Moves Like Jagger: Chapter 4

Whee! New update! :D

When I was done with the whole chapter, I found out that I have 4600 words! I know that in "I Want To Be A Turk!", my chapter averages 4000-4500 words. but i shouldn't assume that all my readers like long chapters. Hence, I split it up to two chapters. Yes folks, the story will end at Chapter 6 (Hopefully).

On average I write 2000-2500 words per chapter... but that was last time. Now I shall aim to submit 3000-4000 words per chapter. Not for the Turk one, I think I can't afford the the luxury to have 100 chapters of 2500 words per chapter :P

Yeah, I know. This chapter is not that great. I did like the Aerith reference, and i had some plot bunny being conceived in the womb of my imagination... okay still too early to talk about it. Yes, I know that I didn't really put in too much effort for this chapter. the chapter lacks flavour. well, the initial plan is a REALLY long chapter (refer above). now that i spilt it up, of course this chapter is boring :P hopefully the next chapter is exciting for you guys :)

I admit. I didn't proofread my chapter tonight. I'm too tired. it's 2 am here and i'm just going to upload and sleep. tomorrow i shall enjoy my long-awaited laksa (google is your friend here :)) and hopefully NOT write stories. :P

Plot Bunnies: Listing them out

I won't birth my plot bunnies, but that doesn't mean that i'm not allowed to list them out and figure out which one i might do next and etc. I'll only write the title and category, and note that listing them out doesn't mean that they'll be published for sure. I may decide to scrap the idea after all and there's nothing you can do about it, wahahhah!

This is my list of incomplete and uncreated stories! From the title, can you tell what I'm going to do? :)

In alphabetical order

1. AVALANCHE! (FF7)

2. Be My Knight (FF8)

3. Case of Meia [title to be revised] (FF7)

4. Cross Over (Ragnarok Online)

5. Explosion [title to be revised] (FF7)

6. Love Rescue (FFX-2)

7. My Adventurous Firefly (SDK)

8. Romeo and Juliet (FF8 style!) [title to be revised] (FF8)

9. Silent Stories of the Aeons (FFX)

10. Sphera (FFX)

11. The Last Child [title to be revised] (FF7)

12. The Only Exception (FF7)

13. Their Memories of Fukinara High [yes, it's not over yet!!] (SDK)

14. Waiting For Him (SDK)

14 stories! can you sense how stressed I am? how of the 14 stories, only 3-4 are one-shots and short stories (less than 10 chapters). DAMN IT.

so of course, prioritise, prioritise. so here's my plan of what i'm going to do next.

Within the next 6 months:

The Only Exception (FF7)

Case of Meia (FF7)

AVALANCHE! (FF7)

Within the next 2 years:

Love Rescue (FFX-2)

Be My Knight (FF8)

Waiting For Him (SDK)

Within... :\

Cross Over (Ragnarok Online)

Explosion (FF7)

My Adventurous Firefly (SDK)

Romeo and Juliet (FF8 style!) (FF8)

Silent Stories of the Aeons (FFX)

Sphera (FFX)

The Last Child (FF7)

Their Memories of Fukinara High [yes, it's not over yet!!] (SDK)

Ambitious, no? :)

I Want to be a Turk: Chapter 30

Whee! 30th chapter! So many many many many more chapters to go!!!!

I guess I couldn't wait till the weekend (as in Saturday for me), so I've uploaded it slightly earlier. =)

Firstly, I would like to thank Tifa, TWA (esp TWA, your words made me smile!), Akirakei and Takara for their reviews again :D It really brings joy to see that you guys liked my story enough to review.

Okay, into the chapter proper. 4500 words! I swear, if I put all these energy into writing an original story, i would've been able to publish one long ago... of course that is, if im good enough :P the chapters seem to get longer and longer. it's like every week I tell myself 'okay, aim to write 4000 words ONLY. Ideally 3500, but i know you always exceed. So 4000." and then by the end of my editing i think to myself, 'didn't i say 4000 words?'

i really salute you people for the determination to read such a long chapter each time.

I like the section where Meia found out more about her father. You'll see more of Joseph Etsky's journal entries as the chapters run along. As for the 6-digit combination code as Meia's birthday, i 'stole' the idea from the webnovel, "On the Way to a Smile: Case of Shinra". You should give it a try if you want to know what the Turks and Rufus were doing after FF7 till the start of Advent Children. It also explains why Rufus contracted Geostigma.

