My WIP Updates

You know those moments when you just don’t want to create? The inspiration is uninspiring, and the motivation unmotivating. You just lay motionless, waiting for something to happen.

I’m experiencing it now. Making myself start writing this took a lot of coaxing. It’s hard to combat, and sometimes the answer is stepping back for a bit.

If you assumed that this was a hiatus announcement, think again! You…probably didn’t because of the title. Yeah, I have to work on my subtlety. Next time.

The other sometimes is looking back at what you have done for encouragement. I can’t do that because I haven’t finished any writing projects I’ve begun yet. But I initiated stuff, which is better than nothing, right? Right?

If you’re curious, stick around for glimpses into my less-than-half-formed WIPs.

The ✨Glimpses✨

1. Swan Lake (a novella…hopefully)

Description: 🏹🦢👑🌒🧙🏻‍♂️

Stage: Drafting (Planning isn’t complete yet, so what possessed me to start is beyond me.)

Completed Chapters: 3, currently in 4

Characters

• Main: Prince Siegfried, Princess Odette
• Major: Axel, King Christoph, Queen Uberta, King William

Goal(s): 15+ chapters • over 20,000 words • succeeding in writing from a narrator’s POV • giving Siegfried and Odette’s relationship some much-needed depth (as compared to their The Swan Princess counterparts)

Related: What’s Your WIP? (in which you will find a blurb, a snippet, and other important things)

Extra Info

The moment you realize your so-called “original work” is nothing more than fanfic of a specific Swan Princess movie…

…is not a pleasant moment. My apologies to anyone who thought I could pull that off. Original work. Ha, hilarious.

I’m a baby writer, so I’ll jump for joy if this first attempt at a novella passes 10,000 words. Don’t expect…a plot. Or do expect it and then be disappointed. But in truth, the only reason anyone would read till the end would be for the action, not my sorry, unpolished writing.

Enough self-deprecation for now. Moving on.

2. That One Fantasy Story I’ve Been Planning for Forever (novel?)

Description: 🗺🤝🏻🍂🚢⚔

Blurb:

The village electing her father as chief changed a lot of lives: her father’s, her family’s, and her own. Nothing changed, they said. They were wrong; everything did. An ever-increasing burden of pressure was laid on Alessia’s shoulders—she has to be the best. She has to prove herself. When the opportunity to go on a quest affecting not only her village but the surrounding ones, friend or foe, is presented to her, she grabs at it. So what if her father doesn’t know? She’s assembled her little band of coworkers, the best of the best: Brielle—her sharp, analytical, and strategical best friend, Sienna—the history buff with access to forbidden maps, and Zed—the self-claimed tech whiz with a sense of humor. Everything will fall into the plan, the plan she’s planning to make sometime in the future. So, imagine her dismay to having to work with a stowaway, a spy, from a neighboring tribe, with which they weren’t on good terms. How’d her life become such a mess?

It’s pretty vague, but it’ll become something one day.

Stage: Planning

Characters

• Main: Alessia
• Major: Marcos, Brielle, Sienna, Zed

Goal(s): 30+ chapters • over 30,000 words • developing the individual characters • *gulp* pulling off the hero hating herself and finding peace at the end arc • Enemies to Lov- say what? Who said? Huh?… Ignore that. • and other stuff

Storytime

If you’re like me, you were too lazy to read the blurb. Chunky paragraphs induce headaches.

To summarize, my MC—Alessia—is a troubled girl; she goes on a quest with friends; an enemy was there (a “there” I will not disclose) before they set off and has to come. Gasp. Originality and articulateness abound.

I haven’t got a plot, but, funny thing, I’ve been brainstorming on this since last year. How sad is that?!

And yes, we are equipping children to do such outrageous things. Perfect!

3. Oh my goodness, I still haven’t finished that “Prompt to Paper” anecdote (a short story)

I’m taking this opportunity to apologize for not yet posting this. It’s not professional or ethical.

I have—How do I say this?—given up on it. So, either someone requests me to complete it, or you, my dear reader, refresh this post once or twice to see what the outline was for the rest of it. No, this isn’t an attempt to get more views. I’m being serious. (Do the second one! Do the second one! ~your conscience)

Edit: Never mind, I’ve made it easy.

2. The Clark family is on a kalesa, exploring the walled city. Adam—their charming tour guide with impressive fluency in English—gets along with Dad just fine and regards all sites with respect. He claims they’re ancient, and Thomas can’t help but agree as the carriage’s horse trots past a historically significant Starbucks.

