#amy zero

[amyohtheotaku]

How about if you draw Amy Zero? 🥰🤔

[gooseandcaboose]

Tag Game

Thanks for the tag @bymeganwithmeraki! I like this one! (And I’m actually doing this pretty close to when I was tagged, which is pretty different for me.) I really like this tag. Just gonna say that now. I also say it at the end. Cause it’s true.

1. Do you have a recurring trope in your writing? I’m not sure about tropes. I probably do. I would have to think about it, but I do think that a recurring theme (possibly a trope) in some of my writing is the issue of identity: who a person is, really, how they know, the influence of other people on personal identity, that sort of thing.

2. Which of your OCs do you most identify with and why? I don’t know if I really identify with any of my OCs. There are parts of them that identify with, but probably the one I identify with the most (percentage-wise) is probably Amy Zero. She works hard but sometimes feels stuck, but a stuck that is her fault, not anyone else’s. She was also told in her youth that she was special and found, as she became an adult, that she isn’t, but everyone else still seems to be.

3. If you could live in any fantasy world, where would you and why? A safe one, but I don’t really know one that qualifies. I feel like every fantasy world has a ton of crazy inherent dangers. I mean, this world does, too, I grant. Maybe the Realm of the Elderlings? I feel like I know the most about that world and might be able to make it there.

4. Which book you read changed your life the most?  So, this is a weird response, but I don’t think there’s a book I’ve read that changed my life. I read a lot of books, and I’m sure they all have affected me in some way, but there isn’t a book I can point to and say, yes, that changed my life.

5. Do you listen to music while writing?  Sometimes, yes. When I do, it’s usually instrumental, (soundtracks, instrumental rock, that sort of thing), unless I’m feeling words and then I listen to soft indie sort of rock.

6. Which of your OCs is the most problematic? Do they try to change their actions or do they like the ‘negative’ attention they get? Originally I was going to say I couldn’t think of one, but I think Sorrel, who is mentioned in #8 could be considered problematic. In the name of doing good for his country and protecting people from what he perceives as an evil, he outlaws essentially all magical practice and prohibits magic users from serving in any capacity in government positions (the military, advisors, governors, etc.). When he learns, after some bad things happen (cause saying what would be spoilers), that there is more to magic and mages than he thought, he tries to correct what he’s done, but it may be too late.

7. If your OCs could live in a different time/place/universe, where would they want to live and why? It depends on whom we’re talking about. Amy Zero would probably like to live in our universe, just to try it for a while, because while she loves working with superheroes, she also finds it exhausting. My other lady Daphne would like to live in any world that hasn’t been destroyed by a combination of nuclear and biological warfare.

8. Would you like to meet your OCs in person and how would they react if they met you?  Maybe in a quiet time of their lives. I think the character I’d most like to meet is Sorrel, who is this soft-spoken, nice guy who basically wanted to run his family home, growing fruit and stuff, but who got pulled into being King because he was the closest relative of a king who was assassinated, and then had to lead his country into war to defend it. He’s the sort of person who just tries to do good and to do the most good for the most people in his kingdom, even though that means he does unintentionally hurt several people he really cares about (and a ton of other people he doesn’t know, like half of the country). I like him a lot. I don’t know how he would react to me. But he’s nice and usually gives people the benefit of the doubt, so unless I just completely make an asshole of myself, I think he’d be nice to meet. 

9. Want kind of method do you use to outline a character/story? I have never outlined a character or story before starting. I am, like, one of the pantsiest of pantsers. I am going to attempt the snowflake method of outlining for the novel I’m working on this year (that I’ve already written part of), so we’ll see how that goes.

10. How do you balance your life and your writing? Do you use any methods or do you go with the flow? I’m pretty bad at balancing life and writing, in part because I do work full time and because there are other things that i want to do with my time (like play RPGs, do community theater, laundry, make food, y’know that sort of thing). I’m trying to get better at planning my time, and not over-scheduling myself. This year I’m also trying to make goals about when to get things done, which means making writing more of a priority than I have in the past year and a half.

