetic this year, so I'm mentioning it.)

Kaleido Star
Melting Ice (Another unposted WIP)

Fruits Basket
Gift from the Heart

Mystery Fic - Yeah, I probably shouldn't even include this since I can't say anything about it -- not even the fandom -- but I feel like it should be listed since I did write it this year.

Original
Take Two (Unfinished NaNoWriMo attempt)

The Questions )

The Questions )

The Questions )

The Questions )

The Questions )

Decision

Nov. 20th, 2009 01:53 pm
heavenly_pearl: (Default)
Final Word Count: 35,022

Yeah, I'm quitting NaNoWriMo this year. I know it's just 15,000 words, but this story is going nowhere, and I don't see the point in continuing it just to reach a word count. I'd rather just get back to work on my fanfiction.

Next year, definitely a new idea. After twice failing, it's pretty clear that I can't make this plot work. *laughs* Too bad, since I really do like the beginning... Sad
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Name the five most annoying characters ever.

1. Umbridge from Harry Potter
2. Ren Mihashi from Big Wind-up
3. Sae from Peach Girl
4. An/Natsumi from Sailor Moon
5. Alice from Tweeny Witches

In other news, still plugging away at my Nano novel. I'm currently at about 34,000 words, which is just a little bit behind where I wanted to be at this point. My goal for the week is 37,500, so it looks like I'll have to do some writing this weekend to catch up, especially with Thanksgiving next week. (Why did they have to pick November of all months to hold it; wouldn't one of the summer months make more sense, considering that many Nano-ers are still in school?) Ugh. And Mama just decided to play hooky from work because one of her co-workers annoyed her yesterday. -_- I hate having to write when people are home!

To be honest, I'm really tempted to just call it quits. (It's not like I can even call myself a winner if I get to 50K, since 10K of it is made up of scenes from last year's draft.) The beginning went well, but I seriously have no idea where this story is ultimately going. I'm not enjoying it any more. Still, with only 16,000 left and ten days to write it in, I might as well stick it out to the very end, right?
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Hee, I love that Lucky Star made a reference to Gold Medal Challenge during the sports festival episode. I used to love that game! In fact, it's one of the two cartridges I still have for the original Nintendo. It almost make me want to hook up my Nintendo and play. I probably won't, though, because it's a pain dealing with the digital converter box on my TV and I'd rather not have to deal with it. Plus, there's Nano, although I'm kinda taking a break over the weekend since I'm above my 12,5000 word goal for the week. Don't need to be sucked into getting obsessed with a game right now! *laughs*
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Name 5 characters whose wardrobe you would love to have.

Assuming I had the body to pull their wardrobes off...

1. Ran Kotobuki from SuperGALS
2. Rin Sohma from Fruits Basket
3. Yukari Hasekawa from Paradise Kiss/Nana O. and Nana K. from NANA (I like both of their styles pretty equally)/heck, pretty much any outfit worn by any female Ai Yazawa character ever *laughs*
4. Rachel Benning from Red Garden
5. Ayu Tateishi from Ultramaniac Aya Mikage from Ayashi no Ceres (Changed my mind)

Now, back to Nano-ing! 

An Update

Oct. 23rd, 2009 08:17 pm
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It's been over a week since I updated this journal, so, lessee, what to report...

On the writing front, I'm on the second-to-last scene for To Be By Your Side. I probably would have finished it had my dad not been on vacation this week, thus sucking out all of my creative energy. I just can't concentrate when my parents are home during my writing time. *sigh* I'm still hoping to be finished with the (very) rough draft by Halloween, though. Two scenes, one that will probably be fairly short? That should be doable. As for Nanowrimo... It looks like I'm going to stick with last year's idea. There's just not enough time to come up with something new. (I probably should have done that instead of playing Sims and cleaning my room while Dad was home, in hindsight. Oh, well.)

Still haven't made a concrete decision on what my 100th anime series will be, although I'm leaning toward either Gurren Lagann or Code Geass. Those two seemed to be the most mentioned between my LJ post and the dotmoon post. I really need to make a decision soon. It seems I actually miscounted, so the next series I start will be the 100th, and I only have the last two discs of Red Garden left before I get there. I finished up Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo today, and now I kinda wish I had taken advantage of the deal at Right Stuf when I was ordering last. :( Fortunately, it looks like they got a new shipment of the boxset in, so I can still take get it. Now I just need some money. -_- Maybe for my birthday next month?

