Plot!!!

plot!!!

Hello friends!

This week’s post is less scattered and more focused as I actually set aside time to sit and work on my story instead of just snatching a few moments here and there!! ᕱ__ᕱ Now that I have fully committed to expanding on my failed summer writing and finally fleshing out the story behind it that has existed in my head for at least a year, I had so many directions I could go with this week's work. Since I am indecisive as heck, I asked my sister what I should do: character creation/development or worldbuilding? She chose worldbuilding which I was really excited for! When I sat down to write, however, plot spilled out. So, in this post I’m sharing a basic plot outline for either the background to the story or first part of the story. (I haven’t decided whether I want to actually write this out or have this be the set up scenario for where the story begins though I’m leaning towards the latter.) I hope you all enjoy! ᕱ__ᕱ 

Backstory/Plot:

Queen Blondie and Prince Pretty Boy are in love

The have the cutest backstory which involves their parents being allies/friends, them being childhood friends (puppy crushes), and then demanding a betrothal when they were like 12-13 so that they can make sure they end up together

Then they dont see each other for like 4 years cause prince pretty boy’s mum got assassinated and queen blondies mum got sick and dad passed away from a broken heart

queen blondie had just turned 16 so she was to be coronated as queen (16 yo = of age) but her “advisors” (the corrupt peeps who kinda underhandedly took charge when her dad was worried over her mum) were planning a coup and she found out and reverse uno carded them 

It's been a year and she's been cleaning up her kingdom when she gets an invite to prince pretty boy’s coronation 

They had been exchanging letters most of the years they were apart but had faltered when the whole coup thing went down

She is still super busy with adjusting to queen stuff but she misses him desperately (puppy love has grown) and she wants to support him so she sends one of her closest confidants and friends Main Character 3™: Hot Spy Lady

Prince Pretty Boy is getting coronated

Unrest in his kingdom and queen blondies had been growing for a hot minute

His mum was assassinated a few years earlier while viewing the kingdom and his dad got uber protective (queen blondie has heard all about it via letter)

King (his dad) just got assassinated and now his Uncle (chief advisor to his father after his mum died) is pushing a whirlwind coronation 

Prince Pretty Boy wants to wait to contact Queen Blondie because the betrothal still stands and him being crowned king and her queen much sooner than they expected to and before their marriage may complicate the merging of their kingdoms (which had always been the plan but)

Uncle pushes through and all he is able to send is a standard invitation to the coronation (which Uncle thought they could do without but pretty boy insisted on following the proper traditions)

Many important figures could not make it to Prince Pretty Boy’s big day because of the rush but Hot Spy Lady made it in time along with a few others

But SURPRISE Uncle has staged a coup!!

Working for/with the Big Bad™

Attempts to kill Prince Pretty Boy

Hot Spy Lady ends up saving his tush and they flee the castle before pretty boy can be coronated

Before he flees Prince Pretty Boy is able to send one of his closest friends and confidants Main Character 4™: Classic Knight out to spread the news of this betrayal to his allies and neutral parties to hopefully gain new allies and reclaim his kingdom

Queen Blondie (17), Prince Pretty Boy (18), Hot Spy Lady (19), Classic Knight (19) are the 4 main characters of this beginning plot

~*~*~

I’m so excited for this story! ᕱ__ᕱ If I get enough background, worldbuilding, and plot outlined by November I may seriously consider partaking in NaNoWriMo this year!!! (For those who don't know what NaNoWriMo is: https://nanowrimo.org/national-novel-writing-month.) Anyway, I don’t want to get ahead of myself. As I have been working out and stretching my creative writing muscles this past month, actively thinking about and doing creative writing work, I have started to find it easier and easier to get into the proper headspace and whip out a couple hundred words when I have the time to sit and do it. It’s like I’m rediscovering my love for writing and story-crafting again. ᕱ__ᕱ It’s truly the best feeling!! 

