Confessions of Fangirl

I want to write a sappy Hallmark Christmas Movie style story, and I feel like it shouldn’t be too hard, especially if it’s a fandom story. And yet. I’ve never been able to manage one, not really. They just always come off lame and stilted, instead of cute and warm and fuzzy. I don’t mind cheesy. Cheesy is totally acceptable. Hell, I like cheesy. But yeah, I mean plot-wise it shouldn’t be that difficult. There is a basic formula and beyond that, there are like five basic plots. It doesn’t seem like I should have a hard time managing to follow a formula and a basic plot. And yet, I don’t feel like I’ve ever managed to get there.

Maybe I’ll try again this year. Maybe that will be my goal for this week, pick a fandom and a ship and then work out which kind of plot I’d like to follow. I really want to do a queer couple. All the movies on Hallmark (and Lifetime and Netflix so far that I’ve seen) are about straight couples. I have written and will write plenty more het stuff, I’m sure, but since there is already so much out there for the hets, I’d really like to see some queer stuff. And if seeing queer stuff means having to write, then that’s what I need to do.

Granted, there are loads of fluffy, cutesy, Hallmark-style queer fanfics out there. Still though, I think I really do want to do a queer story. I suppose if after I give it some more thought, there’s a het couple that I think would work really well with a plot/trope/formula and that’s what I end up being drawn to then that’s what I’ll write. I’m just going to debate queer couples first.

A couple of days ago, I finished “Carry On” for the fourth time this year. I love that story so much. No one I know in person is a fan. I think I get why. I mean, none of them finished it, and the end… man the end.

Actually, I say that, but I did find out that someone I know does love that book too. I don’t think she loves it AS MUCH as I do. I’m not sure there are many people on the earth that love it as much as I do, but that’s okay. I was excited that she loved it too though. It was really nice to have that conversation. And when I mentioned that there is going to be a sequel (Wayward Son is the title, obviously) she had the exact same reaction I did. It felt so good to have that validation. All the peeps online have just been screaming about how excited they are for it. I know that it doesn’t make sense for me to not automatically be jumping for joy that there is going to be a sequel to one of my all-time favorite books. I know. But the end of that book is such a perfect (in my opinion) balance between “happy ending” and “real life never wraps up in a bow” that adding onto just seems like she might end up tampering with perfection.

What I heard about the characters in “Carry On” was that after writing all the bits and bobs she wrote for what ‘Cath’ was writing in “FanGirl” Rowell decided that she couldn’t just let Simon and Baz go without them having their own story. (If you want to read about it from the author: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog/teen/rainbow-rowell-on-how-simon-snow-got-his-own-book-carry-on/)

But the ‘prophesy’ wasn’t quite fulfilled in some ways, at least not in the characters’ minds so maybe she feels like she needs to make the prophecy actually come true. I don’t know. I still feel like it kind of did. The “world of mages” thinks that “The Humdrum” is the villain of the prophecy and that Simon is the “greatest mage” sent to save them. But I think the villain is actually Simon’s father and that Simon is still the hero even though it isn’t in the way anyone thought it would be.

I am curious to see what she does with the story next, I am. And I am excited to see what comes next for them. They’re such lovely characters, not just Simon and Baz, but Penelope too. I like Agatha. I love the way she starts making the decisions for her life that she wants on her own terms throwing all the things that other people think she should be out the window. She isn’t someone who would typically be considered a “strong female character,” but she is to me. I imagine there are a lot of people who aren’t particularly fond of Agatha, but I think that she is actually really great and kind of inspiring, especially at the end. I think if we get to see more of her that as she grows up she’s going to be a force to be reckoned with in a totally normal life kind of way and I think that’s really fantastic.

I’m just so nervous about upsetting the balance of what things are in the end--like the bittersweetness of Simon not knowing about his parents, even though the reader is let in on it, or how Simon is getting therapy or how Simon and Penny decide to be roommates for a while even though Simon and Baz are together. I like how traumatized Simon, Baz, Agatha, and Penny are, maybe especially Simon. That… sounds awful. What I mean is, all these awful things have happened, and the characters reflect the horror that they’ve been through. All of them do. It’s so emotional to read. Ugh. I’m rambling again and I needed to go to bed an hour ago.

Since I’ve been so obsessed with ‘Carry On’ lately, maybe what I’ll do is write a hallmark movie-style fanfic for them. I could write a version of them where they live in a regular boarding school instead of a magical one. Baz comes from a wealthy family and Simon is a scholarship orphan kid who is struggling to cope. Hmm. I shall have to think on this.