Speaking of Right Stuf, the previously mentioned order came in today. Among the goodies: Chance Pop Session boxset (which was another fantastic deal at only eighteen dollars), both halves of Ghost Hunt (yet another good deal at fifteen each, and perfect watching for Halloween), Full Metal Panic: Fumoffu! Disc 3 to replace the messed up disc from my boxset ($5, totally worth it for the hot springs episode alone), the second season of Emma, Vol. 9 & 10 (pre-order) of the Emma manga, and, of course, my usual keychain purchase (Sakura from TRC, which is currently backordered.) Not a bad haul for just over a hundred dollars, but I really need to take a break from that site until after the holidays or I won't have any money left to buy Christmas presents! *laughs*

Will totally ignore that last sentence should I get money for birthday
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I gotta come up with an idea for NaNoWriMo. -_- It just hit me today how soon November will be here, and I have no idea what I'm going to write! I may have to resort to last year's abandoned plot. Yeah, I know I lost interest in it only a few days in, but I think that was more the fact that I was obsessed with Sims and wasn't really interested in writing anything, period, rather than the idea itself being bad. However, if I do use it, I'll probably make a few changes, namely changing the main setting from London to Los Angeles. I think that'll be easier to write. It was just around the time the main character was supposed to go to London that I quit, because I didn't have time to do the research I wanted to do.

Then again, I'm also kinda, sorta interested in writing a supernatural mystery story. I blame it on all the supernatural anime I've been watching lately. I've never written one before, though, so I don't know... It might be best to stick with something I know I can do. Romance may not be my strong suit, but I know I can write it. A mystery? Well, to be lame, that's a total mystery to me!

On a positive writing note, I think I actually may finish the rough draft of To Be By Your Side by the Halloween deadline I set. I've actually just started to write what will probably be the last chapter. (I haven't decided yet how I'll break things up.) Granted, I'm sure I'll have to do quite a bit of rewriting because I still want to use the scenes I said I might have to cut and some of the newer scenes are rather bare-boned at the moment, but it feels good to at least have the main parts almost done. I may even have it ready for posting by Christmas. No promises, but we'll see how it goes.

Fic update

Sep. 3rd, 2009 07:31 pm
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You know, it's strange how a story idea can sometimes go in a direction you never expected. I've been kinda stuck on To Be By Your Side for the past couple of weeks, but instead of doing what I have been doing for a while and just taking a break whenever I'm feeling blocked, I decided to fight through it with some screenwriting -- just writing dialogue for whatever random scenes came into my head, no matter if I thought I could use them in the story or not. The result? I think I have finally figured out how to get the ending I want without resorting to Chibi-Usa becoming Sailor Earth. (Not necessarily a bad idea as far as Sailor Earths are concerned -- Kotetsu's The Awakenings of Tsukino Chibi-Usa pulls it off beautifully -- but it wasn't really the direction I wanted to go with the story.)  It may mean I have to cut about eight thousand words I had already written, but those scenes were a part of another attempt to break through writer's block, so...eh. Maybe I can use them in another story. They never really fit that well with this story anyway.

In any case, it's interesting how the fic is shaping up now. A character I created for the fic but never meant to do much with has suddenly become much more important, and I think it's a good thing for the story. He's creating some wonderful drama and is giving Chibi-Usa the opportunity to do something besides cry all the time.

I was hoping to have the fic by the end of summer, but that's definitely not going to happen with the new direction the story is going. *sigh* My new goal is by Halloween, so I can participate in NaNoWriMo in November. (Really have to figure out what I want to write this year.) I don't know if I can make it by then, but I'm going to try. Wish me luck! 
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Yesterday, I had a Sims marathon that put my seven hour marathon on Election Day to Shame.

9:30 a.m. to 1:30 a.m., with only a half hour break to eat supper and check on things on-line.

Clearly, I'm addicted. -_-

But Lucy (the eldest daughter) got pregnant! And she gave birth to twin girls! (Which meant, of course, that I had to give them my "twin" names: Eva and Zoe.) Yes, you read that right, twins again. I honestly have no idea what I'm doing that I keep getting twins. *laughs* I guess it must run in the family. I seem to remember looking at the family tree and seeing that Jennifer's (Lucy's and the first twins' mother) brother also had twin daughters. Does Sims 2 work like that? I know the big thing is how appearance DNA is passed down through the family, but I wonder if a hereditary higher chance of twins does as well...or if it's just because I let my Sims have Woohoo even when pregnant. (Hey, pregnant women are supposed to be horny at certain parts of the pregnancy!) The world may never know.

