owlbearwrites

[owlbearwrites]

WIP Wednesday (31/07)

All snippets from Shadows, a Borderlands/Don't Starve crossover, heavily Rhack-centric, but also featuring Angel!

@zyrafowe-sny

Rhys glares at Carter’s retreating back, rubbing a hand against his ribs. The bastard got him good. Still, he probably had that one coming. With some of the fury of the past few minutes lifted from his eyes, Rhys can see how the things he said about Angel might’ve been a little over the line. For all the… sheer terror of their earlier encounter in the throne room, she did not, in truth, come off as malicious. She did free him. And the worst of his suffering immediately after that, he brought on himself; she did warn him to stay away, after all.

@scifikimmi

As for everything else she might’ve done to him… Rhys suppresses a shudder as he remembers the vast shadow hands closing around him, back in his workshop; the numb horror of seeing the essence of his death floating outside of his body; the cold, creeping realization of what exactly happened to him that time when his fire went out at night. It feels almost impossible to reconcile those things with the kind, solemn eyes that looked at him from Angel’s face. Maybe that was exactly the trick, and he was—still is—a fool to believe it. Or maybe there is more to that young girl’s story. And even some truth to her father’s words.

@wizisbored

As he picks himself up from the ground, Rhys grabs the bag that Jack dropped as their fight broke out—and the sight of it burns away his budding remorse and tiny shoots of sympathy. It’s his knapsack. The one that he was packing in a hurry, preparing to rush through the gate to Jack’s aid, only to be dragged through it, feet first. The one he found lying nearby, soon after waking up in the shadow realm, and kept close all throughout his misadventures. The one he left on the floor of the throne room moments before being betrayed by Jack, and one he stared at, day after hypothetical day, until the time when it disappeared. She must’ve taken it. And given it to Carter. Because the story of Rhys's being lied to, betrayed and imprisoned wouldn’t have been complete without getting robbed, to boot. It wasn’t enough for bastard Carter and his monster spawn to take Rhys’s death and freedom—they had to take his damn luggage, too!

@aparticularbandit Rhys grabs the knapsack and stomps towards his camp, where Carter appears to be making himself quite at home, what with stoking the fire and all. “You.” He points a finger at the man, then jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Out.” “I thought you still had parts two through eight of your diatribe to deliver?” Carter kneels down to blow the embers back to life. Rhys resists the urge to aim a kick at his ass that would land him face down in the ashes. Only just.

@auburnlaughter

“On reflection, I decided that tolerating your presence is too high of a trade-off. So… get.” “Hmm.” Carter sits up on his knees, dusts one hand off on the other, then snaps a few twigs and feeds them to the burgeoning fire. “No, I don’t think so.” “Excuse me?” Rhys cocks his head to the side.

@violet-prism-creatively

“It’s like this, kiddo.” Jack shifts around to sit with his legs crossed. A few movements along the way earn a quiet hiss of pain from him. “I may have lied to you about a few things, and omitted… quite a few. But I wasn’t lying when I said that you need a light when you’re out here.” “And… you need one, too?” “Yeah. Or, at least, I suspect so. Strongly enough that I’m not willing to test it. So, if I head out there without a light, odds are, I’m as good as dead. Even if I bring a torch, I ain’t got the time to find enough firewood to last me the night. So…” He adds a couple of sticks to the fire, then stretches his legs out and lies back, arms folded behind his head. “I’m going to lie here, maybe try to sleep off some of the beating you just gave me. You want to drag me into the darkness in my sleep and dump me there—you go ahead.”

[owlbearwrites]

WIP Wednesday (24/07, part 2)

Catching up with last week's asks!

All snippets from Shadows, a Borderlands/Don't Starve crossover, heavily Rhack-centric, but also featuring Angel!

