#IWSG Original Story - Plus News about #WriteClubDFW and #AtoZChallenge

InsecureWritersSupportGroup.com

Shout-out to Alex and the awesome co-hosts for today:

Tara Tyler, Lisa Buie Collard, Loni Townsend, and Lee Lowery!

Aug 3 question -

When you set out to write a story, do you try to be more original or do you try to give readers what they want?

Original. 
And I have been rejected by dozens of agents because of it. Which is one reason I self-publish.
I've found a few accomplished writers in the speculative fiction world who have read parts or all of certain stories I have (mostly Fractions of Existence), and agreed that it is unique and unlike most other Speculative Fiction or Urban Fantasy novels out there.



Part of why it's killing me that WriteClub2022 was canceled is that I actually entered this year. 

I have a story of Royce, a 21-year-old Incanter who isn't using his magic because it has been predicted he'd destroy millions of lives. Not using magic makes him an outcast. As he's dying, he considers magic, and it not only brings him back to life but sets him on the path of destruction. The real question becomes, in a male-only country that's mostly eradicated diversity, is destruction evil or heroic? 

He learns that his persecuted father worked for the department that handles artificial insemination. There are women in the world, but they're kept in pods in a permanent vegetative state. His father's true crime was waking a woman, learning magic from her, and creating a child without permission. Royce's magic would wake them all, and absolutely destroy the lives of their captors.

Does that sound interesting?

Have you read something similar? 
Is that story something original or something you, as a reader, would want?

~~~~~~

#WEP is coming later this month. https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2022/08/wep-august-2022-challenge-moonlight.html
But for the Moonlight Sonata prompt, I have something special planned. An origin story of sorts. The inspiration came due to last month's #IWSG posts. I realized that several people wish they could live in a fictional world where I am a villain. That's an ideal world for some people. A world where killing me would be both legal and encouraged. (Obviously, not everyone picked such worlds. Lots of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings fans out there.) Eh, that's just how it goes. A little story about two parents fleeing from the world to birth a baby safely is coming later this month.

Please also visit: The Insecure Writer's Support Group Book Club on Goodreads.

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Woo! Celebrating myself.

📜

Tune in later this year to find out if I'm still legally married.
"Respect for Marriage Act will enshrine and protect marriage equality and make sure legal, same-sex and interracial marriages are recognized."
My spouse isn't a Native American. 

🤔 Err... my person to which I share my life and devote my highest love isn't a Native American.        

https://twitter.com/DL_H/status/1554084086830039040 "Due to a profound lack of interest...there will be no WRiTE CLUB contest this year. #WRiTECLUBDFW" https://www.dlhammons.com/2022/08/write-club-pulling-plug.html
I was really hoping to get in this year. I wanted the raw feedback on my latest project. It's hard to imagine, with the success of so many winners, that not enough people entered this year.

boutofbooks.blogspot.com I'm participating in #BoutOfBooks 35 starting August 15. The Bout of Books readathon is organized by Amanda Shofner and Kelly Rubidoux Apple.

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A second challenge is coming!

What do you think of the possible new graphics? Tell us on the blog comments, please!#atozchallenge -- PLEASE RT / Share pic.twitter.com/jd8cbqQ70G

— AtoZChallenge (@AprilA2Z) July 28, 2022

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The A to Z team is hoping for feedback about our possible new graphics. Things are happening at http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com, so please take a moment to check out the latest posts.

Check out Operation Awesome on Thursday, please. We have a question for writers! operationawesome6.blogspot.com/

Values, Priorities, and Choices

We have time for what we value the most. 

Sometimes we don't realize what we value the most until we evaluate how we've elected to spend our time.

"But if I don't go to my job, I don't have money to live."

Okay. So you value security. You value the certainty of a roof over your head and knowing your next meal is waiting in the refrigerator. 

"What's wrong with that?"

