2016 - Goals, and So Far

Goals for 2016:  Pretty much exactly what my goals were for 2015 -- that is, write 2 Grandpa Anarchy stories a month, write a story set in my fantasy universe, finish my third magical girl adventure arc in Girl's School and also begin the next chapters after that.  Also, publish the rest of what I've written for Girl's School, and get my Grandpa Anarchy book published.

Anyway.

I have five folders of completed Grandpa Anarchy stories, listed mostly in order of completion and in the order that I would expect to publish them in five books.  Every time I start a new round of stories, I've created a new folder and designated it the next book -- but a few of those  stories have not been finished.  Book 1 is complete and I really need to get around to publishing it, but Book 2 contains at least one long, unfinished story, World of Hero.  Book 4 has another long story, Second Class, that is unfinished, and also a short story called Gate Into Danger.  Book 5 contains mostly the stories I wrote last Spring during Camp NaNoWriMo and just before and after that.   There were several stories that I started or designated as stories I was going to write, but never managed to finish.

This past week, I've been going through each story in Book 5 and rereading them, and tweaking or reworking them as needed.  When I reached Gorgon Gun (story number 160), I found a half-finished idea that I had struggled to finish back in May 2015 and then dropped.  That was pretty much the last time I tried to finish a Grandpa Anarchy story in 2015, apart from the Christmas story I wrote.

So I began working on it and last Saturday I finished it.  Then I proceeded along, and did some extensive rewriting on Asphalt Cemetery, and then pulled some of that out and placed it in a kind of sequel that I had envisioned but had not written called Sharp-Dressed Man.  I managed to finish that story today, so I'm feeling pretty good about what I've accomplished so far in 2016.

I read Girls of Two-Fisted Justice today, and also Old.  I like both stories, but I especially liked Girls of Two-Fisted Justice because I really didn't remember how it went.  The ending was kind of a surprise, and it worked.

I still have several stories in book 5 that need to be written.  I want to get most of those done so I can plan new stories.

End of 2015 Update

Here were my goals for the year:

1.  Write two Grandpa Anarchy Stories Each Month.

What I did:

January

March 5:  Permit
March 7:  Abjure the Realm of No Return

February

March 25:  Superdrone
March 31:  Dream A Little Dream

March

April 1:  The Shadow Out of Joe's Mouth
April 2:  Elementary

April

April 3:  Whom the Mad Would Destroy
April 3:  Consuming Passion

May

April 4:  Substitute
April 5:  Godzilla Was An Artist

June

April 19:  Avatar Bazaar
April 19:  Old

July

April 28:  Girls of Two-Fisted Justice
April 29:  Walpurgisnacht

August

April 30:  Asphalt Cemetery
May 3:  The Heart of a Girl

September

May 10:  Lessons
May 10:  Number One

October

May 12:  The Trauma You've Been Craving
Dec 20:  Conspiracy Clause

So it looks like I fell 4 stories short of my goal.  Ah well.

2.  Finish Three Tai-Pan Stories.

I did nothing -- worked on some stories but got nowhere.

3.  Finish the third "magical girl" arc for Girl's School, and try to wrap things up.

I wrote over 50,000 words in November for NaNoWriMo, but the third magical girl arc is still not quite done.  I wrote a lot of stuff that happens after it, because that was easier.  :P

4.  Write 1 short story set in my Otherworld Blues universe.

I plotted a lot of stuff for Camp NaNoWriMo in July but ultimately I wrote nothing much.

5.  Publish Book One of my Grandpa Anarchy stories, edit 2nd book, assemble stories for 3rd book.

I did nothing.

List of stories I intend to work on:

Grandpa Anarchy Stories

World of Hero:  3 of 4 parts finished, but it's a mess.  Needs a rewrite.
Second Class (working title):  I did a lot of work on this in eary January, nothing since.
Unpossible:  No progress.
Serial Anarchy:  This is the Grandpa Anarchy novel I started in November.
Gate Into Danger:  A SG1-themed story that I meant to write this year.