And then there was the wedding. I think so far the ability to have a real wedding instead of one of those quicky affairs is probably my favorite improvement from the original game. I really did it up right. Once Eva and Zoe had grown up into children who no longer needed my contant attention and their parents (Lucy and the father, who moved in when Lucy got pregnant to help with the bab(ies)) had the night off, Jeet (as I call him, because he has a rather ethnic name that I can never remember how to spell) took Lucy out to Londoste and surprised her with a ring at dinner. I then spent the next day setting up their wedding, which was a blast. Only family was invited, because I was worried some jealous ex-lovers might cause a scene, but it was still really lovely. And now Lucy, Jeet, and the twins have moved out, which should make the house a lot more manageable. I was going a little crazy there for a while, trying to keep eight Sims happy and healthy. *laughs*

So, now I've done the pregnancy thing (twice) and the wedding thing. I guess all that's really left is for somebody to die. John, the patriarch, is a couple of days from becoming an elder, so I'm going to turn the aging back on and let him die. That's terrible of me, isn't it? But I really want to see what happens!

But that'll have to wait until later. I gave up NaNo in order to concentrate on Melting Ice, so I should probably, you know, actually work on it some.

*goes off to write*
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I have made a decision.

I'm giving up on NaNoWriMo this year. :( I'm too far behind from where I wanted to be by this time of the month, and I'm just not that into the story I chose to write. I know there are a couple of you who decided to start over again when you didn't like your original idea and have been successful at it, but I'm not that fast a writer. (Around 2,000 words a day seems to be my general limit, provided the writing is going well.) There's no way I would get to 50,000 words if I started over at this point, and I doubt I would be able to reach the goal even if I continued with the story I have been writing.

On the plus side, though, this has gotten me to write again. I haven't really felt the urge to write for a while now, ever since Hurricane Ike hit and I lost my old computer, but now I really want to get back to Melting Ice, my Kaleido Star story. So, there's a positive, right?  

Anyway, I wish everybody who is still participating the best of luck. ^_^

Final word count: 14,118 of mediocre crap

NaNo Update

Nov. 8th, 2008 07:02 pm
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Curent word count: 10, 717

Admittedly, it could be a little bit higher. :( By this time, I was hoping to be up to at keast 12,500 words, but you know...Sims. (The last entry when I said the novelty had worn off? Yeah, not really.) Oh, well. I'll try to do better next week. *sigh*

You know what, though? If my NaNo novel, by some miracle, is ever published and gets popular enough to develop a fandom (yeah, right), I guarantee you Alison/Samantha will have quite the following. Heck, I'm half-shipping them myself, and I usually stick to het. *laughs* They just keep saying the most suggestive, subtext-y things to each other, and I can't stop them! Silly characters...




Woohoo!

Nov. 4th, 2008 11:01 pm
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I got pregnant my first time and gave birth to twins!

...Yes, I'm talking about Sims 2.

What? Did you think I was actually talking about myself?

*laughs*

Anyway, I think I played enough today so that now a little of the novelty is wearing off. After I finished my NaNo writing for the day (roughly about 5,000 words total so far, which isn't terrible), I played Sims for seven hours straight, minus an hour or so to go vote and eat dinner. Man, I gotta tell you, controlling a house with two horny parents, a teenager in love, and two children is exhausing! If my life was a Sims game, there would be a little thought bubble above my head with a bed in it right about now. Hopefully, though, now that I kinda have it out of my system, I can concentrate more on my NaNo.

Although, you know, it would be pretty fun to create Sims of all my NaNo characters...
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Yeah, as I feared, Sims 2 is making it mighyt difficult to concentrate on NaNo. *laughs* I held out until I reached about 2100 words today, but by three o'clock,  I just had to quit and play Sims. The game was calling out to me, "Play me! Play me!"

Evil, eeeeevil game. But, oh, so fun.

