NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon Of The Day - Day 4

NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon of the Day - December 1st: Time to Rest & Recoup

We did it! The rush to the finish line is done. It's over and dusted. We are DONE. November is gone and over with and our NaNo season is coming to a close. For today: rest & start recouping. Bask in the glory of having completed your challenge and the satisfaction of having had the courage to attempt it. If you did not achieve what you set out to do: face your feelings, acknowledge them and rest in the knowledge that I am proud of you for attempting it.

Any word you wrote is one you did not have before. Life interferes sometimes and serendipity happens. For me: November is a month of creativity. It is rare that I manage to complete NaNo in all the years I have been trying - but I embrace the effort, the attempt, the striving & desire to tell stories.

Dec 1st: Time to Rest & Recoup

Take a moment to reflect and breathe. How do you feel? What did you enjoy most about NaNo this year? What did it teach you? What did you learn? Would you like to maintain your daily writing habit? Is your story finished? What would you like to integrate into your daily life now that NaNo is over? Who were your biggest supporters and how would you like to thank them? What do you need to recoup? To rest? To breathe? To celebrate? I'll see you tomorrow for the Thank-Goodness-It's-Over-Party and the final bonus cartoon!

NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon of the Day

The first words are on paper! It’s time to resist the urge to go back and make them prettier. Let’s keep writing instead!

Day 02: Inner Editor? Don’t Worry! They are Taken Care Of

For anyone who is worried about their Inner Editor wanting to join in: there’s a brilliant sanctum sanctorum for Inner Editors where they are welcome for the entire month! There are books on grammar, story writing, effective plotting, character development, vocabulary, drafts to experiment on and lots more! They can enjoy themselves tremendously while you can keep writing away! Have your Story Ninjas bring them safely there and your Inner Editors will be returned unharmed and well fed in December. Have a blast!

The Timeless story No End, No Beginning by MandyCandy is endlessly fascinating. It's a powerful what-if? A reimagining of our history if at certain tipping points things happened differently.

One person's utopia is another's dystopia. This is one of the most far-reaching options I have read on fighting Rittenhouse by dismantling the very structures that made & kept them powerful in the first place.

By whom is history recorded? Lucy is a historian multiple times over in this story and it's powerful & real. Tecumseh is a wonderful character and seeing him in glimpses to see the impact he could have had is powerful. There is so much history & research that went into this story - there's a full bibliography & maps in the final chapter - and it is marvelous. As a European, American & Canadian history is not something that was touched upon a lot and stories like these bring me tipping points that I like to read more about.

Jiya is so resourceful & necessary to the plan in this story & Rufus likewise has a tangible effect on history.

It's a powerful reimagining. The story takes a bit to come into its own (as it was written & revised on the go as we often see with fanfiction) but stick with it. It's well-worth it.

There are not nearly enough stories in which Lorena lives. This Timeless story Rise Like a Reckoning by @amandamonroe is particularly clever & well-written.

The working title of this was "Lorena Flynn Has a Chance"

Ex-CIA agent Lorena Flynn is back. She's got her daughter, her husband, and the woman who saved their lives years ago. She's taking command of the bunker and taking Rittenhouse down.

Lorena is capable, formidable & headstrong & this time: she had a fighting chance. Though injured, the whole family makes it out alive. Lucy visits them all & Lorena had wanted to be the one to go for the Time Machine.

I love Lorena's character. I love how Iris finds her parents spycraft boring, but immediately adopts Lucy as her new best friend cause she makes spying fun! Lorena easily overpowers Wyatt & outsnarks Denise. I absolutely adore all the meta: ("Who died and left you in charge?"; "Dead-wives-club").

Lorena's warm embracing & support of Lucy is heartening as is her support and insight into her husband who doesn't remember contacting her but who confronted with his family can't manage to walk away.

The subtle changes to the timeline are incredibly clever & believable. This story leaves me wanting more.

When I read the summary for Scorched Earth (Timeless) by @sallyexactly, I expected something darker, but when I started reading, I was quickly pulled into the emotion & longing of the story.

The language feels poetic to me: filled with imagery & the particular sense of nostalgia where you are trying to avoid living the end before it happens but you know there's no avoiding it and therefore the nostalgia starts while you are still in the moment. The contrast between the scorched & parched earth is evocative and beautiful. Flynn in particular is such a emotional disaster in this story & it is wonderous to behold.

Thank you, Sally.

It’s November 1st! NaNoWriMo month! Time to write! We are off!

NaNoWriMo Day 1: Let’s Write!

