Some Tips For Using A Few Words To Describe Voices:

Day 41 (1:14) of rewriting my novel

I didn't write a lot today, but that's okay. Any progress is progress.

I'm still thinking about Izi's speech in Tolftorrijv, and about what he might say. For the three-man band that is the "New Heroes," Izi fills both the Heart and the Leader, and Taguchif overlaps with him in the roles of Lancer and Smart one. I guess that makes Hota the tank, while also fulfilling some leadership roles because they're good at making plans. A well-balanced team.

I now plan on breaking that balance in Part Four, though, splitting them up. It's time for Zeneste to come under new management, anyways.

Happy Pokemon Day!

I've been playing a lot of Pokemon (GO!, FireRed, and Ruby specifically), so I decided that, in honor of Pokemon day, it would be fun to imagine my ocs as gym leaders or champions!

Yessei: Dark type gym leader, Elite 4

L. 50 Houndoom

L. 50 Weavile

L. 50 Kingambit

L. 50 Scrafty

L. 55 Mandibuzz

L. 65 Hydreigon

If you can't tell, I think Yessei's team would frustrate an entire generation of players lol.

Something about Yessei's arc just screams dark-type, despite how positive she can be about it.

Stardust (Kalinua): Steel-type gym leader, 5th gym

L. 30 Magneton

L. 30 Metang

L. 30 Skarmory

L. 35 Gholdengo

Just to make this team a bit of a nuisance, I feel like Kalinua's Magneton has the ability Sturdy, preventing you from knocking it out in one hit.

Kalinua's military background just radiates steel-type.

Hota: Psychic-type gym leader, 3rd gym

L. 20 Gothita

L. 20 Solosis

L. 25 Hatenna

Since Hota's gym is the third gym, it shouldn't be too hard. One dark-type kinda sweeps this whole team: you could sweep with a larvitar, lol.

C'mon, Hota literally is psychic.

Iziser: Fairy-type gym leader, 4th gym

L. 25 Togetic

L. 25 Azumarill

L. 30 Dachsbun

Not a super hard gym, either. Any steel-type sweps here.

Fairy type seems the most appropriate. After all, it is the new king of Pokemon types, lol. That being said, I like the idea that Izi would hate that he loves these Pokemon so much, lol. He would be good friends with all of them.

Tag list for the regulars who might want to do this themselves, lol:

@quillswriting @oldfashionedidiot

Not dead, just hibernating, lol!

Gang, I might make a YouTube video about Javanese (from the perspective of an American conlanger) because you can't make this shit up.

(Tl;dr: Javanese register is very complicated and very fascinating. Also, what's up with slack-voiced consonants?)

I'm getting REALLY angry at all "motivational" books / blogs / posts who keep saying things like "Stop watching TV / playing *World of Warcraft* and you will have a few hours a week to create a business / write a book / whatever".

Because I don't watch TV. I watched like two EPISODES of TV series last year. And probably no more than 5 movies of which some I didn't even finish.

I'm not playing video games. I wish I could but I don't have enough time.

I'm already sleep-deprived so don't even start with "Get up an hour earlier".

And I still can't gather more than a few minutes a day to work on my personal projects.

And even if I *do* find some time, sometimes I'm too tired or overwhelmed to do anything more challenging than going to sleep or scrolling my phone. And before you start with "So stop scrolling social media and you'll be able to write", just DON'T. At those times my level of focus is so low that I couldn't put two words together.

And I still WANT to do those projects. I NEED to be creative for my mental health.

So here's to those who - like me - have daily goals to write TEN words. No, NOT ten thousand or even a hundred. Just ten words. One or two sentences. If I'm lucky and can write a few hundred, that's great! But ten words are FINE. Do you know how many words I wrote yesterday? THIRTEEN. I had literally a few minutes.

I'm often writing on my phone because turning my computer on would eat up all the time I have to write. I don't have any special ritual with scented candles or special tea because all this setup takes too much of my time.

I'm writing all this because maybe you need to hear this.

Maybe you need to hear that setting tiny little goals is OKAY. You don't need to write thousands of words a day.

Maybe you need to hear that watching a movie or scrolling your phone when you're overwhelmed is OKAY. Having free time does not equal being able to do a task, especially a creative one. You can't be always on your 100% capacity.

Maybe you need to hear that there's someone out there (me) who is doing even less than you. If you add 20 words to your current WIP today, you're still ahead of me. So if you see those writers making amazing progress each day, just think there's me who's struggling to do 1% of that.

And that's OKAY.

"Rationalism" is up there with "Objectivism" in terms of "definitionally funny things to call your own belief system".