Nothing. Plenty of people hold that value. Many don't even realize that value is engrained in them. In fact, whole societies base their identity around that value. Entire economic systems are in place based on the assurance that people will continue to value the security of having a home and food. 

But there are people who make the choice to live without that certainty. (There are also people who don't make that choice, but find themselves in such a situation for other reasons.) Nomads still exist. It's a hard life. But there are still people who make the choice to not value security. It means being an outcast. And because it conflicts with society, any time an actual social service is needed, it's much harder to obtain. Plus, nomads are more likely to be abducted by government people for various nefarious purposes because "no one will miss them." 

There's a fantastic book, Plunge, that shows how it's possible to have the money to travel. It means picking travel instead of paying a mortgage or renting an apartment. 

"That's not realistic! I can't do that."

Okay. But some people do that. There are nomadic families. 

There are writers who quit their day job and then publish and hope it'll be enough.

"That's a bad idea."

Yeah, probably. It's certainly against the odds. And it puts a lot more pressure on the writing. But if the person doesn't value security first, they value having the time to write first, then they're living their dream no matter the outcome.

There's nothing wrong with paying bills. Valuing the freedom of not going to jail because of debt. Valuing having a good credit score. Not everyone cares about those things though. I know a guy with terminal cancer who has stopped working and paying his bills. He's figured out what he values and is living his remaining days doing only what he finds important. (This blog would have to be NC-17 XXX for me to detail that value. So he's valuing, umm, satisfaction. Yeah, go with that.)

Some people value having time for their family above everything else.
Some people say they value time with their family above all else, and then make choices that keep them too busy to spend any real time with their family. 

"But the family needs a house, a car, nice clothing, college funds, medical care, etc etc etc..."

Those are mostly things that are part of the security value. (College should be valuing education, but sometimes people don't go just to learn but to try to feel the security that they can bet a better job.) Medical care is maybe valuing life, and will certainly keep Americans fighting to get paid so they can afford to stay alive so they can maybe one day have time to enjoy being alive.

I lost someone close to me a few months ago. She was a hard worker. Held two jobs at several points in her life just to make ends meet. Kept working 20, 40, 60, 90, or 110 hours a week. She talked about the ways she wanted to spend time with people "one day." Was making payments on her retirement dream. Though the numbers said she'd be paying toward that dream until she was about 85, assuming no other bills got in the way. Died at age 62 of a heart attack. Didn't get to spend time doing the things she said she valued, other than the 5 days she took off a year. 

She valued our relationship. A bookmark was found in the middle of Fractions of Existence. She had been reading my book in her precious spare moments. I'll never know if she liked it. We'll never discuss it. 💔

The point is that we all have 24 hours in a day. We might value staying alive, having financial security (along with food and shelter), time with our family, and creative pursuits... 

If we look at how we spend our time, we can see what we are currently valuing.

Then we can decide if that's what we want to value, if we're spending our time on what really matters to us, and make choices to keep going this way or to risk everything to live the life we actually want.

#IWSG J's 3 Book World Choices and Other Insights

"One benefit of summer was that each day we had more light to read by."- Jeannette Walls, The Glass Castle

InsecureWritersSupportGroup.com

Shout-out to Alex and the awesome co-hosts for today:
J Lenni Dorner (me! ✨), Janet Alcorn, PJ Colando, Jenni Enzor, and Diane Burton!

July 6 question - If you could live in any book world, which one would you choose?

Short Answer:

You set the price!FREE, .99 cents, $1.99, whatever...

Lumber Of The Kuweakunks 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1015003

By J Lenni Dorner

I pick this book and world because of the trees. 🌳

It's a short read with a mystery told in modern times and the early 1600s era.   

Long Answer:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by J Lenni Dorner (@jlennidorner)

For my longer answer, I arranged a few books in the shape of my name - J.
(Hopefully, no one will confuse my name with co-host Jenni Enzor's. J isn't an abbreviation, I didn't know about the superfluous "ay" that people add, or that sometimes J is short for Jayson or other names. Lenni- Lenape means "original people". My tribe is also known as the Grandfathers. Naming customs are different in various cultures.)

