The Short Answer
I wrote some stories in July for Camp NaNoWriMo, I did not write as much as I wanted, then I wrote nothing in August. In September I decided to write a story a day, and I actually managed to write 1 1/2 stories in 11 days. (The second one is nearly finished.)
The Long Answer
I've rambled before about my thought processes as I've tried to navigate this year's series of stories, so I'll try to not ramble too much.
Book 11: A Fists to the Face: I think it was late 2020 when I decided that my current "book" of stories had grown long enough. I capped it at 42 stories, including some I'd written as far back as 2018.
Book 13: Just One Punch: I tossed some of my more recent stories into a new book file by this title. I didn't have any particular plans for this collection of stories, it was meant to be random Grandpa Anarchy stories like the last volume. However over the course of 2021 it's become more of an episodic tale, with most of the stories following directly after the last.
The first stories in this volume were ones I wrote earlier in 2020, including 407 Robe and Wizard's Hat, 408 Asylum, 409 It's Complicated, 410 University of Hard Knocks, 411 To Punch a Hitler, 459 Internet Villains (which I just realized I'd also numbered 411), and 412 Indestructible. Robe and Wizard's Hat is the story I've read most recently, for August writer's night. People liked it quite a bit so that's cool.
The Annie Two Robot Tales: I set out to write several semi-related stories involving Annie Two and her clones. These were I, Gardener, Maid Ex Machina, Infinite Dojo and Princess of Pluto. By the time I'd finished these, I'd decided to bring an old enemy of Grandpa's back to life, and this story was The Return of Normal.
At this point I had five stories that formed a cohesive narrative, and I wanted to continue it -- and so just about everything else I've written in 2021 is part of a linear narrative, which has complicated my writing and caused me to back up and rewrite things several times, or scrap stories that I've already written, or insert stories in between two already-written stories to try and make more sense of the linear narrative.
The Miss Anarchy Tales: This started when I wrote the story where Victory Honesty St. Normal is resurrected, in a clone body of Grandpa's sidekick Glory Ashes (daughter of Julia Judas, head of Omnigen and an enemy of Grandpa Anarchy). Almost immediately I rewrote it so that Grandpa Anarchy also dies and is resurrected in another clone body. I had Grandpa pose as Miss Anarchy, and then tried to write a story in which Julia Judas kidnapped her. This story I called Orphan White.
This didn't work, and I backtracked and rewrote several stories, ending with the new Miss Anarchy leaving for a short adventure in space with her two great granddaughters Elsie and Kelli. I then wrote two stories that were to take place after those space adventure stories, which again involved Julia Judas trying to adopt the new Miss Anarchy and gain control of the Anarchy Estate. These were Mother's Treasure and Trust Mother.
These stories were frankly terrible, and I decided to set them aside and forget about them, and instead focus on a series of space adventures. The idea all along was that Miss Anarchy would spend some time in space with her great granddaughters, and then show up for the premier of the movie The Girls of Two-Fisted Justice, which was a live action movie based on the cartoon show, starring Miss Anarchy of course. This was meant to happen in just a couple of weeks, so the adventures in space were meant to take about two weeks.
Space Adventures: However, I had so many weird ideas about what might happen that I just began writing whatever crazy idea popped into my head. What if Miss Anarchy decided to remain a girl? What if she married the actress who plays her in the movie? What if she were adopted by Julia Judas after all -- not as part of an evil plot, but as an above-board arrangement and cover story? What if Annie Two created a robot Grandpa Anarchy as another cover story? What if Eternia the Watcher -- an alien with godlike powers -- owed Grandpa Anarchy a favor, and Miss Anarchy decided to use it to change the past? What if, because of that, she has a mysterious rival/enemy that she doesn't even know about, because we're now dealing with two different histories? What if Miss Anarchy were a magical girl? What if a ghost from her past who has haunted her for many years, can finally be seen only because she's now a girl?
Obviously some of this worked, some of it didn't, and some of it came from so far out in left field that it felt like I needed to backtrack and establish some things before it all made sense. (Some of it I haven't bothered to write at all.) I wrote a story called Just Like Miss Anarchy which involved the actress Catherine McDowell showing up on the station, but then I backtracked and wrote a different story called Mating Ritual. I wrote a series of stories that all took place on the Space Babes space station, and I'd planned several more. There was a story file called Beauty Treatment, about the mothers of Elsie and Kelli showing up on the station. Another is called Becoming the Story, about a reporter who is on the station to do a story on Miss Anarchy. There's Ghost, which was the idea that the ghost of a girl who died many years ago suddenly appears to Miss Anarchy (her death is mentioned in another story, it involves one of Grandpa's adoptive sons). There's a half-completed story called True Colors which takes place directly after Revenge, and also involves a magic ring that shows up in another story, so I kind of have to write it. Lastly, there's Noticeable One, which is a very long story involving a Miss Anarchy stalker trying to kill her. I wrote some good stuff for that but I may never complete it.
