The Timeless Story Burn The Witch By @barefootwithneonhands Intrigues Me. It Explores A Darker Lucy Returning

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!

The Temeraire story The Diplomat's Dragon by indecisive_lotus is such a joy to read.

For those unfamiliar with the Temeraire books by Naomi Novik: it's the Napoleonic wars with dragons and it's marvelous. Arthur Hammond is a diplomat who gets unwittingly & initially unwillingly adopted by an Incan dragon named Churki. As he's been strongly encouraged to retire at the end of the series, he's now run out of excuses to introduce Churki to his family.

Throughout this entire story he's essentially fighting a losing battle to Churki & his mother who outmanouver & outsmart the fiercesome diplomat. It's hilarious to behold how Hammond finds himself at a loss and fails to see the traps he falls into, while still wanting to maintain his decorum & social graces.

The language of the story mimics that of the period and the social context of the time is well-represented and thought out.

I enjoy the humor of this story, the increasing desperation of Hammond, the character portrayals. Churki is very in character, and, as a massive dragon, knows when to adopt the customs of the English gentry when it suits her, but also how to completely ignore them when it suits her purposes better.

Mrs Carter is an intriguing dragon's companion. I look forward to reading more of this story & how it develops, for it's been wonderful to spend more time with these characters.

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!)

A Flynn Family Portrait

I had fun practicing my art skills again! The Flynn family: Garcia, Lorena & Iris were not treated well in Timeless canon, to say the least, but their memory and existence matter so much in the story we saw. This is a portrait of happier times.

This drawing is made with Jaycee (aka RedGold or @timelesshonesttrailer) in mind who loves the Flynns and wrote my favourite headcanons about Lorena Flynn. Her series Team Flynn is wonderful & poignant & I love it.

There are not nearly enough fanfic stories where Lorena & Iris live, but she's been working hard to fill that void. Thanks to all the fanfic writers who imagine better futures for them ❤️. I love reading it.

Now also on AO3

NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon of the Day - Day 6: Word Sprints

No matter if you are way ahead and are cruising on your way to 50000 words or if you are falling behind on your daily word count or even if you are deciding only now to get started and crush this challenge: word sprints can help you get those words for today.

Day 06: Word Sprints. On Your Places! Ready? Set? Write!

Set a timer, pick up the pen or put your hands on the keyboard and write, write, write as fast as you can. Challenge your fellow WriMos, race together and add words, and words, and words today! I love the freedom of small sprints and the way that they add up to more and more and more when I add them to the total.

Whether you are fast or slow, ahead or behind, let’s race together and compete only with ourselves. Every word counts and our stories matter. On Your Places! Ready? Set. Write!

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.

NaNoWriMo is an altogether serious and whimsical challenge: let’s write and write and write and let creativity fly! Don’t take yourself too seriously and get words on paper and have some hilarious fun in the process (even when the going gets hard: it’s still supposed to feel good to have done!).

(For the uninitiated: NaNoWriMo challenges you to write 50000 words in the month of November. I choose to embrace the NaNo Rebel spirit and focus on general creativity without the pressure.)

So, to encourage, help combat perfectionist stress, and embrace the silliness of it all: I hereby solemnly vow to post my daily NaNo cartoon-of-the-day in all its sketching-imperfect glory. I hope you brings a smile to your faces and can help you stay motivated when you find yourself struggling. We can DO this together!

In eons past, I always loved reading the daily NaNo toons and cartoons published. (Both the official ones and the ones in my region by HannahK). I am excited to embrace the challenge and follow in the footsteps of those giants that went before.

I would love to hear from you if you enjoy the daily drawing, they bring a smile to your face or encourage you somehow! So, do drop me a note and let’s face this NaNo challenge head-on!

NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon of the Day - Day 12: Plotholes? What plotholes?

Writing during NaNo can sometimes feel like you are building a tower of cards or a jenga tower that is about to topple over & I am here to tell you: play recklessly! Explore those new adventure twists & directions your characters want to take you! Go build a story on patched-over ground and shore up your plot with plot bunnies & raptors & ninjas!

Day 12: Plotholes? What plotholes?

Get your story gleefully written. Get a draft on paper & take comfort in the solid trust you'll be able to put in those structural repairs in the editing process. For now: keep writing! Keep telling your story & know that your imperfections make you unique and marvelous & interesting & in the editing process you'll be able to polish them beautifully. Plotholes? What plotholes? indeed! 😆 Have a blast!

The Timeless story A Shot of Remembrance by @doctorliamsr explores a conversation between Flynn & Karl during season 1. It is rich, interesting & well-worth reading.

The light banter between friends with hints of their deep & shared friendship the way it happens between old friends combined with Karl calling Flynn out on his crush on Preston is nice. The way Karl grieves Lorena & Iris himself and not on behalf of Flynn is real. The conversation flows naturally.

There are so few stories that feature Flynn's crew on their own: Karl, Stiv and even Anthony had their own reasons for throwing their lots in with Flynn and I'd love to see that explored a lot more.

The Hanukkah gift, the implications of it for Castle Varlar - the ethical dilemma that that episode posts ("You think I sleep at night?" - it never truly gets resolved in canon those choices made in the early season 1 episodes), and the honoring & acknowledgment that it represents here is wonderful.

Well worth reading & if anyone knows more stories like this that explore the relationships and conversations between Flynn, Karl, Stiv or Anthony - send them my way please!

The Timeless stories by RedGold (@timelesshonesttrailer) fascinate me. She writes eloquently about morality, choices, and the timeloops & their consequences in #Timeless.

Today, I reread her story The Nuclear Option to sketchnote it and it continues to intrigue me. Jess is granted her own autonomy in her choices rather than just having everything decided for her (aka canon :-( ) and Mara (OC) acknowledges that "[she is] a really good person who's been affected by outside influences since childhood... and [she] didn't ask for any of this". I like the perspective on fate, the open-endedness of the story and the consequences for our own lives: what do we choose? How do we use the opportunities in front of us?