Fic Talk > Updates
Drop it like it's hot! Or... Updates from Dee. :o)
nicksgal:
If you would still like to read PBox, I will include both location links below. While all fifty chapters of PBox are complete, it is still undergoing the tiniest cursory edit where I change the paragraph alignment of the "~*~" and fix a couple errant commas, but otherwise it's all there. Feedback is always appreciated. :)
Pandora's Box on Absolute Chaos
Pandora's Box on AO3
Please find updates as follows (links included in titles):
Chapter Twenty ("Strengths") of Pandora's Necklace on Absolute Chaos
Chapter Thirteen ("Light") of Pandora's Necklace on AO3 (You've been able to read this chapter here at AC since March.)
Enjoy! Continue to feel free to ask me anything and get answers! Thank you again to everyone reading! Please chat with me, lol.
nicksgal:
Happy Wednesday, y’all!
So, we can’t talk about PBox without talking about some of its original inspiration. Part of it is still ongoing and shall be revealed soon...ish… or rather, eventually. The other part though, I’ve since tried to get away from, so I’m happy to share with you!
So once upon a time at the beginning of PBox, I researched some things that are still in it and was looking for some other interesting things to make it a little more unique than just a “this is inspired by x” thing and stumbled upon the Four Gods/Fours Symbols/Four Auspicious Creatures from Chinese mythology. Now I can’t remember any specific mythology about the Four Gods, and I did a cursory internet search again and couldn’t find much, but here’s the basics:
The Four Gods are represented by semi-mythic creatures: the vermillion bird, the azure dragon, the black tortoise, and the white tiger in addition to the yellow dragon. They were identified with cardinal directions (and constellations therein), colors, seasons, and elements.
Now, if you know me, you know I love my elementals, because they’re just cool, so obviously this spoke to me. Now I wanted to mix it up a bit, so nothing is an exact copy, but you’ll notice there are four warring states in PBox and all the countries are named via directions that are represented by colors and have characteristic weather. In case you forgot, our favorite little countries as mentioned in Chapter Two: Safaiananpou -- "Sapphire South," Emeradotouhou -- "Emerald East," Topazuseihou -- "Topaz West," and Rubiihoppou -- "Ruby North."
But, you’ll notice that our favorite Boys are southern blue (because what else would our Black and Blue crooners be?), not red; then red goes to the north that should be black, and yellow goes to the east that should be white instead of the center (which is never mentioned). Azure seems blue, but generally covers that blue-green color pallet and is represented by green. You could definitely call coastal Safainanpou summery, but I’d call it more spring. Dessert Topazuseihou seems more summery than autumn, Emeradotouhou seems more autumn than spring, and frigid Rubiihoppou is pretty wintery. As for elements, the only good answer I have is that our favorite little demon Nick is pretty fiery, lol.
Initially, the constellation aspect was going to play a bigger role in the story, but I’m sure you noticed that Howie mentioned it, Kevin had the scale, and I think Brian discussed it one other time before it disappeared because… Well, I showed the beginning of PBox to a friend and they said something to the effect of “Oh, man, I think you’ll love this” and handed me a little manga from the 90s called Fushigi Yuugi. And I had two thoughts: First: Absolutely. I do love this. Second: Darnit. A story where a random girl ends up in a mysterious land and the characters have origins in the Four Gods and constellation ties? Well, crud. And there’s two groups going against each other with two more in the backstory? Double crud. Oh and three of our first introduced characters from this world are a love interest, a king, and a general in addition to these two girl rivals who are friends (there’s also a priest and a doctor introduced later). Triple crud. There are no new stories basically, lol. It’s something I’m looking at with a fine-toothed comb as I de-fanfic this story (in addition to getting rid of “priestess” and such as they’re less that per se and that helps widen the gap) since I see the similarities, but at the time, I decided it wasn’t a huge deal for a fanfic. However, I did ultimately make the decision to get away from it as much as possible while writing. So I guess all of the constellation stuff is the noodle incident in PBox and that’s why.
Hope you enjoyed this romp through mythology and PBox’s origins! See you next Wednesday!
nicksgal:
If you would still like to read PBox, I will include both location links below. While all fifty chapters of PBox are complete, it is still undergoing the tiniest cursory edit where I change the paragraph alignment of the "~*~" and fix a couple errant commas, but otherwise it's all there. Feedback is always appreciated. :)
Pandora's Box on Absolute Chaos
Pandora's Box on AO3
Please find updates as follows (links included in titles):
Chapter Twenty-One ("Catharsis") of Pandora's Necklace on Absolute Chaos
Chapter Fourteen ("Soul") of Pandora's Necklace on AO3 (You've been able to read this chapter here at AC since March; it's still one of my favorites, let me know if it's one of yours too.)
