Travel Into My World

So today is the first day of December, and that means National Novel Writing Month has officially come to an end. I have mixed emotions about it, but I'll start with the good stuff. Like my stats for the month.

This year's NaNowriMo marks the first time I have ever gone over 60k words. My total for the entire month of November was 168,051 words. This is an amazing feat that I am not sure I will ever repeat. I may have to give myself a new goal next year. We shall see.

I finally defeated TJ. TJ is someone I have been fighting to leapfrog and surpass for the last 3 years of NaNoWriMo, as he and I appear to be the top writers in Maryland (that I have added and can see stats for). TJ's count was 10k less than mine at midnight. I want to thank CURLING for that. TJ loves writing, but he admitted to me last month that curling is his true love, and so he was gone an entire weekend, and I took full advantage of it. I was 10-11k words ahead of him the rest of the month.

Other stats: 3 and 3/4 Fanfics written. All of them leading up to the end of the Wyatt saga, and I'm so thankful. Wyatt Munroe is possibly one of the most ANNOYING villains I have ever created. He's twisted, and just downright cruel. I hate getting into his head because I KNOW what he's thinking, and I know why, and just like with Aaron Roba, it's for the wrong reasons!

Some good things that have come out of everything for Victoria though:

1. She's engaged and will become a permanent part of the Roba family (although Espa, Jon, and Christien argue that she was already a permanent fixture once she was full time taking care of Andrew and Ej)

2. She has a steady job, and an up and coming vocal career either on stage or in a recording studio (that last bit hasn't been revealed yet in the fic-verse.)

3. She'll finally be able to make peace with her past, and be able to let go of a lot of the bad stuff that's happened. And can now focus on her future life with Christien.

4. She's also learned to branch out and trust others outside of her normal circle of friends. She's befriended Griffon (who she didn't know was a Roba at the time of their meeting so I'm counting it), Teran Bishop, the older Robas, Cale and Spencer (even though her relationship with them had a setback because of their triplet brother Aaron), she's accepted Weevil and Rex as friends although she keeps them at arm's length. Her greatest suprise as a friend though has been Wade Munroe, Wyatt's twin.

All in all this year of NaNoWriMo has been a great comfort to me. It was nice to return to something so familiar to me in the wake of all the loss, and changes that have happened in the last few years. Its nice to know that no matter how much I lose, or how many things change, my Robas and Victoria will be there to make things right again.

I would also like to say that there were times in the fanfic that I really had fic imitating life. Having Marcia be let out of the hospital followed by the reaction from the family (Victoria in particular) was potent, and it was therapeutic for me considering all things going on this month.

There my Hunger Games reference to celebrate the release of Mockingjay Part 1.

Now to the words: I wrote 5,622 for a complete total of 144,849. I was only 2k words shy of my goal of 7k for the day. My goal was originally to be at 7k before 8pm. That didn't happen because I forgot to calculate the two game shows I watch with Daddy C.

Yes, I actually got Daddy C into the Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions! I was ecstatic. We battled it out for four days. It was a glorious, fun event for the two of us while Mom was in Mississippi. (Can you believe I had to spell that out loud?!) Anyway!

Then of course, Girl Meets World was back on with a new episode. And it was pretty good. Much better than the fanfic I was attempting to write. LOL. I was very upset that Minkus didn't make an appearance, cause I am sure having him, and Topanga warring with their children.... that would've been comical in that plot. As it was, Lucas and Riley becoming closer friends towards the end? And Farkle realizing how ridiculous he was being... that was great too. I swear, I hope COrey Fogelmanis doesn't get any acting gigs between now, and the end of the series. I want him pursue his dreams, but I want him to wait until *after* Girl Meets World is over because I don't want to lose Farkle. You cannot replace someone like Farkle. It wouldn't work.

That wasn't the only thing that kept me from being as productive as I could be. I struggled to keep my ass in the seat while I wrote. I was bouncy and all over the place despite sinus problems.