BSC. I appreciate that the books are being redone with Graphix while still staying pretty true to the original books. Stoneybrook is a fictional small suburban-like town in the state of Connecticut. Most of the problems were solved in one book. 

The Baby-Sitters Club books remind me of my youth. It was just such a better world than my own, a parallel universe of sorts where I wished I could be. Not that I had any interest in baby-sitting. A rare happy period in my school-age time when, for a brief while, I had friends. The Logan character helped to cement the idea that it was okay for the girls I knew to have a guy friend (me). Their parents disagreed. My foster caretakers didn't know or care. Things eventually went bad because of other males at the school. Resulting in my being hospitalized more dead than alive. At which point I was passed to a different foster home. (This is all before I ran away and found my people and birth parents again.)

So anyone out there saying the new laws in parts of America are fine because the foster and adoption system exists can kiss my 🍑ss. Plenty of people are talking about that. 

I'll pause to talk about just how "pro-life" the American government has been for about two centuries. I don't often get political on social media, unless it relates to Native American issues, and this does. 

https://time.com/5737080/native-american-sterilization-history/

Think putting abortion services in Federal places will help? 🎲 That's rolling the dice because those places sometimes sterilize people without their knowledge or consent. Especially Native American women.

https://www.niwrc.org/restoration-magazine/november-2020/past-and-current-united-states-policies-forced-sterilization

"On October 2, 2020, the United States House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning unwanted, unnecessary medical procedures on individuals without their full, informed consent."

House resolutions are not binding laws. 

In case anyone thinks this happened long ago. 2020. Hasn't even been two years since the House did something. Though, what they did wasn't much.

It was after finding out some medical personnel at the ICE cages were sterilizing people who they deemed to be non-Americans.

 

For ten seconds, imagine a popular, well-liked American celebrity is shooting a film in another country. And, while in that other country, is captured and sterilized. And the other country says, "well, it wasn't one of our citizens, so it's okay." Try to imagine how well that would go over. American citizens getting forcibly sterilized in other countries.

Now imagine it's someone that is barely known at all. Doesn't matter where they're from. Is it okay now?

https://19thnews.org/2022/02/forced-sterilization-guardianship-reproductive-justice/

"31 states and the District of Columbia have laws allowing permanent forced sterilizations."

Some states will outlaw abortion, but have laws to force sterilizations.

https://givingcompass.org/article/forced-sterilization-is-still-legal-in-the-u-s

Surly the “"pro-life"” crowd has put a stop to forced sterilizations. Right? Nope.

There are some laws to prevent certain groups, like inmates, from being sterilized without consent. But there is NO LAW to prevent forced non-consensual sterilizations for all Americans.

So yes, in certain states, very soon, a person can be imprisoned for performing an abortion, and the person who had the abortion could be forcibly sterilized. 

Ending one pregnancy will be outlawed. But preventing a person from ever becoming pregnant by sterilizing that person is still legal. (Again, depending on the state.)

The loss of the right to consent to carry a pregnancy will be new to many people alive today.

The loss of the right to consent to ever reproduce was taken from many long ago and is still being fought to get back. 

In theory, medical malpractice and assault and battery might protect a patient from sterilization without consent. Unless the patient is incapacitated. And even then, consider that forced sterilization just happened in America. And that there are still laws that ALLOW it. But there do not seem to be laws that specifically OUTLAW it. 