Remember to dot your j’s and cross your t’s, friends!

~Clementine J. Quincey 🪷

PS. I listen to music a lot, especially while I write, so for your listening pleasure, a couple songs that made me happy this week:

✨ Hot Tea by Dalia Dargazli

🐸Yes I'm a Mess by AJR

🎶The Moon Will Sing by The Crane Wives

✨All American Bitch by Olivia Rodrigo

attempting to edit my mistakes + a new character!!

Hello friends!!

For this week’s progress report I have finally decided to reveal my failed writing attempt from over the summer. Last week’s inspiration to continue trying to flesh out and create this story has not died down and I am finding myself increasingly more excited to write which is super awesome!! So, I decided to go back and try my hand at editing what I had written down for the uncompleted scene and it…went. It didn’t go poorly, but it didn't go well.

It still needs a lot of work before I’m happy with it, but here it is nonetheless:

Scene

“You love him, don’t you,” a voice called over her shoulder. Ailidh started, turning her head away from the scene below to face Ruslan.

“I… don’t know,” she responded, hesitantly, her grip on the parapet tightening as she was suddenly unable to meet the piercing gaze of her betrothed. “But… I think I could.”

She looked back at the man in the courtyard, kneeling in front of a giggling elven child, a soft smile on his face. “I dearly wish to,” she whispered softly. 

Ailidh tensed as a hand was placed upon her shoulder. She looked up once more to see only kindness and understanding in Ruslan’s face. The corner of his lip twitched upward, and her lips parted softly, exhaling in relief. He had become very dear to her heart in the course of their engagement, and while she did not harbor any romantic feelings for him whatsoever, she would hate for their friendship to be lost entirely. She could marry him for the sake of her people and be content for the rest of her days. 

And yet…

Ruslan turned to the guards behind them. “One of you, go and fetch the good Lady of these lands and my advisor. Tell them to meet us in the study.” 

“Yes, sir.”

His gaze snapped back to Ailidh’s as she inhaled sharply. “Do you have your  copy of the marriage contract?” 

She blinked. “...Yes. In the study.”

“Good. Let us make our way there before your mother and my dearest shadow arrive,” he said, holding out his arm with a lopsided grin. With a hesitant smile, and one last hastened glance at her knight below, Ailidh took the offered arm, the pair beginning to walk briskly off the balcony and down the hall.

*~*~*

I don’t usually write romance so it was really interesting that this was the inspirational itch I decided to scratch over the summer. ᕱ__ᕱ 

However, that wasn’t the only thing I did this week. I also started to create another character! I don’t have a drawing for him yet but I do have some visuals floating around in my brain for what he looks like. Once I have time to do some graphic art for fun, you may be blessed with another mediocre headshot.

Character

Ruslan (roos-lan)

Ailidh’s betrothed

From a different nobel family

His family presides over a much more militarily focused fae village/area

This is why Ailidh is betrothed to him as his people could provide her people with much more protection against the growing unrest

Oooo plot!

Highly skilled in the more assassin area’s of fighting

Prefers knives

He and Ailidh make a terrifying duo (poison’s knives!!!!!)

Personality wise he is very dutiful but more laid back that Ailidh

Very dry, sarcastic sense of humor

Boyish charm pokes out every once in a while

Very popular with the ladies but doesn’t care for it (he laments to Ailidh constantly when they become closer friends)

Honestly he's a pretty chill guy

*~*~*

I’ve grown very attached to my guy Ruslan in the time I’ve started to craft him. I’m excited to work on his and Ailidh’s relationship/friendship. But whomst is this mysterious knight I wonder??? ᕱ__<

Finally, I did a little bit of world building as well… but I’m going to keep that to myself for now. (I’m just keeping all the secret’s from you guys today).

All in all, I’d say this was a pretty productive week for me and I’m quite proud of what I have accomplished. That’s all from me for now!

But remember, dot your j’s and cross your t’s!

