Before I started working the numbers, I was under the impression that I had had a bad year. I got up a site for T&J and never submitted anything new despite the fact that my goal was to finish the whole damn novella. It took Kate and I four months before we were ready to write CP3 and still we take quite a while before we get to updating... I wanted to squeeze in S.S. Flavion instead of always working on the same projects and that didn't work out... December has rolled by and I have done no schizophrenia catch-up or did the WL planning. Or drew for HTP.

But I am trying not to call myself lazy. I got a job this year. I am trying to finally learn to drive. I am taking more classes. I have seen that I will not be able to have the same balance of life and writing now that I am beyond high school.

I want to tell myself this time that I have made no mistakes. For every time I was not passionately involved with a story, I was working on something else, or I was resting; I was being comfortable for a day, or a week, or a month, and if I want to continue loving what I do, I can't force it on myself. I think I should be tallying up what I DID do.

1. I finished Crystal Palace 2 which was one of my resolutions.

2. Kate and I decided we wanted to do Crystal Palace 3. It not only happened, we have 100 pages and are half done. In 6 months. Despite the long gaps in updating. In fact if I take out the gaps (1 month + 1 month + 2 months + 3 weeks, so on), we fucking wrote 100 pages in a week. We are productive when we want to be. Lol, that is so funny.

3. I wrote about 75 pages of He's There. As happy as I was with the productivity fall 2007, I also have to look at the fact that this year I got into a place where I understand my characters well. And with a story that only has four characters, it has been a delight to grow attached to the side ones, like Mariam. (I am totally drawing her and Jeffrey at shari's! But uh oh, Jeffrey is technically character #5, or will be.) I am also proud that it has the attention it does, even though I have not been able to update in a while. Last I checked, it had 24 favorites and 25 alerts. Twenty-five people that want to receive email updates? Nice!

4. Even though I never posted for T&J, I did come up with the entire plotline, which still could be revised, but go with me here. I wrote about 25 pages that I kept to myself, and my future plans... well we'll get to that soon enough.


I try most to remember something about myself. I am not a single project kind of lady. And writing is not my everything. I may be a writer first and foremost, but I am also an artist, and a web-designer, and I am aspiring for a film major. I juggle a lot of stories to begin with. Ones which are constantly playing tug-of-war with my head. It makes it hard to stick with one thing forever when I am guilty about the things on the sidelines, and my thoughts are plagued with every idea all the time even when I pinpoint a seasonal project. Yes, it will take me a while to finish anything, but that is what will make victory the sweetest.


2009 ASPIRATIONS

WOODEN LIGHT
It's really hard to give myself a goal for this, because it's so unpredictable whether or not I will feel up for the challenge. The plot will only get more complicated when I have to represent full-on schizophrenia and somehow my brain never acknowledges that it's just a first draft and I have to be fine with making mistakes. (Especially considering the fact that I have already made a million and the narrative thus far is total shit.) I think my goal for 2009 is to reach a place in the plot where I feel I have really connected with my characters and can see the finish line even if it's miles away. I am 120pgs in and a quarter done and scared shitless. That is no good.

HE'S THERE
I would like to be able to put this on priority again, but it's a challenge when that was the plan this year and two of the same thing will also be in the spotlight. I can't let that stop me, though. I want to reach the home-stretch with this. I want to complete mounds more than now, 100pgs more even. Finish. Who knows. I'm having trouble exactly foreseeing when its time will be, but 12 months... I'm sure somewhere along the lines, I will see it is entirely ripe and take out my notes.

TILLY & JO
I've been giving T&J the runaround for quite some time, and I feel ashamed. It basically happened summer of '07, this summer, and I'm realizing my layout never did it justice. If I had stuck with this thing from the beginning, it would have probably been done by now. It's short. It's a 150pg novella. There's nothing wrong with it, I just kept getting distracted. This year, I have big plans.

1. I'm going to restart it, which is easy because it's only 50pgs and the plot is cake. Not much that happens is going to be altered, I just think it could be told with much better narration and attention to detail, and I want to give Gina more personality. I felt like my execution was from a dull pencil.

2. I would like to finish it. I have a whole year if I set my mind to it and the plotline is right in front of me. I know that it didn't work out last summer, but when Winter is over, I will be getting to work hopefully. If I don't, you guys should bug me about it.


CRYSTAL PALACE 3
Hands down, this will be finished. I love Crystal Palace. It is so easy to do, and doing it with my friend just makes things ten times better. This movie will be finished and not only that but it's an incredible portfolio piece. I suspect that it will be about 200pgs complete and I will eventually make an actual website for it and do some promotional art like I semi-did for CP2. I also may open up the community for friends/watchers to make their own posts. But we'll see. (I kind of doubt anybody has stuff to say but who knows by then. Maybe I will have whored myself enough to get actual fans.)

CRYSTAL PALACE 4: Oh God!
I do not know the exact date this will be started, despite making a poster that says July 7th, but hopefully that will be the date. Maybe we will be about half done with this by the end of 2009. Or more? I have no idea. But I'm just plain excited to say that it will exist.




HUGGLE THE PUPPET
My goal is to finish The Beginning series as well as Book 2 (which would probably be about 30 pages.) I don't know how things will go as far as this season, but if I don't finish and really like working on it, I might extend it as a minor project into another season. I also want to give it a new layout on Smackjeeves. That one's getting a bit old.



CRYSTAL PALACE 2
CP2 needs a wider, more user-friendly website, incorporating some of the same style but looking more like a professional animated movie website. I also still want to make a poster and maybe finish the audio versions.




I also decided on an even better way to handle the season restrictions. I was thinking that there should be two different categories: major and minor.

Major would be the actual novels. (WL, HT, T&J, SSF, TS, those in the future.)
Minor would be more variety. The short stories; The Pooptrix, Fritz Huhnmorder's Retardation. The comics; Huggle the Puppet and TAOAAJ. All are easy and less complicated. Though I doubt that I will be picking up the short stories... I don't know...
The Crystal Palace movies are like ghost slots. They fit anywhere without causing problems.

The schedule for the seasons so far is looking like this.

 

WINTER
MAJOR: WOODEN LIGHT
Minor: Huggle the Puppet.
+CP3

SPRING
MAJOR: TILLY & JO
Minor: Huggle the Puppet.
+CP3

SUMMER
MAJOR: TILLY & JO
Minor: ?
+CP4

FALL
MAJOR: HE'S THERE
Minor: ?
+CP4

WINTER
MAJOR: ?
Minor: ?
+CP4

 

Alright, I think I am done talking now. I look like a blabbering over-planned idiot. Trust me, nothing will work out how I am writing it. Just wait.