Conspiracy Clause:  I actually wrote this one!  ^_^

Fan Fiction

Girl's School, Third Magical Girl Arc (Kahotep Adventure).
I Can See Clearly Now.
A Goddess In Oz.

Other Original Fiction

Otherworld Blues Stories, Jubel In Oz.

Tai-Pan Stories

Bitch, Chance Encounter, Blanking the Lady (variations), Zesh and the Bitted Throug.

Got Something Written

My plan for May was to keep writing and finish off all of the stories I began in April.  Then on the 2nd I went with friends to see The Avengers:  Age of Ultron, and afterwards they helped give me three new story ideas:  Murderbot 146, Old Boy's Club, and Secret Crisis Wars.

During the week I managed to actually finish one story:  All the Trauma You've Been Craving.  But I came up with three new story ideas:  Sisterly Love (about a sister city to Frosthaven, NJ), Number One (a tribute of sorts to Kim Jong Il -- and a story about who is really Grandpa's #1 fan) and Pharmacopia (about a villain whose name was, at first, Big Pharma).

Over the weekend I came up with yet another story idea:  Doom, about a super group in the Grandpa Anarchy universe that is a bit like the Doom Patrol (ie very weird).  I can't help myself, and I'm kind of going backwards as far as completing stories that I've started since April.  I complained on Twitter late Saturday night that I'd failed to get anything written, then I stayed up hours past Midnight finishing a story that I retitled Lesson, and working hard on Number One, which I finished the next morning.  I did a lot of work on Murderbot 146 later Sunday and hope to get it finished today.  So that's progress!

Murderbot 146 comes from Ultron.  After the movie we were discussing the origin of Ultron -- I didn't know he (or Vision) were from the comics for sure, never having followed any Avenger-related titles.  Chuck explained that Ultron was created pretty much as in the movie (and Vision also, created by Ultron).  In the comics, every time Ultron reappeared he had upgraded himself and was given a new number, so "Ultron 2", "Ultron 3" and so on.  Eventually they dropped that numbering system, but the idea of a robot nemesis who had upgraded himself dozens and maybe hundreds of times and still couldn't manage to defeat his creator appealed to me.  Also, we thought it would be funny if his attempts at upgrading were lagging behind the pace of technological innovation, so that he was actually falling further and further behind the curve.

I worked on this Sunday night, but I don't really have a punchline for it yet.  After I went to bed I got back up twice to add more lines to the story -- so it's kind of percolating in the back of my mind.  Maybe I'll come up with a good ending for it, we'll see.

Post-Camp NaNo Goals

I feel like I've got multiple spinning plates on poles at the moment.  I finished Camp NaNoWriMo with several stories started but unfinished -- and then, while working on Sharp Dressed Man, I realized that the ending wasn't working, at least in part, because I had two different things happening and I only needed one -- and the other thing could easily work as its own story.  I even already had a good ending for it.  So I split that story into two, with some rewriting needed on one and the other needing to be completely written.

Then I counted how many students I had named in Substitute, and I had named ten out of twelve.  The story was pretty long already and it  wasn't going to be easy to squeeze in the names of two more students -- but then I realized, I could milk the whole substitute teacher idea a bit more with a second story that fleshed out the other students a bit more.  The setting is a field trip, and one of the students is the main villain.

So within two days of the end of Camp NaNo, I'd already added two more stories to my list of stuff I needed to finish.  Then, after watching the Avengers movie on Saturday, my friends handed me three more story ideas.

Most of these are not simply "ideas" but complete stories in my head -- so I've got a lot to write at the moment.  I spent Sunday reworking the first Sartorial Scoundrel story ( the one I broke off from Sharp Dressed Man -- I'm calling this one Asphalt Cemetery, for reasons that probably will mean nothing to most readers.)  I finished that (again) and then later I was able to write All the Trauma You've Been Craving, which is short and maybe not that good, but anyway it's done.