The other reason may be that in the mid afternoon, I started writing for Jendra (Jonathan x Kendra) which, I thought was going to be a piece of cake from Jonathan's point of view. After all, I had written for him before, and I had no problems. However, trying to do it without having Christien, Victoria, or anyone else there proved to be a bit awkward, and maybe that was good for the two of them, as their relationship is so new, and was so unexpected. The cutest thing to happen during that whole scene was the admission of "I love you"s.

Now I've switched back to Espa's point of view, so I may do better and will finally get back to Christoria tomorrow, and some of Victoria's issues with Marcia. I can't wait. (WHy do I enjoy writing her trauma so much? Seriously? I'm a monster!) . Anyway, I'm exhausted, so I'm gonna head to bed.

Trivia: Kendra was the goalie for Jonathan's team's biggest rivals when they were younger

So I am not cross-posting this entry because someone who I know is very conservative will see it, and may possibly never read another one of my fanfics again. So. Tonight I started the fourth fic of NaNoWriMo. This fic will include some much needed closure for Victoria with Marcia Roba.

What I wasn't counting on it including was Victoria and Christien finally doing this full on make out session that got pretty damn hot and heavy. It bordered on soft porn, I would believe. O_O

I don't write scenes like this! Well, okay, no I did write one scene like that in the original draft of The Powers book #1, but this one actually went beyond even that!

But I did stick to my principles, and I probably will. Steamy make outs, yes. Sex before marriage? No. But I've held that belief for as long as i can remember. It had nothing to do with religious beliefs cause screw letting some old guy in a robe tell me what to believe in... but. (No offense to anyone on my list who are very religious. That's just how I feel).

I just really loved "watching" Christien and Victoria go that next step, and how careful and conscience of her Christien was. He was even hesitant to remove her bra after she said it was okay to do so. It was so sweet, and kind, and sensual...that's just really how their relationship is when it comes to the romance of it, though. On the surface, they're two best friends that fell completely in love with each other. But alone, there's this amazing passion between them, and it was incredible to finally bring that out. I've always wanted to, and never found a great opportunity to do so. Now I have, and it was random, but the Robas are KNOWN for being random.... this is just a more "mature" random, I guess.

( Sensual Sweetness )

I am excited to see what happens next! This was just So much fun!

Trivia: Nora was named after Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist

So tonight I got into writing the scenes where Victoria and co. were preparing for Wade's big Open House Showcase. She agreed to come to the school on the contingency that if she found she couldn't handle it psychologically, she could leave at any time. Wade didn't have a trial period available, and he didn't want her to miss out on the important classes that were filling up. So there's that.

During a piano run of "The Phantom of the Opera" to try and pin point exactly where her voice cut off so that Wade could inform the conductor/musical director later, which she performed with Christien, she found it was too much to deal with, not having her full range of vocals. In the end, she fled the school, and Sykesville all together.

She went to Dominio City to get away from everything, which is funny because she used to run to the Robas to get away from everything in Domino. Heh. She wound up at Joey's who in turn enlisted Rex and Weevil to help try and talk some sense into her. A fter a quick call to Espa to let him know that she was safe, it was decided that she would stay with Rex, who just happened to have been needing a sitter the next morning.

Tomorrow will probably have Espa and Christien going into the city to get her back. Or at least attempting to. I wouldn't doubt if Victoria went to visit Yami Bakura, either, just because or if Kaiba ends up being the one to say things Victoria doesn't want to hear. Kaiba's really good at that, actually.

So I didn't write last night. I wish I had cause I Really don't remember what happened yesterday. I think I had the triplets take Victoria to carnival grounds to see just how potent the psychometry was. And it had some mixed results.

Mostly it made the triplets wary that they weren't going to get any work done on her because Espa kept interfering. Then Aaron started to use forceful Suggestion on her, and Espa blew up at all three of them and told them in no certain terms that he alone was responsible for Victoria, and that they had no right to demand complete control of her. Poor guy was even having issues with calling Marik to tell him what was going on with his sister. (I think he's afraid Marik will assume that he can't handle it. But seriously, with all of Victoria's various issues, who can, really? POor girl...)

In the end, Cale and Spencer agreed to help Espa learn some of their techniques, while Aaron continued work on Tori. Yet, Aaron's plotting....