Here's the link: http://ffviinovels.lhyeung.net/caseofshinra/

but my favourite part is the cissnei part. despite having written down in my story plan that i intended this scene to happen, when i wrote the chapter i completely forgot about it till i was proofreading the chapter. hehe. so in my haste i wrote out this part, and i am quite happy with the result. this is the part for me that cissnei is starting to form feelings for zack fair, but well... there's aerith. :\

oh yes, the dinner part was in reference to zack's DMW memories with cissnei. the one where he asked her out for dinner (duh.) i will include more crisis core references, that's a definite as long as zack fair is concerned. i hope you all know that currently my story is at the stage where zack just acquired the Buster Sword, the end of Chapter 6, if i'm not wrong 0.o

And of course, i left the BC part where the Turk needs to protect Dr. Rayleigh as Shotgun (female) i.e. Cassie. But as you can see, I was clearly running out of space so I didn't write about the mission, only brought it up as a lame conversation with Meia :P sometimes some sacrifices have to be made. if not i'll never finish my story XD

Of course, Cloud and Aerith finally made their cameos! Erm... In case you're wondering, Meia won't meet any of the FF7 main cast till MUCH later. Meia will meet Aerith soon, soon enough. She'll be the first of the main cast that Meia will meet, I think. the rest well... they might only meet Meia face to face in Part 2 of this story. If not, they'll at most be mentioned but not play a big part. If you wanna know, Part 2 begins at the end of Crisis Core and Before Crisis. Yeah, the beginning of FF7... so you know we have a long way before part 1 ends.

honestly? you don't have to think so much. just enjoy the story and leave the thinking and planning to me :P

and yeah, the last part on stalking Rude is from BC :) the next chapter will be absolutely awesome... i hope :P

whoa... long A/N this time around. Please read and review!

PLOT BUNNY EXPLOSION!

I'll NEVER FINISH WRITING ALL THE PLOT BUNNIES IN MY HEAD!!!!!

i suppose i could write them in a list just so that you guys can enjoy but..

another time :)))

I Want to be a Turk: Chapter 29

Wheee! Authors' Notes again!

Finally! After two weeks, it's time to release yet another chapter of "I WANT TO BE A TURK!" I must apologise for the late update. I figured that if I’m gonna update ‘Moves Like Jagger’ in a week then I’ll upload the Turk chapter the week after. Besides, delaying the turk chapters motivates me to finish up the Moves Like Jagger chapters! I think the next "Moves Like Jagger" chapter will be released in NOVEMBER, but no promises!

Aha! We meet Rufus! :D Finally! *ominous Shinra theme playing in background* I spent a bit describing him. Yes, from the very beginning he'll be badass :D will Meia interact more with him? nahh i doubt so. :P

At last, Meia's past is revealed! I'm REALLY tempted to make her a Cetra, but I'm glad I'm sticking to a more realistic path. Having a dad as a Turk makes more sense :) I hope I did her explanation part well. It was quite a mouthful and once again, I'm not philosophical so... hehe.

by the way, the last name 'Etsky' is original. I have no idea what it means and what not :P

Finally, I want to thank TWA and Takara for the reviews. and also to Hikari Kurai, who gave me encouraging words to motivate me. I will continue to work hard and not make this story too... terrible (you were hoping that i would say i'll cut down the story, huh? :P)

It's very comforting and encouraging to (apart from the usual reviewers) receive reviews and PMs from people who don't review often. To the other readers who reads my story, do drop me a PM or a review and say hi. it brings me great pleasure to know that people are reading my stories and taking my words seriously. So feel free to make your presence known. Nevertheless, thank you for reading my chapters :)

gosh it's 3:30 AM. time to sleep. thank you for ploughing through this LONG A/N!!

Movie Review (2): Real Steel

I just came back from the theatres. I watched the movie "Real Steel" starring Hugh Jackman. Now, Hugh Jackman did an awesome job as Wolverine so of course I want to watch Real Steel..........