I also decided to add two unfinished story ideas to my plate, and potentially 2-3 more.  All of these stories are more or less planned for a fifth Grandpa Anarchy book if I ever get that far, and with one of the stories built around a potential "reboot" of the universe, I thought it would be time to work in my origin stories for the other memebers of the League of Two-Fisted Justice.  I have one, Unpossible, partially written for Unpossible Man, and another, Patron of the Arts, at least sketched out for Nina Ballerina.  I don't have origin stories planned yet for Dark Dr. Dark, Deep Fat Fryer, or Daisy, Warrior Princess, but I know Deep Fat Fryer's background and having a story for each would be nice.

I also jotted down yet another story idea that occurred to me.  I'd want to work that in, too.

My  goal for the week is to finish some of these other stories -- Field Trip, Sharp Dressed Man, Gorgon Gun, Oz On The Half Shell, Murderbot 346, and Secret Crisis Wars.

Camp NaNoWriMo Post-Update and April Writing Goals Report

Here's what I accomplished for the month of April (Camp NaNoWriMo):  I wrote about 36,000 words, so that met my goal of 35,000 words.  I did not write a story a day, so in theory that missed my goal.  But I wrote a lot more than I had for the last 10 months, so that was good.

I wrote/completed ten stories and am close to completing two more, and started six others.  So here's my rundown for my goal of two stories a month for the year:

January

March 5:  Permit
March 7:  Abjure the Realm of No Return

February

March 25:  Superdrone
March 31:  Dream A Little Dream

March

April 1:  The Shadow Out of Joe's Mouth
April 2:  Elementary

April

April 3:  Whom the Mad Would Destroy
April 3:  Consuming Passion

May

April 4:  Substitute
April 5:  Godzilla Was An Artist

June

April 19:  Avatar Bazaar
April 19:  Old

July

April 28:  Girls of Two-Fisted Justice
April 29:  Walpurgisnacth

August

April 30:  Asphalt Cemetary


So as you can see, I'm well on my way to completing my goal for this year.  It was a simple goal.  ^_^

I keep shuffling stories around and inserting new stories, so I thought I'd do a rundown of the stories I've written and what they're about.

Substitute  This is story 148.  My stories are numbered in roughly chronological order, so this is in theory the 148th Grandpa Anarchy story I've written -- but there are a few stories that have numbers which are still not written or finished yet.  World of Hero is stories 37 - 40, but desperately needs another rewrite.  Conspiracy Claus is not completely written, but will probably be story 148 when I write it (I'll have to renumber everything).  Second Class is a novel-length story about the Black Moon Maidens which is largely unwritten, and Gate Into Danger is story 141 and is not actually written yet.

This is a story about Grandpa Anarchy as a substitute teacher at a school for gifted delinquents.  I had started this idea at least a year ago, but added it to my Camp NaNoWriMo list and then finished it.  I bumped it back in the story list for two reasons -- one, it made sense given that I'd started it much earlier than my other recent stories, but mainly two, by bumping it back I didn't have to invent a dozen new teenage superheroes -- I could use some of the sidekicks in my recent stories, so that many of the characters introduced briefly in this story go on to make appearances in later Grandpa Anarchy stories.

I read this at April writer's night, it got a good reception and I reworked a couple of bits to make it better.

Field Trip  This story is unwritten, but basically is a continuation of the substitute teacher idea.  I did a head count and while I claimed there were a dozen students, I only named ten in the previous story.  I decided that I really should write a second story that mentions the other two.  I want several of the kids to be future villains, so I think this story is about one of them attempting to become a villain while on a field trip.  Also, I need to figure out who the sidekick is that's along for the ride and abusing his/her power over the kids.

Permit  Story 150.  This was written specifically as a second Mayor Doomhollow story.  Grandpa is seeking a building permit, along with his sidekick Glass Frog.

