oanja

So I did not finish Nano this year either. I did make it to around 25k before stalling out, so that's still pretty good. I'm not unhappy with that. Now I just need to find a wordcount that actually works for me and how often I can make myself write without it becoming a chore...

Also in November: I went on a date last weekend and had a pretty good time. We've been sending messages after that and he called me today and we spent an hour talking about politics and how the world seems to be going down the drain, which while not very optimistic or fun topic, it was still nice to see we share opinions on important issues.

Then this week I've somehow tricked myself into the kpop fandom, which is a bit odd, as I didn't make the jump back in 2008-09 when I got out of jrock fandom :D But this seems fun now, and I suppose I've always gravitated to rps fandoms for one reason or another and I miss having an active fandom, so this might be fun. (I know the actual fandom can be... a bit much, but at the same time, I was in the 1D fandom and survived that, so hopefully this won't be worse than that)

Oh no, the new nano site isn't making that cool graph off your progress anymore! Now it's just a bar that will fill up. This is not what I wanted, I liked being able to mouse over all the pillars and seeing how many words I did each day. Boo~ for this change. Also the site has always been clunky and weird but it feels even less functional now, it is a bit prettier though.

But I did manage 3029 words today, which is great because I need to make a buffer at the start in case I have slow days or maybe even days when I can't write at all

Also ouch my fingers and wrist hurt now, too much typing for one day when I haven't been writing much at all in ages.

Still not over the flu completely, but I did survive the day at work and I'm getting better now, so at least I won't be sick on Holiday, which would have sucked, especially because I was sick during midsummer holiday, which was my only other paid days off work this year. :P Hopefully I can actually have an actual vacation this spring. I really want to go to England again, or if not that then like Rome or Athens. I can't believe I've still never seen those places when you consider what a huge history nerd I am.

I got my audible coin today and am faced with the problem I have every month of figuring out what I want. I've noticed that I need to get more upbeat and funny books on audio, as more serious/dramatic books seem like a slog when I'm listening to them. But the problem is that upbeat and funny books tend to be pretty short and then I feel like I'm not getting enough bang for my buck. (the eternal dilemma)

Signed up to this bingo thing at genprompt_bingo , let's see if it shakes me out of my fic writing funk. I think I need to put like a wordcount restriction for myself, maybe like 2k. I did a challenge once where you had to do less than 1k and that was too short for me... I'm too wordy.

Housewife / Househusband	Taxes	I / We have made a mistake	Care's an Enemy to Life	The Mind's Eye
Neurovariation	The Ancients of the World	Bread and Circuses	Thank God it's Friday... Again: Time Loops	Abduction and kidnapping
Crossover: Books and literary	Mirror, mirror: Doppelgangers, clones and evil doubles	Wild Card	I Have a Rendezvous with Death	Pack
Siblings	Someone is Captured	Faced with Overwhelming Odds	Ghosts and Hauntings	Mind Games
Best Friends	Slice of Life	Film Noir	Fusion with another fandom	Telepathy

So, getting my actual graduation papers out of the University is turning out to be much more difficult than it was when I got my bachelors, this time I'm supposed to do a lot more manually, which seems absurd... But anyway slowly but surely it's happening!

Then, I'm moving again... It's not like I've only been living in this apartment for 6 months... augh! I'm always moving! But the rent in the new place is much cheaper, It's a shorter way to my one of our offices and I can take the train to the other one, at least some of the time, so I won't have to drive so much. The driving has turned out to be a real detriment my my life quality. Not only do I feel like I'm wasting a lot of my time, but it's also killing my shoulders. They are so knotted up and sore all the time. Ouch... At least if I take the train I can spend the time reading or watching Youtube videos.

Oh and tumblr seems to be finally going down, so maybe fandom will migrate somewhere else. I added new people on a friending meme, and got all nostalgic about journal style fandom. *sigh*

I don't think I mentioned this in November, but I totally failed out of nano this year. I'm not too mad about it, as I had to write the last bits of my thesis and after that was done I just wanted to take it easy and not think about writing anything. The thesis ended up being like 42k, so that's enough writing for October/november.