CW: non-graphic, but violent fistfight

@eriquin

“Uh. ‘evening, kiddo.” Jack raises a hand in a tentative greeting. The next thing he knows, there is a fist flying into his face. “Whoa!” Jack ducks out of the way of the punch, just in time for Rhys’s attack to land a glancing blow on his shoulder instead of crashing straight into his jaw. “Hey, hey, we don’t need to—UGH!” Before he can finish the sentence, Rhys spins around and slams a fist into his stomach. This one lands dead on, causing Jack to drop his bag and double over. He coughs, or tries to, to get his breath back.

@1attheedge

“Okay… okay!” he manages, one hand thrust in front of him, palm open and, hopefully, placating. “I deserved—kheh—that one. But can we—ow—talk now? Maybe?” Rhys closes the distance between them, grabs the lapels of Jack’s coat and drags him upright so their faces are level, and only a few inches apart. “I’ve heard enough of your goddamned talking,” he hisses, teeth baring into a snarl, “for a goddamned lifetime!”

@scifikimmi

There’s nothing Jack can do to evade the next hit. Except squeeze his eyes shut and then, a second later, try not to bite his own tongue off as he hits the ground. His teeth haven’t even stopped rattling from the impact yet when Rhys is upon him, landing punches without rhyme or reason. Twenty years ago, Jack would’ve been able to give as good as he was getting; the way things are, his best bet is dodging what hits he can, blocking the ones he can’t, and hoping that Rhys will tire himself out before any teeth get knocked out, or bones broken.

@aparticularbandit

A few poorly-timed blocks later, Jack is reconsidering his strategy, as Rhys appears to have all the energy and ferocity of a rabid squirrel. Not to mention that he—rather unsportingly!—definitely does not shy away from using his still-animated prosthetic arm just as much as the real one. “Hey!” Jack snarls, barely managing to catch a blow from the wooden knuckles on his arm instead of chin. “I was the one who put magic into that blasted arm of yours, you little shit!” He uses a momentary pause in Rhys’s attack to grab the arm in question. “How about some goddamned professional courtesy, huh?”

@post-and-out

“Oh, where are my fucking manners?” Rhys spits. He yanks his arm free and grabs Jack by his front again. “You want my thanks, Carter? Here it comes! This”—he slams Jack’s shoulders into the ground—“is for teaching me how to make infernal machinery that almost killed me! This”—a short lift, another slam—“is for giving me the unique opportunity to go on an expedition that has actually killed me, at least three times! This—” “Fine!” Jack tries to pry Rhys’s hands off of him. “You’ve made your point! Enough is enough.” “Oh, you don’t get to tell me when enough is enough, Carter.” Rhys shakes his head, nostrils flared. “You don’t get to tell me anything anymore. We’ll be done when I say we’re done! And I still haven’t decided if you’ll even still be alive by that point!”

@lizhly

”Okay.” Jack holds out his hands, palms out. “You want to keep yelling at me, fine. You want to keep whaling on me, even though by this point you’re just beating on an old man? Fine. But may I suggest we take this closer to the fire? Because the light is going, fast, and at this rate, even if you kill me, you won’t live long enough to enjoy it.” “Oh, don’t give me this crock!” Rhys scowls. “‘You’ve got to stay out of the darkness, kiddo’, ‘there are powerful beings in this realm, kiddo’,” he sing-songs, in a terrible imitation of Jack. “That only worked when I didn’t know that the powers, and the monsters, and the darkness, and everything I was supposed to be afraid of in this nightmare land is all just your DAUGHTER!”

@madnessfromthemountains

“You… you’ve met Angel?” Jack raises himself on an elbow. “When did you see her? Is she alright?” Rhys stares down at him with an expression that suggests Jack has grown at least three extra heads, but lacks the brain to fill even the original one. “Yes, I’ve met her. But judging from your questions, I’m not sure you have. How could she not be alright? She is some kind of shadow… goddess!”

