#wip: ltli

[touchingmadness]

Camp Nano Progress Update #1

The first week of Camp Nano is complete, and I'm actually really happy with my progress! I expected this month to be a little rough for me, since I'm usually pretty active in the (currently shut down for good reason) Nano forums and tend to use the energy of other writers to bolster me through the event. And yeah, I'm writing a lot less than I would be under those conditions. But I'm still writing, and I'm still enjoying what I'm writing, and that's what really matters to me.

Excerpt:

You spend the rest of the day loitering around a city that would be far more beautiful if it wasn’t smack dab in the middle of tourist season. Instead, the streets and beaches are teeming with well-off people getting away from their well-off lives and generally spoiling the atmosphere with their existence. You can’t help but feel bad for the people who live here, even if you’re sure they make a pretty penny off of these people. And so will you, it seems, when Soren nudges you with a smirk and proceeds to nick the coin purse right off of a wealthy man’s belt. It takes everything in you not to gape at him, but you do cast around your gaze discreetly. The menace is subtle and slick, good with his fingers and anything that requires him to be quiet and look innocent, but this is something entirely different than what you’re used to from him. Sure, he’ll pilfer anything left unattended for too long, but pickpocketing is a whole other game. You have no objections – these people could do with lighter pockets – but it’s not going to be good for either of you if he gets himself caught. “Watch yourself,” you sign as he shoves the pouch into his bag. He sticks his tongue out like a child, fingers flying. “Watch me yourself.”

Statistics and reflection under the cut.

Just the Numbers

I've added 6,302 words to Let the Light In in the past week, bringing the total count for the project up to 23,611 words. Most of these new words have been in Chapter 3, although a few were used to round out Chapter 2 at a healthy 7,942 words. I've written on 5 out of 8 days, with my highest wordcount day occurring on April 8th, with 2,132 words written.

Notable Scenes

Group cuddles. I cannot stress this enough. Group cuddles!!!

A thieving contest started by the savior of the universe. Hell yeah.

Lounging in the ropes on a boat. Showing off like a cat.

First kiss (angst edition). Not quite to first kiss (soft edition) yet.

Making Big Decisions

I've already stated that I'm quite happy with what I've written, and while that's true, I have had some decisions to make. There was one scene I got myself especially tripped up over. I wanted to use it to develop the dynamic between my POV character and a member of the party, but I recognized that the pretense under which I had them sit down for a conversation didn't ring true for either of them. I wrote a good chunk of it, and it's still in my draft, but I know for a fact that it's going to be scrapped. I'll replace it with something more naturalistic later.

Based on where I'm at in Chapter 3 and how much I have left to cover, this one's going to be a lengthy one. That being said, I'm standing by my decision to segment the first three chapters (which span over the first act of Dragon Quest XI) the way that I do. Narrative cohesiveness is more important to me than content balance, especially when I know that Chapter 4 is going to be an absolute baby chapter, since it only encapsulates a short story that happens in the game's interlude.

A decision I still need to make is where I'm going to start the narrative for Act II in Chapter 5. This is more about the logistics of the source material and the fact that the player character is not my POV character for this fic. Basically, at the beginning of Act II in DQXI, you have to regather your party members. If you follow the story, you regain my POV character fourth, but you can get him third if you decide to wander. I haven't decided how I'm handling this in the fic yet, because there are benefits and drawbacks to both, but I think I'm going to write it as though he's acquired third and remove/edit scenes later if I decide to go in the other direction. Final decision will likely come down to how good those scenes end up being and how well they integrate with the rest of the chapter.

Moving Forward

The rest of Chapter 3 is going to be mostly relationship development for the main pairing and the party as a whole, which I am so excited for! I have a lot of funny, goofy little ideas planned to really cement all these Fools™️ together, though the thieving contest scene and its aftermath will likely remain my favorite. It's nice to have this downtime with them before the plot and angst pick back up again. I don't anticipate finishing Chapter 3 this week, as there's some lengthier scenes I have planned, but I'm perfectly content to linger in these moments, especially since that's why I'm writing this.

I hope everyone else's writing journeys are going just as great! My inbox is open if you want to infodump or chat! 💖

#writeblr #writing community #camp nano april 2024 #nanowrimo #amwriting #wip: ltli #not tagging the fandom bc i already have to restrain myself from flooding the tag with memes on my main each time i write a new scene lol #this is more about the writing process than the project's contents anyway #other than the excerpt #soren the gremlin my beloved 💜

[impositioned]

3,4,7,18, and 29 <3

3. What’s your favorite fic that you’ve written?

LTLI! also answered this here :)

4. How many WIPs do you have right now?

THREE!

7. How many ideas for fics do you have right now?

maybe around three really fleshed out ones (in my mind), excluding the WIPs

18. What’s one of your favorite lines you’ve written in a fic?

'Even in the hastiness, it dawns on her the fear she's been trying to ratify and the meekness her brother braves the world with.'

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic. (If you don’t have either, just share a random fic idea you have that you don’t plan on getting to.)

this isn't really a fic. it's just something i scribbled that probably won't be made into anything.

Whatever he had with Tabitha, he thinks about it sometimes. It wasn’t grand. He made her laugh, whatever. She wasn't a headache. She survived on three and a half jokes a day and a fucking vibrator. It was fine. It didn't need ceremony.  Although he would've loved to marry her. That would've been fine too, great even. But it seems like a betrayal to think about it. A negation of this very lightness. A grand conclusion. It was always hazy with Tabs. Not quite right, never quite wrong enough. Never really in, yet close enough. Two stars. It never really ended. There was always a call, a wave at another investor's party. A nod, a smile, now and then. Things don't really end. It's useless to think about it. 

Thank you for the questions!

#asks #fic #fic rec #succession #roman roy #fic asks

[dilfspitdrinker]

wip game ‼️

rules: Post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigued them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

hehe thank you for the tag <3 @toxic-seduction

LTLI ch 8

LTLI undetermined future ch

my pain fits in the palm of your freezing hand

invisible string

Peñaaa

Sniper

Joel hot springs

didn’t realize I had 7 things in the works tf 😭 np tags: @javiscigarette @morning-star-joy @jupiter-soups @lovers-liability @pr0ximamidnight @bastardmandennis @cool-iguana

#i love my moots #also amazed that I even have 7 moots #i always think there’s only like 3 of you

[touchingmadness]

Me: "LTLI is just a cute little missing scenes romance fic about my favorite pairing from my favorite video game."

Me, a month and a half later: "Actually, LTLI is about accepting that people care about you even when you don't care about yourself. It's about coming to terms with the fact that people do love you and want to be around you even when you feel like you don't deserve it. It's about learning to value yourself when you're used to being told you're worth nothing."

#i mean it's both obviously #it's found family and campfire cuddles and play fighting and flower crowns #it's destiny and doubt and shadows of your past #it's so fucking much #wip: ltli #god idk why but this project is so healing #i feel like i'm getting back to my toss the plot out of the window and peel back the curtains on characters instead roots #god why did i stop doing that? #why did i convince myself my work needed to be more tangible? #gotta get back to character driven introspective shit where the world and more concrete events just sort of hover in the background #it's more true to me #amwriting #writeblr