Today, we have the teens preparing for their "prom". Meghan and Kenny are going with Griffon and Jonathan Roba respectively. Of course, Christien is taking Victoria. Jonathan, Christien, and Tori pooled their resources and got Espa a ticket to go as Nora's date since he'd had to drop out of school to take care of his brothers and thereby missed out on his own prom. Heck, they even went as far to rent his tuxedo so he'd have no excuse not to go.

Meanwhile, we find out that Espa helped Christien out with an engagement ring for Victoria which he is planning to give her at the prom. Espa reveals that he's known for a while about Christien and Victoria's engagement, right down to the fact that he knew Christien wanted to do it in a big way. So he'd started saving money to help his brother out.

Some non-NaNo stuff, but completely related. While I was writing the romantic cuteness stuff for Christien and Victoria earlier, I made a plurk about how Christien and Victoria had been my Yu gi oh OTP since 2000 something. This garnered 48 replies while at least 3 other people tried to figure out exactly when I'd fallen in love with the Robas. And it took me all the way to FF.net so that I looked up both "Return to Me" (Christien and Tori's first meeting) and "Entrapment" (when they became a "thing").

We figured out that the ESP Duelist episodes aired on January 25, 2003 and February 2, 2003. There is a very slim possibility I saw them on their original air date cause Joey was involved. LOL. I'm not sure, because I know there were times I couldn't watch the new episodes as they aired. That changed later when Marik's back story aired cause I Refused to miss it.. (Side note: Why, as much as I love Joey, didn't I write more fics for him?!) "Return to Me" was published in 2003, and "Entrapment" was published in 2004. So technically, I missed what would've been Christien and Tori's 10th anniversary last April. (I think I posted the first chapter of ENtrapment on Espa's b-day... I got really good at doing that, I think).

But yeah. I'm so excited to have figured this out. I can't believe I've had an OTP that long! I didn't really even categorize them as that, honestly. I just knew I really enjoyed writing for them. But yeah, they're my OTP, and I'm glad to be re-discovering them!

Trivia: My first Victoria Ishtar fic was a birthday present to my friend insaneladybug who had helped me develop the character more through RP. It was called "Snake in the Grass". This was also the first appearance of Johanna Watson, Yami Bakura's self-appointed "apprentice". Both girls were said to have the yamis as "imaginary" friends. (Oh if only the adults had known....)

Trivia Bonus: Both Victoria and Johanna are fluent in Arabic and reading heiroglyphics.

So! Things got even more twisted, terrible, and sad. My fanfic is taking on some interesting events, and I'm surprisingly okay with this. So let me get to yhe nuts and bolts first.

Words written: 4,797
Total: 38,039

TJ's total at time of entry: 39k.

So I did the whoel big thing with Wayne basically draining Marcia's power to the point of unconsciousness. Madame Leota saving her from worse fate, and then Julius agreeing to let the Munroe twins take her into hiding so that his father couldn't hurt her anymore.

I didn't write a lot during that time, so I have to go back tomorrow and write more words there because I can really see Wyatt and Wade taking advantage of the situation, and at least Wyatt trying to impose his feelings for her on the poor girl. I meant to do it, but the muses went in another direction. Which brings me to this:

Julius' father died. Since I haven't figured out exactly how or if he just died or if Julius killed him, I had Julius say it was a freak accident. Lucy, as it turns out, is not like Marcia. She stayed to take care of her boys. Good girl, Luce. Good girl. (I had thought that Lucy was being held there by power only, and nothing more. .I'm glad that she was not!)

After his demise, Julius came to the twins and set Marcia free of all the manipulation and hypnosis that his father had used behind his back. He made her go home even though she didn't even remember that place.

Later she showed up back at the carnival, distraught. She couldn't remember her home life at all, or the girl she was before Julius had abducted her. Her only memory was of Julius. And that she had to stay there.

Now Julius is being forced to live with his treacherous deeds and take care of Marcia. She is basically needing to be cared for as if she's forgotten exactly how to take care of herself. This, as it will turn out, is the same thing that happened to Cecily, who had been mentioned earlier as having to end up in a psych ward.