I don’t want to write tonight. I’m just struggling. The thing is, I know that when I don’t want to write, those are the times I really need to write. Times like these are the times it’s most important for me to push myself to at least do a little bit. I don’t have to like what I write, I don’t have to use it or post it or anything, but it needs to get done. There is a huge part of me that wants to finish reading the book I started at lunch (oh my God, y’all, it’s called “Mr. Bridesmaid” and it is ridiculous; the editing could use a little work I think, but it’s entertaining as fuck so far) and then pass out for those sweet few hours before I get up at 5 am to go to the gym. I’m looking forward to the gym in the morning. I did Yoga this morning, which is really great and I love that I get to do that once a week. Tuesday I do the water aerobics which I also love. Part of what I love about the water aerobics is that I always spend a few minutes drying off in the sauna. I know it’s hot in there and you’d think I’d sweat enough to counteract the drying properties, but the pool water is usually cool enough that my skin feels cold afterward--even with the intensity of that workout--so I usually just warm up for a bit. It’s usually really relaxing. I should probably make a point to spend a few minutes in there after more of my workouts. It would probably be good for relaxing my muscles and recovering long term. I just normally don’t stop working out until I’m due to meet dad in the lobby.

Anyway, yoga on Tuesdays is great and there are some really great stretches and it helps me work on balancing (not one of my strong suits) while also doing some strength training, especially in my legs. I always leave feeling a little wobbly leg-wise but in a good way. I’m never overly sore or anything, but I usually feel weak legged for an hour or so. Showering is usually an interesting feat after! I don’t always shower after though. I don’t sweat too much (or at least I haven’t). I know there are some yoga routines where either because of the routine or the heat of the room or both, you sweat buckets, but I just don’t usually feel that kind of strain on these Thursday morning sessions. As such, I’ve used the shower time to wash my face in the sink and then nap. I only laid down for like ten minutes this morning, but they were damn well necessary.

Another reason why I need to crawl into bed to sleep shortly. I know that writing needs to be more of a priority than I treated it last month and while I have been doing considerably better this month, that doesn’t mean I don’t still have a ways to go. That’s okay though, I’ve been making progress and I think I need to accept that as a win.

I did not do well on my overall writing goal for last month which sucks. I think I hit about half of the numbers I wanted to hit. Looking at the numbers now, it was about a little more than half the original goal, but just barely. I’d been just meeting my goal each month, plus or minus a few extra words, up to this point so I didn’t really have any kind of a buffer of this. Which means now I’m going to need to find a way to make up the difference over the course of the next six months. I can’t believe tomorrow is halfway through the year. I need to get more serious about the lunchtime writing sessions and carving out time for writing without distractions.

Honestly, if I would give myself ten to fifteen minutes of absolutely unbroken, uninterrupted writing time a day, I’d probably have my writing goal smoked in no time. For a while, I had a good thing going with the dedicated time to writing, but I fell off, especially after the DragonCon writing workshop disaster. Plus, getting my dream job kind of took over a lot of my life. It’s not that I don’t still need to write regularly and I still want to write regularly, I just don’t need it as much as I did. Adding regular exercise both made it more difficult to add the writing time and it also, I think, decreased the need for writing. And by that, I only mean that my mental and physical wellbeing have more to bolster them than they did previously. But that’s really no excuse to quit writing. If therapy and self-help taught me anything, it’s that do need to keep writing in my life because it’s supposed to be part of my life. There were too many stars aligning for me to believe it wasn’t supposed to be part of my life. Maybe publishing isn’t, at least not for right now, but in general? Even if it’s only writing journal entries and fanfic, I need to keep writing part of my life.

But it’s hard too because I feel like I’m tapped out creative energy wise. I don’t think that’s really a thing. I don’t think you can “use up” your creativity, I think I just feel that way right now. The real problem is likely staying up too late reading books that are all the same as the one I read the night before. That’s a little unfair to the books and authors I read (especially when I think about books like “Claimings, Tails, and Other Alien Artifacts” that recently blew my mind *boom*), but still, my reading habit is more than a little excessive. I may even be using my “I use all my creativity at work” line as an excuse to let me get out of writing so I can read instead. It’s probably also some fear. I mean reading is much, much safer than the risk of writing. And while journaling isn’t dangerous in the way that sharing a fictional story or a blog post or whatever might be, it’s still a little alarming when you dig up nuggets of truth about yourself. If you journal, you will find things out about yourself and your feelings and your bad habits that you may not want to know. I know I face that more than I’d like. Hell, I’m facing that right now.

But those are actually just more reasons why I do need to write instead of avoiding it.

Anyway, bedtime for me.