@adhdavinci

Jack winces. Then winces again, because it hurts to wince. “It’s… more complicated than that, kid. Believe it or not, there are still things here that you don’t under—” A fist smacks into Jack’s jaw without a warning. “What the hell?” “No, go on.” Rhys gives him a poison-tipped smile. “Tell me more about all the mysteries of this realm that I still don’t understand. Starting with your darling Angel. Incredible name, by the way. Just perfect to fool saps like me into believing she’s a poor little girl who needs help. Was it your idea, or did she choose it herself?”

@enigma-the-mysterious

A cold pit opens in Jack’s stomach, and is filled with lava immediately after. His hand moves so fast, he only registers it when his fist is buried in Rhys’s side. Caught entirely off-guard, Rhys coughs out a muffled ‘urk’ and topples sideways. Jack shoves him off the rest of the way and pulls himself to his feet. Once he’s up, he looks down on Rhys. The young man, still a bit stunned, gawks up at him. “Her mother picked the name,” Jack says. Then he turns around and walks towards the dying fire.

[owlbearwrites]

WIP Wednesday (24/07)

It's good to be back! All snippets from Shadows, a Borderlands/Don't Starve crossover, heavily Rhack-centric, but also featuring Angel!

@wizisbored

Angel has been missing for two days now. She was there when Jack fell asleep, two nights ago. The next day, he made more irritatingly slow progress towards the suspected cave site. Then, in the evening, she didn’t show. He spent more than half of the night awake, letting his fire go dangerously low in the hope that it was simply the bright light that was keeping her away from his camp. That didn’t work.

@anachronismstellar

At the break of dawn, Jack piled his fire high for heat rather than light, wrapped himself in the fraying bedroll and surrendered to a few hours of fitful sleep. He woke up alone. Which was perfectly normal and shouldn’t have merited a mention, actually. After all, Angel never came by during the day, and it would’ve been extremely stupid of Jack to expect her to suddenly make an exception, and Jack was many things, but he wasn’t stupid.

@zyrafowe-sny

Which was also why he decided not to move camp that day. Setting out on another hike while strung out on little sleep and an assload of stress sounded like a recipe for disaster. A day’s rest meant an opportunity to restock some provisions and fix some gear. Besides, staying in one place would make it easier for Angel to find him, come nightfall. Jack stayed in the vicinity of the camp that day. He picked some berries. He cooked a passable mushroom soup. He poked the bedroll with a needle and thread to try and stop it bleeding handfuls of straw. Come nightfall, he was still alone.

@auburnlaughter

He spent the night staring into darkness until his eyes hurt, nodding off, starting awake, doing it all over again. Then it was morning again. Overruling a not-insignificant part of him that strongly suggested he lie face down on the blasted bedroll and wait for death, Jack packed up his camp and set off in the same direction as before. Now the sun is dipping behind the rusty conifers again, and Jack's back hurts, and his feet hurt, and his daughter has been missing for two days, and the ‘lying down and waiting for death’ course of action is starting to look more attractive by the— What?

@somefishycat

Jack drops his bag on the ground, wipes his hands on his shirt, then rubs his eyes, hard. Between the exhaustion and that mushroom soup, he must be hallucinating, because he could have sworn he saw a thin wisp of smoke rising from behind a tree line. No amount of blinking and rubbing his eyes changes the picture before them. Somewhere close—within a few minutes’ walk, by the look of it—there’s smoke. Which means fire. Could that be… could Angel be responsible for this, somehow? The last time they spoke, she was really insistent on helping him, so maybe she used her magic to set up a camp for him, and it’s almost dark enough for her to show, and pitching his hope on this idea would be a really stupid thing to do, and Jack is many things, but he isn’t stupid, and yet he finds himself hoping regardless.

[owlbearwrites]

Shadows for this week, please

Backlog catch-up, continued!

Angel spins around in a flurry of winged panic, shaken enough to let slip her grasp on the magic and find herself on her two unsteady feet again. She casts a hurried glance around the vast room. There’s no-one. “Rhys?” she calls out, before gritting her teeth and casting her voice farther out. RHYS! There is still no answer, but the taste of magic in her throat brings back the memories. The almost-insignificant weight of the young man’s lanky body in her hand as she plucked him from the throne. The terrified determination in his voice as he insisted he would not leave her. The momentary touch of his hand on her shoulder and— “No, no, no, no…” Angel claps her hand over her mouth, sharp fingernails drawing blood from her cheek.