I am thinking that eventually Aaron or Spencer will do something that will fix it so that she doesn't have to go to an institution. Probably more likely it will be Aaron as it is proven later that he is the most power of the triplets, psychically speaking. (Victoria really doesn't like him that much...lol).

I am pretty much stuck now as to where to go with it next. I still have roughly 11k more words before I hit 50k. I am determined that this fanfic will hit that amount. I have never written one quite that long even though "Into the Lion's Den" came very close! This is my personal challenge to myself. Write a 50k word fanfic. LOL. But everyone thinks I will end up writing 100k because of my challenge to TJ. I don't think so. This story isn't anywhere near 100k. If anything I'm really stretching it out at this point. We'll find out. Ugh. I hate that I have NO idea where I am going from here. Not good, self. Not good.

Trivia: Tonight discovered that Marcia's favorite of her own sons is Espa. The reasoning is that she developed a really close relationship with Spencer Roba, and Espa has a lot of his same traits. <3

SO yesterday I was upset with the NaNoWriMo site for having bugs I forgot to come here once I was able to update and tell everyone the totals, and the things that have happened! So here goes:

Yesterday, I wrote 9,967 words. The total for the Fanfic is now 26,757. As of last night, I was ahead of my rival, TJ. But I haven't checked things out this morning yet.

Last night's plot twist threw me for a loop. The Munroe twins are holding Marcia captive supposedly to help her see sense. (I think it's mainly to piss Julius off, but we'll see later today what comes of that!) I really don't like Julius' father. I like him even less than I like Julius to be honest with you guys. :( Julius is turning out to be just as much a victim, so we'll see what happpens.

NaNoWriMo isn't all consuming, despite my totals. Before I went to bed, I watched Boy Meets World. Since my tablet was 60% I could only watch one episode without having to get back out of bed to grab the plug. Sadly, I still wouldn't have been able to watch more than one episode. Ever since the main plug broke, the tablet doesn't run while its plugged in. Isn't that stupid?

My dreams last night were so weird, too. I started out at a convention for Jim Henson (yes,That Jim Henson) where I met the voices of the Fraggles from Fraggle Rock. Mostly it was the guy who voiced Gobo and the lady that voiced Red (I think?). I don't even remember the names! But there were all these muppets everywhere, and sketch artists drawing cartoon versions of all my favorites. I think the most surreal part of the dream was the Steve Whitmere and I got into a really deep character discussion about Kermit the Frog. >.> SERIOUSLY?! I have no idea where any of this came from.

Then, after I moved out to the living room like I do sometimes in the morning, I had another, completely different dream about these...lego? people? It was weird. They were miniatre dolls, but they all thought they were real people. I don't remember the boy doll's name, but I remember the girl's name being Ava. That name probably comes from Ava Morgen Stern, from Girl Meets World. Even for a doll, she looked a lot like her. Just a little older. I remember all the dolls being in a lecture hall, after being "weeded out" by this older looking man. He reminded me of President Snow from The Hunger Games, but he could've also been Dr. Barnes from The Testing, but anyway! The male doll was freaked out, and didn't want Ava to leave him. Ava, apparently, was considered a flaw, and wasn't even supposed to be in the room, and she was "sucked up" by some huge vacuum device. Again, CREEPY.

-shudders- I am going to have to reemember that dream for later. It sounds like it would make a really epic story, doesn't it? Anyway, I'm off to write for the day now. See you guys later!!!

Also, (even though I don't think people on LJ can see it) Lexi found or made me some other Roba icons! This is Espa! My boy, and in bonding terms, he's becoming one of my best friends, especially when I'm not fangirling him all over the place. LOL.

Trivia: Along with Julius and his brothers, "The Main Attraction" makes references to other people that Espa talks about throughout time: Madame Leota, Boris Sr, and more notably, Lyle Pryce, who is Julius' age at the time of the story. Espa would later mirror his father's friendship with Lyle by befriending and becoming best friends with Carlton, Lyle's son.

