stoneheart-paramour

[stoneheart-paramour]

sometimes writing feels like dragging your brain across gravel. but at least the gravel is sparkly. and covered in metaphors.

[stoneheart-paramour]

had a drinky... no writing tonight

[stoneheart-paramour]

your aversion to anything earnest or sincere has affected us in the following ways 1. youre annoyinggggggg

[stoneheart-paramour]

ah, i forgot i hadn't finished the outline for the very end of this chapter, so it's not getting done tonight after all. gonna try to finish the outline tonight instead so it's ready for when i do pick up the chapter again, maaaybe tomorrow? gonna be busy so i can't say for sure. sunday is also up in the air but the evening should at least be free to do something

also, while looking at the outline, i realized what's in the chapter after this one, and i got excited >:3c things gonna be kicking off big time ehehehehe~ exposition over, it's time for rising action OuO

[stoneheart-paramour]

i just watched the 3.4 trailer. aventurine makes an appearance for like a second and in that second that i saw him, i actually screamed. much to my great dismay and embarrassment (bc there were witnesses)

anyway my brother's assessment (of me) is complete

[stoneheart-paramour]

thinking about this again as chapter seven hits 5k words lol.

got 2-3 more scenes (depending on how i break down scenes) left in the chapter so it will definitely be hitting 6k most likely, at least in this first draft. i want to cut down in some spots for the purposes of better flow, but i can pretty confidently assume it's gonna be anywhere between 5k-6k

8k is seeming a bit excessive though so i doubt many, if any, chapters will hit that? we'll see. there could be some chapters that are A Lot of Words even if technically fewer things happened (like an action sequence). writing conversations/dialogue continues to be the most stressful thing because having a drawn out conversation is normal irl but CAN get dull in a book if you're not careful, so i'm always cognizant of that fact. irl, people go on unrelated tangents all the time (me, i'm people) but for the purposes of the narrative, i gotta keep these bitches on topic. yes, even the adhd ones (looking at you march and caelus). left to their own devices they'd hit six different topics, and only 1 or 2 are even tenuously related to the original subject lol

i also want to be sure everyone's "voice" sounds distinct from one another. would hate for it to sound like just one guy playing multiple parts without any enthusiasm. dan heng doesn't use contractions, caelus says "um" and "uh" and trails off a lot, march gets plenty of exclamation points, welt has his peculiar cadence (which i love so much), aventurine is so flowery and puts heavy emphasis on various words... etc etc. they are so fun but i DO need to make a conscious effort to stay on top of these quirks and keep them consistent! the fact that the characters have a whole collection of different voice lines is GREAT bc i can just listen to youtube compilations of them. unfortunately, listening to aventurine's voice lines sends me into crazytown orbit so it's a risk aj;kfdaj;flajl i am very extremely normal lmaaaao. caelus has a VA and voice lines but he almost NEVER ACTUALLY TALKS so i'm just making shit up for him as i go based on the content of what he says rather than how he says them. (and he says some out of pocket shit it's so fucking funny. you are a LUNATIC my guy. what is wrong with you. never change.)

ahem. anyway. wrote another 800 words today, and i want to try to finish the first draft of the chapter at least by tonight so i can begin doing revisions. might also write some "histories" stuff...? dan heng's "origin story" stuff is so close to done, i really ought to finish it up so it can be posted. i also have things i want to write for firefly... and of course my darling topaz (and topaz + aventurine my double darlings).

i was talking with my friends about neutral intimacy and how it's such a beautiful representation of vulnerability and trust... that's how i want to portray aventurine and topaz. i am crazy about my avencae ship but i'm equally feral for some tender platonic pairings. even if he couldn't or wouldn't ever say it, she's the person he loves most in the world <3 he would simply call it "trust" (but that alone is significant and meaningful coming from him). auugh i love them. i am throwing them in a blender. with love. and myself.

i think chapters are likely going to get longer from this point; the 6k word count limit just isn't gonna cut it going forward with some of the things that need to get done, ideally in the same chapter. so... might bump it up to 8k max? i have no earthly idea what would be considered too long for a chapter, whether that's traditional publishing or fanfics lol

wait actually. let me put this into a nano perspective (may it rest in peace); if a novel is ~50k words minimum. and my chapters were 5k words each. that would be 10 chapters total. actually, how many chapters are normally in the average novel?? alright i was just trying to wing it but i'm gonna have to google shit after all...

ok, alright, that checks out; i'm not too far off then (i assume the 50 chapters would account for a much higher word count book)

(why hello there dabble) eyyy i'm not blindly guessing as much as i thought lol

ok. so 8k words per chapter would be a good bit longer than the average, but not necessarily for the worse. i'll keep my 4k words minimum i previously established, maybe even bump it up to 5k from here on out, and make a hard cutoff at 8k. or, if i'm not actually hitting that mark, i can reduce to cap to 7k or so

or maybe raising the cap won't actually be necessary at all and i'm overthinking things (like i always do) BUT in the case that i'm not, i have a gameplan

[stoneheart-paramour]

We all love the "becoming the very thing you sought to destroy," trope. but I have a growing fondness for "destroying the very thing you sought to become"

[stoneheart-paramour]

wrote another 1.7k tonight. not as much as i wanted but i'm trying to be RESPONSIBLE and get some SLEEP. also i have friend in the house and friend takes priority teehee

[stoneheart-paramour]

While it's important to recognise that depictions of mental health and mental illness in video games are often dogshit, and a "sanity meter" flattens understanding of the impossibly complex issues of mental health into a single metric

We also have to acknowledge that sometimes you do just encounter shit that causes your sanity meter to decrease

[stoneheart-paramour]

well i did it, i actually sat down and got some writing done. 2.5k words in fact. what

i'm very tired and it's very past time to be writing but hey. it's something

[stoneheart-paramour]

i would be unstoppable if i could start a conversation

[stoneheart-paramour]

oh yeah forgot to post these guys

for when you're definitely very normal about Things

[stoneheart-paramour]

i've written out a bunch of bullet point notes for her so i don't forget anything important (as i'm so apt to do). once again reminded that i need to sort out everything with plottr bc i'd like to fiddle with my timeline, add in the new bits, and reference other coinciding events

i wanted to do some prose writing today, but after my PT appointment i was just a bit too tired and hungry and ended up doodling and gaming instead. maybe tomorrow? idk. in spite of The Everything, i'd really like to get at least a little writing done, even just some rough draft stuff. i have another appointment tomorrow but hopefully it won't be too draining

sudden inspiration struck and i'm finally digging into march's backstory further. not that i had nothing established, but it wasn't super detailed in the same way that the backstories of caelus/dan heng/aventurine are. i think a lot of it's gonna be spoilers or spoiler-adjacent so unfortunately i probably won't be able to publish more than a handful of short stories featuring her... but we'll see

[stoneheart-paramour]

[stoneheart-paramour]

sudden inspiration struck and i'm finally digging into march's backstory further. not that i had nothing established, but it wasn't super detailed in the same way that the backstories of caelus/dan heng/aventurine are. i think a lot of it's gonna be spoilers or spoiler-adjacent so unfortunately i probably won't be able to publish more than a handful of short stories featuring her... but we'll see

[stoneheart-paramour]

Actually, people are good by nature and you’re a fool if you think otherwise.

[stoneheart-paramour]