[owlbearwrites]

Some 'Shadows' for WIP Wednesday?

Backlog catch-up session!

Angel. Sweetheart. Her father’s voice is so clear in her mind, he might as well still be on the empty throne before her. She scowls and, with one momentarily-taloned swipe, knocks the spiky stone chair off of its pedestal. She has no need for the ugly thing, even though she knows, deep in her buzzing bones, that she could take that seat for as long as she pleased, and walk free at any time, and not be trapped like Jack.

[owlbearwrites]

The recent addition of the premium ads have broken the old dashboard userstyle, but I've found a workaround to it

You need to go into your uBlock Origin settings and add a line in "My filters":

"www.tumblr.com##.gLEjz" (without the quotation marks)

And voila, it's usable again

[owlbearwrites]

Getting back to writing after a break: a guide

(in lieu of regular Hours of Becoming updates)

Try to jump into the next big project less than 12 hours after finishing the one you've been working on for 3+ years

Realize it's not working and go on a 3-hour nature hike (that ends up being so hilly, you start to low-key worry for your life and keep sending bae updates with map pins, in case you slip and roll into a ditch somewhere)

Try observing your previously-effective writing rituals, to very little result

Attempt to force words out of self while actively dealing with family drama, mental health crises and house moves

Accept the fact that writing isn't happening at the moment

Feel real guilty over the fact that writing isn't happening at the moment

Repeat 4-6 for two months straight

Start to get sad due to lack of writing

Seek advice from fellow creatives

As per advice received as a result of 9, instead of trying to force more words out of self, perform introspection on self to examine barriers to writing and desired state of writing

Arrive at conclusion that main feelings in the way of writing are: a) guilt for not writing; b) fear of not being good enough; c) a cycle of (b) exacerbating (a)

Spend a solid week working through those feelings via journaling and talking to trusted peeps; manage to park the feelings to the side

Schedule three writing dates with self in the course of a week, with no duration or wordcount requirement; showing up to think or re-read old work totally counts

Twist own arm to make the above dates happen, roughly 30 minutes at a time; end up writing a little

Try to do it again next week

Fail to write anything in the following week due to mental health

Try to do it again the next week

Manage one writing session; end up scribbling some words down sneakily while a video game runs in the background, to fool brain into thinking you're not really writing

Fight the guilt over writing fic instead of the original novel

Spend a day working through the guilt via journaling and talking to trusted peeps; manage to park the guilt to the side

Try to do it again next week

Fight brain and life tooth and nail, but manage to sit self down to write three times; end up writing a little more than before

Try to do it again next week

[owlbearwrites]

”Rowan” for WIP Wednesday!

Thank you for the ask! Here are some words.

“Hey, IRIS? What are the odds of survival for a fall from this height?” For a typical human of your age, build and fitness level, thirty-six percent. In your individual case, taking your cybernetic enhancements into account, forty-seven. Hm. Higher than he expected. And it’s reassuring to hear that his cyber arm makes him sturdier than average. Please note that this figure only describes the chance of remaining alive immediately after impact. The injuries likely to be sustained from the fall— “Okay, okay, I get it!” Rowan backs away from the edge on all fours before pulling himself to his feet, then trudges back along the overpass until he finds a drop not much higher than his five-foot-eleven.

[owlbearwrites]

fucking congrats on finishing your behemoth WIP!! thats awesome!!! now go write Rowen like you wanna :3

Thank youuuu! Here's some Rowan:

He squints at the distant scrap yard. The cybernetics in his left eye correctly interpret the motion and zoom in, in, in. After almost a month of walking around with this tech in his head, Rowan still isn’t quite used to the sensation: not pain as such—not unless he strains the magnification function to the max—but a weird, diluted flavor of vertigo. In the magnified view, he thinks he can see movement between a jagged mound of debris and a shipping container that, even zoomed in, is barely the size of a Clicky Brick. “IRIS, scan current view for life forms, please.” Current view out of scanner range. Of course.