In case you wonder, some places also prohibit people from making the choice to be sterilized via "tube tying" (tubal ligation) or hysterectomy (womb removal). One in six US hospitals, it is estimated, refuse to perform such procedures as electives. Vasectomies, however, are easier to obtain. https://www.insider.com/a-woman-needed-husbands-consent-to-get-her-tubes-tied-2020-2 

I feel everyone should have the right to decide when and if they wish to create offspring, and that no one should be able to take away someone's consent for the use of their own body. (Not a parent, spouse, officer, court, president -- NO ONE.) No additions or removals should be performed without informed, comprehended consent. I'm also strongly opposed to permitting child marriages or forcing victims of pedophiles to endure pregnancy. I have seen a child, not yet a teen, who died in labor. And no, that fetus didn't make it either. There is a sick, dark underworld of sex-trafficking and pedophiles who rely on places with relaxed laws that make it easier for them to carry on. I have seen the horrors of the dark world they run. I oppose their existence and any law or ruling that makes anything easier for them.

The following is from a scene in Stargate SG-1:

(LYA)
After careful consideration, I believe that both Klorel and Skaara have the right to live. But living as a host with no will of one's own is not life, therefore only one may remain in the body. To that end, I award priority to the original owner of the body.

Lya is of the Nox people. The Nox are an advanced, non-violent, wise people who use technology in harmony with nature and have existed since ancient times in the Stargate Universe. 

As there are Stargate books, my third choice for a book world would be to live with the Nox. They feel like an evolution of my own Lenni-Lenape tribe, had history been different for Native Americans.


Thanks for reading! See you next time.

Please also visit: The Insecure Writer's Support Group Book Club on Goodreads.

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WriteClub 2022 is here. pic.twitter.com/QdGdbcEpyv

— J Lenni Dorner (@JLenniDorner) July 2, 2022

Please 🤍💗 and Retweet!

Happening at OperationAwesome6.blogspot.com

Have your query letter and first 250 words ready
This week is the #PassorPages #QueryContest
July 4-8: Entry window 🤔 #win agent feedback
👨‍👩‍👧‍👦👨‍👨‍👦‍👦👩‍👩‍👧‍👧💑👬 Family Dynamics/Family Saga fiction - all age audienceshttps://t.co/F9IU7kcAC4
Please spread the word pic.twitter.com/i7hCBpuRjS

— Operation Awesome (@OpAwesome6) July 4, 2022

It would mean a great deal to me if you'd be kind enough to share that tweet, or go to the Operation Awesome site and share a post of your own somewhere. Please 🤍💗 too!

J Lenni Dorner (he/him 👨🏽 or 🧑🏽 they/them) ~ Co-host of the #AtoZchallenge, OperationAwesome6 Debut Author Interviewer, Reference& Speculative Fiction Author
Please, call me J.

Luring You In To Please Read the Flash Fiction #WEPFF #WEP

writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com

"Caught you," I hope to say

if only you'll not hide, not stay away

Big One, babe, you'll taste so fine

Please take the bait

I'm jiggling my lure

Call me crazy for needing more

but this one's too small

even a fool knows to throw it back

I keep checking my line

Please want my bait

I'm bottom bouncing for you

I don't want a cichlid

Please find my flies

Please like my plugs

I've got a box full of jigs

How about a spinner with a skirted hook?

Please understand, I've tried live too

There's nothing with me that isn't for you

I check again but you're not found

Please come for my spoon

Please, there's flexible rubber too

Please, oh please, my fly needs you

Just one more try for today

Remember where I cast 

You've kept your spot a secret

cherishing your place in the deep

Please see my net and promise me one day

One day you'll be in it

Am I crazy to pursue you?

I could just buy what I'm looking for

The sport is catching you

Holding you

Cleaning you

Heating you up

And eating you until there's nothing left

but bone and head and tail

Mmm mmm mmm

I'll even have your eyes

Mmm mmm mmm

Please take my bait

Please find my lure

Come home to me

Big One, please be mine

Luring You In
by J Lenni Dorner
232 words FCA

Gottcha! 😆🎣

I was going to write short fiction with my Existence characters. Actually, I did. But the scene makes no sense out of context and is just littered with spoilers. So, I decided to go for a walk and think about it.