~Clementine J Quincey🪷

i'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack

Hello friends!

As I said in my last post, I’m back!! Many apologies for disappearing into thin air after the last full length post in January, things just got crazy with the Spring semester. I was taking my big Writing Seminar class for my History Major, and researching and writing my big final paper (which was required to be 22-25 pages long and which I turned in at 49 pages long of course). I simply did not have the time, space, or mental capacity to devote the level of effort required for developing my original story and for the upkeep of this blog. 

And even after the semester ended, I got sidetracked by starting an internship for my major as well as starting a new part time job over the summer and the pet project of creating a website for my Aunt’s small business. Unfortunately, writing for personal enjoyment fell to the wayside for me for over half a year. But now, with a new semester kicking off, I’m back! ᕱ__ᕱ

Some of you may be thinking, but Clementine! It’s the start of a new semester, aren’t you going to still be too busy with college for this blog? Well…yes, I will be busy with college (and all the stuff I have to do to prep for my graduation in December)! But also no, I won’t be too busy for this blog. There are a multitude of reasons for this. For example, the fact that I’ve been cracking down on my procrastination habits over the past year and have been seeing some improvement, or the fact that I am only taking four classes this semester. But the main reason I will for sure have the time to devote to this blog and my personal creative writing again is thus: it’s become an assignment for one of my classes again! 

(Hello again, Professor M! You’ll be sick of me and my rambles by the end of the semester I promise. ᕱ__<)

I won’t bore y’all with the details but basically I’ll be picking up right where I left off with this blog, except this time I’m going to: 

#1 -  Try to be more active on this account that just my weekly posts for class. (I finally downloaded tumblr onto my phone so I should be able to partake in some doom scrolling on here as well as instagram lol.)

And #2 - For my posts that are for class, I’m going to try to have a little more focus that I did previously. As I’ve discussed here before, worldbuilding is extremely important to me, but it is also one of the parts I dread the most about developing my original story. So, I’m using my class assignment as an excuse to force myself to do at least a little something with world building and/or the development of my original story’s magic system every week.

But, as many of you know, the best laid plans often go awry, so strap in folks. It’s gonna get interesting. (But that’s the fun part after all! ᕱ__ᕱ) Hopefully, I’ll see y’all soon!

Dot your j’s and cross your t’s!

~Clementine J. Quincey 🪷

Also PS. I have a writing playlist that I've made (which I will share at some point) and the song that inspired it was this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0AUn3kNda0k

It's so beautiful and awesome and epic that I just had to share! That's all. ᕱ__ᕱ

finals week + fandom stats

Hello friends!

Finals week is upon me and as such I have had to prioritize. This means that despite me chomping at the bit to get more done for my original story, I have unfortunately not done much. For one of my classes, however, I recently did a final analysis on my work. (In fact, it was the same class I started this blog for. ᕱ__< ) In this final analysis I came to some conclusions about one of my projects that made me quite sad. Despite all of the hardwork and effort I put into it, I failed to make an engaging piece of digital media. It was a good piece, but it missed the mark in several areas. BUT! I feel as though it may be of some interest to my fellow fandom nerds here on tumblr. So, since I don’t have much new work to share with y’all this week, I figured I’d release this project into the wild.

For some background information: the assignment was to create an infographic. I wanted to make it something relevant to my interests, so I was struggling a little to come up with something fun and interesting until I remembered a video I saw back when I used to have TikTok. (Yes, I had TikTok. It was cool and fun and all, but it took too much time from my day so I deleted it a little over a year ago. But I digress.) The person in this video was throwing out some fandom stats from Archive of Our Own (popular fanfiction website, though I’m sure most of y’all know that) and I wondered if I would be able to collect my own data from AO3 and make an infographic of that. And so I did.