[owlbearwrites]

I'd like to request Rowan for WIP Wednesday. Congrats on finishing your long one!

Thank you! And thank you for the ask! Here are some words.

That must be the scrap yard Harvey told-slash-warned him about when he left Havenford on his first supply run, five days ago. “Elias will want to poke around the trash heaps on the way back. He found a functioning hard drive there six years ago, and never got over it. Marty, though, won’t set foot in that place for all the clean water in the Neighborhood. And Elias knows better than to wander off alone.” “So… should I go with him?” Rowan asked.  “Only if it’s safe. Use your noggin.” Harvey tapped a finger on the side of her head. “And whatever you’ve got plugged in there.”

[owlbearwrites]

I finished my EPIC WIP last week (330k words! 3.5 years in the making! still reeling!), and now I'm going to be brave and use this to drag myself into my novel. Along with a few WIPs that are here for moral support.

WIP list:

Rowan: queer post-apocalyptic romance (original)

Seismic: marital drama, currently on a fluffy note (fic)

Shadows: softcore eldritch horror (fic)

Snippet is from Lost and Found (Atlas):

(which I finished NINE days ago, but I feel that given the sheer magnitude of that achievement, I deserve some slack)

“Folie à deux,” Jack mutters. That was something Rhys said about them once. An old phrase from an old world, to describe two people who are crazy together. Or crazy about each other? Or both? Something like that. “What did you say?” Rhys asks him. Jack shakes his head, feeling a weird smile coming on. He’s kinda light-headed right now. Must be from all that weird breathing. “Nothing, just… You’re right. If letting Moxxi off the hook for now is the price for getting the Handsome Jackpot back in one piece, then it’s worth it. ‘Cause I can think of so many things to do with that bot factory. And I know which one I wanna do first.” “Oh?” “Yeah…” Jack holds his next words in his mind as he savors the moment, drinking in the sparkle of anticipation in Rhys’s eyes, and he can imagine so clearly the full-blown nova it’s about to bloom into, knows exactly what Rhys’s face will look like over the next few seconds, from hilarious disbelief to gorgeous exhilaration, and this, this moment right now, is worth putting his revenge on hold, worth kicking the Opportunity plans a few years down the road, worth every daytime glitch and every middle-of-the-night panic attack, worth three years in assorted digital semi-limbos, worth four hundred and ninety-five days in solitary, worth crashing into the surface Pandora inside the burning Helios. It’s worth everything.

WIP Wednesday Game

It’s WIP Wednesday, time for a little accountability, sharing your work, and getting a kick in the pants.

Here’s how it works:

In a reblog of this post (so people can find you in the notes) or new thread (w/ rules attached) if you want to play on your own, post up to five (5) filenames of your WIPs; not titles, file names.

Post a snippet from one of them. Snippet must be words you wrote in the last 7 days. We’re posting progress here. If you haven’t made any, go make some and come back to play!

After you’ve posted, people can send you an ask with one of your file names. You must then write 3 sentences in that file. If the filename is one you can't share from (for example, an event or gift fic), write 3 sentences on it anyway, and then 3 more on another to share.

That’s it! You can invite others to join in, or just post. I’ll be searching the reblogs to find people to send asks to!

If you’re reading this, you’re invited!

If you see someone posting a WIP Wednesday Game snippet, send them an ask! Make them write.

Requested/Friend event mentions under the cut! If you'd like to be pinged next week, send me a message to ask!