That's when I ran into Ger. We have almost nothing in common other than a tendency to gravitate to the same areas to hunt and fish. He's a pretty good hunter, considering the hundreds or thousands of dollars he must spend to have that much equipment with him. But his very pricy bow tends to keep up with the one I handcrafted, so there you go. Fishing, however... oh Ger...

"Maybe if you kept yer mouth shut once in a dang while, I'd catch a decent fish!"
(This is funny because I'm mute. We kid around with each other. ) 

Above is a picture he took of the bend in the river, and another of his "biggest catch" this week. Any fish that's smaller than your hand has to go back in the water. 😂

My entry is a letter or song or poem, whatever you'd like to call it, by me from Ger to his elusive fish. As Ger is a father, I'll dedicate this to him and wish him a Happy Father's day. 
And a Happy Father's day to any other dads out there reading this.
(Neither my dad nor Ger have ever seen my blog, so they won't see this post.)

Tagline: Written for the uncaught one. (It's NOT erotica.)

#IWSG Writing to The End

InsecureWritersSupportGroup.com

Shout-out to Alex and the awesome co-hosts for today: SE White, Cathrina Constantine, Natalie Aguire, Joylene Nowell Butler, and Jacqui Murray!

June 1 question - When the going gets tough writing the story, how do you keep yourself writing to the end?

Feeling demotivated makes this question difficult to answer. I love writing. I truly believe it is the purpose of my soul, my life force, the energy that makes me me. Motivation and passion normally burn in me like that fire in Centralia. (Yes, I'm from this region. Yes, I've been to this place.) 

Strong advice is to create a routine. Often, when depression or mind-numbing sorrow from too much mourning destroys the ability to function, the body can take on a sort of robotic routine. The coffee gets made, the bread becomes toast, teeth and hair get brushed... it's just going through the motions. Every single word I wrote while 🤖 existing that way is crap. It's dictionary vomit. The sentences qualify as such only because I picked out the correct parts of speech needed for words to form a sentence. The PURPOSE is to be able to say "at least I wrote today." Because not writing feels like failure, and the shame spiral continues and then there's nothing but failure and darkness. Guess where those words went...

I haven't honestly worked on my main project in a long time. My broken mind has thrown up roadblocks and other activities. I have dozens of reasons not to work on it. Give me a minute, and I'll come up with a dozen more. Do you know what'd be better? If I wrote a dozen sentences in the project instead. Or even edited some. Then again, while you can't edit a blank page, I have edited the crap out of some full pages. 🤦🏽‍♂️

There's always trying a new style of planning and plotting. I followed a different-to-me outline structure in April to get my A to Z story written. It was refreshing to finish a story. And this month, I'll be working on a short story for WEP's June challenge. ("This month's prompt is based on Please Read the Letter by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - a break up song and a moving plea for understanding at the termination of a relationship." - https://writeeditpublishnow.blogspot.com/2022/05/wep-june-challenge-is-on-with-more.html ) A song I've never heard before by people I've never heard of... but the title makes me think of a line from This Ruined Puzzle by Dashboard Confessional. 🎵"I've written a note It's pressed between pages..." 

None of this works toward my main project. 

Unless I at least use my Existence characters. 

🤔
That's an idea... 

Forgiving myself and trying again the next day is the only way I'll ever reach "the end." 



Please also visit: The Insecure Writer's Support Group Book Club on Goodreads.

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Happening at OperationAwesome6.blogspot.com:

Sara de Waard answers #13Questions in OA's Debut Author Spotlight Plus a Book #signedcopy #giveaway

Low enteries! Chance to win an autographed YA book. Closes soon.

#IWSG Writer Rollercoaster and #MayThe4thBeWithYou

Shout-out to Alex and the awesome co-hosts for today:  Kim Elliott, Melissa Maygrove, Chemist Ken, Lee Lowery, and Nancy Gideon!

May 4 question - It's the best of times; it's the worst of times. What are your writer highs (the good times)? And what are your writer lows (the crappy times)?

Highs and lows... 🎢 like a rollercoaster. 

