Writing Update for end of January

 It's not quite the end of the month but I decided to post an end of the month wrap-up.

New Year's resolution:  write a story a week.  This month I've written five.  So far so good.

413 I Swear

414 Collateral Damage

415 I, Gardener

416 Maid Ex Machina

417 Infinte Dogo

Sometimes I feel like, for every story I finish, I begin 2 or 3 more.  This is literally true for I, Gardener because I conceived it as part of a trilogy of stories.  Why a trilogy?  Three just seems like a nice round number for so many situations.  I wrote the story The Emancipation of Philip Dos last year.  In this story, we end with Annie Two, Grandpa's computer A.I., assuming control of a robotic Nazi assassin.  They call her Annie 3-D.  Then a bit later I wrote Wilfred 2.0, in which Grandpa Anarchy got a robotic butler.

Then I wrote Miss Trinity, in which I proposed a whole series of robotic aids and helpers, all of them variations on Annie Two, Grandpa's computer A.I.  (And I should note here, these three stories form a trilogy of their own.)  But I wanted to explore all of this further, so I envisioned three stories centered on the maid, the gardener, and one of  the other Annie Two robotic clones.  I titled these stories I, Gardener (written earlier in the month); Maid Ex Machina (finished this week) and I Think Therefor (not yet written.)

So far so good, yes?  I mean I plotted three stories and wrote two of them.  If I finish the third then surely I'm finishing my story ideas rather than creating more of them, yes?

Well... not quite.  For you see, I initially had no idea what Maid Ex Machina was about, other than it involving the robotic maid.  I also had an idea for a villain named Riddle Me Rhino, and so I wrote an entire opening scene in which Grandpa and sidekick investigate the scene of a bank robbery, and it's clear that Riddle Me Rhino was the perpetrator.

And... this did not seem to fit my goal for my story.  The maid wasn't in the first scene and I didn't have a reason to bring her in later.  Obviously based on the title Maid Ex Machina, I could just have her pop into the story at the end, completely out of the blue, to solve everything... but then I would be guilty of writing a story where the title was the ending.  Instead I came up with a new idea involving the villain the Clichémonger, who is just the type to kidnap an innocent maid and threaten her life, because he's a very traditional villain of course.

Thus, I spun my first scene off into a new story file called Riddle Me This -- to maybe be completed later.

Likewise I thought it would be funny if the Clichémonger threatened to reveal Grandpa's secret identity, because he doesn't really have one.  I was trying to write this angle into my story but it wouldn't work, because (of course) the kidnapping of the maid and the revealing of Grandpa's secret identity are two different crimes, and trying to shove them together was confusing and messy.  So I spun all of the secret identity stuff into another story file called, appropriately enough, Secret Identity.

So, yeah... wrote one story, but created two more story files.  :P

In the same manner I've managed to finally write most of Infinite Dojo this week.  This was a story I planned after writing Miss Trinity, in which I expanded on everything Annie Two and Glory Ashes have been up to... namely not just building a bunch of robots, but first building a complex beneath the Anarchy Cave which included the manufacturing facilities for said robots.

Of course, along the way I thought of too many different things to do with said complex, and before I knew it I had enough ideas for a second trilogy.   The first story is Infinite Dojo.  The second story I titled Princess of Pluto, and for the third I am calling it The Return of Normal.  The second involves a robotic magical girl based on Annie Two, and the third involves a demonic entity buried deep beneath the Anarchy Mansion which the new complex has awoken... and/or also the return of Victorian Honesty St. Normal, an enemy and neighbor of Kid Anarchy's in the 1920's.

So, again, I write one story, and create two more story files.  :P

Of course I've had other story ideas as well.  In the last week I've created these story files:  Day Trader (a story inspired by the GameStop day trader shenanigans.  Not sure where it would go but I suspect Annie Two has made more money for Grandpa Anarchy), Oumuamua (about the weird asteroid/satellite from outside our solar system, of course), The Great Pillow War (about... well not really about the My Pillow Guy, but that was my inspiration) and Save the Cat (a 'save the cat' moment is when a horrifying person/creature takes pity on a kitten or other cute animal, thus showing you that they're only ugly on the outside and are really one of the good guys).

That's what I'm working on.  Current goal is to write I Think Therefor or else Princess of Pluto next.

January 16 2021

 I've been pretty lax about posting to my writing journal, in part because I've been pretty lax about writing the past several months.  But I have once again vowed to write a story a week for 2021 (this is a common New Year's resolution for me).  It's January 16th and I've written three stories this month -- so far so good!.

In November I participated in National Novel Writer's Month (NaNoWriMo) and I "won", in that I managed to write more than 50,000 words.  I was hoping to finish a Ranma 1/2 / Ah My Goddess fanfiction story that I've been working on for years but haven't published.  It's called Nerima All-Stars, and it's basically a take on what if the cast of Ranma 1/2 were given superpowers.  I originally started this story as early as the year 2000, but I only really started working on it in earnest for NaNoWriMo 2016.  I didn't finish it, and so I worked on it again for NaNoWriMo 2019.

I still had not finished it but I had this idea that I was almost at the big final battle, and another 50,000 words would come close to wrapping it up.  So I set out to do that this past November, and as I noted I wrote another 50,000 words.  The problem however was that most of what I wrote was finishing off the previous chapter, and setup for the final battle.  I'm also not happy with what I've written -- the story lacks focus and kind of wanders.  I think I know what the problem is -- aside from it maybe being too long.  I have two long "side quest" chapters that delay the main plot, but the first one seemed to work fine, and I think that was because the focus was on the growing friendship between two characters.  The second side quest chapter is much longer and doesn't develop any of the friendships or relationships between the characters, so it winds up seeming pointless.

