Am I allowed to make a near end of year resolution?
Or, at the very least I put it off for another month and a half... Hmm.
WELL,
I'm feeling inclined, once again, to make a resolution to make MISTAKES. (Not the dangerous variety of course.)
Ideally to task myself with posting more writing that isn't... ✨polished✨. That I haven't edited more times than I can count. That is RAW and riddled with silly mistakes and lines that make me cringe.
I've tried this before, many years ago, and my classmates looked at me like I was insane upon making said declaration. I didn't get very far with it... But, I want to try it again! Another attempt at fighting back against my perfectionism.
Akin to doing those quick, few minute, little sketches where you don't lift the pencil and you don't erase. Not quite to the level of word vomit, but... Y'know? Practice.
Since the beginning of December, I've been thinking of what writing resolutions I wanted to make in the coming year, but my future is a little uncertain at the moment. I'm still job hunting and have applied from everything from a supervisor job to overnight work to overseas work, so I'm not sure how much time I'll have to devote to writing. That being said, I really want to finish my novella-in-verse this year, as well as complete a few other projects that involve more editing and planning and less actual writing. “Write everyday” is of course not my speed, and even “do something writing related everyday” can be difficult, so I’ve settled on weekly goals instead.
Every week, I will:
Plan something: This can be outlining a scene or chapter, or hammering out some world building for the alternate-history fantasy mystery (AHFM) WIP.
Write something: At the start of the year, this will be either a scene or chapter of the novella-in-verse or a blog post. Once the novella is finished, I want to try my hand at a short story idea that’s been floating around in my head. I'm shooting for writing at least two scenes or blog posts per week.
Edit or research something: I combined these because I feel that one is more time sensitive and the other is more time consuming. That is, I won't have something to edit every week, so during those times I'll research something for my AHFM WIP.
Picture something: i.e. make a picture, either book photos for my Instagram or quote pictures from my books. Essentially, create something for social media.
There are fifty-two weeks in a year, and fifty-two weeks of outlined scenes, prepped blog posts, written poems, researched topics, and spiffified photos is a decently large but doable goal. Plus, this allows me wiggle room for days that I’m feeling under the weather and don’t want to do anything or, conversely, am feeling super productive.
To give you all a glimpse of my madness method, and to keep myself honest, I’ll post my weekly progress on here and on Twitter and Instagram. I’m also going to chart what I’ve done in a planner, so I can look back and see how far I’ve come. I have a lot of big plans for this coming year, but I’m going to tackle them one week at a time!
Doing the final editing on chapter 1 & 2 of Let Your Heart Hold Fast (aka my Kalluzeb fic I’ve been working on for months). I’ve decided to launch with two chapters on May 4th and then post a chapter every other Saturday through the summer.
It begins where I feel the show stopped telling us what was going on between Kallus and Zeb: Zero Hour. And has become my personal venting of Head Cannon for what the show left between the gaps unseen.
First Few Paragraphs Teaser:
With every minute Kallus spent on the Ghost, he felt something inside of him relax, unclench. He still couldn’t believe his own luck that he’d managed to escape Thrawn’s Star Destroyer, let alone actually get picked up while his escape pod floated dangerously among the space battle between Imperial and Rebellion forces. How many stray shots had come dangerously close to ending him?
Now he stood refuge on the very ship he’d spent a portion of his Imperial career hunting. So far much of the crew had yet to acknowledge his presence. Hera, the captain, had nodded as she passed by on her way to the airlock. Zeb had been close behind her, and he didn’t nod so much as trip a bit as he walked by, and then given a feeble wave before seemingly questioning whether he should, turning the wave into a rub of his own neck as he ducked into the common room.
Kallus failed to stifle a small rush of disappointment as the Lasat proceeded to the other room, where he angled his back towards the hallway that Kallus was occupying with three other refugees from the battle on Atollon.
Kanan passed by going the other way, walking through the ship as if he could still see just as well as everyone else on board. When the former ISB agent hailed him, he didn’t even look startled or surprised.