I had plans to write a second entry once I got a little more writing done, but as usual I got distracted by the TV and my finishing my book review for Ocean Light took longer than I anticipated. I'm still struggling to finish my Alec and Magnus story. I can't seem to get to the point I want to be at. Maybe I'm still working at it from the wrong angle. I've got part of it right I think, but maybe I need to jump a little further ahead or something. It's so aggravating not to know. It's so frustrating to feel like there's a story there and not be able to articulate it. It's infuriating to feel so constantly stuck. Maybe I should try writing something else entirely, I don't know, but April is winding down and I do not have a lot of time left to get my 1,500 word story finished. And April is way too early to take a bye month considering what the rest of my year looks like. Time, man, time keeps speeding up.

I know I’ve said this before about how someone told me that the older you get, the faster time passes and I know I’ve been mind boggled about it before but honestly that feels even more true today than it did the last time I said it. It feels like time is moving ridiculously quickly and that it’s just slipping through my fingers constantly. I hardly ever feel that slow molasses movement of time any more. I feel like those days of checking the clock thinking thirty minutes have passed when it’s really only been five don’t happen any more. And maybe they don’t and maybe it’s not a bad thing most of the time. Most of the time it means that I’m not hating my life, that I’m not bored or angry or unhappy with my job. Those are definitely good things. At the same time, I feel like I need a minute to breathe. That I can’t catch my breath because it’s all gone so fast. I’m trying to make the most of every minute, but I can’t tell if I am or not because I don’t have the time to reflect on those minutes. I suppose that’s not entirely true. Writing this is a form of reflecting on the minutes and making a point to blather on like this is probably the best way for me to process my life. Maybe when it comes down to it, I just wish I had a little more time in my days somehow, but I guess that’s almost everyone.

I’m dying to write this story about Magnus and Alec in the alternate universe that Clary visits towards the end of season 1. I want to watch Alec and Magnus get together in that world so much because there isn’t all the complicatedness of Alec’s involvement in the Shadowhunters, but there would still be struggles. Magnus is an immortal warlock, probably one of the few because in that timeline demons were pretty much banished and since Warlocks are the offspring of humans and (Greater?) demons, it’s unlikely that many more Warlocks had been born after the demons were banished in that universe. There are still vampires and werewolves if I’m not mistaken, but they are, or at least seem to be, self governing enough that they aren’t an issue for humans.

I do have a few struggles with that episode, in general. I find it hard to believe that Valentine would’ve been sane and stable and not a total narcissistic asshole if it hadn’t been for the existence of the Downworld and his frustrations and that Clary’s mother would’ve stayed with him. Here’s the thing, I think Valentine simply isn’t an okay guy. I think he would be as tightly involved with something subversive in this world as he is in the Shadowhunters realm--it would just manifest differently. He’s the type of guy who would get laws enacted that would allow him to lock people up before they commited a crime. He’s the kind of guy who makes you believe he loves you when really the only person he loves is himself and he just wants to use you so he’ll do whatever he has to do to in order to get what he wants.

What he wants, his ultimate goal may change because there’s no longer demons and, more importantly, no Shadowhunters, but I can’t see the man remaining sane and non-narcissistic just because he no longer wants to kill demons. And let’s be real, his desire to “cleanse the world” is not a altruistic desire. He wants glory and power. He wants an army for himself. He wants to reign over everything. His willingness to experiment on pregnant women, their unborn children, and newborn babies with the very substance that he wants to wipe from the earth shows how very much it’s not about the safety of humans. And I’m sorry, just because there are demons in the world, or angel blood in your veins doesn’t mean that you’re suddenly a great dad, an exciting boss, or a good person.

My other issue is that, Jace and Clary are dating in the other world and it strikes me as funny that Clary doesn’t think about that when Valentine says he’s Jace’s father and that Clary’s mom is also Jace’s mom in the Shadowhunter realm. If that had been true, she and Jace would’ve grown up as siblings in the other world. Of course, her actual brother Jonathan isn’t in the other world either--at least not that we see. I would’ve liked to know what Jonathan would’ve looked like and been like if he hadn’t been experimented on, given demon blood, tortured and manipulated by his father, and then sent to hell to be tortured more. It seems a lot more likely to me that he would’ve been a relatively normal, maybe even good person, had it not been for all the things that happened to him as a fetus, newborn, and child, teenager.

To me, Jonathan’s situation is not the same as Valentine’s, at least not to me. Yes, Valentine has angel blood and is faced with demons and demon decadents creatures in the Shadowhunters universe. I’m not saying that these things couldn’t have gone towards messing him up. It’s certainly possible that he has some sort of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome in the Shadowhunter’s universe that is causing issues. And over and over again, we see that Shadowhunters are still human and can be just as evil and fucked up as anyone or anything else in their universe so I know that angel blood wouldn’t make him immune to evilness.

I’m not saying that Jonathan wouldn’t still have been fucked up. First, demon blood doesn’t make you evil either. Warlocks have it, vampires have it, and werewolves have it and there are more than a few examples of characters having that kind of blood being absolute gems. I’ve talked about my love for Magnus and Luke in the past and they’re perfect examples of the kinds of good people Downworlders can be.

