Let's Hear It For The Boys

Me: Ugh, I hate all these writer memes about how writers procrastinate by doing anything but writing.

Also me: Don't mind the construction I'm just re-working my website. I couldn't find a serial for reference for a thing I'm doing and I realized the mess my site was.

Character Inspiration

 I've discovered character inspo Pinterest and these models are pretty close to Jayden, Jacob and Soren.

This little story went through quite a few character edits. In the outline Jayden was just his roommate and not his stepbrother and didn't have any lines. Jacob's name was Landon for a while but I changed it because it looked similar to Luka. Also Soren's name was Mathias for a while but it just didn't fit.

AquaWorld II 
Recap
After an investigative documentary costs animal trainer Jacob King his job at the sea themed park AquaWorld he and his co-workers have a trespassing party where Jacob discovers AquaWorld has been hiding a merman named Soren .  After deciding Jacob isn't a threat Soren asks Jacob to help him find Luka, a mermaid that was taken with him and no longer at the park.

Get ready for a brief Cobalt reference...

AquaWorld II
Playlist
-1- Here Comes The Sun by The Beatles
-2- We Lost Another Sun by Pavlov
-3- Free by Franchesca Blanchard

Script Format !

I don't like too put much thought in mermaid reproduction but this image is cute to me !


 
You: So, how do your mermaids move on land ?

My brain:



You: How is the writing schedule coming ?

Me:

I actually do have most of AquaWorld done but it's just finishing everything else.

Also...I have two more Vice shorties (like less than 5,00 words) . One if from Charlotte's perspective and the other is crack-y Minnow story that is a little more angsty and a little...hotter. I haven't written it but I have the whole thing drafted in my head.


AquaWorld
This story came to me as the first line and then went from there. It has more than one section and it has a similar plot of FTUF but with different stakes.
AquaWorld Part I
Playlist
-1- Untouchable by Tritonal
-2- Way Back Home by SHAUN
- 3 - River Flows by Yiruma

Let's Talk About Mermaids !

This is an alternate cover. You all know how bad I am at titles and names (the other mermaid story still has some placeholder names) so don't think too much about the title. This short story is really more of an experimentation and plays on some similar themes of other things I've done.

Yes. Yes, I"m going to be sprinkling in some of my favorite mermaid pins along the way.

It's interesting, I've been extremely haphazard lately. I will go from kicking around and messing with an idea for months, slowly writing and deleting. The one day, in the span of three hours I'll edit it up, make a cover and post it. I say that to say what I'll post and when has gotten really unpredictable.

FZA
I am actually in a good place with FZA. I've got 8,000 words down and that doesn't include the NaNoWriMo stuff I did last year (!) that I need to edit up. I'm afraid my UL short story might end up DOA, I'm not sure quite how to finish it. But, let's save those for another day....

Follow The Unicorn Fish

Let's try this thing...

Playlist
-1- Silent Whispers by Carter Burwell
-2- Anyone Who Knows What Love is by Irma Thomas
-3- idk by lan.skey
-4- Afterthought by Dane Hyde
-5- In The Sun by Aron Wright
-6- Jurrasic World II: Anyone Who Knows What Love is by Norman Duck

Built for Sin II

CPShawna: Okay, girl time to write something !
Me: Okay ! Let me just do a quick Pinterest scroll

2 hours later on Pinterest:

 

I don't know what it is that makes me late to the game on everything but Pinterest has been giving me so much inspo  lately, particularly for FZA and Fishtales, and it has been a big time suck

I have also oddly found that a lot of fanart is relevant to my interests, particularly when thinking about the physicality of Haley and Luce's height difference. There is so few romantic themed photography with two men. There two are particularly relevant , captions aside.

I've also found a lot of Attack on Titan fanart gives me some serious Bright Lines vibes. I think a lot of this is art commissions of Wattpad fanfiction and have nothing to do with the actual show plot.

Built For Sin 

Recap: Haley and Luce have spent a little over a year experimenting in a D/s relationship. They're fooling around in Luce's car and Luce gets angry when he sees Haley's back has been bruised by a drunk client. But before anything can happen they are attacked by Covalcotti riders on motorcycles with machine guns. After leading the riders into the Sprawl, Luce blows up his car and they run away on foot... 

