Author Archives: Sam

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I haven’t done a writing update in a while!

I guess I don’t really like to so much when I’m not talking about fanfic. I’ve been working on my Arthurian retelling which was supposed to be a novella but nooooo it had to explode (it’s going to be another 50k job I know it). I mean yes technically 50k is still a novella but it’s a lot more than the 20k I had originally estimated!!

Today I did the math and to get to 50k (and hopefully The End) I’ll need to write approximately 2,500 every single day for the rest of the month /facepalm. Although I should probably get used to that because if I want to finish my novel next month (in true NaNo style) then to hit the estimated 75k then 2,500 is the pace I need.

I also did more math and I’m going to need to create 1 gifset every single day if I want to make them all in time for April 5th and the start of Sanctuary Appreciation Week. Now obviously I do have the week itself which gives me an extra couple of days for the gifsets that are intended for the end of the week. I don’t want to rely on that too heavily though.

In other news I picked up my march digital drawing again yesterday (after the program crashed a couple of days before corrupting my file). It went ok and I have the beginnings of the line art. I need to finish it and tidy it up but I have a solid start now at least.

10 days left in March.

This is going to be brutal. No clue if I’m going to be able to pull this off.

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Finally started my March drawing.

I had gathered references but nothing else and suddenly panicked as I realised there was only two weeks left in the month. How does that happen to me every time?

Anyway I started it and it wasn’t going great but I had a beginning.

Then Clip Studio Paint crashed.

I had saved it but it corrupted and the file is unrecoverable. I’m pissed off. I have a particular hatred for having to redo things. So I walked away from it. Which means I’m no further forward and another day has gone.

Ugh.

Got some more nice comments on today’s Sketch of the Day though. Used my new drawing pencils which have a greater value range. It looked ok. Not great. It didn’t have that wonderful artistic look that some people’s art has but maybe I’ll get there one day. I doubt it but I can dream.

As for my digital drawing I will try again tomorrow /sigh.

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Got a comment on my Sketch a Day this morning. The prompt was ‘chilli’ so I drew two peppers. The person said “wow they look real, what make of pencils do you use?” and I promptly fell over.

a) I didn’t think it was that good

b) that’s the kind of thing I say to other people. It’s the kind of envy born of admiration because damn they made a good thing and I want to know how to do that!

so WHY THE HELL DID SOMEONE SAY THAT TO ME???

Yes, ok maybe, they didn’t mean it how I would mean it. I’m not in their head, I don’t know what they were thinking. But *staggers back and falls over* because ??? I am legitimately reeling. It was a nice comment regardless.

I suppose when I look at anything I do I only see how far I have to go. I see what’s wrong with it. I see how displeased I am as it doesn’t yet look how I’d like. I guess other people might not see it that way. I only see the flaws, they can maybe see that it has some good points.

But yeah *shakes head* I’m a little bit stunned.

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I have never posted my Sketch a Day on here before but the prompt today was “innovate”. So I drew Nikola Tesla from Sanctuary because genius inventor. Figured I would share as I think it came out half ok.

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Hmm the more I look at that sketch of Nikola, the more I see that is wrong with it /facepalm. You see this is why at the end of the day I prefer digital.

I get a kick out of doing art with pencils these days because I never thought I could. Producing something by hand, just from making marks on paper, blows my mind. I was the kid that always failed art class. I didn’t get on with a single art teacher I ever had. I found the entire experience frustrating and humiliating. So I like trying to draw by hand, feels a little bit like looking back a couple of decades and sticking my tongue out at all the teachers who didn’t think I had it in me.

Anyway, digital has some major advantages. With digital if there are lines that aren’t quite right you can move them, without having to rub everything out and start again. So looking at that drawing I’m thinking I need to shorten the nose and move it slightly to the left, maybe warp it slightly. The hairline on the right needs to drop down a bit etc. etc.

It’s not terrible but it’s not perfect either. When I draw I still see the lines and try and copy those. From googling I know I should break it down into basic shapes. Apparently that’s better for getting proportions more accurate.