Is your writing space all prepped and ready? All beautiful and untarnished with the reality of NaNo? Usually for me, everything starts to look messy soon enough, yet for this first day: let’s celebrate the amazing challenge we are taking on! The page is blank and ready to be filled. Perhaps you’ve even got the first words on paper already. The first day is usually filled with excitement: NaNo has finally started and we can write our first words! For today: grab a piece of paper, and write. Enjoy the whimsy, enjoy the glory and fantasize about the amazing feeling of writing your story. If you start to feel anxious and don’t like what you are writing down: introduce some silliness and most importantly: keep writing! You got this!

Please note: last year, I published my Cartoon-of-the-Day including a peptalk every single day. Unfortunately, recovering from surgery is hard and I cannot guarantee the daily update this year round.

(If you enjoy these cartoons, if they help you in any way or brought you a smile: I would love to hear from you. Let’s cheer each other on!)

NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon of the Day - Day 29: Join Your Fellow Wrimos at a Write-In

It's the penultimate day of NaNo 22 and it's time for that final push to get to your finish line! Find your fellow wrimos and let's encourage each other. A (virtual) write-in is a time and place where we all come together to write our stories. We can do this! If you have already completed your work: cheer your fellow wrimos on. If you haven't: let's buckle up and Get.This.Done. It's two days & one night left and every word you write in your story is one you did not have before.

Day 29: Join Your Fellow Wrimos at a Write-In

Who do your characters go to for support and encouragement? Who is cheering them on? Consider what you and what your characters need to conclude their story. Find companionship and comfort in the fact that people around the world are writing together with you in this challenge. Let's put pen to paper & write!

The retelling of Timeless season 2 in the story: Zajednički by @insane-sociopath is absolutely brilliant and I highly recommend it. (It's technically a WIP, but there's already so much gold here.)

It features:

a mature & self-aware Wyatt Logan who understands PTSD and what it does to a person. Who is a very decent & supportive friend (even if he still messes up occasionally as humans do).

A PTSD-suffering Garcia Flynn who is decidedly unaccustomed to being treated with kindness.

A hilarious Rufus who is his brilliant bantering self and an absolute genius. The Flynn & Rufus banter & flirting had me giggling out loud multiple times.

A brilliant nickname for Flynn that even Denise Christopher cannot resist (though she courageously tries for a long time.)

A slowly developing Lucy & Flynn relationship centered around emotional connection & mutual support.

Flashback moments with all characters to counter out our mildly unreliable Flynn perspective.

Bunker improvements!

Talking things out. Awareness of mental health. Open & honest conversations. Self Care. Discussions around sexuality & gender in a light, humorous but serious way. Adults using their words instead of toxic passive aggressiveness. Character growth. Still lots of story conflict without creating (unnecessary) personal drama to "spice it up". (I get snarky sometimes ;-)).

As might be obvious from my story recs so far, I love stories where our beloved characters act like adults. Where they talk about stuff. Where there is grace & maturity. Even if people are still people, misunderstandings happen and they mess up occasionally, they learn & grow & apologize if needed.

At the moment, this story is at 33 chapters and 129474 words, currently on a bit of a cliffhanger, and Edward requested we help feed the muse! So throw lots of writing/Timeless prompts towards @insane-sociopath please.

This year, I rediscovered the absolute joys of reading fanfiction. Exploring characters I love in so many different stories and combinations and settings. It is helping me process this year and rediscover things I find important. Fiction has always meant a lot to me, and I'm feeling the urge to be creative again myself.

So, I decided to start engaging in fandom again by sketchnoting my reactions to some of my favourite stories. (At least for as long as it is fun).

My first sketchnote is in honour of the marvelous @sallyexactly whose Timeless stories I've fallen in love with. The Only Way Out - which I first read over Easter and I now lost count on the rereads - is my favourite headcanon for how the series ended.

But the very first story I read by Sally was The Road Ode. It even inspired me to take a mini roadtrip myself this year (in Europe with very few coronacases & lots of measures).

So, without further ado:

NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon of the Day - Day 11: Self Care: Get a Good Night Sleep & Write Your Dreams

Sometimes, it's time to burn the midnight oil and sometimes, it's time to sleep! It's hell week, so let's be kind. Get to bed on time, rest your body & mind, and get inspired by your dreams!

Day 11: Self Care: Get a Good Night Sleep & Write Your Dreams

If you don't want to sleep or cannot: then send your main characters on a sleepover adventure! Hang out with friends, make nice food, and chat into the night and let them get to know each other better. Or use the age old trope: there's just one bed! and make them deal with those nice and uncomfortable situations - as you please!