Built for Sin 2

Playlist

- 1 - Waves Crashing on a Distant Shores of Time by Clint Mansell

- 2- All I Want by Daniella Mason

- 3- Make Me Feel by Janelle Monae

- 4- Go Outside by Cults

Meme me up, Scotty !

2009 Shawna: I know, I know selling meth is obviously a bad thing for our protagonist to do, but Sawyer is only doing it because he is desperate and he is going to be punished and held accountable for breaking the law. .

2009Shawna: Yes, Juliana works in a strip club but she's only a waitress and she's doing it for the money. She'll come out the other side and turn her life around.

2018SHV: Here's that BDSM short story about a cartel hitman and a prostitute I was telling you about.

BFS
It is so weird to have spent months working on all these different novellas and then to just pop this story out in a few weeks and throw it out into the world. But it's the most finished of everything I'm working on and I can't look at it anymore.

This short story takes place after Sweet Prince and I tried to keep it compact but here are some fact to remember:

* After being released from Ft. Pride and spending time in rehab Haley goes to the cartel to take a hit out on Maxwell. Luce wants to take the hit once Haley has saved up the money and they form a friendship

* Haley works first at a factory then at Control, Jean Dory's secret brothel within the brothel , to earn the money

* One Federation Day he gets tired of waiting, goes rouge and decides to kill Maxwell himself. It fails. Twyla Banner, Luce's sister, gets involved but they manage to escape to a safehouse. 

* The cartel gives Maxwell a donation to look the other way on the assassination. Now Haley works at Control to pay for his hit and the money the cartel had to give Maxwell.

This story is like 10,000 words but I'm going to make it a two-parter

Part 1

Playlist

-1- Delicate by Taylor Swift

-2- Choose Me by James Blake

-3- Satisfaction by Benny Bennasi

Fishtales, woohoo ! (Burn 7)

#MermaidAesthetic

I know this is such a tease for what is to come since I don't super have a timeline for finishing anything. I'm really not sure in what order I'll share any of the stuff I'm currently working on (...can I call them WIPs ?) but I wanted to share a little something. These images aren't literal to the story  but more inspiration for the series.

Also...if you have any recs for places I can get names for a male merman let me know...I literally have a character with the placeholder name Mermie.

Speaking of mermaids....Lile, did we ever figure out what your code name Blue Water project was ? 

R&J Fluff ?
So, like I said I have been working on my UL short story but...I may find some room to write short R&J PWP fluff...

Burn 7
Phoenix/Sky is finding life with his parents not what he expected. Maxwell has decided to run for president (since it got taken away from him when Sky/Phoenix was taken) and is dragging his family reluctantly with him. Sky starts school at a UAF Boys Academy and during their public service event in the Sprawl he sees Honeysuckle Street (did you guys get this was a LL ref ?) and remembers his guardian told him to go there if anything went wrong when he first came. In the middle of a school field trip he  decides to take off his syndicate and walk away....

Playlist
Burn 7
-1- Youth by Daughter
- 2 - Rhapsody by Black Violin
- 3 - The War by SYML
- 4 - The Light by Album Leaf

Six Burn !

I've been working on this Haley/ Luce short story and this is me every time I have to type 'Types of Guns' into Google. 

Like any good writer I've been spending 80% of my writing time creating serial aesthetics. Here is one I did for Haley.

 

Burn 6  

Sky/Phoenix  has been back home in Fort Perch for a few weeks. Now that his family is back together and the press is good Kenneth Maxwell has decided he is going to run for president again, much to the surprise of his family.

Also, keep in mind that in the first chapter Sky gets the help of the Atlas captain's daughter Zarina Jeffries and her best friend Faith Morgan, a foster child who had to work to earn her stay on the satellite. Their names come up, that is why I'm mentioning them.

Burn 6

Playlist

- 1 - Tracking Aeroplanes by The Echoelon Effect

- 2 - Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People

 

Let's Do This Thing For Real: Burn Five, Look Alive !

So...it's been a while but.....

I'm back and so is my muse  !

I completely finished Burn a few weeks ago

And I've spent the last few months just writing and picking at  different things and trying things out. While there have been some setbacks it's mostly progress.