• Don and Angelo sit among other POWs (Prisoners of War) in the stench-filled dungeons of Fort Santiago. If the Japanese officials wouldn’t kill them, they would easily suffocate with such little air circulation. Don worries about Angelo. “That gash won’t make surviving much easier.” But Angelo convinces Don that whatever happens…happens. With nothing else to do but count the segundos till they die, Don shares his cigarette pack with his cellmates. A Japanese soldier calls him to come out and follow him. There was business to be done.

3. Thom and company return after strolling around Baluerte de San Diego. Marie (his sister) thought it was pretty, and he genuinely agrees that the site was interesting, more so after Dad gives some insight. Thom gets jittery after finding out they had one last stop: Fort Santiago. They reach there as quickly as he’d hoped, and Adam tells them all about how American and Filipino soldiers died there due to suffocation and the heat. Thom is moved and asks if his grandpa might’ve died there. Dad says it was his own great-grandpa, Thom’s great-great-grandpa. Thom is silent for the rest of the travel. He asks his dad if they could visit again sometime.

Goodness me, I feel so evil.

4. Some Unimportant Fanfics

Descriptions: 1. 🥼🥽🤦🏼‍♀️🕷🕸 , 2. 🌬🍃👩🏻👻📿🌊

Which begs the question: Should I get an AO3 account? We’ll see.

Share in the comments how you feel about certain platforms where fanfics are regularly published. (AO3, Fanfiction.Net, Wattpad, etc.) Which do you prefer? Which gave you the best experience? The worst? Any advice is appreciated!

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Thank you for reading!

And come back next time oooooooon CKJ!

What’s Your WIP? Writing Tag

I stole this from Rebekah @Books And Hooks, and below are the posts in which she did the tag. Thanks for allowing me to snurch this, Rebekah!

What’s Your WIP Writing Tag: Dystopian Novel

What’s Your WIP? Writing Tag #2

Rules:

• Thank the person who tagged you & link to their blog.
• Link back to the creator, Katja @ Little Blossoms for Jesus, & add the tag graphic. 
• List the rules. 
• Answer the questions. 
• Feel free to add snippets!
• Tag as many or as few people as you wish & let them know they’re tagged. 
• Add a clean copy of the questions at the end of your post for the “tagged.”

Has your WIP a working title? If so, tell us! If not, have you any idea of what it might be?

A Retelling of Swan Lake. It’s straightforward, cut to the chase, and incredibly uncreative. It’s perfect, and I’m too lazy to change it, so that’s that.

Have you a synopsis for your WIP? If so, give it to us! If not, can you give us a blurb on what your WIP is about?

I haven’t got one down officially (if anything related to this can be counted as official), but I’ll have a go at it. This isn’t polished and will change, so forgive me.

But before that, let me ask an AI to give a synopsis of the Swan Lake ballet.

“Swan Lake is a ballet that tells the story of a young prince, Siegfried, who falls in love with a swan princess, Odette. Odette has been cursed by an evil sorcerer, Von Rothbart, and can only take her human form at night. During the day, she is a swan and can only be saved if a man swears to love her forever. Siegfried promises to do so and invites Odette to a ball to present her as his bride.

At the ball, Von Rothbart arrives with his daughter, Odile, who looks just like Odette. Siegfried mistakes her for Odette and swears his love to her instead. Odette, heartbroken, runs away, and Siegfried realizes his mistake and goes after her. In the end, Siegfried and Odette jump into the lake, breaking Von Rothbart’s curse and living happily ever after. Swan Lake is a timeless classic and one of the most popular ballets.”

So, those are the original happenings. I played with it, adding some changes, but you can expect a similar gist.

Being a royal was never an easy role. Prince Siegfried’s been running away from this fact since his chilhood, before he even met the posh princess. But without his father by his side as he turns twenty-one, he has to brave the title that’s been staring at his face all these years. King. Maybe, hopefully, not alone, but that depends on if he can save his betrothed from the hands of the Shapeshifting Monster.

OoooOoOoOoOoooh, mysterious. I don’t think I captured the main plot, really, but that’s okay.

That’ll be changing from time to time. Do you find the story interesting? I might just post regular updates on it if so.

Have you a working/mock cover for your WIP? If so, show us! If not, have you an idea in mind?

Mock cover? Goodness, no. Not when I spent hours working on this:

So what if it looks unprofessional.

I really like the upper half. I slaved on that gradient background and the shadowy text. Even that little crown at the top. The bottom looks a tad too cartoonish, but oh, well.