Torture doesn’t make you a bad person either. Most people probably just end up being traumatized and scarred. Manipulation doesn’t mean you’ll be evil either.

But that is a lot of stuff that Jonathan would not have had going on in the alternate universe that may very well led to him having been a different person.

If you look at Izzy and Alec and Jace, I think you can see really good examples of how having “mundane” lives shaped them differently than being Shadowhunters did in the TV show universe. Izzy is brilliant and driven, but she’s allowed to be a soft little nerd. Alec is still hella intense, but he came into comfort regarding his sexuality far earlier--at least that’s my headcanon--and he doesn’t have this giant complex about “upholding the family name in the eyes of the Shadowhunters” that causes him so much pain and grief in the Shadowhunter’s universe. His intensity goes into planning parties and going after the life he wants and the people he wants.

I guess that brings me back around. I want to give that Alec and that Magnus a story, but I’m struggling to get it out. I keep tinkering with them but I haven’t figured out how to make things move along. I keep trying to go in one direction, but there’s a lot of resistance which makes me think maybe I need to go about things a different way, but I’ll be damned if I can figure out what that way is. I guess I’ll just have to keep tinkering with it.

The other issue I have is Luke Galloway not being in Clary’s life. I’ve talked about how I still think Valentine would’ve been an evil, manipulative, narcissistic asshole even if it’s an alternate universe, but that leads me to mention that it’s weird to me that Luke and Valentine aren’t best friends in the alternate universe like they were before Valentine went off the deep end. No, they would’ve have had the Shadowhunter institute to bring them together, but the universe brought Simon, Clary, Alec, Jace, and Izzy together without Shadowhunters so why wouldn’t it still bring Luke into Jocelyn and Clary’s lives? Luke is like the best person in any universe and he’s been a father not only to Clary but to Simon as well. Maybe you could argue that Valentine ended up filling that roll instead, but I still say Valentine wouldn’t turn out to be a good person just because he doesn’t deal with literal demons on a daily basis.

I’m sure I’ll rant more about this later, but for now I need to sleep. Early day tomorrow.

I still haven’t made it to water aerobics, but I did make it to my appointment with the nurse at the aquatic and fitness center. She says my goal to lose a pound a month is a good goal that will help me make steady changes that will last. She does think I’ll need to do an hour of cardio three to four times a week in order for me to lose any weight. I’m not sure that’s true, but I guess we’ll see. Going out to California for the birthday celebrations is probably going to put me a bit behind on that unfortunately, but we’ll see how it goes. With the touristy stuff we have going on, I may do enough walking to counteract at least some of the food and booze I’ll be shoveling in my face. Maybe I’ll do a little exercising while I’m there in general. We’ll see.

I miss having the writing challenge thing going. It was a good way to force myself to get a few words out and I think that helped me get into writing some stories too. It’s not like I don’t have 3,295,748 prompts I could work on, including everything from my Avengers BigDamnTable (I still have forty-five or so of those to go). I have several prompt books that I could definitely use to write a little something, something. I don’t know. I guess because those prompts were usually diary like entries it was easy to write about them and get started. I’m sure I could find something to replace it. I’ll just have to do a little research. Of course, it helped that other people were doing it with me. It’s always nice to have someone to be accountable to. And not just that there’s someone who is saying, “hey, have you done this?” but also knowing that someone else is going to get it done and if you don’t get it done then you’re the “weak link” or something. I don’t have much of a competitive streak--if anything I tend to shy away from competition, but I think the concept here is a similar one. Like, who can go the longest without breaking the pattern. Who knows, but it was helpful.

I haven’t written at least a little something every day for the last few weeks, even if it might have only been a couple of words here and there. I’m pretty excited about that.

Tomorrow I have work, but today was a good day off. I’m definitely tired after getting up early for a day off for me to go to the appointment. After that, I ran errands for a bit by myself then had some food. I had to get some stuff down with mom and then shortly after that (and I think another snack) I went for a walk/jog. I wanted to make sure I got my three training  days for the Couch to 5k done for the week. I may have saved that for the very last moment, but I made it. Granted, I’m sure I’ll be short next week, but it’ll be better for me in the long run the more often I can get in the practice of exercising a few days a week.

I also decided I try out some protein smoothie/shake things. Dad has a blender and so I got some stuff to give a few things a whirl. I’m excited to see how things go. They might be terrible, but I might also find some good ones. And they may be able to help me manage my appetite.

I wanted to work on a story or try to start something, but I barely hold my eyes open and I’m definitely going to need a shower in the morning--plus I want to try out the blender in the morning which means getting up even earlier so I’d better head to bed.