2 Days from NaNoWriMo! I am so excited. For the first time in a long time I am actually more excited to see if the magic of reaching that 50k goal stand even when faced with doing things differently than I have in the past.

But first a bit of griping. So tonight my friend Valerie leaves me a message on my Facebook Wall: Do you still want the box?

I know what she's talking about. She ahs been gathering things to send to me for months. These things include an autographed copy of Icon by Margret Stohl, a set of Parabatai necklaces (because they're the equivalent of best friend charms in the Mortal Instruments world) , Jamie Campbell Bower's autograph and I think something else, but I'm not sure.

She's asking me because, once again, I went off the grid and supposedly didn't tell her. Which I have back up stating I did tell her, and I told everyone. I need to be in this place right now where I am not Role Playing the same things. I need to give myself time to get Yu gi oh out of my system, or let it sink back in, whichever the case may be. I can't focus on The Mortal Instruments or any fandoms right now because these other ones are just overpowering. This equals NOT being able to talk to a lot of people. I know that sounds awful, and maybe shallow, but that's just how it is for me. It's hard to talk to people who aren't familiar with the fandom when all you want to talk about is that particular fandom.

Anyway, apparently me going off the grid equates to me not wanting to be her friend anymore. Uh. No. It means just what I said it means. I need my space, stop harassing me. Finally.

This nearly caused a nasty blow up on my public Facebook wall, and Lexi stepped in to fix things. (Thank you, dawling!) -sigh-

But back to NaNoWriMo and my prep for this awesome hoiday! I wrote the last bit of Into the FIre today. It took me the entire morning and most of the afternoon. Part of that was my fault as I stopped and got a Pumpkin Spiced Latte from Starbucks when I went out with Mom to get her hair cut. I will be following suit next week, and getting my hair cut to chin length and getting my bangs back! >.<

Into the Fire ended interestingly enough with Espa taking on full guardianship of Victoria in order to get her the help she needs to stabilize her psychic gifts. Marik and Espa don't tell her that Espa has been given this guardianship officially. Instead, they let her believe it is her idea to move in so that Espa can get on with his own aspirations of getting his GED and going to college. In the meantime, she will be continuing school at Domino Academy via the internet. It was hinted at that Jonathan and the others are planning something in lieu of her missing her prom, but that was never written out. (Yep, another possible short story/ blurb. Cause you gotta have Christien and Victoria go to the prom, come on!)

My next fic is completely Roba-centric which is exactly how I like them. I have been in love with the five Robas for so long, sometimes I forget that before I got a hold of them, only Espa had a name. Haha. This fic will deal with Marcia and Julius Roba. How they met, their connections to Wyatt, and a few other things that needed to be written out and explained. I can't wait to sink my teeth into it. The question I have to have an answer to is this: Is Julius really the manipulative jerk that Wyatt claims that Christien took after? I don't really know the answer to that one. It's one of those things I won't know until I actually try and write for him again. I don't count the two previously written chapters because according to Spencer Roba, that's not how it went down. (Yes, I have Spencer Roba muse now. he went from being a side character to being a main character in Into the Fire, along with his two other brothers, Cale and Aaron.)

He will be a main character in "The Main Attraction" as well, since he is Julius' brother. I can't wait to write it all out!! EEE! Can't wait!

Trivia: Jonathan and Christien are both home schooled. The littler ones go to a private daycare where they are being prepared for home schooling. This is all funded by KaibaCorp because Seto Kaiba didn't want to see the brothers taken away from Espa for any other reasons.

So I decided to do something different this year. Instead of bitching and moaning about the fact I will never have a series that is the Next Hunger Games or Divergent, I'm going to pretend those novels don't exist (partially cause Mockingjay part 1 comes out RIGHT in the middle of NaNoWriMo). Instead I am going to look to those authors (and a few of my other favorites) for their inspiration. This first letter is a Pep Talk from Marie Lu, author of the New York Times best-selling Legend trilogy. Others will follow and be LJ-cut so as not to clog up people's Friends' Lists.

Veronica Roth's Pep Talk from 2014

Marie Lu's Pep Talk from 2013

Holly Black's Pep Talk from 2010

John Green's Pep Talk from 2010