My highs are getting positive reviews or someone saying they could relate (to a character or scene, whatever). And days when the words just fly onto the page. 

My lows are, without a doubt, when I trap myself in the editing loop. Did I leave a plot hole? Did a character set an object down and I forgot to have them pick it up? Do all the dates line up? Did I put the right amount of spaces between paragraphs? Is it clear who is speaking? Was the intended character development clear? Did I make each character matter enough? Have I used all the sensory details I could in a scene? 

I'm looking at the story I just put on my blog last month. And I see so much that could be changed, improved, altered. (And I don't just mean the baker who turned into a humpback whale to travel by a hurricane wormhole.) I feel like I didn't use enough sensory details to really bring out the scenes. I don't know if I should alter it and publish it. Or leave it as is and publish it. OR... make an original and an altered erotic version that really explores that pan relationship May and Jade had going on behind closed doors. 

Or I could go back to work on the Anna story. Which had a bunch of scenes and a second storyline that were not in the original A to Z. 

Or I should get back to Proof of Existence. I fixed the major problem I had with the one scene. I figured out how to plug a plot hole. Wouldn't it be cool if I released it in Sept on the Anniversary of Fractions of Existence?

I found out there was a copy on Amazon without the final edits. So I should also go work on that. 

First, I'm going on vacation. A to Z took it out of me. And almost getting run over really took it out of me. (See Reflections post from earlier this week.)

To all my fellow "geeks" out there: #MayThe4thBeWithYou





Please also visit: The Insecure Writer's Support Group Book Club on Goodreads.

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Happening at OperationAwesome6.blogspot.com : Reflections post.
The poll closes this week.

#PassOrPages Poll - What Will Our Next #QueryContest Genre Be? #amquerying #writingcommunity #amwriting #agents https://t.co/DZZaMEpXul
Please VOTE before May 6.
✅ 🗳️

— Operation Awesome (@OpAwesome6) April 30, 2022

#SFF #AtoZChallenge #Reflection 2022

 Another round of the A to Z Challenge is OVER! My theme was:

A speculative fiction short story from a dreamer

The story outline started with a dream I had. (I'm the dreamer.) It's a dystopian setting.  

Writing a short story on the fly sounded like a *good* idea. I would not do it again during A to Z. The first week went okay. I had time to write the story as well as comment on 50 blogs. 

But then things went wrong in my life. Regular followers know that, after L, I fell behind. My friend is doing much better. Thanks to everyone who cared and gave prayers, good vibes, and well wishes. 

We were sitting around waiting for him to get out of surgery number two. (We had food with us this time. Unlike surgery number one, where we scrounged a nearly empty vending machine and ate my supply of pocket jerky. Fun fact about J, I almost always have jerky stashed in my pocket.) 

He came out fine, and then we left. In the parking garage, I heard an engine rev. Hairs on my neck and arms stood up. I shoved my spouse to the side before getting grazed by the truck and slammed into a concrete post. 

Yes, they caught the driver. He claimed it didn't happen. And he doesn't know how some of my hair was hanging off his SUV. Oh, the security camera? Whoops. Didn't think about that, did you? 

Anyway. So I didn't die on April 30. But it was closer than I'd like. I'm a little injured but I will be fine. My spouse is fine, but is less than thrilled with the idea of my going on vacation (hiking alone in the woods) by myself in a few days. 

Hey, wanna see a funny? https://twitter.com/JLenniDorner/status/1520638145691324416 How I named the last character. 

Here's a review of all the prompts I was given (comments, tweets, dm, email, and WEP). 

• J's dystopian dream ✅
• wormhole ✅ (several)
• time/space travelers arrive on a planet that has been settled by space pioneers or an alien race ✅ (Letter Z) 
• time travel (x2) ✅ (May's students time traveled. It also comes up several times.)
• another species on Earth suddenly got the upper hand ✅ (The overlords put species on Earth, and they all have the upper hand now.)