Of course not. Truth is, the movie didn't even appeal to me.

no matter how I looked at it, it seemed like some random robot boxing movie. and seriously? robot boxing? still, i went to watch because my friends were raving at how awesome it was.

verdict? yeah it is awesome. it is also true that it is a robot boxing movie :P i shall not dwell too much on details, but it's movie worthwhile to watch.

now of course as usual, i won't bring in random stuff unless it had anything to do with writing. I noticed that in the movie, the script 'cleverly' left out details of the characters. So we leave the cinema having a pretty good idea why the protagonist was initially so messed up, but we weren't told the whole tale.

take for example, hugh jackman apparently had this nemesis who taunts him whereever he goes, saying things like 'i'll beat you up just like back then!' so we kinda know that their vengeance runs deep, yet we don't know the specifics.

i really wonder if it's wise to keep details so vague and open to our interpretation. for myself i try my very best to reveal all information and not be too implicit in describing my story. but it is true that sometimes describing things so explicitly takes the mystery away and dulls the story. so... how much should we imply and how much should we reveal?

decisions, decisions :)

Disclaimer: Despite the official term, the above review is not a wholesome and fully critical one. The blog entry merely reviews and reflects the performance on based on story writing and other literary elements.

My Writing History... Part 2

list of things that i want to say:

1. NaNoWriMo

2. China writing trip

3. Plot Bunnies

but anyway i shall talk about something else today. i remembered that i need to finish up my introduction, the one that i left off a few months ago.

I've taken many unannounced hiatuses over the years of being a fanfiction writer, but i'm glad to say that for the past year, i have yet to become missing in action. So that's good. with my graduation in the coming may, i'm not too sure whether my career will allow me to write as much. so the best (and perhaps the last) time is now. i don't want to let go till the last moment, and God forbid, i will keep writing to my last author's breath.

My writing style is kinda funny I guess? I started writing fanfiction out of a whim, but eventually after "KISS Me!", i became serious with writing and i sought to write a story that is flawless in development. actually i only want to write a story that doesn't have story loopholes but yeah, from that desire "Their Memories of Fukinara High" is birthed. I am happy that my goal was achieved, fairly at the very least.

With "I Want To Be A Turk", I set for myself two new goals:

1. To create an OC that isn't attention-grabbing and all-special like how other OC-stories can get (not that it's bad, but i want to try something different)

2. To place an OC in canon... which can only be done if the OC is completely hidden.

Have I achieved this? No. Sadly. I wish I can say Meia is as human as we are, but still... she's not, hehe. Neither is she completely hidden. But i like the way the story has developed, it's too late for me to change anyway!

Perhaps... if this story ends (i don't think it'll EVER END!), and i'm still free enough to venture, i'll try OC stories again. Plot bunnies have been invading my mind and it certainly isn't a friendly thing to behold.

(okay, i left it at that yesterday so i lost my train of thought. another time then :))

How to comment on this blog

Apparently some of you said that you can't comment without having a google account. I've done it after I signed out of my google account and it worked fine. Here's a step-by-step tutorial and hopefully you are able to talk to me :D (please enlarge if the images are too small!)

Step 1: Under my post, click on the "comments" link. It should be (number) comments... mostly 0 because no one has commented nuts :P

Step 2: click the drop down list and select "ANONYMOUS". I have yet to try the name/url one. but the anon option worked for me when i signed out of my google account, so i think you guys can use that. do include your name in your message though, so then i would know who you are, of course :)

type your message and press "POST COMMENT"

Step 3: type in the security code and click "POST COMMENT" again!

Step 4: Your comment will be sent to my email for moderation, so no flamings, obviously :)

There, I hope that you guys are able to comment successfully on my blog!

Moves Like Jagger: Chapter 3

Amazingly, I finished yet another chapter of this story! Two more chapters and I'll be done!

The story has (unintentionally) gone on the shoujo manga route. Fluff, brainless and unrealistic. No, my story has not become that yet. But the story development is quite remiscient of shoujo manga... so... :X

There isn't much to say for uploading this time round :P

I Want to be a Turk: Chapter 28

With that, almost 10 days after the last update, I am here to announce the new release of the chapter!

I'm going to have to spread out the chapter uploading a little wider... I want to revise the (tons of) chapters that are yet to be updated and I would probably do a good character analysis of some people... namely Fuhito, Veld and... that's all that I can think of off the top of my head.

In the course of the week, I had a pretty good conversation with one of the writers on FF.net. She (generic term) wrote a story which I have been subscribing. Everytime I read a new chapter from her, I walk away (metaphorically, of course) feeling simply awed. :P So she gave me some pointers about my story. It's a little hard to change, I admit. My story in essence is not dark and cynical, but I really, REALLY fear that my story edges on the sweet, sacharine side :p anyway, I'll do my best :)

You know, while mulling over my stories, many plot bunnies invaded my mind. Maybe I should sit down and list them out so I have a better idea of what I'm expecting :X Maybe I should first finish up my incompleted work :X