Okay, so I am going to tag: @katekarl, @ivettaviolet, @elena-is-writing-her-best, @books-are-way-better-than-people, @dawnashleywrites, @ramblingrubyred, and @ephirae. If you’ve already done this, please tag me in the post you did--I want to see! And if you’re not tagged here but want to do this, please do. 

I actually really like this tag. The only problem is I have too many OCs. Also, I get to make up a new WIP tag for the story Sorrel (mentioned above) is from, and it’s just going to be what I call the story in my docs: #bastards and necromancers.

[gooseandcaboose]

WIP/Current Projects Tag

List all the things you’re currently working on in as much or little detail as you’d like, then tag some friends to see what they’re working on: writing, art, gifsets, whatever.

I was tagged by @tcstu and @the960writers (and vague-tagged by @brynwrites), and it’s taken me a while to get to it. I won’t talk about everything that’s technically a WIP because the list would be, well, extensive, and nobody has time for that.

Instead, I’ll introduce a few and I’ll introduce the tags I’ve started to use for them so if anything sounds particularly interesting, you can follow it. (Why, though?) Also, all of the titles are technically working titles. Except maybe #2. I don’t know if I could ever bring myself to change that one.

1) The Wastelanders (The Farthest Along) Status: One complete first draft in need of major revisions. MAJOR revisions. Like, a new start and several new chapters and possibly a new ending and definitely a lot of new stuff in the middle. Counts: 170,500 words in 28 chapters Genre: Science fiction of the post-apocalyptic (sort of) variety Blurb: The world has been broken, shattered, and poisoned by war. A biochemical weapon (the Agent), lingers in the atmosphere, warping the genetic makeup of everyone who breathes it in or consumes it through food or drink. The Agent is everywhere, permeating everything, except the City, a research complex sealed under a dome. Daphne, once a member of the security force that kept the City safe, flees into the Wasteland to protect herself with the help of one of the City’s researchers, a nervous man called Dmitri, who swears he will join her once he has finished his project: a counter to the Agent. Years later, in the Wastes, Daphne meets Jackson, a man mutated so far as to seem inhuman. They fall slowly into a working reliance upon each other, forging a fragile friendship which each of them endangers with the secrets of their pasts. After rescuing Jackson from a cruel captivity masquerading as a circus, Daphne entrusts Jackson with a secret of her own. When Dmitri is kidnapped, Daphne must face the fact that Jackson was the wrong person to trust. Tag: #the wastelanders

2) Amy Zero, Agent for Heroes (The One I Told My Friends I Would Work On) Status: Started as a NaNoNovel in 2015, I’ve probably written less than 1/3 of the plot at this point Counts: 55,500 words - no chapters Genre: Speculative Fiction? I don’t know – how do you classify semi-satirical superhero novels? Blurb: Amy Zero lives in a tiny apartment under the weight of student debt, runs her own business, and works daily with some of the biggest names in New York City: Geometry of Form, Infinity Blaster, Fallen Stars. Well, they’re not the biggest names yet, but with Amy arranging their press conferences, negotiating endorsement contracts, and booking them at conventions, they will be. Just don’t tell anyone that Fallen Stars used to be Legion of Souls, and almost sank half of Central Park. Amy’s skill lies in rebranding: turning Villains into Heroes (and, though less often, vice versa), but when the Technocrat–swirling cloak, green and black leotard, lifts in his boots–asks her to represent him, she knows she is facing the toughest challenge of her career. Tag: #amy zero

3) Rown of Surce (The One I’m Actually Working On) Status: Two drafts down, about 2/3 of the way through draft 3 Counts: 33,600 in the second draft, currently at 20,000 in the third. Also, nine chapters so far in the third draft, which is the first draft in which I made chapters. Genre: Fantasy Blurb:  Enormous spiders erupt from the ground in the midst of a battle between Dersmyth and Ceraya, poisoning and capturing soldiers from both sides indiscriminately, wrapping them in fibers and saving them to be eaten later. In the wake of this devastation, Peter of Dersmyth goes in search of his brother but finds a Cerayan instead. The daywalker has been poisoned by the spiders in excess, puncture wounds covering his body. Peter enlists the help of Eirik, a doctor and Peter’s sister, in saving the Cerayan’s life so he can point them towards their brother. But there is more magic than medicine at work in the daywalker’s healing, revealing something even Peter, an antiquarian, had thought long lost. Tag: #rown of surce