I think I should do the Habit pledge on getyourwordsout  next year though, as it seems the 150k a year is way beyond my reach, but maybe I could do better on a challenge where I have to make a habit of writing instead of trying to meet a certain wordcount goal at the end of the year.

So when I finished nano they had all these sponsor things at the end and you could get a discount on their stuff etc. One of the links was for this website called Scribophile and it looked interesting so I made a free account on there. The idea behind it is pretty neat: you critique (beta read) other people's stories to earn karma points and when you have enough karma points you can post something you wrote for other people to critique. The turnover seems pretty fast, I posted something there today and got three comments in under 12 hours.

You're basically guaranteed 3 commenters on your writing before it falls out of a spotlight list and three is a really respectable amount, holy shit!

You can even ask for specific kind of feedback, like if you want content or spag comments etc.

I'm not sure how well it works when you post chaptered stuff (like your nano novel for example) as I think people will be more likely to comment on things called chapter one, as then they don't have to spend time familiarizing themselves with all the previous chapters etc. Anyway it seems neat and I'm gonna keep poking at it some more.

I got one person who said really encouraging things, one person who mostly commented on mechanical style things and one person who said the beginning was too long and kind of boring, which I have to admit hurt my feelings, as I thought I went straight to the point. :D (I have never been praised for my brevity btw)

Hmm what else, oh I'm almost done with my Yuletide prep and can start writing this weekend, which will be a relief. I really hope the recipient will like the story and because the canon is so dear to me personally I feel extra pressure... augh!

(tagging this with my yuletide bc I don't have another exchange tag...)


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One where a few years from now Ovie gives up on the Caps ever winning the cup and the management agrees they need a rebuild, so it makes sense to trade Ovie while he's still valuable. They trade him somewhere in the west, so they don't have to play against him that much. I kind of want it to be the Kings, who would always keep getting eliminated in the conference final because they just can't score. I don't know what this fic would be about, because it's not like I ship him with anyone on the Kings. I just want it.

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Then I also want more mpreg, but it's kind of hard to work into hockey, because the pregnant one would have to miss a season and that's not fair. So some kind of Harlequin au, where Phil is a recluse somewhere in the wilderness of Wisconsin or whatever, because of something tragic happened (like career ending injury maybe? So he's still rich and shit like that) and then there's this horrible snowstorm and Tyler, who's pregnant barely manages to get his car to Phil's house (he's obviously lost) and has to ask for shelter. They they're stuck in Phil's house for a weekend or something and Phil tries not to get attached to Bozie, but of course he does. They talk about stuff and Tyler was on his way to the nearest town to where Phil lives to start over after his ex dumped him and didn't want anything to do with the baby. So when the roads finally get cleared Bozie drives off but makes Phil promise he'll come visit Bozie at his job (let's say his relatives own a restaurant and promised him a job there)

So Phil finds himself going to town almost every day and eating lunch at this restaurant, even though the food isn't really to his taste, just so he can exchange a few words with Bozie. And Bozie is super tired all the time and worried about money and generally miserable, but he still makes time to joke around a bit with Phil and it's the best part of his day too. And then idk, Phil proposes and promises to take care of Bozie and the baby and Bozie is kind of taken aback, so Phil backpedals and is all, 'it'll be a marriage of convenience, you don't have to worry about it. Just pretend to be happy with me when my relatives are around, they keep nagging to me etc' even though he's already half in love with Bozie and he knows this is a terrible idea. And Bozie whose really broke and doesn't even have health insurance and knows he can't keep working much longer with the babybelly and his apartment is a dump and he doesn't want to bring a baby in there. So he's desperate and Phil is really nice and Bozie thinks he'd be super into him if he could think about things like that (and he still has issues about the ex) so he agrees.

