Week 8: Quarantine

Photo by Haley Powers on Unsplash

Well, my husband returned to work part time this week. And really, what that looks like in my house is him working from home all day or whenever necessary, then going in to the office for long days as his work demands.

It's been a long week.

Life update: 

Since participating in Camp NaNoWriMo last month, I have been writing at least 2K on Canens #3 every morning, working on my co-writing project (SFS) during nap times, running more regularly, and keeping kids alive. (ha!)

Last week I posted about how the Midnight Sun Run is going virtual this year. I participated the first year we moved back home from WA, but it was hard given I had a one-year-old at home at the time (who didn’t sleep) and no one else in my family runs. So I haven’t done it since. Because of that, it going virtual is actually rather nice for me. I’m looking forward to running my 10K on Solstice weekend and “competing” in a virtual fashion. (I actually rather like all this virtual stuff!) Still, that means I need to get out there and run more regularly if I don’t want my 10K to be super painful and/or pull a muscle!

And for my training, I’m using the Garmin Connect app and my Garmin Fenix. Though the official training program lasts for weeks longer than I have, it’s okay. I’m using it to get me back into the habit, not necessarily back in shape (though that will be an added benefit)!

Also this week, in parenting news, we finally caved. My six-year-old son, who is graduating from kindergarten in a couple of weeks, has been saying he wants to learn guitar for the past year or so. Since that’s the only instrument that he’s really shown interest in (specifically the electric guitar), we finally decided, what with this pandemic and all, and given his age, that it’s time to start him on it. So we got him a guitar!

He’s excited to learn and we’ll see how it goes with actual practice. I hope he sticks with it, or else I’ll have to start learning guitar! But if you have any awesome guitar resources for teaching yourself (or your 6yo) guitar from home, drop them in the comments below for me! I’d appreciate books, links, tips, tricks, etc.!

Canens #3 update:

I’ve been super focused on pounding out CC3 (Canens Chronicles #3; currently untitled). And I can already tell it’s going to be a huge revision. There’s so much more story of Winterberry’s than I thought!

I knew getting her from Ardor into Edormisco would be a trip, thus I changed book three from being set in Edormisco (and the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale retelling) to spending the book in Tepor and the journey through that country. It felt natural to me, as Tepor is the southernmost land in the Seven Kingdoms, and it has a large desert, that the fairy tale, Aladdin, is most fitting.

If you’ve forgotten what the Seven Kingdoms looks like, which is totally understandable, here’s the map for reference.

Right now I’m sitting at about 85K words and I’m shamefully maybe halfway through? It’s hard to say because I’m jumping around in POVs, but I am getting quite a lot of Winterberry words and not nearly enough Aladdin and “Jasmine” words.

This book has been a little strange to write, honestly. I have a lot of story for Winterberry and not as much for Aladdin at the moment. I either have to flush out his story and that tale, or do some rearranging. The problem I’m facing with having the two fairy tales coincide is that there is a lot of Winter before she can get to Aladdin and meet up with their story. So either a lot of their story has to happen first, or else the first half of this book is going to be heavy on Winter’s story and then combine with Aladdin and the Teporian princess’ to tell the mingled story of Aladdin and Snow White’s continuing story.

Even though I’m 80K in, I haven’t quite decided how I’m going to even it out—and I haven’t even begun to write Blanche’s side! It’s been easiest for me right now to write Winter’s story in a more complete fashion, bridging the gaps from where I left off in book 2 to exactly how and when she’s going to meet up with Aladdin/Teporian princess in book 3. Right now, that’s led to a plethora of Winter story, but not much Aladdin/Princess story. So I’ve got either to cut much of what I’ve written with Winter’s story, or else I’ve got to pad out the Aladdin story. In actuality, both will probably happen. But with Aladdin, that means adding a possible subplot prior to Winter meeting up with them. If that’s the case, I’ve got a bit of work to do, as I don’t really have a subplot in mind.

Subplots for me are usually much less thought out than my overall plot and are rarely outlined ahead of time. Instead, they present themselves to me through characters and natural interplay between the characters I put on the page. As a character reveals themselves to me through the scene, I’ll often get some play between the two (or more) that are in the scene and conflict will arise. It’s the natural writer in me that brings in those “natural” conflicts between two characters. So far, I’ve found a minor character in Aladdin’s tale to have a bit of a crush on Aladdin and wants him to notice her, but he doesn’t have eyes for her. But that conflict from the characters and the tension that arises leads to fun exchanges between all the characters, especially the trio involved, as it’s flirting with being a love triangle, but really just an unrequited crush.

Well. That was more than I planned on typing out about my process. 

Word update: 

CC3: 14,420

Blogs: 1892

PP: 1099

SFS: 5252 written & edited

Total: 22,663