I've outlined two mermaid short stories that I'm tentatively calling Fishtales 

I've been getting more words done on FZA but it's been going like this

I'm 7,000 words into my UL thing and I'm looking at it like

 Also, um...

I'm  2,000 7,000 words into a BDSM erotic Vice short story with Luce and Haley

Well, it started out that way it's actually more romance-y now 

The Last Recap

Skylark Gray has grown up on The Atlas Star, a research satellite ship that rarely touches ground on Earth. He is a foster kid and raised by a guardian who is mostly ambivalent towards him except on his birthdays where they spend an hour in the Closet.

On his 16th birthday Sky goes looking for answers and discovers he is Phoenix Maxwell, the only son of the former president of the Republic who was famously kidnapped as a toddler and never found. His guardian had been sending the tapes of the Closet to Maxwell to make him think he kept Sky locked in a closet for 10 years.

He learns his guardian knew  Maxwell during the war and took Phoenix as payback with the help of his fiance Luce Grace, a hacker cyborg in the cartel. They'd hid him by lying about his age by a year and having his name removed from the manifest so he'd never be found.

Sky demands to go back to his real parents and they devise a plan to send him back without implicating Haley but things aren't how Sky imagined. He's never been on Earth before and the environment is foreign to him. He learns his parents have been secretly separated for years. Maxwell distrusts Sky's sudden reapperance and gets violent--believing Sky is working with Haley on something

Fed up, when he sees an opportunity Sky tries to make a run for it but Prescott stops him.

“Phoenix,  I know Maxwell scared you--,” Major Prescott says.

  

“It’s not Maxwell,” I explain and Major Prescott looks so hurt. “I  just want to go back--,”

“No you don’t, sweetheart,” he says softly kissing my forehead. 

“I--,”

 “This is normal. You have something called Stockholm Syndrome,” Major Prescott tells me. “I talked to some specialist about it today.  Max doesn’t understand that it’s a serious condition and he went too far with you. Don’t worry, we’ll get you help.”

I open my mouth to protest but he isn't hearing it as the car takes off down the street.

Burn 5 
Playlist
-1-  Anything You Synthesize by The American Dollar
-2- Your Tale by Hiroshi Yamazaki
-3- Tenuous Gears by Damiak

Back with Double Chapters

You: Shawna, where have you been and what have you been up to ?

Me:

well, that's enough work for one day pic.twitter.com/Wglrllz5d0

— kat (@katbamkapow) February 10, 2018

You guys, I really don't have a reason, I just lost the spark. I have so much I want to finish but it's been a struggle. I looked at a document and realized I had multiple parts of Burn I hadn't even posted and figured I'd get back on the horse.

 Anyway, let's get back into Burn, the story that takes place 27 years after the first serial I wrote in the rebooted Vice universe.

Burn

I saw this and it reminded me a little bit of Luce and Haley. Also, yes, I have a Tumblr I haven't updated in 4 years.

Burn Recap

Let's do this from Skylark Gray's POV. By the way I have no idea why these Vice serials always turn into such sausage fests.

16-year-old Skylark Gray has grown up on The Atlas Star, a research satellite ship that rarely touches ground on Earth. He is a foster kid and raised by his guardian who is mostly ambivalent towards him except on his birthdays where they spend an hour in the Closet.

On his 16th birthday Sky goes looking for answers and discovers he is Phoenix Maxwell, the only son of the former president of the Republic who was famously kidnapped as a toddler and never found. His guardian had been sending the tapes of the closet to Maxwell to make him think he kept Sky locked in a closet for 10 years.

He learns his guardian knew  Maxwell during the war and took Phoenix as payback with the help of his fiance Luce Grace, a hacker cyborg in the cartel. They'd hid him by lying about his age by a year and having his name removed from the manifest so he'd never be found.

Sky demands to go back to his real parents but he is also sympathetic to his guardian so when the ship lands they arrange for him to go home in a way that won't get anyone in trouble. They tell him try and cross the border to the West, wait until his DNA is tested and then when the match shows the authorities will take him to his parents. They tell him not say anything so he won't accidentally give something away. The plan works and he is taken to Fort Perch where he is examined by the surgeon general, Dr. Hayworth.