Abjure the Realm of No Return  This is a Lovecraft-inspired story.  I read this at March writer's night and people liked it.  I think it's one of my better stories this year.

Superdrone  Story 152.  A story about a drone attack.  I... can't remember if I like it or not.

Dream A Little Dream  This is a second Lovecraftian story.  I liked this idea when I thought of it, but I'm not sure it works right at the moment.  Needs a better ending.

Elementary  Story 154.  Another old idea that I had been meaning to write for a long time, this is a "Grandpa as Sherlock Holmes/Hercule Poirot/etc" story.

Shadow Out Of Joe's Mouth  Sounds like another Lovecraftian story, right?  Well, it isn't really.  A comic book villain from the Grandpa Anarchy comics comes to life.

Consuming Passion  Yet another story that I'd been working on for at least half a year.  I finally finished it!  A villain steals all of the chocolate in the city... and builds a castle out of it.

Whom the Mad Would Destroy  Story 157.  A Death Medal story, built around a famous quotation.

Godzilla Was An Artist  A Kid Calculus story, built around the idea that massive destruction is a form of art.

All The Trauma You've Been Craving  This is intended to be a Trauma Queen story, her first outing as a villain.  I have most of the story in my head but it's not really written yet.

Gorgon Gun  This will be story 160.  It's barely an idea, but I have a villain with a special weapon that turns people to stone, and I have Grandpa fitted with a fist of steel.

Oz On The Half-Shell  This is a novella-length short story, I think, at least 20,000 words.  It's mostly written but several scenes at the end need work, and it may need a rewrite.

Asphalt Cemetary  Working title for a story that is mostly written, about Grandpa confronting a villain named the Sartorial Scoundrel.

Sharp-Dressed Man  This was the title of the previous story, but I had to split it into two separate stories.  This one is not written yet, but it's mostly in my head so I think I can bang it out pretty quickly.  Also involves the Sartorial Scoundrel.

Happy When It Rains  Unwritten, not much more than an idea at the moment.

Avatar Bazaar  Written but I don't know if I like it or not.  Involves Grandpa working with another old hero named Freem Beam.

Walpurgisnacht  This turned into a longer story (3,500 words I think).  Based on the idea of April 30th and the legends built around Walpurgisnacht.  It involves Grandpa, Dark Dr. Dark, Unpossible Man, Black Dahlia, and DarkFireNinjaCatgirl.

Old  Grandpa is sued by another very old hero.

Heart of a Child  Story 168, not much more than an idea at the moment.

The Girls of Two-Fisted Justice  This turned into a longer story than planned, 3 scenes and at least 2,500 words.  I like it though -- about a cartoon version of the League of Two-Fisted Justice, aimed at teenage girls.

Old Boy's Club  Story 171.  A story idea I came up with (with help from several friends -- Matt, Jeri-Lynn, and Jeff among them.  Mike also.)

Murderbot 346  Another story made up just tonight, with the help of friends, and inspired in part by the Age of Ultron movie, and by Chuck's description of Ultron from the comic books in the sixties.

Unpossible  I've decided to make this story number 172 and try to finish it.  It's an origin story for Unpossible Man.  I want to do one for each current/former member of the League, so that would include...

Patron of the Arts  This is a proposed Nina Ballerina origin story.

I don't have titles for origin stories for Deep Fat Fryer, Dark Dr. Dark, or Daisy Warrior Princess.  But I'm leaving room for those three stories to be added.

Finally:

Secret Crisis Wars on Infinte Planets Part Seven, A New Hoop  You know, for kids.  Okay I couldn't avoid doing that joke... basically this is a "uninverse reboot" story, since those are so popular these days.

Camp NaNo Update / Writer's Night Update!

I should be keeping track of what I've read at Writer's Nights, and what I've worked on this month (which is Camp NaNoWriMo).