Needless to say, the data collection took a lot of work. A LOT of work. And once I was finished with gathering, I sorted. And once I was finished sorting, I did some math (incorrectly) and then some more math (correctly) and created my infographic using Adobe Illustrator. And it was okay. If I had the technological skills and know-how to do so, I would have made it an interactive graph which would give you more data when you clicked on stuff. But I didn’t have the skills or know-how. The resulting infographic kinda hits you in the face with a bunch of info and it’s kind of overwhelming. 

So, like I said, it’s not my best work, but I definitely learned a lot from it. And mayhaps y’all might find the information fascinating so… behold, I suppose:

What do you make of it? Is the information surprising? Unsurprising? Completely and utterly uninteresting to you? Let me know! And for those of y’all in college/university with me: good luck on your finals if you have yet to take them and I'm sure you aced your finals if you have already taken them! And if I survive, I’ll see y’all next week! ᕱ__ᕱ

Just remember to dot your j’s and cross your t’s (especially on your final essays)!

~Clementine J. Quincey 🪷

P.S. Remember that I am posting a second extra content post this week as well!! Look out for that coming soon!

Percy Jackson is the best book boyfriend and one of the main reasons my standards for relationships in both fiction (my own original work and work I consume) as well as real life are so incredibly high

We do not talk about this passage enough, this is so sweet

worldbuilding!!✨

Hello friends!

I’m back and better than ever!! ᕱ__ᕱ This past week I have felt much, much better and, while I don’t want to jinx it, I think I should be looking forward to sunshine and clear skies for the next few weeks in the mental health department so that's always good news. I don’t have very much commentary this week, and I don’t want to keep y’all for longer than I need to in light of last week's heavier post, so I figured I would keep this one short and sweet. The main thing I have made progress on in the last few days is world building. Now, keep in mind that all of this is still in it’s beginning stages so things may likely change in the future, but for now here is a basic outline of some of the fantasy races and magic system in my story:

Lore

Elven Kind - the Atharenel

Names come from celtic, russian/slavic, germanic, french

Ailidh’s people have celtic names

Ruslan’s people have russian/slavic names

Two other main groups of Atharenel

one has germanic names 

one has french names

The Atharenel are fully mortal and have normal lifespans much like humans

However they have a highly increased ability for magic

Along with a deeper connection to the natural world

And they have slightly enhanced abilities

Naturally mildly faster

Stronger

More flexible, etc.

Humans

Names come from misc languages

latin, hebrew, spanish, japanese, chinese, arabic, african dialects etc.

Some have ability for magic but at a much lower rate than the atharenel

And naturally powerful magic users are rare

Often use objects of power to help channel and amplify magic

Staffs, wands, rings, etc

Often utilize spells to help direct and shape magic specifically

Magic system - STILL NEEDS QUITE A BIT OF WORK 

Magic is highly connected to nature

Magic enhances nature and follows an extension of most natural laws

There is always a reaction to an action

Something can’t be made of nothing

Stuff doesn’t just happen because

Light magic (or Life magic) refers to the magic of healing, growing, creating

Dark magic (or Death magic) refers to the magic of aggression, death, destruction

NONE OF THIS TYPE OF MAGIC IS “BAD MAGIC”

Life and death magic exist on a balance, they are yin and yang, there simply is not one without the other

However there is such a thing as “bad magic” and that is corrupted magic

This is the type of magic that creates things like the shadow army

It tilts the balance between light and dark out of balance

It twists nature itself into something unnatural and seems to come with no cost

Shadow Army do not have names

~*~*~

That’s pretty much all I have for y’all today. As you can tell, this is a pretty basic outline and some of the details are still vague and wishy-washy, but as I devote more time to this project I hope my vision becomes more and more clear. Only time will tell I suppose. Next week I will hopefully have some more characters developed for you all as recently many have been fighting to be released from my brain. We shall see. Until next time!  ᕱ__ᕱ 

Always remember to dot your j’s and cross your t’s!

~Clementine J. Quincey 🪷