And they get married and Bozie has the baby and everything is pretty nice and then all of Phil's relatives descend into town because Amanda finds out about the baby! And then they have to pretend to be in love and a real couple (share a bedroom, hold hands, cuddle on the couch while they watch tv and Phil's mom coos over the baby) and they stay and stay and won't leave and Phil keeps forgetting it's all a show and he really loves Bozie and everyone who knows him sees that. And Bozie falls in love too, even though he swore he would never trust someone like that again and he feels terrible about taking advantage of Phil, especially with his family there and they're all so nice and he feels bad about lying to them. Especially because they keep thanking him for making Phil feel better (he'd have been locked away for almost a year or something) so finally the relatives leave and Bozie kind of brings up why Phil is living there and Phil explains the injury thing. And then Bozie is like, are you sure there's nothing they can do? And Phil is like yeah I went to a million doctors and finally they were like maybe there's this dude in Germany, but I was like fuck that I've had my hopes dashed too many times!

But Bozie is like, 'you should try it!' and makes Phil go to Germany. And they tell Phil, yes there can in fact fix him! Yay! Phil can go back to hockey! And Phil has the surgery and comes back to Bozie and the baby, all happy and excited about PT and getting back in shape. And Bozie tries to be supportive and take care of all of them (he tries to make himself useful so he doesn't feel so bad about taking all of Phil's money) And they start sleeping together at some point here.

Then finally Phil is almost back to his old self and he's talking with his old team again and how he'll come to training camp and they'll see how it goes. And Bozie is like, 'so we should get a divorce' and Phil is like 'nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!' but all on the inside, on the outside he of course agrees, because he doesn't want to force Bozie to stay with him. And Bozie is like 'this will be better for you, you don't want to come out and how would it seem with my baby, people would assume she/he was yours and that's not fair etc'

And Phil thinks he'd love for people to think the baby was his and Bozie's, but it's true that there's still a stigma for same sex relationships and the scrutiny would be really intense just because it's Toronto and he'd really like to just try to get back to hockey without distractions. But that he'd do it if Bozie wanted him to!

So they agree to get divorced, but Phil makes Bozie promise he'll stay living in the house, because it's not like Phil can live there and play in Canada, and Bozie agrees and promises to pay rent (he's going back to the restaurant job and taking night classes in business) they argue about it.

But before they have time to get divorced someone in town who follows hockey sees them out as a family and takes photos and sells them to some Toronto paper! And some reporter finds the marriage certificate! And the whole thing comes out! And suddenly it's this huge deal about a big name star trying to make a comeback after horrific injury! Plus he's gay and has a baby with a dude! So obviously everyone is running with the story and Phil hates everything (even though he's a little bit happy because now Bozie can't just divorce him, it would look super bad!)

So instead they have to go to Toronto a bit early and Phil has to do some press with like You Can Play and the Leafs PR people and so on and so on. Then training camp starts finally and Phil is on the try-out thing (idk what it's called) and he's great! Everyone can see how good he still is, even with the rust. And Toronto kind of has to sign him, it would make them look bad if they didn't and also some other team would gladly sign him instead and they want Phil back!

So now Bozie is living in Toronto and taking business classes and trying to fit in with the hockey wives and feeling like a huge fraud! And Phil is never there of course and when he is, he's all hyped up on having hockey back! He's so happy, and he seems so happy to see Bozie and the baby, so Bozie tries not to bring Phil down. He's been so sad without hockey, and besides Bozie should be happy with how easy his life is suddenly. But he also feels a bit trapped, because it's not like he can take a job as a waiter anywhere in Toronto, people would find out and think it was super weird, so he has no money of his own AGAIN and he's dependent on Phil and he keeps thinking what will happen if Phil get's bored with playing house? And the baby obviously thinks Phil is his/her dad and calls him that and Bozie really loves Phil too, but he has trust issues! And Phil never says anything about feelings and only touches him when they're out in public (they stopped having sex when the thing went public and they'd been arguing and they just never started again!)

And then there's this one week when Phil is away on a roadtrip and and baby is teething and not sleeping at all and screaming 24/7 and Bozie is functioning on coffee and desperation, so when Phil comes back and takes the screaming baby from him and starts cooing at it all 'hi baby, why are you sad? Come on, let's find you something cool to gnaw on, okay? Give your dad a break'

So Bozie just loses it ans start crying out of sheer feels, all the feels suddenly and he hasn't slept and he's wanted to cry for a while now and Phil comes back with the baby finally quiet and chewing on a chew toy straight from the freezer and he's wide-eyed and worried and Bozie just says it. That he loved Phil and he's scared and he wants them to be real, a real family. And he's sorry for making Phil stay with them and sorry for all the media attention and for all the shit fans and players yell at him in hostile rinks and sorry for a screaming baby waiting at home, when he's tired from a roadtrip.'