@fiore-della-valle @redbirdblogs @greenbergsays @idkfandomwhatever @luckyspike

@obaewankenope @mad-madam-m @anonymousdandelion @geometricfractal @prettybirdy979

@eriquin @labelleizzy @aparticularbandit @madnessfromthemountains @makeroftherunes

@whimsicalmeerkat @kidsomeday @lizhly-writes @skyderman @adhdavinci

@owlbearwrites @anachronismstellar @anyctibius @rilannon @lazinesswrites

@zyrafowe-sny @dreaminghour @blue-eyedbeta @candyskiez @dreamerking27

@kalira @virgulesmith @i-want-delfeur @selkies-world @exceedinglygayotter

@oitreewrites @post-and-out @1attheedge @qqaba

[owlbearwrites]

Neurospicy writers of tumblr, I have a question

...Okay, I lied. I actually have several!

Fellow autistic/ADHD/AuDHD writers: have you ever worked with an editor? (Asking for a friend. The friend is me. The friend is neurodivergent. The friend is also an editor.)

If you've worked with an editor:

Do you know (or got the vibe) if your editor was neurotypical or neurodivergent?

Did you communicate your own neurodivergency status?

Did you ask for accommodations / request to work and/or communicate in a specific manner?

Was there any aspect of working with an editor that was particularly difficult / stressful to deal with because of your neurodivergency and/or associated emotional baggage?

If you haven't:

What would make it easier for you to work with an editor? In terms of communication styles, scheduling, managing rejection sensitivity, etc?

Would you be willing to request any such accommodations when working with an editor?

Would you make use of such accommodations if they were offered upfront (at no extra cost)?

Let me know in any way you vibe with (comment, tag, DM, etc.).

[owlbearwrites]

What proofreading / copy editing / line editing looks like (when I do it)

Disclaimer: you may have different idea of what each of the three entails. But in my editing services, this is what you can expect from each tier.

Below is a snippet of my own writing (with errors introduced for the sake of this experiment), subjected to proofreading, copy editing, and line editing, respectively. This way, you can decide what level of involvement your manuscript needs.

Original:

Proofreading:

As you can see, I fixed punctuation, grammar and formatting errors, pointed out an erroneous word choice, and flagged a possible continuity error. Beyond that, the text remains untouched. If you don't want any (and I mean ANY) interference with your writing style, this one's for you.

Copy editing:

This time around, in addition to the proofreading pass, I tightened a few sentences, suggested a more evocative word choice, and pointed out where the scene's flow could be made clearer. If you're looking for a light-touch edit, that's the one.

Line editing:

This is the most involved level of editing I offer. In addition to everything in the previous tiers, I flagged a detail that didn't 100% make sense to me and could benefit from a brief explanation; made suggestions on tightening the prose further; and included several style suggestions to give a high-stakes moment more emotional punch. If you want me to really sink my teeth into your manuscript, and shine every diamond that's still in the rough, then the line edit option is for you.

[owlbearwrites]

Neurospicy writers of tumblr, I have a question

...Okay, I lied. I actually have several!

Fellow autistic/ADHD/AuDHD writers: have you ever worked with an editor? (Asking for a friend. The friend is me. The friend is neurodivergent. The friend is also an editor.)

If you've worked with an editor:

Do you know (or got the vibe) if your editor was neurotypical or neurodivergent?

Did you communicate your own neurodivergency status?

Did you ask for accommodations / request to work and/or communicate in a specific manner?

Was there any aspect of working with an editor that was particularly difficult / stressful to deal with because of your neurodivergency and/or associated emotional baggage?

If you haven't:

What would make it easier for you to work with an editor? In terms of communication styles, scheduling, managing rejection sensitivity, etc?

Would you be willing to request any such accommodations when working with an editor?

Would you make use of such accommodations if they were offered upfront (at no extra cost)?

Let me know in any way you vibe with (comment, tag, DM, etc.).

[owlbearwrites]

Did you know the best part of writing is getting to reread your own works? That shit was written for you! Its got your favorite tropes, your flavor of humor, the character archetypes you adore. If it doesn’t, why are you writing? If it doesn’t, start adding that shit. Quality of writing or no, your writing should at least appeal to yourself above all else. If you’re writing something you don’t even enjoy the readers will pick up on it, you know?