Anyway, it was a okay birthday, I guess. I couldn't decide if I wanted a cake or to go a little non-traditional with birthday brownies, so my mom was nice enough to make both. Yum. Plus, we also had barbeque. Double yum. As for presents, of course I got the Sims, but Mom thought a $20 game wasn't enough, so she also let me pick out about $60 worth of manga from Right Stuf. I ordered all four volumes of Cherry Juice, the one-shot manga Shirley (from the mangaka of Emma), Vol. 2 of Sugar Princess, Vol. 7 of Fushigi Yugi: Genbu Kaiden, and Vol. 13 of NANA. Everything is either backordered or on pre-order (though coming out tomorrow), so this is one time I'm actually hoping Right Stuf will take their time in sending me my order.

'Cause new manga and Sims 2?

I'll be in big trouble.

Now, off to play Sims!
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Well, I'm twenty-five today. Ugh. I feel unbelievably old. (Yeah, I know it's not that old, but to someone who considers herself a teenager at heart, I'm old. :P)

Only good thing about today is that Mom's going to buy me Sims 2 for my new computer. I told her I didn't really want anything, since my parents already bought me the computer, the new desk, chair, and printer, but she insisted on getting me something, and I've really been wanting Sims 2 ever since we got this computer. (My old one had trouble with the original Sims, so I never even dared to try Sims 2 on it.) It's kind of bad timing, though, with NaNoWriMo going on... I'll probably have to make up a rule that I can't play it on the weekdays until I've at least reached my 2,500 words-per-day goal, or else I'll never get anything done. *laughs*

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, I'm off to a decent start, I suppose. I wrote about a thousand words yesterday, which is good, considering it was a Saturday, and I normally don't write on weekends. I'll get really serious about it tomorrow.

(Heh, you know what's kind of amusing? Today's the end of Daylight Savings Time, meaning today gets an extra hour. Twenty-five hours for my twenty-fifth birthday, that's kind of neat. Just wish my body had let me sleep in the extra hour... Oh, well.)
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Happy Halloween!

First, a [livejournal.com profile] fannish5 question, since it's appropriate for the holiday and it seems like forever since I did one.

Name 5 episodes or movies that would be most appropriate to watch on Halloween.

1. The Phantom of the Opera - Like I really need an excuse to watch my second favorite movie, but it does work well as a Halloween movie if you don't care for the scary stuff. (If you want the scary stuff, though, I've heard older, non-musical versions are scarier.)

2. Casper - Man, it's been forever since I last watched this, which is a shame because I adore it. Maybe I'll put it in tonight.

3. The Sixth Sense - Really the only "horror" movie I actually like, because it's more pyschological than gory.

4. It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown - I was so happy that I actually got to see this year. Usually there's something else on at the same time when it comes on TV, but this year my TV schedule was free and clear. It's good for the nostalgia value.

5. Kiki's Delivery Service - Well, it is about a witch, and it's a really good movie! ... Yeah, like I said, I'm just not into scary movies, so I couldn't really think of anything else that fit. *laughs*

And now some Halloween memes I actually did a couple of years ago, but decided to resurrect )

Lessee, what else is there to report? Oh, my birthday is this Sunday. Blergh. I'm not looking forward to it. Is it possible to have a quarter-life crisis? Because I think I'm going through one.

And I'm almost finished making my plans for NaNoWriMo. Still don't quite know what I'm going to do with the middle part of the story yet, but I figure I have at least a couple of weeks before I absolutely have to think of something. (Have I mentioned before how hard it is for me to write romance?) At least I know how the beginning and the end will go. That's something, right?

Speaking of which, I better sign off and get back to work.
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You know, I just can't decide if I want to do Nanowrimo this year or not. I know I said earlier that I had decided not to, since I thought when Mom came home from the hospital, she would be needing a lot of help, but she really doesn't. The only things she can't do are drive and lift heavy objects, so I probably would have the time to write if I really wanted to. The problem is, having her home for the next few weeks, even if she doesn't need much help, will most likely distract me from my writing. I never can fully concentrate on writing when somebody else is in the house, so I doubt I'll be able to reach 50,000 words by the end of November as long as she's hanging around the house. On top of that, I only have half the story planned. I suppose I could just start writing and see where it takes me, but...

Eh, I should probably just throw in the towel before I even start. I need to work on my Kaleido Star fic anyway. Besides, I'm not as fond of my novel idea as I was before, since it's about a boy who's dying of a brain tumor. After almost losing my mother, that's just hitting a little too close to home at the moment.