I think I can fix that but it's going to take a lot of work, maybe another NaNoWriMo next year.  ^_^

In  the meantime, I had not finished a Grandpa Anarchy story since the ones I listed in September, but I have a lot of ideas and I've written three new stories for 2021.  Those are:

413  I Swear

414  Collateral Damage

415  I, Gardener

The first story was just an idea that popped into my head, that I managed to turn into a complete story within a day or so.  The second is the setup for a Christmas story that I plotted in December and did not write.  It occurred to me that the explanation for what Grandpa is doing in the Christmas story could be a story in its own right, and I came up with Collateral Damage on the spot.

The third story is part of a planned trilogy, and is related to three other stories and an incomplete story.  Last year I wrote The Emancipation of Philip Dos, which ended with Annie Two (Grandpa Anarchy's self-aware computer) in control of a Nazi gynoid/death bot, named Annie 3-D.  Then in Wilfred 2.0 I introduce Grandpa's new robotic butler.  Later I wrote Miss Trinity, in which I introduced a slew of other robotic characters -- a maid, a gardener, a non-heroic physical counterpart to Annie Two, and robotic versions of Annie Two who work with various other super hero groups and/or are stationed at the hidden resurrection stations.

I then plotted a story called Infinite Dojo which would reveal that all of these robots were built by Glory Ashes, Annie Two, and friends in a brand new sub-sub-basement complex below the Anarchy Cave.  I didn't have an actual plot worked out, just a rival ninja showing up to challenge the mistress of the Infinite Dojo -- which Grandpa knows nothing about.  I had a lot of plans for what lay beneath the Anarchy Caverns, but the story didn't develop in my head so I've yet to get anywhere on it.

However, I thought that I should also introduce these robotic helpers better, so I plotted three stories around them -- the gardener story, titled I, Gardener; the maid story, titled Maid Ex Machina; and a story about one of the Annie clones called I Think Therefor.

I mean I really had no plots in mind at first, just the idea that I wanted to feature each of these robot characters in a story.  But I soon came up with a villain and a setting for I, Gardener, and I managed to finish it this past week.

Other ideas I'm developing:

1.  There is an ancient evil buried beneath Grandpa Anarchy's mansion that has been awoken thanks to the newly-installed Infinite Dojo sub basement.  (Which may be the plot of Maid Ex Machina or might be part of the story of Infinite Dojo, or it's own story, I haven't decided.)

1a.  This is something that was summoned and then buried by Professor Victorian Honesty St. Normal, a mad scientist neighbor of Grandpa's in the 1920's.  One of my other ideas was that perhaps the professor himself is trapped deep beneath the ground, or his spirit, or something. I've written one story in which the good Professor actually appears, and partially wrote another; otherwise he's just referred to as the person who built the St. Normal Tower which is the building next door to the Anarchy Mansion.  Bringing him back to life would be a lot of fun.  ^_^

2.  Glory Ashes has a rival who is a rich spoiled girl of some sort, maybe with super powers or just a lot of gadgets.  This may or may not be part of a story I started called Recipe for Disaster.

3.  Glory Ashes may be working with F8Wasp and Miss Bloodraven, who were last seen travelling to Intersect (the city where dimensions meet) in the story My Sister the Computer.  F8Wasp is the creator of Annie Two, and Miss Bloodraven is a heroic companion of Kid Anarchy's from the 1920's, but whose personality is partly or mostly derived from Annie Two.  I haven't decided who else they might be working with -- Annie 3-D I think, but maybe someone else -- or if they have a name for their group.  I'm not sure if there's a story here or it's just part of the story Infinite Dojo.

4.  Glory Ashes and Annie Two have set up their own resurrection station -- somewhere.  There should be a gateway to it from the Infinite Dojo sub-basement.  Again, not sure if this warrants a separate story or if it's just another part of Infinite Dojo.  Although one of my ideas is that the ancient evil mentioned in item 1 takes over one of the bodies in their resurrection station (which, unlike those built by Dark Dr. Dark, does not have any magical wards.  Yet.)

5.  There's a version of Annie Two that is a robotic magical girl called Little Morphin' Annie.  This is actually mentioned in Miss Trinity so it's cannon.  ^_^  I have an idea that somewhere in the Infinite Dojo sub-basement is a gateway to another planet or moon or other realm where Little Morphin' Annie is based.  I haven't figured out where this bit of info goes, either.

6.  I want to write a villain named Riddle Me Rhino.  He's a classic heavy with a rhino theme, but also a genius-level villain who poses riddles for Grandpa Anarchy to solve.  Because why can't that be a thing?  Or maybe he just thinks his riddles are clever and they aren't.  I also want to write a story about a villain named Plaid to the Bone, who was mentioned in passing in I Swear.  I want to create a villain who hates robots and computers (seems a natural now that Grandpa has all of these robotic helpers), and I also am working on an idea for a doll-themed villain who I'm calling Lucille Dahl.

Stories that I am theoretically working on:

Maid Ex Machina

I Think Therefor

Infinite Dojo

Recipe for Disaster

So Good It's Plaid

The Trouble With Annie

Micronation

Fear and Loathing in Frosthaven

Every Alien Race Loves Shakespeare

Doomscrolling

Badge and Gun