Dr. Hayworth takes my blood pressure and gives me a standard check up. She asks me if anything hurts and I say no. She asks me if I'm sexual active and I shake my head. She asks if I've been been sexually assaulted and I say no quickly, but wants to check anyway and I let her.  Then she leaves the room.

When the door opens a few minutes later my biological parents are standing in the doorway.

BTW, Burn got away from me. It's closing in on being NaNo length....

Burn 3  (This is a shortie)

Playlist

-1- Unsteady by VSQ

-2- All of Me by Elaine Courtois

Burn 4 (I am having some formatting issues so the font is different)

- 1- Candles by Jon Hopkins

-2- Find A Place by Iko

Burn 2

I'm Doing It ?
So, my Pinterest is suddenly full of  gay mermaids because of that picture I pinned in my last post and guys...I outlined two mermaid short stories. They aren't really romances (because that would break my brain to figure out how it all...works) but they deal with some of the usual SHV themes. IDK when they'll be done or if they are any good but I figured I'd put that idea out in the world.

Skylark Gray / Phoenix Maxwell
So, I don't really have a picspiration  for anyone in this serial but (this is so random) in my head Skylark kind of looks like Tyler Alvarez in this FunnyorDie sketch about getting a fuckboi license. It's  mostly the eyelashes.

Recap
For as long as Skylar Gray can remember he's lived on the Atlas Star satellite with his guardian and every year on his birthday they go in the Closet. On his 16th birthday he's decided he's had enough and looks into his past and discovers he is Phoenix Maxwell, the infamous missing son of former President Kenneth Maxwell and  Major Lansing Prescott.

Just as he gets answers from Isla at knife point, his guardian, Haley, comes in the room (making out with essentially the chief of police, Colfax Dawes) takes the knife and locks him in the Closet.

Chapter 2 (There is a random bit where this turns into a cheesy scene from Sex and The City)
Playlist

-1- Light Pulse by Andrew Dost
-2- Eastern Glow by The New Album Leaf
-3- My Life's Rhyme by Lin Olin

AKA AOMCAON!!!

Dear Lile,

You've given us fairies, demons and angels, I really need you to do something with this:

Also...yes, I have been spending a lot of time on Pinterest for FZA.

Writing Update

I have been diligently working on FZA, it's not clicking  as much as I'd like  but it's moving. I'm still on the prologue but I've decided it's going to have a Victorian / 2nd Industrial Revolution-inspired  theme which has been really fun for naming things. Last post I said I'd share a snippet so here it is:

"It’s a bit macabre, I guess.”


“More than a bit, your majesty” I say because I can’t lie to her.


She smiles at me and I smile back. I had only ever smiled like this in private with her. Her smile is all white teeth and infectious.


“That was an exciting one though, wasn’t it ?”


I nod.

I can't guarantee this will stay in there though...

Let's Do This

I had a hard time coming up with a title for Lucky but in the end I decided to go with another one-word title. I've called it Burn but in my head it's also called AOMCAON!!!...I'll explain what that stands for in the Author's Note.


This is the story that was never meant to be. It's weird, this story and FZA share a little bit of the same DNA. This takes place in the Vice-Universe but  I'm not sure if it's exactly canon and you'll see soon why I say that but here we go....

I don't want to say much about Burn, I kind of want it to unfold from the character's perspective. You'll likely put together what is going on quickly. All I'll say is it takes place after Bright Lines, Virtue and Glassdoor. The main character is male and you haven't really met them before and it is not an AU.

Burn Part I
Playlist

- 1 - Anomaly by Lights and Motion
- 2- This Place is A Shelter by Olafur Arnads
- 3-  Candles by Jon Hopkins
- 4 -  Cherry Wine by The Overcoats

Glassdoor II

I don't think I posted this. It may not seem like it but I ship Luce/Haley real hard. I actually kind of needed them to be together to work on my Valentine's idea but I'm still not sure that is going to happen this year...

Lucky Update

 APO Update

 UL Update

I actually had a big breakthrough with the prologue for APO...I am so excited because I finally named the main character and I've decided on some aesthetics for it but I see it as taking a long time to write. It's SFF-ish (which I'm not even sure if I'm doing right) so I have to name a lot of other things. Also...it might have some  afrofuturism  elements? I wish I could spit it out all at once but I'm taking it scene by scene and hopefully I'll get there.