Update

Oct. 23rd, 2007 09:30 pm
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So, Mom had the surgery, although it wasn't for her gallbladder like the doctors first suspected. (It's possible that she will need gallbladder surgery in the future, but that wasn't what was causing the pain.) It turns out that she had a perforated ulcer, which was actually what I kind of suspected. Honestly, it really was only a matter of time until something like this happened, because even though she's a pharmacist technician and should know better, she's been taking over-the-counter pain medication pretty much every day for years, despite all the warnings about it causing possible damage to the gastrointestinal tract if not used correctly.

In any case, the surgery went well, thank goodness. She's going to have to stay in the hospital for another week, though, and she'll probably have to take a leave of absence from work once she does get home. Looks like I'll have to sit out of Nano this year, if that's the case, but, oh, well. Mom is much more important than some silly contest.

Thank you to everybody who expressed their concern, and I'll keep y'all updated if anything else major happens.
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Seriously, it is even more boring than usual, which is why I haven't posted much this month. *sigh* Mostly, I've just been busy planning for my Nano novel. I'm trying a new tactic this time, by writing a short summary of each and every scene I want to write so I won't have to waste valuable writing time trying to decide what comes next. We'll see how it turns out. If it goes well, I might start using it for all of my multi-part writing, instead of my usual screen-writing-style planning.

I've also recently finished watching several anime series I've rented from Netflix. Fullmetal Alchemist is awesome. I would say that I'm putting it on my To Buy list, but it would be very expensive to collect, since instead of one boxset, there are going to be like three or four. :( Oh, well, I still may get it anyway, because it is just that good. I also finished a couple of short twelve episode series: Sentimental Journey and Nanaka 6/17 (which I guess is technically thirteen episodes, counting the bonus episode). Sentimental Journey was good, but, personally, I think Diamond Daydreams did the whole "separate, but interconnected, stories based on a dating-sim" thing better, especially since in DD, each girl got two episodes to herself, while the SJ girls only got one each. And Nanaka 6/17 is just adorable. ^_^ I wouldn't mind owning that series as well, but I'll probably only get it if I can find a good deal on it. I want it, but not all that much.

To round off this entry, quizzes!

Because it's really been a long time since I posted some )

Pondering

May. 26th, 2007 07:20 pm
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You know, a Card Captor Sakura/Ghost Whisperer crossover would be so plausible, what with Touya being able to see ghosts and all. All you'd have to do is figure out a reason for Touya to visit America or for Melinda to come to Tomoeda, which really wouldn't be too hard considering that Melinda owns an antique shop. She could have somehow ended up with something belonging to Clow Reed and decide to do a little research...

Heh, yeah. I don't know where I come up with these strange anime/live action crossover ideas. First it was a Sailor Moon/Grey's Anatomy crossover, and now this CCS/GW plot bunny is hopping around in my head, although I doubt I'll ever get around to writing it. Still, I think it really could work.

Anyway, as you can probably guess, my CCS manga came in yesterday. Yay! ^_^ Well, at least some of it. About half the volumes are on backorder, but I did get the first four of the first series and two, three, and four of Master of the Clow. I've read the first three so far, and I'm very much enjoying it, although I think I like anime!Sakura more than manga!Sakura. The anime did a good job of making her less of a stereotypical shoujo heroine. For example, manga!Sakura seems to be a habitual oversleeper, while anime!Sakura generally wakes up in time to at least eat her breakfast at the table, rather than scarfing it down on her way out like manga!Sakura always does. She sometimes oversleeps, of course, but nowhere as much as manga!Sakura. Also, manga!Sakura is even more Yukito-crazed than anime!Sakura, to the point that it's kind of annoying rather than cute. Oh, well. The manga is still very good (if I ignore the creepy scene where Terada-sensei gives Rika an engagement ring).

I also think I may have an idea for my Nanowrimo novel this year. It's still a bit vague at the moment, but I'm thinking of calling it A Life Less Ordinary, and it's about a teenage girl named Leah who is bored of her life in a small, New England(?) town until she meets a dying boy who teaches her to the value the life she has. Or something like that. Like I said, it's still in the planning stages at the moment, but I think it'll turn out all right. Anything would be better than last year's Mothers of the Bride.

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