I need to work on my pencil control. I don’t get very good highlights as I overly smudge. I think I also need to do some studies of specific elements like hair. How to draw different materials is still a mystery to me. I need to investigate that and practice so I know how to render metal, fabric, skin etc. I have a lot to learn.

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I’ve been working hard on Fall of Camelot and I’ve run into the same problem that I had with Choosing Fate. I don’t know if you recall but I reached a point with that where I realised I’d written the start a bit wrong. I’m quite linear, I’m not someone that can write out of order, and so I stalled writing as continuing when it’s wrong felt wrong.

So I went back and fixed it and I’m going to have to do the same with Fall of Camelot. That’s not ideal. I do try and tell myself – first draft, fix later – but ehhh whatever gets me to the finish line I guess.

There was a planning party on the WriYe discord this evening. I didn’t really need to plan but it was good to remind myself a bit of the novel I’m thinking I’ll try and write next month (if I finish Fall of Camelot). That doesn’t feel very likely at the moment but that’s probably my tiredness talking. I’m reminded of the tumblr post I read about not getting 8 hours sleep regularly, and I’ve been waking up way too early for weeks now. I am so tired 🙁

Anyway, I’m not sure if it’ll ever see the light of day but in my frustration I started a little Warehouse 13/Sanctuary crossover ficlet. Basically so far I have Pete geeking out over the fact that mythical creatures exist, and HG is having far too much fun pointing out all the things that people believe about vampires that aren’t true. I’m just building up to the revelation that it’s Nikola Tesla, who she recruited for Warehouse 12 hehe.

I’d like to cross the Librarians and Sanctuary somehow but it doesn’t really work because of vampires. They have them on the Librarians and they are the burn up in the sun, turn to ash with a stake through the heart etc. type aka not the badass “get down from there” Nikola Tesla kind. Which is a shame because Nikola is mentioned in the Librarians. Although not in a good way as he did this experiment which shifted an entire town into a different phase and they had to do body snatching to interact with the real world.

Maybe I need to do invasion of the multi-verse. The Librarians have a problem and only Nikola Tesla can solve it. The solution is a magical artifact which they think reaches across time, so they can talk to him in the past, but instead it reaches across dimensions and they get a suspicious vampire. That’s a fun story to tell myself when I can’t sleep later at least 🙂

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Haha I just realised I forgot to say yesterday that I finished Choosing Fate. Whoop! *pumps fist* 🙂 🙂 🙂

Do you want to know why I forgot? Because I immediately started making a header for it for tumblr. I was undecided about what to do. I considered doing a drawing but I couldn’t think of a pose I liked. I considered doing a photo manip but again the pose stumped me. In the end I did a gif thing which doesn’t exactly look how I’d like but I’m going to roll with it.

(That’s the problem with making stuff with only a vague image in mind. It’s hard to bring something into reality that doesn’t really exist.)

Anyway the story is just over 51k at the moment. I need to do a mini-revision/editing pass to make sure I didn’t screw up too badly. It’s Monday and knowing me and my lack of impulse control… I may start posting on Friday. I don’t know how many chapters there are yet but given the length I’d say approximately a dozen. I’ll post on Tuesdays and Fridays again until the story is complete.

So today I started on Fall of Camelot again. I’m pressing ahead with my ‘plan’ to see if I can finish that this month and then start something fresh for Camp NaNo. I’m currently pondering doing this sci-fi detective thriller novel as the Camp project. As tempted as I am to do another Sanctuary fanfic I did promise myself I would complete at least one original novel this year.

Plus if this plan works then I could totally write my season 4 AU/colouring in the lines fic in May guilt free!

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Ok so WandaVision finale.

I have questions. Like what happened to white vision???? Also I’m really concerned about Wanda reading the darkhold, that end credits was decidedly ominous.

Anyway, my heart was shattered with losing Vision and the kids. Dammit I was worried about that. I’d hoped that “magic of creation” might have meant that even if Vision was sustained by the hex, that perhaps the kids were real. Seriously though hasn’t Wanda lost enough? The sheer courage she had to give them up to free everyone from the hex, when she hadn’t meant to do it in the first place, one moment of overwhelming grief and bam.