And of course Phil doesn't see it like that at all! And he's all 'I love you too! And I love the baby! And it's all worth it and I'd never divorce you unless you really wanted to!'

And they finally figure things out! And live happily ever after! And Bozie get's his degree and maybe another baby! And Phil wins a cup somehow (even though he plays for the Leafs)

And did I mention how this is a Harlequin AU? Because there's not story more Harlequin than this would be. I want it so bad!!!

edit: some new ideas to this
- So I've already added the older kid in this
- Phil should have Dupuis's injury instead, like miss a whole season, but be okay to come back next year. So if he got injured in Ocotober (november) and Bozie comes by in December
- Maybe Phil should suggest they move in together first, like he could babysit the kid while Bozie is working? And when that works out so well then he'll propose when he sees how tired and run down Bozie is getting (he already has all the feels obviously)
- And then there's the family christmas when the relatives find out!
- And maybe the last lockout made it possible for carriers to play in the league and get drafted, but it's still a big deal! (maybe McDavid came out and said he's a carrier and they had to change the rules just for him!!!)
- So anyway after they get caught and Phil goes back to Toronto to play, maybe the YCP people approach Bozie about working for them. He did get to the college level after all etc is a known carrier now that he's with Phil etc. (so he can have a job!)

I made a mistake last night by thinking I could just read a little bit, before going to sleep. Ended up finishing the book and when I actually went to bed it was almost seven in the morning... oops. But at least I'm reading books again. That's good, sort of.

So, of course I only got up at three pm today and now I'm not tired, even though I have a lecture tomorrow at nine. >_>

Also the Toews/Kane fic is now 8,600 words long and I have no idea how to actually make them get together. Well without resorting to sudden love confessions... This is annoying because I would rather work on my other fic, but right now I feel like I need to finish this first. Mostly because I know this could be done in about 2000-3000 words if I could just figure out what I want to happen instead of getting distracted and starting to sprout random facts about the verse they live in.

The new Teen Wold episode was great and I will enjoy the increased screen time for Stiles as long as it's going to last. Hopefully the writers won't screw him up too badly.

There was this article on PPP (the leafs blog thing) about how much Tyler Bozak sucks. And okay, he's not the best center out there etc etc, but he's played really well this season and actually had a positive effect on Kessels numbers, not to mention that they kept pointing out how badly Bozie plays without Kessel, although the minute amount was super small and I don't think they should draw conclusions about that (and doesn't Bozie get PK time? Which Phil doesn't. I'm not sure about this though, but if it's true wouldn't that explain some of it?) Anyway, I have way too many feelings about Bozak and it's getting out of hand... Did not sign up for this!

WAAAAH! Yuletide deadline is tomorrow and I have written 196 words! *panics* But the story only needs to be 1000 words so I can finish it in time... the problem is going to be finding a beta. Argh, why do I always do this... (the reveals are on the 25th, I wonder if you can update an unbetaed story and then edit it before the reveals...)

Anyway, it's super weird that it's almost Christmas, but I don't feel like it at all. I'm definitely getting old, because I'm just looking forwards to eating a lot of Christmas food. >_>

Also something super weird is going on... I made an online dating profile and I actually met a guy last weekend. I'm not going to be home until the end of January, but we are keeping in touch etc. Super super weird, I really don't know how you are supposed to do this thing. Like how do you date? How do you know if you like someone? Weeeeeeeeiiiiiirrrrrdddd! Especially because guys are strange, I've never had a relationship with one or been friends with one. And I'm not even sure I want to...

Then on to more familiar topics... The Wild are doing terribly again, they are 5-4-1 in the last ten games and things just aren't working for them, they can't score goals, they only have one goalie who's actually been playing well etc. I think they are on the last wildcard spot for the playoffs, but that's not saying much. Urgh, please win some games? Also, Colorado: start sucking right now! Especially because your asshole goaltender got away scot free from those charges.