Glassdoor II
Recap: Weeks after Haley attempted to assassinate  Attorney General Kenneth Maxwell's husband and children Maxwell's family is shaken. Maxwell has accepted 10 million dollars in hush money from the cartel for his presidential campaign but still can't shake the feeling Haley will try again.

After his daughter has a panick attack and runs into a door Maxwell ditches his security guards to make a secret trip with a gun strapped to his waist...

Glassdoor II
Playlist
(Yes, these are all from Compulsion's playlist)

-1- Closer by FKA twigs
-2-  Broken Arrow by The Album Leaf 
-3- The Fire by Kinna Grannis

Shawna Ruins Your Day

 CPShawna: Did...did you really keep the codename as the actual name ?

SHV: ...What ? It actually kind of works in this case

Things I Learn Doing Research / Shawna Ruins Your Day
During drafting, Virtue was supposed a lot kinkier than it turned out to be. I did a little bit of research (read: lurked on Reddit threads) and decided not to include a lot of it because I wasn't sure I wanted my characters to go there.

Anyway, one thing I learned is some people have a kink for body horror and discovered this Hannibal (the TV show about when they were young) fan fiction where Hannibal kidnaps Will, the main male character from the show, tries to kind of  infantilizes him and when he doesn't cooperate Hannibal surgicially removes a body parts and...eats them in front of him. It was so bonkers  and just the most grossily horrific thing I've ever read. I didnt' actually get that far but I had to talk about it because while I'd like to be more edgier I'm not sure I could EVER go there. It was also surprisingly well written so I can't get the mental images out of my head. I  think at the end of the story Will has to eat some of himself too...*cringe* *cringe*

Up All Night To Get Lucky
Um, anyway I am having an amazing experience writing Lucky. The idea popped in my head and rolled around for about two weeks and I banged out 10,000 words without even thinking about it. It's been really freeing not having outlines.

Lucky takes place in the Vice world and I think I've created my first Vice adjacent character who is a tried and true Cinnamon Roll...and I don't know what to do with them. Also, no, you have not met this character yet.

UL Update
So, I totally forgot about the UL thing I was working on. I really want to share what I have but I want to get through this Vice stuff first. I still haven't finished it but it's like super domestic-ish women's fiction-y thing.

Moving On...Glassdoor
I was originally going to do this in one big chunk but I split into two parts because I'm stalling while I work on the next thing it has a natural break point in the story


Recap
This is a Maxwell POV and it takes place a few weeks after the assassination attempt in Sweet Prince:

Haley turns sharply, changing targets. He aims the barrel of the gun to the Attorney General’s 5-year-old daughter who was crying, sitting in a chair by herself across the table from her father.

And pulls the trigger.

The moment the trigger is pulled Haley is tackled by the protective service. His bullet misses the little girl and the gun flies out of his hand in the scuffle.

 Glassdoor takes place after  everything I've done this year, so it's all after Bright Lines, Sweet Prince and Virtue...well, except for that last scene in Virtue. It's the lead up to the last scene.


Glassdoor Part 1
Playlist
-1- The Light by New Leaf
-2- We Might Be Dead by Tomorrow by Soko
-3-  R U OKAY by Aryay

Virtue III

Hoping For Electric Dreams
When I was first trying to understand cyberpunk I went knee deep in research and one author I kept coming across was Philip K. Dick, who wrote the book Bladerunner is based on. This year  Amazon is making an anthology show based on his work called Electric Dreams and I'm excited to watch it and see if it gets the cyberpunk plot bunnies moving. I'm kind of getting into the cyberpunk/ scifi thing and...IDK I'd love to venture away from the Shy Cartel-verse. 'Lucky' is kind of going to be a foray into that.

Speaking of Philip K. Dick, apparently in the new Bladerunner 2049 they created a futuristic version of the 80s instead of the 2010s, so companies like Pan-AM still exist in that world. It seems to me the 80's is so ingrained in cyberpunk since it came about around that time and that in my head some of the "fashion" (I'm real bad at describing clothes) in this serial is more 80's. Particularly with  Charlotte, whose look with the dress and carvat is based off this 80's trend:

Oh, did anyone catch my teensy tiney Sunday Nights in Savannah reference in the last chapter ?