• an alien who's on the run from an overlord race prepared to take over earth and who falls in love with a baker who just happens to be working undercover for the Dept of Homeland Security ✅ (O'tien and Piers)
• a storm system that isn't exactly weather ✅ (Hurricane wormhole travel)
• 'Implants'? Memory implants, for example. Or vitamin implants. ✅ (Language implants)
• something underwater for your setting ✅ (Humpback whale travel was underwater, in a hurricane wormhole thing.)
• pansexual couple hooking up for the first time ✅ (May and Jade)
• tardigrade ✅ (Overlord Shell and his kind)
• shapeshifting ✅ (Piers becomes a humpback whale. 🐋 )
• electricity isn't working, something crucial for the protagonist isn't working but something they never thought they needed, does? ✅ (Letter S. Even I didn't know they'd need the Jay-Aid until I got there. Ha ha ha.)
• girl's name: Jade ✅ (Love interest character.)
• dream of things like grass, and running through fields. ✅ (Jade dreams this while in the whale.)
• Guinea Pig World ruled by Biggles ✅ (Letter Z. Hinted in J, among other posts.)
• chimera hermaphrodite or sexual organ ambiguity main character ✅ (May Rose)
• An alien society (or character) that travels only within mind-space dimensions ✅ (O'tien and Az'es)
• Palio di Siena, in an alternative universe where the occupants of the Contrades are the animals after which each Contrade is named ✅ (J, K, L posts)
•  ✅ (Q post.)

Fun facts:

I did very little planning. I knew I wouldn't show the world as a setting until I made the WEP post. I did not know that Quintilis would be in the Q post. I came up with that the day I wrote and posted it.

The "catch up" posts that were posted a few hours apart? I wrote them, did two edit passes, and posted. That's "live" writing time.

May Rose, July Ice, and Quintilis Cave -- May is so named because I looked at the names of months. "After Caesar's death, the month Quintilis was renamed July in honor of Julius Caesar in 44 BC" 
And then I decided last names would be from vague descriptions of places. Rose is, of course, a joke, because the place has no roses and smells absolutely terrible. 

During the I post, May talking to the reddish stone was still going to just be an inside joke. As people are the pets now, they don't really have domestic pets, so... pet rocks are cool again! But later I figured out that I could use the stone to help with the alien in the mind-space travel prompt. 

I forgot about needing a shapeshifter. I didn't want to add another character at that point. None of the students could be shapeshifters because that would have come in the mind scans. So Piers got one more tool. He was already a baker who worked with the Dept of Homeland security thanks to a prompt. But what kind of shapeshifter could be useful? Well, I also needed an underwater scene yet. And then I found the story of a whale ingesting a guy and spitting him out elsewhere. But I also needed a storm that isn't weather, so yes, I added a hurricane that contains a wormhole. 

Biggles was always getting the happy world at the end of the story. I dropped foreshadowing all over the story, but was very careful not to say Biggles or mention guinea pigs until the final scenes. The Chavín people were real! And lived in the same place that guinea pigs are said to originate from, the Andes area of South America, around what's now Peru. 

I planned from the start that Jade would be Jade X, because that solved a title for a difficult letter. And I knew it would be "X" because May was to train an "alphabet worth" of classes-- because it's the A to Z Challenge and that amuses me. But, omg, using that as one last cliffhanger in the story by telling you that Jade X can't come to the new world... 😆

May starts off selfish in a way. She's grateful for what she has. She'll do anything to keep what she has. And if that means dozens of virgins from another timeline get turned into pets for alien overlords to breed, so be it. This could have easily been an erotic story if you consider the actual teaching that was going on. Anyway, by the end, May gives up everything for Jade. None of what she was so grateful for matters to her anymore. Does anyone notice the lack of a mention of plumbing on Biggles' planet Yeovil?  

🚽🛀🚰🚾🐹

There were a LOT of great comments on my blog this month. I'm going to share a few favorites:

(I LOVE how many of you could relate to being ignored by motion sensors for lights, faucets, and doors, by the way.)

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