[owlbearwrites]

Whoops, means to do this on this account.

the hours of becoming: January (1 of 1)

Brief intro

What this is about: an attempt to chronicle my writing efforts.

Why: both for my own records (because I'm a stats nerd), and to add some transparency to the writing process (because I feel that a lot of writers despair at their own perceived slow pace and lack of progress when exposed to others' highlight reels).

What's with the title: it refers to a quote from Grit by Angela Duckworth:

Nobody wants to show you the hours and hours of becoming. They’d rather show you the highlight of what they’ve become.

Personally, I don't mind showing those hours. Writing can be lonely, especially when it feels like you're the only one struggling, while everyone else is knocking out NaNo-worthy wordcounts in one sitting.

(For full disclosure, these updates will cover exclusively my creative writing, which is non-commercial; whatever writing I do for clients comes under the heading of 'work'.)

So here we go.

Weeks 1-5

I might do weekly reports in the coming months, but January is always a slow writing month for me, both by necessity and by design. This year was no exception, with a lot of work and family care packed into what was a tough month following a tough year.

Week 1 was designated to decompressing from the holidays and family care. Week 1 writing summary: none.

Week 2 featured a really bad sinus infection that put me out of commission for the duration. Week 2 writing summary: none.

Week 3 had a tight schedule of commitments, but I made a point of showing up to my (usually) weekly writing stream, because I realized that failing to do so would mean neglecting the one appointment with myself that I had that week. I hadn't written for two weeks, and it showed. My brain was unwieldy, and every word felt like I was chiseling it out of bedrock. Still, I persevered, and got around 2,000 words of a draft down during a 3-hour stretch. That was all the writing done that week. Week 3 writing summary: 3 hours, 2,000 words (draft).

Week 4 was, basically, week 3 with a vengeance, with the only thing that kept me going being the knowledge of a two-day break by the seaside coming up on Sunday. I showed up for the writing stream, during which I edited rather than drafted. On Sunday evening, a few hours into my break, I was finally able to sit myself down to jot down a 'primer' of the Borderlands series plot, for a friend who can't play the games, but wants to read my fic set in that universe. It proved unexpectedly fun, and the c. 3k words I put down on it was probably the first bit of writing I actually enjoyed this year. Week 4 writing summary: 2 hours, 2,000 words (edit) + 2 hours, 3.3k words (writing-adjacent)

Week 5, which strayed into February, saw me leaning into my excitement for the Borderlands primer, which had morphed into a unauthorized biography of Handsome Jack (with an occasional comment from the man himself; the fictional character, that is, not actually Dameon Clarke). I wrote more of it on my seaside break (which had turned out to be more of a working vacation, because f*** me), and then on the weekly stream. I also found myself very excited about recording snippets of my own writing as the universe's most basic podfic, so that's something I might end up doing more of. Week 5 writing summary: 3.5 hours, c. 4k words (writing-adjacent) + a few hours of podficcing myself.

January writing summary: 12 hours spent on writing and writing-adjacent pursuits, resulting in 2,000 words of draft, another 2,000 words edited, and 2/3 of the Very Unauthorized (But Heavily Annotated) Biography of Handsome Jack (7.5k words and counting). Curious about my excitement re: podfics, which is worth exploring further.

[owlbearwrites]

Lost and Found for Wip Wednesday!

Thank you for the ask!

They kept Project Corporeality confidential while it was in the works. During the year it took to design, construct and test (and test, and test, and test) Jack’s android habitat, the only people who knew the full extent of the project were Jack himself, Rhys, Drew, Dr. Brent, and three key members of his team. The rest of them, a dozen or so, got information on a need-to-know basis—not only for Jack’s safety, or Rhys’s, but also their own. The image of the destroyed lab equipment on the Terminus was etched forever into Rhys’s mind as proof there were people out there who’d go to any lengths to utterly destroy any attempt—and anyone attempting—to bring Handsome Jack back to life.