“Thank you, for taking me in,” Kallus managed, though his throat felt mildly like it was trying to close up. He realized suddenly this was only the second time he had seen the blind Jedi without the mask on since his sight was taken from him. The first time had been when Kallus had revealed himself as Fulcrum. Now, just as then, it felt like the foggy eyes were looking right into Kallus’ soul.
Kanan reached out a hand, placing it gently on the shoulder of the black Imperial uniform Kallus was still wearing. “Thank you... for risking everything.” His voice was even and earnest, and he gave a congenial squeeze before withdrawing his hand and proceeding on through the automatic doors.
They whooshed back closed behind Kallus’ shoulder, and the sound drew Zeb’s gaze. Those huge green orbs meeting with Kallus’ golden brown eyes. The look lasted just a couple seconds longer than one would expect before the Lasat seemed to remember he was meant to be paying attention to the conversation taking place before him.
Alright so it was a rough month. I didn’t meet my word count goal. I didn’t get the chapters posted I meant to even though one is completely written.
Honestly I’m tired and maybe spread a little too thin. We’ll get into that at the end first the WIP rundown.
—————////—————
Need the Sun to Break
Words Written: 1,974
Status: I actually finished writing the chapter and mostly edited it but haven’t gotten it posted. It’s top of my list this week.
Womb with a View
Words Written: 348
Status: *hides face* Couldn’t get this in gear this month which is a shame because I have a nice juicy Dirty Bits chapter to post after the chapter and it’s been so long since I’ve posted smut.
Let Your Heart Hold Fast
(Previously Untitled Kalluzeb)
Words Written: 8,845
Status: This ship continues to hog my attention and as you see I picked my title and I have two chapters ready for Saturday’s launch.
Overall Stats
April Word Total: 11,167
Year Word Total: 43,303
April Days Skipped: 2
Year Days Skipped: 8
—————////—————
Aaaand let’s see I didn’t make my April goals like at all.
Ugh. It was a rough month. My baby girl got her first ever cold on my birthday. I also was trying to rewatch every Marvel movie. Work went haywire. April was just a long long tiring month and as I write this I am just very exhausted. Sooooo I am not issuing myself a word count goal for May. I came up 4000 shy last month. Stressed myself out too much trying to reach it. Didn’t post a chapter that was already written because I wanted to write to meet wordcount and let’s be real quantity isn’t everything so here’s my May goals.
May Writing Goals:
Finish editing and post NtStB chapter.
Post 2 chapters of new Kalluzeb fic on May 4th.
Post the 3rd chapter two weeks later.
Somewhere among that write and post a WwaV chapter.
Get some rest.
Allow myself the time to read one of the two books I have to read. (THRAWN or MASTER & APPRENTICE)
Otherwise I’m gonna burn out entirely. I need to ease off the gas and allow myself some breathing room. I can actually accomplish the writing goals here in <5000 words since there’s so much of the Kalluzeb already written. It’s time to give myself a break.
It’ll still be a good month because I’m letting a new WIP out into the wild which is always stressful but also always rewarding and my versions of Kallus and Zeb are ready to see the light of day.
until May the 4th. And I spent much longer than I want to admit to write the 200 word summary for my Kalluzeb fic. I always struggle with summaries for some reason but since I’m not posting any snippets this week instead here’s this sorry excuse for a fic summary. XD
Title: Let Your Heart Hold Fast
Fandom: Star Wars Rebels
Ship: Kalluzeb
Summary:
Kallus had never planned beyond his time serving as Fulcrum. If he was honest, he probably hadn't expected to survive long enough to escape the Empire. Now he was free and desperately trying to find his footing among the same people he had once hunted. Surprisingly, Zeb never seems hesitant to offer a steady hand or a shoulder to cry on.
|-o-|
Zeb had never considered what it would be like to have Kallus join the greater Rebellion, but from the moment the former Imperial arrived the Lasat found himself drawn to the human. They'd forged a bond on that icy moon so many months ago, and now that they were in the same place it was growing stronger by the day.
————-/————-
The first two chapters are ready. On Saturday morning I’ll get up and publish them for Star Wars Day. Till then I’m going to try to write on other WIPs or on the later chapters of this and not spoil more with posting snippets.
