#book three

I know for those who might not have seen my update last week that you’re probably thinking this update is super early! That’s because it’s the Jubilee long Bank Holiday weekend here in the UK, so I wanted to get this out before that short break!

As well as get very happy about the fact Chapter 13’s writing is complete! :D

It still needs editing, but I tend to do better at leaving editing for a bit before doing it. Coming back with fresh eyes to it definitely means I’m more effective, as well as giving my brain time to work on how I want to rewrite certain bits!

But it was also an awesome chapter as I finally got to reveal Nate/Nat’s long awaited [Redacted] endearment for the MC! We got in contact with a really lovely translator, who not only confirmed what I was hoping to use, but she was kind enough to offer other options as well! One of them had me really torn and almost changing my mind, but I ended up sticking with the original as it’s become so much a part of N’s character for me now.

I’m working on some editing on Chapter 8 for SpunkyCat today. So close to sorting out all the mess for that chapter! It’s a real struggle to get through it, but the end is in sight!

So when I get back next Monday, it means I’ll be straight onto Chapter 14! Aahhh!! 

Chapter 14 is a big one again. It’s pretty much 4/5 different versions of it because it is the ‘date’ chapter with each love interest…Been looking forward to writing these scenes for a very loooongtime! 

Social media days will also be the week I get back, but I have gone ahead and scheduled in some of the Character Q&A asks for Patreon for the weekdays. 

I hope you all have the most fantastic time! We’ll be offline, so I’ll update you all again on the Friday I get back! <3

*pterodactyl screaming* Aahhhh! I wrote a scene this week that I was SO proud of and got me SO pumped like you wouldn’t believe!

It wasn’t even the original plan for the scene, hehe! :D

I realised that the scene I had just didn’t have enough emotional punch to it for the LI split scenes afterwards (where there’s a lot of aftermath emotion happening) to make sense. 

It was all right, but it just wasn’t…enough. And you know me and my angst, hehe!

But at about 3am one morning (which is when a lot of my best ideas form. Who needs sleep, right? :D) I thought of the most AMAZINGLY painful scene that would work.

And it did!

I was so excited by it that I had to share it with someone, so I made Nai read it even though it was completely out of context for her, and she had no idea what was happening, lol!

Not only does it have the weight to it that I needed, but it also shows a character off in a slightly different light—especially because that light can change again depending on your relationship and reactions with them!

Phew! So yeah, I was very pumped this week! 

Chapter 13 is coming together sooooo smoothly. Not only am I already at the split scenes, but I’ve finished one and am almost finished with another! I’ll definitely get that scene done by tomorrow, and possibly another started, which means it’s possible I might be able to finish Chapter 13 next week!!!!

Next week, I do have to take some time for sorting more of Chapter 8 for SpunkyCat, as well as starting on the Character Q&A questions for Patreon!

I had SO many awesome asks for the Character Q&A that I will definitely be doing one a day throughout the whole of June! Thank you so much to everyone who sent those in! I won’t be able to answer them all, but I will put any I don’t get to in a file ready for next time!

It’s the long Jubilee Bank Holiday weekend at the end of next week in the UK, so it’s a three-day week. But I’m really determined to get so much done in those days! It would be amazing to go into that break knowing I could come back to writing Chapter 14!!!

Hope you all have the most fantastic weekend! We’ll be offline as usual, so I’ll update you all again at the earlier day of Wednesday! <3

I smashed Chapter 12 in the end! :D

I thought I was going to be finishing it off at the beginning of this week, but instead I blasted through it last Saturday and got it done!!

Which meant on Monday I could do editing, and on Tuesday I started Chapter 13!!!And then, I’ve been hammering through Chapter 13 too!!

Yeah, it’s been a seriously good week, hehe! 

Though I do have to give a HUGE thank you to DashingDon for being a massive help when I had trouble this week with the edit version. They were straight on it and got it fixed so fast after I’d been struggling for soooo long.

They really provide such an amazing site for choicescript creators! Definitely deserves all the support we can give! <3

But after finishing fighting with that and getting some Chapter 8 edits up ready for SpunkyCat to look over, I did move onto Chapter 13. I should have done more editing really…but I was way too excited to get onto 13, especially as I knew what was coming up and have been itching to write it for a very long time!!

Is there some angst in 13?…Oh yeah. 

Do we got a little peak at what a heartbroken love interest could look like in 13?…Oh yes we do.

Chapter 13 is also a much more straightforward chapter without any split scenes until the end third section, so I’ve been managing to blast through it. It feels soooo good to make such major progress.

The branches and variations are what I want Wayhaven to be about, but it is nice to have a chapter where it’s just the MC and one other character. And this scene certainly brings a lot of tension to the mix because of it just being the two!

Next week, I’ll be continuing on with Chapter 13, though may have to take an afternoon or two for more editing depending on how SpunkyCat gets on. She’s a lot quicker at editing than I am!

Hope you all have the most wonderful weekend! We’ll be offline as usual, so I’ll update you all again next Friday! <3

Ohhh! So much to tell you this week! :D

Ok, so I know you guys are probably sick of me talking about the retreat by now, but it was SO amazing! I learnt an absolute ton, and it was so awesome to have someone explain it to you right there. 

Reading writing advice in a book or online is fantastic, but it really does make a difference when you can have someone there explaining how you could adapt that into your own style of writing!