But What About the Space Adventures? I reached a point where I'd written at least ten stories which took place in space, but only one of them was an actual space adventure. The others were things that happened on the space station, but didn't involve Miss Anarchy, Elsie, Kelli and Trinity doing what they were supposedly there to do. In late May/early June I backtracked to try and fix this problem, and I wrote a series of stories in June and July that involved the four of them actually going on missions to other planets. These stories were Buttercup, Chaos Theory, Amaranthine Shores, The Spice of Life, Good Vibrations, Woofy, and Optimal Performance. By the time I had all of these stories written (and had reworked them several times), I felt much better about the whole "space adventure" part of the narrative.
The Miss Anarchy and Cat Conundrum: My biggest problem, however, was explaining why Grandpa Anarchy would decide to remain Miss Anarchy and marry Cat (the actress from the movie). This happened in the story Mating Ritual, and I'd written a story called Afterglow that was meant to explain why Miss Anarchy would agree to the new status quo, but it really didn't work at all. I'd written myself so far past that point -- seven additional stories that took place afterwards -- that I really didn't want to walk it back. But also it needed to make sense, and I could tell that it didn't. For a long time, I couldn't really figure out a way to make it work.
While working through my Miss Anarchy conundrum, I worked on a story idea with the temporary title of Marry Her that was supposed to bridge this gap between Mating Ritual and Afterglow. Eventually I spun two stories out of this file, For One Night, that dealt with Miss Anarchy's struggles over her relationship with Cat, and Stranger Danger, based on the idea that if Grandpa did become Miss Anarchy, then surely Miss Anarchy had travelled into the past to warn Grandpa Anarchy about things. But when I finished both of these stories, I was no closer to a workable resolution.
Four POV Stories: I considered writing a story from Cat's point of view to explain why she was in love with Grandpa/Miss Anarchy. Around this time I also felt like I wasn't getting into the heads of Elsie, Kelli and Trinity like I wanted to, so I plotted four stories, one from each of their points of view. Cat's Story was the one about Cat (obviously). Honey Bottom was the one about Elsie (her name for the demon Hanubatum whom she's contracted with). Nova Child was the one about Kelli -- unlike Elsie she didn't inherit a ring from her great grandmother, but she leans more heavily to the Nova side of the family and the Space Babes. The last one would be Core Program, which would explore how Trinity thinks and how she relates to Annie Two, if they are in fact separate entities. I really want to write these stories, they could prove very interesting, but so far they're just ideas.
The Anarchy Verse: I also created a story file called Strange Girls, which was another attempt to explain or work through the whole Grandpa Anarchy becomes Miss Anarchy thing. It included a conversation between Miss Anarchy and Kelli. I briefly considered having everyone travel back in time to meet Sappho of Lesbos -- mostly just because it sounded like a fun idea, I didn't have a good plot built around it yet, but the file also includes everything I wrote on that. Around this time I also wanted to create a multiverse crossover in the style of Into the Spiderverse, and I began coming up with alternate-universe Anarchy people. I used the Strange Girls file to write all of this down. The cartoon Miss Anarchy would be one, of course, but also I imagined a Victorian Gothic Miss Anarchy, a post-apocalypse Mad Max-style Anarchy, a universe where Old Man Anarchy is a black man from Chicago, and even a cartoon universe with an Anarchy Aardvark.
I didn't necessarily have a plot for all of this, but one of my wilder ideas was that the Mad Max Grandpa Anarchy from the Post-Apocalypse universe would decide to stay in this universe and become the new Grandpa Anarchy, since Miss Anarchy no longer was. I might still do this, because the idea of a Grandpa Anarchy who has spent most of his life in an apocalyptic wasteland, and knows nothing of modern society, appeals to me. In any case, I eventually decided to handle each alternate universe separately, in a chain of four stories, which I titled Into the Time Slip, In Another Dimension, The Void Would Be Calling, and Fantasy Free Me. Who knows when or if I'll write these though.
Other Story Ideas: Other story ideas that I came up with in the last two months include a story in which Black Dahlia and company summon Cthulhu to get his autograph (which, I decided would be fun to do since Cthulhu is in public domain). That was titled Sign Here Please. Working from the same idea, I decided that a Barsoom crossover would be fun since that's also public domain, so I created a file called Pauline, Maid of Mars. I wanted Miss Anarchy to try and change the culture of the Space Babes, now that she's an official representative of them, so I created a story file called Exploitation Station.
I thought Miss Anarchy might talk to the fairy princess version of her (Princess Paulina of Lialoshi), who had previously wished to replace Grandpa Anarchy, and see if she still wanted the job, only to find out she no longer wants it. For this idea I created a file called Take My Life Please. I came across the name of a Nazi villain that Sgt. Anarchy fought in World War II, The Angel of the Iron Cross, and I thought it would be fun to bring her back to life. I created another story file called Time Angel.
Obviously, I'm much better at creating story files than I am at completing stories, or ensuring that each story follows the next in a logical order. But this past week, I came up with a way to explain why Miss Anarchy would chose to remain Miss Anarchy. It makes sense for the character and it was far more simple than I'd imagined. This story is What I Am, which I've been working on all week and hope to finish this weekend.
