#p. moonlight

[orions-quill]

WIP Acrostic Game

Thanks @bi-focal12 for the tag! My word is CLAIM and I'm taking all of this from Project Moonlight which is my current WIP~ They're taken from all over the place and don't belong to a single scene, chapter, or even a single POV haha Gosh, I cannot wait to start editing this thing.

C -

Cold. Dark. Everything was so cold and dark around her. Why was it so cold?

L - Leah sighed deeply, holding her entwined hands to her forehead. She had her eyes closed tightly, muttering the prayers over and over as if they might purify her and rid her of her doubts. The pews were uncomfortable to kneel on for such long periods of time, but the pain felt like penitence, and it grounded her while doing her prayers.

A - As Emery, she knew everyone in their small area of the town, and greeted them as such. However, few people knew her as Fern: the ones who had gone looking for other means of help in their despair and had earned her trust.

I - It wasn't until she turned in Artie's street that she felt one of those hunter's presences again, behind her.

M - "Mrs. Ginny here is saying that she saw the hunters kill something last night." Another woman said. Emery did not recognize her, but she knew Mrs. Ginny.

No pressure tag for @marlowethelibrarian @halfbit @scbwriter @the-golden-comet @aziz-reads @wyked-ao3 @leahnardo-da-veggie + open tag for whoever wants to do this! Your word is MERCY

[orions-quill]

Introducing Project Moonlight

Project Moonlight is a standalone dark fantasy novel (with the potential to become a duology) about Emery, a witch trying to help a mysterious entity contacting her through a scrying mirror while hiding from the witch hunters.

Genre: New adult, sapphic fantasy.

Some bits about it:

Multiple POVs

Characters in their 20s

Themes related to the importance of community and the fight against oppression, as well as anger and revenge

Exploration of religious trauma and conflict of belief

Summary:

Coming soon.

Fun Fact: “Moonlight” comes from the original idea of how witches were born: through the blessing of the fae folk on a full moon. It doesn’t quite work like that anymore, for plot purposes, but the name stuck and I’ve even found it a new meaning!

Important Links

Character Introduction Post [coming soon]

Tag

[orions-quill]

Heads Up Seven Up

rules: share seven sentences from your story

It's been a while since I've done any sort of tag games. Thanks @bi-focal12 for the tag. You tagged me twice but I'm only gonna do one, sorry hehe!

This is a little extract from Project Moonlight Chapter 5. Technically you get 9 sentences 'cause two of them were super short haha:

Emery blinked. She'd expected to see something, the church, the woods, the hunters. Instead she was surrounded by black extending in every direction. No, not black. She was nowhere at all, suspended in the emptiness of non existence. This wasn't normal, she had never experienced something like that while scrying before. She tried returning back to her body, but found that something pulled at her from the center of her chest, binding her in place. Something was wrong. "Help me." A voice whispered, everywhere at once but also only in her mind.

Open tag until I figure out which of my mutuals is still active in the community <3

[orions-quill]

Writing Log - August 18th to 26th

The long-awaited (sure) part 3 after the break

August 18th - 1,868 words

August 19th - 696 words

August 20th - 760 words

August 21st - 629 words

August 22nd - 0 words

August 23rd - 2,011 words

August 24th - 1,024 words

August 25th - 1,058 words

August 26th - 1,218 words

Total for the period: 9,264 words

Total for the entire work: 30,010 / 50,000

Chapter: 17 out of 35

Fuuuuuu this was a lot

As you can see, it was kinda rough. I was not having a very good time at work and honestly everything, including writing, was feeling kind of like a chore. I managed to recover during the weekend and even had a good time writing yesterday and today, but I can't say I'm not glad the challenge is over.

My plan moving forward is to rest for a week or two, then I'm going to start a writing routine that will probably include writing before work on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and then writing whenever I feel like it or have time on weekends, with Tuesday and Thursday as obligatory rest days.

I'm hoping I can finish the first draft before the year ends, so that I can start the first round of editing next year and then look for an alpha reader. We'll see what happens!

Thanks for following along on this journey.

If you would like to be added or removed from the tag list let me know!

General: @honeybewrites @leahnardo-da-veggie @fractured-shield

[orions-quill]

Writing Log - August 7th to 11th

Welp, this is a bit of an unexpected update. You'll see.

August 7th - 2,124 words

August 8th - 2,062 words

August 9th - 2,111 words

August 10th - 2,011 words

August 11th - 2,022 words

Total for week 2: 10,330 words

Total for entire work: 20,746 / 50,000

Chapter: 13 out of 35

So fortunately, I managed to slow down and start writing longer and more meaninful chapters, so that felt good!