We did a class on character introductions, which was very timely as I was writing that at the time. But one piece of advice—about how your reader is more likely to remember a side character if they have at least a paragraph of interaction with them—made me rethink how I was writing it. So I went back this week and redid that, and now I LOVE it! 

Not only will it help with that, but I got the chance to show a bit more of these new characters’ personalities in those moments because of that extended interaction (each of them got a choice set for the MC to choose from on how to introduce themself).

But one of the biggest things I had fun with there was one task we had where we had to do reversals. We had to take our love interest (I had to pick one) and take our antagonist (again, I had to pick just one, lol!) and flip them. 

The love interest became the baddy, and the antagonist became the love interest.

It was…very interesting! Especially as I have been writing the characters for over half of my life, and these good guys have always been good guys, hehe! 

I chose Adam/Ava, and I turned their past and their ‘trying to always choose the logical choice’ as their main traits to twist.

For the antagonist…well, that would be spoilery, hehe! I chose a baddy who is a bigger player later in the series.

But oh my word! We all remarked how disturbingly easy it was was to flip the traits around and make them baddies! But the class leader was saying that was kind of the point. Characters should always have that balance to them. If it was difficult to flip them, then you’ve made them unbalanced, and it’s a great way of seeing how to fix that.

I got Nai to read it, and I was seriously thrilled at how surprised she was that Adam/Ava still read like Adam/Ava. She was expecting them to be all baddy, but they were still them just scarily the baddy. If that makes sense? :D

And with it being social media days this week, I typed up that scenario (minus a few super spoilery bits!) and have that scheduled as the Monthly Bonus Content #2 for you guys on Patreon later this month. 

Hope you enjoy Adam/Ava in all their villainous glory, hehe! :D

But yeah, I was super keen to get back to writing with all this new info in my head! So after social media days, I was back into like you wouldn’t believe! I’m actually going to finish two of the three split scene sections for this chapter by tomorrow! 

Which means I might just be able to finish Chapter 12 next week!!! 

Phew! That was a lot of blabbering in the update this week :D I’m just still buzzing about the retreat and how well I’ve done this week!

Hope you all have the most amazing weekend! We’ll be offline as usual, so I’ll update you all again next week! <3

My friend Rosina has made a book tag for her love of Critical Role, over on Lace & Dagger Books and she tagged me today, so I will be doing my best to try and answer all her questions as much as I can!

With today’s tag, I’m going to be listing all the members so far of the chaotic Hells Bells and giving you prompts relating to them!

• Ashton - A Non Binary Protagonist - Prince Sebastian from ‘The Princess & The Dressmaker by Jen Wang - I could literally talk about this book all day, as soon as I read it became one of my favourite books of all time. The story of a prince who keeps his secret life as a woman a secret, he is revealed and accepted by his family and it’s a wonderful story really meant for children but anyone can take from this book. I wish everyone got the chance to see this book.
• Dorian - A book featuring complicated family dynamics - Nettle & Bone by T. Kingfisher -Imean, I read this book recently and it still stays with me. A mother who arranges her daughter’s wedding to an awful prince, a sister who wants to save her even though the last words they spoke were not kind. It’s an incredibly complicated dynamic but it makes this book one of my favourite books of this year. An incredible new fantasy.
• Laudna – A spin-off book or one where characters from another book or series have popped in to say hi - The whole Love, Creekwood Series with Simon Vs The Homosapiens Agenda, Leah On The Offbeat and the novella Love Creekwood are the perfect example to me of how to explore a group of friends through a series of books. I loved Leah so much in 'Simon..’ and I’m so glad she got her own book and her own romance.
• Imogen - A Book That’s related to sleep somehow - My Year of Rest And Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh - I didn’t like this book, and I know books can’t be for everyone but it did make me think about how much I needed some rest and this book is about sleeping a year away. The main character induces? herself into a medical slumber for a year and I don’t know what happens as I never made it that far but everyone tells me it’s worth it. So yeah, here’s a book recommendation I guess.
• Orym - A book with moons on the cover - TheLittle Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry - This story is heartbreaking and charming and a fairy tale for the modern day. I guess the moral of the story is no time you wasted in doing something you loved, is ever something that is ever wasted.
• Fearne - A book featuring an animal companion-The Farseer Trilogy by Robin Hobb - I could recommend the whole trilogy of books for this, but I will say the relationship between Fitz and NightEyes in this series is incredible and the bond they have between the two of them is incredible and he deserves to live forever. The wolf I mean. All pets deserve to live forever to be honest.
• Chetney - A Book That Surprised You - The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid - I’m not going to talk about this much because it’s a big one for many people’s TBR’s, but that damned twist and reveal at the end stupefied me. I didn’t see it coming at all. Deserved every star I gave it.
• F.C.G - A book you have a complicated relationship with - Much like Rosina, I also enjoyed House of Earth & Blood but I am not going to read book two. After being spoiled for it, I would rather not put myself through that, no matter how spicy it gets. The first book is a really great read, and I highly recommend the audiobook but nope, big nope after hearing what happens in book two.
• Bertrand - A book with a death that hit you hard - Familiar Things by Sok-Yong Hwang - Korean literature really likes to break your heart, well, in every book I’ve read from authors from South Korea, they hurt me like nothing else has, and the loss of one of the characters near the end of this book genuinely felt like someone had taken my heart and jumped on it. A really beautifully written book and poverty about existing in the only way you can, it’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.

And that’s it! Please let me know if you like Critical Role, I’d love to learn more!

And please let me know what you would choose for these prompts!

Vee xo.