NaNoWriMo Is An Altogether Serious And Whimsical Challenge: Let’s Write And Write And Write And Let

NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon of the Day - Day 30: Crossing the Finish Line

Today is the final day! The last day to write your words and still have them count for your NaNo 2022 project. I have seen many of us come up from behind the last few days, get that final wind and get within a hair of the finish line now. There is still time to get that purple winner's bar and reach your 50000 words. When you are struggling, know we are here to cheer you on! You can do it!

Day 30: Crossing the Finish Line

Tonight: take a moment and feel it down to your bones. You set yourself this task and you faced it down. You are still here at the end of the month. NaNoWriMo is about setting yourself a challenge. It is about succeeding in the extraordinary by attempting something as foolhardy as writing a novel, and something as mundane as creating a daily habit of writing. It requires bravery, persistence, determination and grit. And by still being here, by still writing away till the clock runs out - you are a winner (regardless of purple bar status).

Let's celebrate together tomorrow! For now: let's cheer on anyone who is still writing, who is still pushing on & help eachother through this final glorious day! We can do it!

Continuing with the dragon experiments. She's growing up a bit 🤓 and sprouted wings! (Well, or she's like a sibling or something since the two dragons have a different colouration). I think the wings in particular look pretty cool.

It was this amazing story about a farmer who finds one of her chicks hatched a dragon egg by @dycefic that inspired me to try and draw a tiny dragon. I think she's very cute indeed even if she doesn't quite match the dragon description from the tale. @dycefic's stories are wonderous to read and I highly recommend exploring their blog!

Lucy Preston - Sheer Exuberance of Being or The Impossible Made Real

It's such a pleasure to experiment with different art & illustration styles. This was an experiment in colour and I'm pleased with how it turned out. Lucy Preston is such a marvelous character - fierce, loyal and kind to a fault but also ruthless and with a backbone of steel. She's been living in my mind in many adaptations through the show & the fanfic reimaginings and I love reading about her.

Now that I'm posting these fanarts publically, I'm writing short accompanying texts on AO3 and I find myself in a melancholic mood apparently :-) So, please do check them out & leave me a comment ❤️.

Now also on AO3

It was this amazing story about a farmer who finds one of her chicks hatched a dragon egg by @dycefic that inspired me to try and draw a tiny dragon. I think she's very cute indeed even if she doesn't quite match the dragon description from the tale. @dycefic's stories are wonderous to read and I highly recommend exploring their blog!

NaNoWriMo - My Cartoon of the Day - Day 25: Channeling Atlas: Carrying the World on Your Shoulders

We are Atlas: we not only dreamt up our story worlds, we are singlehandedly holding them up in the sky and breathing life into them. As writers, the weight of our story can sometimes bear us down as we struggle with finding a way to make sense of our narrative.

Day 25: Channeling Atlas: Carrying the World on Your Shoulders

As our characters run rampant and have all kinds of ideas for what is happening, as our plotpoints diverge and refuse to come back together to be neatly tied off, as self doubt creeps in and rears its head when our first draft doesn't look as polished as we'd secretly hoped: we set our shoulders, bear the weight and keep. it. high!

We are in the final stretch of NaNo now. For some exhaustion may be setting in, while others are celebrating their early victories. Remember: your story depends on you to hold it up; we can bear its weight & there is still time. Keep writing!

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:

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.

Fanfic Sketchnote Review of The Ship's Cat (Temeraire)

The Temeraire fanfic story: The Ship's Cat by Ystradwel is absolutely adorable. I am as smitten with Pan (or Biscuit as he's originally named) as Temeraire is (originally) jealous. The cat and the dragon come to an understanding while Laurence shows his bemused befuddlement. He respects Temeraire even if he knows nothing about dragons in this very early setting.

Granby is offered the opportunity to match his observations against what he has been told even earlier and it is glorious.

Enjoy this lovely little story that is well in-character for a smile and chuckle.

The Timeless story Burn the Witch by @barefootwithneonhands intrigues me. It explores a darker Lucy returning from her time in Rittenhouse viewed through her teammates eyes, and has her take direct action in their fight.

It's got mystery (the Bell Witch), lots of humor - especially from Rufus, tender moments between Denise & Michelle, heartbreak as to what Lucy went through and a realness to who she is now having gone through that and what she is truly willing to do combined with the vulnerability of being truly seen.

I like how Lucy is so unapologetic. The small hint with the 20 dollar bill that she succeeded and the way her team questions, but supports her. Little details like Wyatt listening to history podcasts while exercising and Denise pinching her nose in frustration as she contemplates the list of people she cannot kill make me smile.

Lost Friends by DoctorLia

@doctorliamsr asked me for a prompt to write a Timeless story the day after I had a conversation with @ununpredictableme regarding Anthony and his role. We'd watched Space Race and that episode really brings home how active Anthony is in planning & executing the missions.

I find his character, his choices and his morality fascinating. His relationship with Rufus is intriguing to watch: there is history and trust there, and Rufus continues to want to listen & understand how this man he thought he knew can do such a thing. The ethics of Space Race are a grappling point for Rufus in terms of Anthony's role and I would love to see Anthony grapple with his choices himself.

Lia has a few stories where she writes character pieces such as the conversation between Karl & Flynn that I discussed on this blog earlier and she graciously decided to accept the prompt.

Her story Lost Friends brings the two characters in a conversation after Anthony's death and Rufus's Chinatown trip. It is interesting how Anthony indicates Rufus has a harder time forgiving Flynn then he does Anthony, which I think is particularly poignant considering the agency that Anthony accepts and expects for his choices in this story. The request to clear his name for his family's sake brings a more personal touch to Anthony as well.

So: thank you Lia for writing & sharing this story with us and tackling the prompt challenge. I feel honoured you wrote me a story and hope you like this experimental sketchnote. (I felt like doing something different from usual, so I hope you enjoy it all the same).