Week 2 was also an astounding success, as you can see, and of course I'm really proud of myself. However, I can really feel how underplanned my novel is. I thought I had planned it really well but nope, I have been inventing a lot of stuff along the way and editing this first draft is surely going to be something.

Now... I have some, hm- unpleasant news. I'm cutting down my challenge to 30k words. This week was honestly really difficult and while I didn't lose motivation to write per se, I am so, so exhausted... It's not due to the writing, but more so the things happening around me.

I haven't been sleeping well lately due to pain and I still work 10 hours a day on weekdays. Things are not great at my workplace right now and the mental and physical exhaustion are catching up to me. I'm afraid I'm going to start passing all the negative emotions I'm experiencing into my writing and just associate this novel with one of the worst months I've had this year so far. So I'm going to stop.

I'm gonna take a break the rest of this week, then write 10k more words and that'll be the end of the challenge! So yeah, I'm a bit disappointed but it is what it is.

If you would like to be added or removed from the tag list let me know!

General: @honeybewrites @leahnardo-da-veggie @fractured-shield

[orions-quill]

Writing Log - August 3rd to 5th

I will admit I got a little bit lazy about writing these logs, so I've decided I'll do them per writing week oops

Let's start with a quick stat summary:

August 3rd - 2016 words

August 4th - 2070 words

August 5th - 2093 words

Total for week 1: 10,416 words

Total for entire work: 10,416 / 50,000

Chapter: 9 out of 35

The first week was a complete success! I managed my weekly goal of 10k and reached my first reward, which was to buy myself whatever snack I wanted.

I got myself an oreo ice cream cake haha I've been craving one for a while.

I was struggling a little bit to get into it, but by the 4th and 5th days I had found a pretty comfortable zone. I am worried about one thing though, and it is that by the end of this week I was almost done with one third of the chapters. In 10k words. That obviously doesn't seem right.

Now, there's a couple of chapters there that are meant to be short, namely chapter 4 and 8, but everything else??? It should not be a struggle to make them reach anything between 2.5k and 3k.

I think it is because it's been a long time since I started a project from scratch and did a writing challenge such as this one. I'm confident that as I get more in the zone, I will remember how to add more meat to the story that is relevant.

But yeah, the first chapters are going to be a pain to edit...

I don't have any particular favorite lines to share this time that aren't a big spoiler so... Sorry, no quotes for you this time.

But you can go watch my vlog! If you want lol

If you would like to be added or removed from the tag list let me know!

General: @honeybewrites @leahnardo-da-veggie @fractured-shield

[orions-quill]

Writing Log - August 1st & 2nd

I completely forgot I wanted to do daily writing updates for my writing challenge so I'll do yesterday and today in this post!

It is August and that means I have started my 50k word writing challenge for Project Moonlight. I am attempting to write 50k words in a single month so I can kickstart the first draft of Project Moonlight with a big amount (and also so I don't have enough time to second guess myself).

I have a very simple strategy for these kinds of challenges that has worked in the past and I'm certain it will work again this time. Basically, I write 2k words a day for 5 days, then rest for 1 day. 2k words is the optimal amount of words I can write in a day without tiring myself out. And I can do it for five days in a row without feeling like dying. That rest day allows me to recharge and gives me some free time to do other things I enjoy!

2k words a day for 5 days also means I only need 25 days to write the entire 50k words. So it means I have some extra days just in case.

So for Friday I wrote 2,071 words and finished chapter 1 and 2 actually. I'm a bit worried they're quite short now, but that's a problem for when I start editing. It was a bit rough and I finished quite late, because I had work in the middle. So I wrote about 800 words in the morning before work, and then the rest when I got home at night.

This was my favorite line from Friday:

"Emery…" Leah tasted the name in her mouth and hummed. Something wasn't right about that woman, and she was going to figure out what it was.

Today I wrote 2,166 words. It's Saturday and though I have Japanese class at 1pm, I do have all of the morning free, so I wrote from 9 to 11 and finished my daily goal quite swiftly c:

I also finished chapter 3 and 4, and got started on chapter 5. Again, really worried at how short they are, but it is so okay.

This is my favorite line from today:

Emery turned around (if one could turn when there was no point of reference) and a scream rose through her esophagus and choked her. In front of her was a face, white and pale as the thinnest sheet of paper. The ashy gray eyes stared right through her, unseeing and cold.

I do not think punctuation is right but that's a problem for editing also lol

So yeah, that's it for this log!

If you would like to be added or removed from the tag list let me know!

General: @honeybewrites @leahnardo-da-veggie @fractured-shield