I know that in the hex the townspeople were suffering. That was bad and I feel very sorry for them. I’m not saying they should forgive Wanda, she hurt them and that was wrong, but I do hope they understand that it wasn’t malicious. The moment Wanda understand the impact she was having on others she ended it. She gave them their lives back. You could argue that her family weren’t real but they were real to Wanda. Vision was made from her love, and so were their kids.

So yeah that was super sad.

I’m still super bummed by “Ralph” aka fake!Pietro. Why? Why? WHY? They could have cast anybody to be the fake brother in the scenario they played, making it Evan Peters made it seem like there was more to it. It raised expectations, it certainly raised my hopes, and then that was it? I really, really hope that it’s not. Like there had to have been more to it. Please let there have been more to it. I won’t even be mad if the writers goofed, just thought it would be fun, and are now going “oh shit” at the reaction. Just let them fix it in a later instalment. Let them tie it into the multiverse how it should always have been.

Does Monica still have her powers? Everything else transformed back to how it was when the hex receded. Did Monica? They didn’t show us so I don’t know. I am thrilled though at the teaser that we’re going to see more of her, as she’s going to head up to join Nick Fury in space skrull land. Did anyone else think that skrull resembled Talos’ daughter? I mean Monica’s all grown up now, so it stands to reason she is as well.

Right so in conclusion. This show got better as it went along. I wasn’t convinced by the first couple of episodes. They were too wacky for me, too disconnected, but once the plot got going whoah – awesome.

I’d now say that The Falcon and the Winter Soldier has a fair bit to live up to 🙂

nerdramblings101 said:  why does The Falcon and The Winter Soldier have to live up to WandaVision?

galactic-pirates said:  @nerdramblings101 that was my way of saying I thought WandaVision was good. It set a pretty high standard. So I’m hoping the next Marvel Disney+ series will be just as good. I confess The Falcon and the Winter Soldier is the series I’ve been most looking forward to anyway. So I guess I’m a bit nervous it won’t live up to hype. But WandaVision won me over. So I just need to have faith I guess 🙂 

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Ok I’m at the point in my obsession where everything is Sanctuary, or more specifically in this case my OT3.

Watched WandaVision today. I haven’t screamed about it on here yet. To be honest I think I’m still processing.

Anyway, there were a couple of lines and legit not lying, while I was watching I instantly went “that would work great for a Sanctuary gifset” /facepalm.

I added it to the list.

I was on 28 if you remember and I was pondering how/when to focus on making them. My first thought was a month but that seemed like a lot so I figured a week would be a good start, which then reminded me that appreciation weeks are a thing. I jumped in with both feet thinking that was an awesome idea aaaaand you guessed it.

The number has now jumped to 45.

At this rate I’m going to have more ideas for gifsets than there were episodes haha. Still it’s all good. I enjoy making gifs, bringing the idea in my head to life, it’s just finding the time to do it.

You know I only started making gifs because of Sanctuary anyway. I reached a point where I couldn’t find anything more to reblog and it made me sad. I wanted more and so had a “welp guess I better do it myself” moment haha.

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Well I’ve gone and done it now haha. Throwing stuff out there is always so scary. Also I’m paranoid I’ve spent appreciation wrong somewhere. That is a hard word.

Anyway worst case scenario it falls flat. No big deal. I’ll still make stuff.

Ok writing update! I’m approaching the end of Choosing Fate. Today I worked out how many scenes I have left (5) and I’m going to attempt to finish by the end of the week. That is a teeny bit ambitious (they are big scenes) but I always get a boost when I near the end. I feel like it’s all downhill and I just want to get there. Plus it’s 5k weekend on WriYe and challenges always help.

It’s going to need some work when it’s done. I’ve already made a few notes of stuff I’m not sure I adequately included earlier but having a complete draft means I’m one step closer. This fic has been tricky, I think it’s the lack of gunfire. I always seem to do best when there’s a bad guy to fight. This was all feelings and mutually pining idiots.

Still I can now check ‘arranged marriage’ off my bucket list 🙂

Words Written: 2,160
Current Total: 43,531