Luce suddenly takes extreme care chewing his food as he thinks it over. He picks up an errant blueberry from Haley’s plate.

I never describe what Haley is eating but in my head it's the same thing Rose ordered at the restaurant in Sunday Nights in Savannah.



Virtue Part III

Recap  
Haley has settled into working  as an escort at Control,  Jean Dory's private brothel within a brothel, and is getting closer to Luce Grace but now Rayne and Minnow are asking him to take on the police commissioner's son as a client so they can spy on him.
 
Time is going to move in this chapter and this comment is going to be explored...

Virtue Part III
Playlist
- 1 -  The Moment I Said It by Imogen Heap
- 2 - Unsteady by X Ambassadors 
- 3- The Poet by U317 (Yes, I am pilfering through the QC playlist)
- 4 -  Forever Ago by Woodlock
- 5- Feed Me Diamonds

Hey, there 2018...let's talk in gifs

Obligatory, sorry I haven't posted

But I have been really enjoying Lile's short stories like crazy 

Greetings From Le Visnet had me like

 Sunday Nights in Savannah had me like

Anti-Cinnamon Buns / School Shuffle Had Me Like

As for me ? Well...my writing process

looks a lot less like this

And has looked more like this

 

Although sometimes it feels like I'm doing this

 COME BACK TO ME PLOTBUNNIES !

I'm not sure if I'll ever write another serial again, but I like dipping in and out of these worlds and I'll keep doing that in serials as long as I can.

Virtue +

To be honest when I posted the first part of Virtue I hadn't finished it, I'd just wanted to get a piece of it out there so I had something to show for ALL my NaNo-ing. But now I've finished it and will be posting it in three parts (so...one more part after this part). Also, I think I told someone there would be "rage wear" and there actually isn't. My bad.

I...also...am currently writing  two companion pieces to Virtue. Let's just codename one, hmm...Glassdoor and the other one...um, let's call it Lucky. I'm not sure if they are canon (especially Lucky) and they're both kind of over angsty, self-indulg-y and weird. I don't know... I'm just really trying to work this Haley/Maxwell thing I started out.

I really feel like my muse has left me  lately, but the plotbunny for Lucky just attacked me out of nowhere. It was so bizarre to have this story come to me and then not leave....but yeah, not sure if it's cannon

Also, those codenames mean literally nothing.

UL Sidepiece 

I do have 5,000 words on this UL follow up. I know where I want it to go but I'm not sure how to end it. I hope to post it soon-ish though. It's a lot of Clark family fluff with a pinch of drama.

FZA

This is still going slowly, but I think when I run out of things I may just post the prologue of this just to give you all a taste.

So, as you can tell I have been having trouble with endings. There is actually a short story collection called Massive Cleansing Fire and it features interconnected short stories that all end in a massive cleansing fire and you guys....I'm tempted sometimes (mostly with Vice stories).

Virtue Part II

Recap

Virtue takes place after Alex Haley is released from Ft. Pride, an RLA prison camp where he'd been locked in a cell with murderer and tattoo artists Forge DeCartes by Kenneth Maxwell.

He's been working in the factory of the Shy Cartel's cover company, The Mojave Blade Company, to pay for a hit on Maxwell. However after a year, Maxwell becomes a federal judge and the price goes up. To earn more money Haley agrees to work in Control, the secret brothel within the brothel run by Jean Dory.

This passage is going to come back up:

The conversations lull the moment Haley steps in and for a moment he gets the feeling they are all staring at him, but their eyes are well above his head and directed at Jean. 

“Mr. Dory-,” a  gorgeous man in his thirties, with dark hair and impeccably Roman features, calls walking up to them. “I’d like to talk to  you  later tonight about--,”

“Not today, I’m afraid.” Jean says, reaching out to  stroke the man’s now distraught face. “Talk to Charlotte about fitting you in my schedule. I’ve got a new employee to show around.”

Virtue Part II

Playlist

-1- Where the Light Gets In by Sennen

-2-  Kill Em' With Kindness by Selena Gomez

-3- This is What it Feels Like by Banks

-4-  Cringe by Matt Masean