First of all, in January I read... well, I don't remember.  Let's work backwards on this one.  Last week was April Writer's Night (at Gene and Mike's place), and I read the story Substitute, which I completed earlier this month.  I rewrote the ending thanks to some good suggestions, mostly from Matt.  (I also wrote a brand new story suggested by Matt -- more on that later.)

March Writer's Night was at Sheryl and Shan's place, and I read Abjure the Realm of No Return, which I also wrote earlier in March.  I was really happy with it, but there were some suggestions that I incorporated into the story, mostly from Sheryl's friend whose name escapes me at the moment.  Good stuff though that improved the story!

February I read... I'm pretty sure I read Villain of the Weak.  I remember because Gene suggested a tweak for the ending which improved it quote a bit.  I still can't remember what I read in January... maybe it was Tryout Trouble because I know I've read that one.

No, I'm pretty sure it was Revealing, because that gave me the idea to write Permit.

Well, anyway... in March I wrote:  Permit, Abjure the Realm of No Return, Superdrone, and Dream A Little Dream.  I was writing right up to the start of Camp Nano and so it's hard to remember exactly, but all of those show last modified dates from March.

For Camp NaNoWriMo so far I have written:  The Shadow Out of Joe's Mouth, Substitute, Elementary, Consuming Passion, Whom the Mad Would Destroy, Godzilla Was An Artist, Old (idea suggested by Matt), and Avatar Bazaar.  I've also worked on a very long story called Oz on the Half-Shell, and I've started several story ideas/fragments:  All the Drama You've Been Craving, Sharp Dressed Man (which was a half-written story that already existed under a different name -- still half-finished), Gorgon Gun, Happy When It Rains, Walpurgisnacht, and Heart of a Child.  I've been doing most of my writing this week on Walpurgisnacht, but I'm not getting a whole lot of writing done atm.  :/

Writing Goals Update March 2015

I've been playing a lot of MMO online games.  As a consequence, I haven't managed to write very much since July.  But!  I did finally finish two stories this month -- so far.

For January Writer's Night I read Villain of the Weak, which got a good reception (Gene provided a much better, almost perfect ending line.)  February Writer's Night I read my story Revealing, which needs a couple of tweaks but got a good reception.  One thing about that story is that you learn about a former villain of Grandpa's named Judge Doomhollow, and I realized that I really needed to place him in another story.  So within the next couple of weeks I worked on, and finally managed to finish, a story called Permit.

Right after this I had an idea for a story inspired by the H.P. Lovecraft tale From Beyond.  I wrote my story that night, and titled it Abjure the Realm of No Return, which is a title I both love and hate.  In any case, these two stories are what I've accomplished for 2015.  I read Abjure at the March Writer's Night and it went over very well, only John had any comments which were small tweaks designed to improve the story (they did).  In fact, I didn't really provide a description for Grandpa, and there's no sidekick in the story, and nobody complained about either of these things, so I think the story worked quite well (I've since added a descriptive line for Grandpa, of course).

So my goal:  Write two stories a month for the year:

January:

May 5:  Permit
May 7:  Abjure the Realm of No Return

I am signed up for April's Camp NaNoWriMo and my goal will be to write a story a day, so we'll see if I can really manage that.  I accomplished this as a goal last April but failed in July when I tried it again.  But I have a lot of ideas I've come up with in the past half-year:

It's All Relative - An idea from last July that I still like.  Crackpots all over the world claim to disprove Einstein's Theory of Relativity -- it's kind of like Crackpot Science 101, that's just where they all start for some reason -- but in a world with superhero physics, what if a person's strong belief in their own crazy theory might actually alter reality?

Brain Salad / Banner of Worms - From February 2015.  This is one of those "ideas" that I can't remember what the central idea really was.  Apparently it's a story about a lone zombie being hunted by hordes of zombie apocalypse survivalists -- which now that I think about it, that's kind of a funny idea.

Dress Your Best - From last Fall, but worked on in January 2015.  This is a story that I've written a lot in the past few months, without really coming up with a good ending/plot.  I like the idea because I like the setting and the sidekick involved, and even the villain.  But it needs somewhere to go.