Enjoy! Continue to feel free to ask me anything and get answers! Thank you again to everyone reading! Please chat with me, lol. It's getting lonely in here talking with myself.
nicksgal:
It’s interesting having finished Camp NaNo last month and now I’m finally posting the first chapter I wrote without any part of it written during my initial NaNoWriMo stint (except for one tiny conversation). Next week, we’ll go backwards because I thought that was going to be Chapter Twenty-Two and it was not. Plus, I have been saving an Author Talk for that one since I wrote it back in December. So this week’s chapter was a fun adventure in not quite being sure what to write… It has three scenes and took about half a month to write. It was exhausting. You can read my thoughts on all that from back in February. I was starting to panic. Should I have not taken a month and a half off to edit PBox? Should I have kept writing this in December? Should I have not written my holiday story? Is this what the future of PNecklace will be like? I say that I gave myself some slack, but I won’t lie to you and say I wasn’t at least a little anxious.
So I thought it would be fun to talk about my writing schedule and let you look into my process. Since NaNo, I’ve tried to write something every day whether that was brand new writing or editing something I’d already started. I think I’ve mentioned it in the various writing threads, but I usually keep anything I’m working on open on my laptop. Right now it’s kind of a mess because I’m not sure how to order these two arcs, so I’m writing them in separate documents and splicing them in later, plus the document where I last left off the story and wrote my cursory outline of the last fourteen chapters. I have just shy of three and a half chapters done; if anyone has great ideas for funny Nick scenes, you should probably tell me so I can move on from that “just shy.” I wish juggling made sense in the story because I laughed so hard. But I’ve also written 13,617 words so far. I should supposedly finish June 7th. We’ll see how that goes.
Keeping track of my word counts has been a fun adventure. I’ve only skipped six days since November 1st, if you can believe that! (One in December, two in January, one in February, and two in March.) Here’s a quick run down of my general writing stats:
* November: word count high -- 5,726 words; word count low -- 5 words; average word count: 1,725 words per day
* December: word count high -- 3,045 words; word count low -- 54 words (technically zero); average word count: 1,138 words per day
* January: word count high -- 4,998 words; word count low -- 19 words (technically zero); average word count: 1,543 words per day
* February: word count high -- 2,451 words; word count low -- 33 words (technically zero); average word count: 862 words per day
* March: word count high -- 2,427 words; word count low -- 2 words (technically zero); average word count: 569 words per day
* April: word count high -- 3,563 words; word count low -- 6 words; average word count: 1,432 words per day
* May (so far): word count high -- 2,130 words; word count low -- 144 words; average word count: 1,134 words per day (7 words per minute of writing time, I’m so fast ;))
So I guess, I’m pretty consistent? I’m really hoping to finish another chapter today or two if I’m super inspired. We’ll see how that goes. Y’all know that Wednesdays are kind of hit or miss for me on how productive I am post-updating.
Anyway, let’s talk about my process. I generally have a clear idea of where scenes should start once I ponder over them. And sometimes they flow really well, but sometimes they don’t. February was one of those don’t times, as I mentioned. Each day I stop without finishing a scene or chapter (it depends), I will always reread over it the next time I start writing and hopefully jump off from there. And I typically edit a little as I go, because I can never just leave something alone. It’s why I make myself close the documents once I’m finished writing.
A timeline if you will:
* So I spent January 30th and 31st writing the first scene and also a small part of a scene that ended up in Chapter 26th.
* I started the second scene on February 4th. I wasn’t quite sure what I was doing February 1st through 3rd, so I poked around and apparently spent the 1st through the third editing chapter 8 to post it and the 4th through the 8th writing the first chapter of the OF version of PBox, so… those are my gaps in writing today’s chapter I suppose.
* On February 6th, I decided two prewritten scenes (from November 25th and January 2nd) were part of the third scene of this chapter and that a scene written some time in October was part of Chapter 24. I also wrote part of a scene that ended up in Chapter 27.
* On February 7th and 8th, I wrote Chapter 24. I also edited some scenes that ended up being parts of Chapter 25, Chapter 26, and Chapter 27, then decided a prewritten scene from October was part of Chapter 25.
* February 9th through February 12th, I added a sentence or two each day to the second scene. On February 9th, I also wrote part of Chapter 27 and a scene that wasn’t in PNecklace at all.
* On February 13th, I finally finished the second scene and started writing the third scene, which I finished on February 14th. I also started writing Chapter 25 on February 14th.
I’m sure you’ll read the second scene and wonder why it took me so long at all, lol. But, there you are. Half a month of my life spent writing. I’d say the two days per scene tends to be more typical of my output than two weeks per scene.
Wish me luck as I finish these last ten and a half chapters (plus one short scene)!
nicksgal:
If you would still like to read PBox, I will include both location links below. While all fifty chapters of PBox are complete, it is still undergoing the tiniest cursory edit where I change the paragraph alignment of the "~*~" and fix a couple errant commas, but otherwise it's all there. Feedback is always appreciated. :)
Pandora's Box on Absolute Chaos
Pandora's Box on AO3
Please find updates as follows (links included in titles):
Chapter Twenty-Two ("Feelings") of Pandora's Necklace on Absolute Chaos
Chapter Fifteen ("Confidence") of Pandora's Necklace on AO3 (You've been able to read this chapter here at AC since March, but feedback is always appreciated.)
Enjoy! Continue to feel free to ask me anything and get answers! Thank you again to everyone reading! See you next Wednesday!
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