How did you get the idea for this story?

My sister played Odette in my ballet school’s most recent production. She danced her heart out that recital day with much grace. It was magical. If you’d have seen it, you would’ve agreed.

But behind the scenes were hard work, diligence, perseverance, and sacrifice. I witnessed the sweat and tears (who said pointes were ever easy?), which greatly inspired me.

Tchaikovsky was a sucker for love stories, and I wanted to try it. I did some research, yada yada, and now we’re here.

How long do you think it will be? Is it longer or shorter than you thought it would be?

Longer than I’m comfortable with. I have this toxic trait where I start a captivating story—or I’d like to think—only to drop it at a point where there’s “closure, but not really” because…fear of commitment, maybe? I’m not sure. This is stepping out of my comfort zone. Oh, but did I mention I may or may not have forgotten I had this for a month? If not, then I did.

What‘s your favorite memory related to this WIP?

The typing.

Any special person(s) who helped create it?

Aside from the sister mentioned earlier, no one, really.

What‘s your favorite scene so far (if you can tell about it without spoilers!)?

My favorite scene might be the part where Siegfried [insert questionable thing here] in Chapter 2. It showed he isn’t a heartless prankster, even if his whole plan backfires. But I haven’t got all my ideas down on parchment, so most of what I have to offer are ideas of where the scene may go. I have a plot down but not much more.

Perhaps my favorite scene will be where Siegfried and Odette have that one… ballroom thing. I plan to share the completed thing here one day, so I don’t want to spoil it completely.

Can you give us a snippet? 

Prologue

Ah, Swan Lake. A tale of two lovers—one a princess beneath her feathers, the other a conflicted prince—destined to love and fated to die. A tragic romance that illustrates what most would call the idiocy of love. The lovers would tell you otherwise—the true idiocy would be never loving at all. It also, when examined closely, gives insight on the consequences of tinkering with the Forbidden Magic, which, by the way, is always a helpful lesson.

But is that really how it went, you might ask? Perhaps this tale is just what it professes to be—a tale. I wouldn’t blame you. Tall tales, folk tales, fairytales—all of them, one might argue, are to entertain children and to keep them from asking deeper, darker questions that no one has answers to. 

But many forget the credibility of a tale. Sure, they seem unbelievable now, but they always started somewhere, stemming from a reality to something entirely different. One element that remains unchanged is the magic that surrounds it—whether or not you believe in magic.

The real question now is: where did the tale originate? Lucky for you, I have the answer. How can I be trusted? 

Believe it or not, I personally knew this tale’s protagonists. In the most modest tone I can render, I was quite involved in their story. One might say it would’ve turned out entirely different had I not helped. And I can say with full confidence that they are worthy of your admiration, even those of you who detest romance of all kinds.

You can judge for yourself. I present a tale of friendship, compassion, duty, title, power, and love. A retelling of Swan Lake.

sWaN lAkE (A Docs File)

To be edited.

Is the story still what you thought it would be, or has it thrown you a couple curveballs?

It’s still what I thought, and think, it will be, but I wouldn’t be surprised if…if it surprised me soon enough.

Is there a Bible verse, poem, hymn, picture, or quote that helped shape this story?

Oh, man, it would be really cool if one did. But my response to that is a reluctant “no.”

When and where have you done most of the writing so far?

The Prologue, and I know, I know, I shouldn’t have. But it was just so much fun. It wasn’t even writing, really. It was just editing.

Where do you get inspiration for this story?

Tchaikovsky’s story. Shocker, right? Many events are merely the original plot but modified. Not the majority because I’d be lying to your face if I said that. Speaking of which, I altered it. A lot.

Also, watching my sister practice this with her partner was a terrific catalyst for idea generation. It felt no less than 20 minutes, but it was probably 5. Either way, it was beneficial.

Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I used to think I was a plotter, but some inserts randomly popped up when I wrote the scene. I heard writers rave about it, but I never thought it would happen to me. So, I believe I’m both.

Do you have a little ritual before you start writing?

No, I don’t think I do.

Are you thinking of publishing this story?

*profuse sweating initiates*

Let’s see where God leads.

What things have you learned while writing this story?

Remember all those authors saying writing is not easy? Yeah, they were right.

I didn’t expect to experience the thrill of nurturing and creating a story, but it was certainly rewarding. I pity my future self who’ll edit this, though. Sorry, me.

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Thank you for reading!

Docs is better than Word. Debate with me in the comments.