The Candyman Can / Chocolate Castle - Aug 2014.  A story in search of a better title, this is also more than half written and in need good ending.  A villain steals all the chocolate in town and constructs a castle out of it, which is slowly melting.

Dream A Little Dream - This one is kind of a riff on the Call of Cthulhu.  Surprisingly, I've written quite a bit of it (just a few weeks ago -- this is a March 2015 idea) and then almost forgot about it completely.

The Dreamquest of Unknown Anarchy - March 2015.  So many ideas for this, so little direction.  I've actually written down quite a bit for this one.  My general idea is to do three short stories that serve as scenes out of a much larger work that you never get to see.  I've done that before.  There's a lot of material in the Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath to riff on, but I don't have any specific jokes or concise ideas yet.

I've listed this as my project title for Camp NaNoWriMo in April, although at best it's 3 or 4 short stories that are tied together.

Deadly Rainbow - July 2014.  Apparently I thought this was a funny title for a Grandpa Anarchy story.  I have no story attached to this file, just the title.

The Dutchman's Trousers - March 2015.  Grandpa fights a possessed pair of trousers.

Elementary - I've never done a Grandpa Anarchy explains the murder scene.  That's the basis for this story, which is more than half written.  From October 2014.

Godwined - A sort of story idea built around Godwin's Law of Time Travel, or possibly a proposed Godwin's Law of Superheroism, or maybe even tangentially related to Reductio ad Hitlerum.  I haven't really gotten beyond that basic idea.  July 2014.

The Great Brain Robbery - It's a brain switch story.  I don't think I've done one of those yet.  Only a few lines to this one so far, but I have the complete idea so it's ready for me to write.  Sept 2014.

Hooked On A Feeling - From August 2014, this is, yes, a space opera story inspired by Guardians of the Galaxy.  I don't know if I have an actual plot though.

Mercury In Retrograde - I'm not sure if I had a clear-cut idea for this one either, other than to riff on silly astrology.

Mission - An idea based on a "what if Grandpa got tips for missions like you do in an MMO game?"  I'm not sure if this really deserves to be a finished story or not.

Nefarious Things - Just a title really, no story attached.

Patron of the Arts - I think this is the Nina Ballerina origin story.

Rare Books - It occurs to me that the Necronomicon is like the Gideon's Bible of rare occult books.   It's everywhere.  March 2015.

Robe and Wizard Hat - No story idea attached, but I really need a story with this title.

Serial Anarchy - This was going to be a novel that I wrote in November.  I didn't get far.

Shadow Out Of Joe's Mouth - A story about a strange shadow creature.  This is actually a story about a villain from the Grandpa Anarchy comic books suddenly appearing in the real world.  March 2015.

The Space Between Worlds - This was actually an early version of Abjure the Realm of No Return, which I wrote a few weeks ago.  I think I saved the idea as two different names.

Substitute - An idea from July that I still want to do, about Grandpa Anarchy working as a substitute teacher at a school for gifted superpowered kids.

Superdrone - a villain who fights by proxy -- drone proxy.  An idea I came up with today, that I should be writing now instead of this.

The Curse - A story idea inspired by a song, Drink With the Living Dead.  Grandpa's been in that kind of situation before, I think -- except Grandpa doesn't drink.

The Machine - A play on the phrase Dues Ex Machina, where a god literally comes out of a machine.

The Thing in the Sewer - Monster in the sewer story.  Kind of a lame idea, although I have an ending.

Time On My Hands - I'd forgotten about this one, from Nov 2014.  A story about the Literate Lemur trying to kill Grandpa Anarchy -- which is definitely not his style.  I've written a lot on this one.

Whom the Mad Would Destroy - A Death Medal story.  Mostly a few lines of dialog, but I like them so much that I need to craft a story around them.

Why Do Ghosts Have Clothes - Seriously.  Why?