sleeplesspotato

I hit my 15k goal yesterday, which means that I'm around halfway through my 30k estimate for the Castlevania OT3 fic. I managed to hit 500+ words a day every day except for that time I was writing before midnight and finished less than 400 words. (I made up for it after midnight, though that means I won't be getting the daily par badge.) This is the most words I've written with this much consistency; I ought to be happier about having gotten this far, except I know I have to keep this up for at least another month. (And then there's the editing...)

Initially I thought I could write and edit each chapter as I went along; maybe if my plot were shorter I could do that, but it's relatively long and complicated. I've also been surprising myself with how certain scenes have turned out -- though the plot points I've mapped out are still holding up, the scenes that fleshed them out have thrown me for a loop enough times that I'll have some significant retconning to do in previous chapters. For what it's worth, I'm enjoying the shape my villains have taken and will hopefully get back to writing more action-adventure after all these introspective scenes (which I apparently fall back on when it's hard to figure out what to write).

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So far there are only 5 dill seedlings; there would have been 6, except the initial 5th one was unable to grow its leaves because they were still stuck in its seed. For a while I thought it was growing upside-down, then it died. :( The current 5th one was able to grow its leaves long enough that it survived even after I plucked off the seed stuck to the tips of those leaves. Earlier I cut off a few of the topmost leaves of the bigger seedlings since they looked like they were yellowing -- I hope it's okay to cut them already, they're only around 3 inches long. ^^;;

The kale are down to the last 2 seedlings; one is clearly doing better than the other, so I'll probably keep that one. I'll have to find a bigger (at least 30cm in diameter) pot for it.

The ginger has finally put out a tiny green shoot after almost a month of me watering it and wondering if it hadn't yet died. Now I just have to wait another 9 months or so before harvesting it, though I've read that I can start slicing off bits of it after around 2-3 months.

I've been enjoying Camp NaNo so far, though I've encountered some issues with the site -- for instance, the group chat page doesn't load most of the time, and the account settings page is picky about what it lets you edit (in particular, it doesn't let you change your timezone on its own; you have to change something else along with it). The feature for setting your word count even has a known bug preventing some people from updating their status within 24 hours of a goal starting; thanks to the forum post detailing this I found out about the Stats page, which apparently has a more reliable version of that feature. Overall I've found the site to be a bit user-unfriendly in terms of feature discoverability and ease of use, but when it does work as expected it's not so bad. Maybe it's a sign for me to stop spending time on the site and spend more time writing. ^^;;

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Some things I've found while procrastinating:

Kekeflipnote animation featuring birds dancing the can-can: This was animated on the Nintendo DSi; it's hard for me to imagine animating something on a screen that small. ^^;;

Twitter thread screenshots (on Tumblr) about the mystery of the disappearing drunk pill bugs: This has an unexpectedly cute ending; I thought at first that it was a dog's fault, but no dogs were mentioned. For some reason the original Twitter thread is gone, so I'm glad someone took screenshots.

Tiktok video (on Tumblr) of deaf actor Daniel Durant talking about listening to music: I spoiled myself a little by checking the Wikipedia page for CODA, but that just makes me want to watch it more. Hope it comes to Netflix eventually.

Tumblr thread about the Virgin Mary lactating and St. Bernard of Clairvaux: Projectile lactating is apparently a thing.

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I recently got to play the demo of the new Kirby game on the Switch; it's the first Kirby game I've played and I had so much fun. <3 It's such a cute game, and the demo even has some replay value -- once you've completed it the game gives you power-ups for the abilities Kirby can pick up and encourages you to replay the stages to try them out. I'm looking forward to playing the rest, though I ought to get back to Pokemon Legends Arceus first; I'm past the halfway point in that game and I want to finish it before I get too immersed in another game. (My "problem" with Arceus is the same one I had with Breath of the Wild -- I keep exploring everything I find interesting and ignoring the main quest line. It makes for engaging gameplay but it also feels like I'm taking too long to finish the game. ^^;;)

Also: a cute animation of the many ways Kirby can drive a car (before I played the game I didn't know which one actually happened) and a possible in-game Itou Junji reference that makes me wonder if Kirby is actually a horror game masquerading as a cute kid's game. (I mean, Kirby is an alien from another planet who swallows things and acquires their attributes, so there's an argument to be made about inexplicable cosmic horrors going on there.)

The last weekend was exhausting, and I've been lagging behind a bit in Camp NaNo. OTL I suppose it was a good idea to set a low word count so it's not that hard to catch up.

Castlevania OT3. I'm mostly(?) done with chapter 2, which seems to be somewhat wonkier than chapter 1; I have this habit of setting up all sorts of things in the beginning then figuring out what to do with them as I go along, which can lead to inconsistencies. Even when I have an outline or scene notes, I keep pulling things out of thin air and tossing them into the chapter almost subconsciously. (In particular, the castle is getting a bit overpowered; I might have to dial back the things it can do.) I'm glad that the 21 Days to a Novel exercises have helped me to stay on track, though I think I've already veered off-course somewhat.

Chapter 3's opening scene has already played out in my head; I might wind up finishing it before I finish the final scene of chapter 2, which is probably okay since I still have to bridge them. I probably need to do some streamlining in chapter 2 since I keep forgetting that the reader doesn't know what I already know about the characters' motivations. ^^;; If this keeps up, the word count for chapter 2 might be padded a bit, and I might get to around halfway of chapter 3 by the end of the month.