(I saw this beautifully drawn piece of fanart of Hera that reminded me of this scene. I will reblog the art after. You guys don't get to see the conversation with Kallus until the fix comes out, just this little scene after. ;-))
Kallus had stepped beyond Zeb’s line of sight to the door, but before he left he placed a hand on Zeb’s shoulder.
“And thank you, Garazeb, for the talk.”
“Anytime, mate.”
There was another moment, a soft squeeze of the human’s hand before he withdrew it. Then he was gone out the galley door.
“Evening, Hera.”
Zeb groaned internally when he heard this.
“Hello, Kallus.”
Clearly neither of them stopped to chat, as Hera was brewing a pot of caf mere seconds after this.
“How much did you hear?” Zeb asked.
“I wasn’t trying to eavesdrop. It just… sounded like a conversation you didn’t want interrupted,” Hera said. Her lekku gave a swing as she turned to look at him, the caf pot percolating behind her. “So are you going to tell him?”
Zeb rose from the table, huffing out a breath. “I’m sure I don’t know what ya mean.” He could feel her eyes on him as he went to clean the dinner dishes. He heard her pour her cup of caf and settle in at the table.
Hera was doing something she was known for doing to the kids, waiting him out. She was one of the most observant people Zeb had ever met, he shouldn’t have been surprised she had seen right through him.
“It’s nothing,” Zeb said, a lame attempt at avoiding the conversation. “We’re just friends.”
“That’s… not what I asked.”
“What would be the point of telling him?” Zeb asked, reaching for a cloth to dry his hands, turning finally to face her.
Her eyebrows arched so high they nearly disappeared beneath her cap. “Would you like a list? To get it off your chest. To see if he feels the same. To keep him from taking one of those posts and leaving.”
“Or to scare him into taking one,” Zeb said.
“So you admit you have feelings for him?”
“I didn’t admit anything.”
They stared at each other for a solid minute, him rubbing the cloth over his hands though they were already dry, her sipping her caf patiently. Hera’s gaze never left his face. Her deep green eyes slid slowly over his features, reading every line, every crease. Zeb could feel himself crumbling under the attention, all it took was one more arch of, this time, a single eyebrow to make him cave.
“Fine, I have feelings for him.” He slumped his back and trudged forward to join her at the table
Hera straightened up, sitting down the cup and giving him a very sympathetic look. “How long?”
“I dunno,” Zeb said, and when she squinted at him suspiciously he went on. “Since we picked him up on our way off Atollon. Maybe. Maybe since that wretched moon around Geonosis. I dunno.”
“Slow to admit it even to yourself,” Hera said, seemingly unsurprised.
“What can I say, I’m dense.”
“I think there’s a chance that right now, you both are,” Hera said. “You could help him by telling him how you feel.”
“That sounds great assuming he feels the same way,” Zeb said. “But you heard him, we’re friends. He sees me as a friend, maybe his only friend I—“
“Actually you said you were friends.”
“And he’s got a mess of stuff he’s still figuring out after switching sides.”
“A mess of stuff you’ve been helping him sort out.”
“And I can’t help him sort out if I tell him I’m harboring this ridiculous crush on him and he runs away from me.”
Hera sighed. “You’re assuming his gut reaction should he not return your feelings would be to push you away,” she said. “I think that’s your insecurity more than anything.”
“It’s self-preservation, not insecurity.” Zeb rose, this conversation was getting them nowhere. “Look, I appreciate the concern, but for now what’s not broke I don’t want to fix.”
“That’s fair, I would just hate for you to miss your chance,” Hera said. “We’re at war after all. Even if he doesn’t run off into some dangerous spy related situation, our occupation is risky. It was a close call that forced Kanan and I to finally stop pretending we were just friends. As scary as that mission was, I thank the stars for it giving us the push we needed.”
Hera went back to her caf, signaling Zeb that she was letting it drop. He stood in the doorway for a couple breaths, his clawed fingers gripping the frame.
“I’ll think about it,” he said, then he left before she could respond.
