forever we try

I can't believe it's almost July! I always start the summer off thinking I'll have plenty of time to write a billion stories and read a billion books...yeah, not so much. I am happy with what I've managed to get done so far, but there's always more that I could be doing....Oh well.

At this point I've seen GOTG Vol 2 in the theater a grand total of three times, which is kind of insane. I was not expecting to love this movie as much as I did, especially considering that I had a pretty lukewarm reaction to Vol 1; I liked it, but didn't get all that emotionally involved. Then along comes Vol 2 like a sucker punch to the gut. Going back to rewatch Vol 1 now, I like it much better, even though Vol 2 is still my favorite. They're dozens of little moments in both movies that I didn't pick up on until the second time around, and I can't get over how weird, goofy, and beautiful they are. Everything is bright and loud and a little cartoony, and it's all such a joy to watch. Also, Meredith Quill. The world needs more Meredith-centric fics, because that woman is a saint.  

But anyway. I doubt anyone needs to hear me blabbing about how great/amazing/so-good-just-go-see-it-already GOTG Vol 2 is again. 

Driving lessons are going pretty well. I'm getting more and more comfortable going up to 60 mph on the highway. That's a pretty big deal for me, seeing as the last time I got my learner's permit I was too nervous to go on the highway at all and pretty much just cruised around the neighborhood at a brisk 15 mph. Driving's always been something that's given me a ton of anxiety, but I've finally gotten to the point where I get that I just need to buckle down (hah) and get it done. 

My writing hit a rough spot a few days ago; I stalled out on two projects and couldn't make any headway at all. So I took a sort-of-break (worked on another fic that I'll probably never post; it was more of an exercise and a way to keep me writing) which I think helped a lot. It's always been hard for me to set something aside (even for just a few days) and accept that something about it isn't working right now, but that's much better than trying to fix something I can't necessarily fix--and that, nine times out of ten, doesn't need to be fixed, just left to percolate for a little bit.

Otherwise, things have been quiet around here. My life during the summer tends to get really boring really fast.  

...is tricky and frustrating and never arrives on time, but I can't keep up work on a story without a little of it, at least at the start. Still, I don't always have the time or the energy to work on every single idea that pops into my head (and honestly only about a quarter of the ideas I get are workable once I try getting them down on paper) so right now I'm telling myself that it's okay to work on just one or two things at a time, and that I don't have to be constantly writing, or working on ten different stories at once. But I still have so much anxiety when it comes to productivity. Like, if I'm not writing those ten different stories, and if each one isn't perfect, I must be doing something wrong. Which is completely stupid and illogical. But it's how I feel right now.

Overall, writing's been going well, if very, very slowly. Does anybody else get to the point where, after you've been working on the same story for a couple days or weeks, and pretty much know exactly how everything is going to happen, writing starts to feel...not hard or boring, but predictable, I guess? The first spark of inspiration is gone, but there's still something satisfying about working on a project you love, even if it isn't that exciting anymore. Anyway, that's where I am right now. I'm happy that I'm still making semi-steady progress, but I also can't wait to start some new projects once these ones are wrapped up.

Defenders Big Bang Fic
The first of June was the second checkpoint, and I turned this one in at 5,010 words. I'm almost exactly halfway through now, and still fiddling around with the plot a bit --I just realized that I'll probably have to go back in once the first draft is finish and clarify some stuff, plus maybe add in a few more sections. Most of my fics before this have been on the shorter side, so the plots were simple enough that I didn't need to worry over them too much. This one, though...it's fun to be working on something longer, but I just hope that it ends up making sense.

girl!Peter series
The second fic should be finished by today or tomorrow. I didn't expect it to get so long, and honestly I could probably cut down on some of the dialogue without effecting the plot, but Pete and Yondu are both such a joy to write. My first fic with these two ended on a sad note, so going in to this one I really wanted to showcase the wacky and fun aspects of Pete's story, without forgetting that (for good reason!) she feels very lost and very angry. Incorporating seventies and eighties music was, as always, a blast.

I'm Not Your Hero series (otherwise known as my Lisa-Castle-survived-and-is-best-friends-with-Laura-Kinney-because-duh series)
I haven't started another fic in this series yet. Not because I don't want to, but because, while working on Pete's fic, I decided that having three separate fics in progress (not counting the two that are currently on the back burner) was way too much. I've still got tons of ideas, and once the second girl!Peter fic is finished I'll be starting on another one for Lisa and Laura. This time around, it'll most likely be from Laura's point of view, which I'm both excited about and also incredibly nervous over. In Logan Laura was sometimes such a hard character to read, and I really, really want her voice to be distinctive from Lisa's. I worry a lot that all my characters sound the same, which objectively probably isn't true? Maybe? We'll see, I guess. 

This is a couple days late, but I did manage to get a good chunk of writing done last Saturday. I tend to be a pretty slow writer, so by other people's standards it probably wasn't all that much, but I finished up a scene (that was dialogue-heavy and therefore tons of fun to write) and started on the next one. This was all for the second fic in my Guardians of the Galaxy AU series, and girl!Peter has been a joy to write. I'm still not sure if I've balanced her character quite right; in the first fic I spent a lot of time focusing on her anger, so this time around I'm hoping that her goofy side will show through a little more. 

I also planned on noodling away at a couple of my other fics, but I got tired so that didn't happen. All and all, though, I'm pretty satisfied with how the day turned out. My writing routine has been out of whack for years (since before I started college), so it's nice to finally be making semi-steady progress on my projects.