A Proper Introduction

It only now occurs to me that I haven't properly introduced myself (or this blog!) Welcome. I'm happy to have y'all. I'm Lex (they/them) (18+), your local siren, programmer, writer, worldbuilder, conlanger, composer, and gardener. I speak with a bit of a Southern accent.

This is my main (and only, for now) blog, where I mostly post about my writing endeavors and worldbuilding "woes" (I make myself suffer for fun.) In the future, I may make blogs devoted to specific conlangs or concultures, but I will probably make a website for that, first. If that happens, I will post it here. I follow other blogs I like ad nauseam.

Additionally, I'm always taking translation suggestions for any of my conlangs in any of my WIPs. At the moment, I only have two WIPs, which I'll list below, but I'm really only working on one right now.

My WIPs are:

It Will Hurt: And There Will be no Fire - (On hold) A story about a vegan big-V Vampire, her sister, her cofee bar, and a lot of people who want her power for themselves.

Meiste - (Current) A story about several Heroes running around and trying to restore "magical balance" while also navigating political and economic strife.

Moreover, current conlangs I'm accepting translation ideas for:

Ipol (and Sinezo 'speer)

Odapir

Atepsi

Kwalinu and Kwaleynnũ

Ytos and Itaush

Katla-Khi

Bumpe Nende

Knál Bnú and Kanál Banáu

I'm normally down for connecting with writing buddies, so if you're interested, feel free to DM me! I am also willing to proofread/edit others' works, in addition to helping however I can. I can make websites, make languages, and make music lol.

I promise I wrote today, so there will also be an update following this. Take care, y'all.

Day 20 (26 in base 7) of rewriting my novel.

I did a lot of planning today, but I didn’t add any words to the novel today.

Also, a new character just kinda… popped out of nowhere yesterday while I was writing?

Heads up, Seven up!

Thanks from @authorcoledipalo for the tag!

Take these seven lines of dialogue from Part Three:

"She killed her ... in front of us. In front of me." "Izi ... I'm not doing this because you can't, I'm doing this because you can." “When you get back in power, make it so the train is free.” "Too late...you're cooked." “Obviously not! The layers of deception with her go so deep it’s not even funny anymore.” "Do you even know how you feel?" "We're going to get our mother back and beat the shit out of her for lying to us."

Plus seven tags:

@theothersideofthewoods, @oldfashionedidiot, @flurrysahin, @the-letterbox-archives, @eternalwritingstudent, @koinotfish, and @moonsbetween

Day 19 (25 in base 7) of rewriting my novel.

I wrote another 1,000 words ish. I've been adding roughly 1,000 words per day, and as a result, I'm somewhere along the order of 24,000 or so words total.

Today, I also completed a grambank table for Ipol! A while ago, @dedalvs created a grambank spreadsheet for conlangs that has been very helpful for documenting my conlangs' grammars (so I don't forget them,) and today I finished a "draft" of a finalized one for Ipol.

I will link it here:

Google Docs

Ipol Grambank

Language Features Grambank Feature,Basic Category,Subcategory,Y/N,Conlang Description and Example(s) <a href="https://grambank.clld.org/par

Submit any questions about it that you might have, or submit translations! I'm always looking to expand the lexicon.

That's all for now.

EDIT: I mistakenly credited David J. Peterson with creating this spreadsheet, but he's just who I heard it from! It is actually by Jessie Peterson.

Edit 2: I knew David Peterson and Jesse Peterson were married, but I didn’t piece together that it was Jesse Peterson who created the grambank spreadsheet.

Day 44 (1:20) of rewriting my novel

Today I didn't log many words, but that's ok.

Today I continued my journey in writing Part Three in reverse. Instead of writing the long, boring car scene, I skip to the good part-making the plan to convince Governor Bunthun to help, only to have the plan ripped away violently from underneath the New Heroes. Classic storytelling, but interesting nonetheless.

I don't know why, but the idea of post-novel canon has been living in my head rent-free. Like, I think I know how I want the rest of the novel to go:

the Coalition grows in number,

they take Ir Nouzonif only to find that President Sluwfa has run off with the remaining two Old Heroes' magics,

Izi and Tagif go and stop President Sluwfa while Hota and Lozef remain to keep the remains of Ir Nouzonif stable,

and Izi and Tagif return and restore the Old Heroes, balancing Magic and bringing Meiste back to having a physical representation when They want it (don't ask.)

The outcome of all this is a couple things:

A bunch of power-hungry warlords control most of the Old Confederacy

The situation in Odapir is particularly dire, considering the country will have been in full-blown civil war for several weeks.

But, as of right now, I'm not sold on writing a sequel.

Writing process taglist: @oldfashionedidiot

If you'd like to be added to any of my taglists, respond to this taglist post, or DM me and I can add you that way.