6.15 A Wondrous Place was a Hook-centric so it was never going to be in my list of top favorite episodes. That being said I’m very much of the opinion that if I don’t have anything nice to say then why spread the misery? It would be better to remain silent. So I’m not going to go on about the many issues in this episode. Hook’s entitled behavior with “Sorry isn’t good enough” was an indicator of how this was going to go and it really didn’t get any better. Anyway, I’m going to try and pick out anything that was good and there were some things.
A Journey of Self-Acceptance
There was no Rumple or Belle and very little Gideon in tonight’s episode. However, it was a Regina-centric and she is my second favorite character. I seriously love her. Anyway I will probably go on a little bit, because I have a lot of feelings about this episode, but first does anyone know any Regina gifmakers? I feel the need for a parallel between Regina saying she doesn’t regret her choice in last nights episode, with when Regina said she had no regrets because her life led her to Henry back in Neverland.
Spoilers under the cut and above I guess. I’ve tagged for spoilers so yeah – onward!
The hero they deserve
6.13 Ill-Boding Patterns is going to be up there in the hall of fame of top episodes. I don’t think I’ve enjoyed an episode quite as much as this since season two. It was amazing. Finally Rumple in all his glory being shown on screen. Anyway, usual drill, spoilers under the cut as I go on a lot about everything that happened.
Fathers and Sons
Right this shouldn’t be as long as last weeks due to the episode focus. However, I’m me so I still have apparently quite a lot to say. I’m actually going to do something that feels a little strange. I’m going to say something positive about Hook, or more accurately his storyline. Spoilers for episode 6.12 – Murder Most Foul under the cut.
The Hiatus is Over
Like the title says, the hiatus is over and that is true in more ways than one. I haven’t really blogged all that much since Once went on hiatus, so this blog kinda did as well. Now, the show is back, my review posts are back. So spoilers for 6.11 – Tougher than the Rest under the cut.
Belle and Gold dance. A scene from the third chapter of my fanfic Counting Stars for Fluffapalooza 2017. Happy Skin Deep day everyone! 🙂
Status Post – Year in Review
I know it’s the 31st and this is very cliche but I didn’t blog around NaNo so I’m overdue one of these posts. In a post after Camp NaNo I said what I was intending for November, and it really didn’t work out that way and I was loathe to make a post, just to say how disappointed I was.
In 2016 I wrote 500k, or 500,180 words to be precise. Well, actually it’s not necessarily that accurate as I only started tracking properly in June but I’m reasonably certain I did half a million. That’s huge for me as it’s not that long ago that I only wrote in November and struggled to write much of anything the rest of the year. Since July I’ve done at least 50k a month, usually doing 60k+. The only slight fly in the ointment, is that it’s not been all original novels. A lot of it was fanfic, but again a lot of that fanfic can be turned original so it’s hardly wasted effort.
It’s also kept me going, kept me productive which is the biggest battle I usually face. I quite often get in spirals where I don’t do anything, I feel bad about that, and then I do even less. It’s given me a lot of ideas and so yeah generally in writing terms 2016 has been a damn good start. I’ve published two books, and a free short story/prequel. The couple of reviews I’ve had, aren’t great (well they are bad) but I’m still getting sales/borrows and I’ve had 3 people sign up to my mailing list. It’s a start and I always knew that this was going to be a long journey.
In 2017 I want to continue to average 60k+ a month. If I do that then 750k should be easily doable. In terms of projects I need to write Book Three of my Military Science Fantasy series. Before I do I need to decide whether I want to continue with Book Four straight away, or take a break and write something else, probably the related sci-fi series. I need to decide this before March as that’s when I have my next cover booked. I’m hoping to release Book Three by April at the latest. Ideally I would like to bring out something every 3-4 months but we’ll have to see how I get on.
I also want to work on my pen-name. I have the covers for three books, and I’ve half-written Book Two. I need to write all of them and decide on a strategy and what I’m doing with it marketing wise. I already know I’m going to have all three books finished and ready to go before I press publish on Book One, so I will have flexible options on what I do in terms of frequency. I might even wait and write more books, as it’s a pen-name and nobody is waiting for it, I can try and make a splash.
There’s fanfic, that isn’t a priority of course but I do have WIP’s that I want to finish, and then more stories that I want to write. I just love writing generally and I want to do a lot of it in 2017 and hopefully publish several books and maybe, just maybe, it’ll start to turn into something I might make money with. Money is after all what makes the world go round, and I could kinda do with some. That’s a bit mercenary I know but it would seriously improve my life and isn’t that a New Years goal everyone makes? For next year to be better.
Apart from writing, I want to get back to going to the gym regularly (even if lazy me disagrees) and hopefully that will mean I lose a bit of weight. Ultimately I just want to be fitter but being less fat would also be nice. I want to procrastinate less, so I can generally do more and not just productive stuff. If I actually got on with things, then I could spend my evenings watching TV or playing video games without guilt. I haven’t really played many video games this year and as backwards as it is, playing more is a goal for 2017. I enjoy it, so I should make time for it.
This is usually the point where I say that I would like to read more, but you know what, I totally give up on that one. I know that as an author that is totally backwards but I am so damn picky about what I read, plus books cost money (even more backwards seeing as I want people to buy mine) but I just can’t make it a priority right now.
So yeah that’s what happened that’s worthy of note (that isn’t really personal, as I don’t talk about that here) and a tentative plan for 2017. This year sucked for a lot of reasons but for me in terms of writing at least, it was a good start. Now I just need to build on it and try and do better, be better. Here’s to 2017!
I live! aka how Once restored my hope with a single scene
You may or may not have noticed that I didn’t blog about the episode last week. The reason for that is because I didn’t watch it. I had access to the episode from Monday which I was supremely grateful for. However, I’d thoroughly spoiled myself with the liveblog, and the gifsets, and I just couldn’t face it. I didn’t want to watch the scenes with full sound and picture. I felt an incredible disconnect between what I felt, and what it was clear the writers wanted me to feel.
Anyway, when I woke up this morning I had a message saying episode 10 was amazing, which was the best news we’ve had all season. So I steered clear of tumblr to remain unspoiled for 6.10 – I wanted to see for myself and yikes, they really weren’t kidding. My expectations were admittedly low but well they have said repeatedly about “darkest before dawn” and this was like a ray of sunshine and sweet merlin we needed the boost. I might have got a bit incoherent because I was just so damn excited.
Spoilers for 6.09 and 6.10 under the cut and boy was 6.10 amazing!
The Eye of the Storm
Last night I watched Sunday’s episode. It took me two hours because I kept having to pause it to make notes. You know I think tumblr did me a favor by taking the edge off because watching it was nowhere near as awful as I thought. Plus writing my fix-it fanfic, made me really try and get in Belle’s head and suddenly the episode started to make more sense.
Now I can’t speak as to the promo for next week because yikes that did look terrible. However, for Sunday’s episode? I said I would try to find some hope and you know what, I think I found some. It took me a while to persuade myself to write this up, I had so many notes and I’m lazy. However, I did it eventually.
Spoilers for 6.08 – I’ll Be Your Mirror under the cut.
Like a really bad fanfic
Spoilers for 6.07 – Heartless