4) The Future War (The Weirdly Old One I Throw Words At Occasionally) Status: I know a lot of what happens in this story, but it’s taken a while to come up with an actually good idea of how to do it.  Counts: 11,100 words in three documents that don’t differentiate chapters Genre: Science Fiction Blurb: Colonel Lia Isaacs wakes from a cryogenic experiment to find one hundred seven years has passed instead of seven weeks. The world she knew, the super-national organizations she knew, and everyone she ever knew, has long been gone. Instead she finds herself in a world at war with a nameless, faceless alien enemy that strikes civilian and military targets indiscriminately. Fleet Captain Tamora Kesh believes that Lia Isaacs (who has been told she can't call herself colonel since the military that gave her that title is defunct) may be a key part of a daring solution to combat the alien threat. Isaacs, joined by a civilian freighter pilot, a mercenary, the military's golden child, and a convicted traitor, takes the fight to the enemy under the direction of Fleet Captain Kesh, whose tactics are met with success after success. But after a routine mission results in something unexpected, Isaacs finds herself questioning the nature of the enemy and the war itself. Tag: #the future war

5) Madda and Abraxos (The New One I Throw Words at Occasionally) Status: Just started. Counts: 2,900 words Genre: Fantasy Blurb: Madda is a child born of both moons, possessed, as such children are, of magic. She is pulled from her tribe, from her life in the desert, to the citadel of the King to serve his daughter as a magician. This is not a simple service, but a fierce competition between herself and the prince's magician, a powerful man named Abraxos. Madda struggles to maintain her identity as a tribeswoman of the desert while living on the floodplain, struggles to remain human when confronted daily by the inhumanity of Abraxos, who means to kill her, as he has the last four magicians before her. As the conflict between Madda and Abraxos intensifies, she realizes that she is not his only target. But when she has barely enough magic to save herself, how can she save anyone else? Tag: #madda and abraxos

I could go on. No. Really. I could. It’s insane. I have too many ideas and too many in various stages of started and drafted and edited. In my Evernote, there are 13 notebooks with stories I’m in various stages of writing, as well as the Random notebook (where I put less developed ideas and stories) which has 27 notes.

Tags I will probably tag some folks who have been tagged already, or who have done this already, if that’s you, feel free to ignore this tag (or tag me in a reblog of your version of this post because tagging you means I want to know). As usual, also, anyone who wants to do this that I didn’t tag, feel free! (Consider all of yourselves vague-tagged). @stitchcasual, @24zallurabbits, @thiswaitingheart, @the-poetic-mathematician, @s-the-dragon, @seventeenbirds, @mendelworth, and @glory-on-your-lips, consider yourselves explicitly tagged.

[gooseandcaboose]

Kissed for the find a word meme please

I hope it’s okay for me to give you a paragraph because, well, if I just use the sentence where ‘kissed’ appears, it’s kind of lame. This way you actually get the MC, too!

She ate the tacos slowly and watched a photographer taking a couple’s engagement photos. The couple, bundled themselves in scarves and hats and mittens (not gloves, mittens, how cute) were adorable. They kissed on cue and then kissed not on cue. They kissed more than the photographer needed, but they probably got some good shots in. With the light diffusing through the blanket of clouds above, there were no harsh shadows to highlight flaws or to make the subjects squint. No tricks today, just a couple in a park. Now one of them was standing on the bench and the other recreated the proposal. Now the one on the bench was jumping into the other’s arms. It was so cute Amy almost couldn’t finish her fish taco. But she did. Because Amy Zero may not have enjoyed having her lunch interrupted by a couple taking engagement photos, but Amy Zero was also not a quitter and she wasn’t going to let them ruin her lunch.