Drifting Sands

Nitojutsu Chapter 14

2008-12-23T07:07:53Z

Just in time for the holidays! I'm on break now, so get a chance to actually write something.

Nitojutsu: Story of Two Swords Chapter 14

Enjoy! I'm aiming for a lot of work to be done on this fic during the next few weeks.

Nitojutsu Chapter 13

2008-11-23T21:26:40Z

Well, I posted this a week or so ago on fanfiction.net, but I forgot to note it here! If any of you are still following this fic, perhaps it has come back from the dead?

Nitojutsu: Story of Two Swords - Chapter 13

Series: One Piece
Pairing: Zoro x Tashigi (of course)
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: Alabasta, some Skypiea
Notes: Multi-chapter fic for ZxT, a long term project of mine for a realistic (?) development of the ZxT pairing from the very beginning. Tell me what you think!

Back Again!

2008-11-06T10:40:30Z

For the month of November I am back to writing. What exactly?

I am collaborating with angelicyokai on a couple of new fics- one for Naruto and one for Slayers. Neither has a name yet, but both are in progress for NaNoWriMo.

I am also working on the next chapter of Nitojutsu, for all those who are waiting on it.

Nitojutsu Chapter 12

2008-07-02T00:59:58Z

At long last!

Nitojutsu Chapter 12: Rest! Compassion & Questions

I return from the land of the dead (isn't that Osiris' digs or somesuch?) to write a little more of my most popular story. Check it out!

Whatfore art thou Shakespeare?

2008-05-12T22:20:29Z

Your Score: Julius Caesar

You scored 63% = Tragic, 36% = Comic, 18% = Romantic, 42% = Historic

You are Julius Caesar. Set during the mid-March in Rome, Julius Caesar tells the story of the conspiracy against and assassination of Julius Caesar. While not considered one of Shakespeare's Histories, Julius Caesar is a fictionalized account of a true story. What your score tells us about you is that you are most likely a complex individual who, like Brutus, may struggle between the conflicting demands of friendship, loyalty, and patriotism. However, also like Brutus, you are undoubtedly someone to whom your friends often go before making a big decision. You are their rock, and they wouldn't think of doing anything without first asking you what you think. However, like Caesar, himself, you tragic flaw, might be that you don't take advice or criticism well even if it is constructive. Take heed to listen to good advice when you hear it, and for gosh sake... beware the ides of March.

Beware those ides...

Wanna try?

WORK!

2008-05-12T09:14:55Z

I' m working...

Not in any way that makes me money, mind you. Nope, I'm writing fanfiction again. What exactly?

One Piece Overload!

Two new Lemon fics:
Tatsumaki - A Zoro x Tashigi Lemon, cuz counting Falling Rain, there is a total of ONE Lemon fic featuring this pairing.
Bloom - A yaoi Lemon! Zoro x Sanji, for angelicyokai. The title is a temporary stand in until I think of something better.

Finally -

Nitojutsu #12! I'm actually working on this fic again! That's what you were waiting on anyway, wasn't it?

Live from the Grave

2008-04-03T05:32:17Z

I died.

Apparently.

No posts for a month... wow, I've gotten so lost in recent weeks. Ah well, certain things have happened, and certain things are wrapping up. Hopefully I'll be back before long. I've kind of disappeared for the last few weeks, but... I have my excuses, as always. I'm a very busy person, you know. I'm also kind of uninspired right now, but that should pass soon.

Oh, I never updated on here when Chpater 11 of Nitojutsu went up... bad me!

Chapter 11: Memories! The Five Year Story

There you go.

See my excuses?

Megane...Megane...

2008-03-10T01:34:15Z

I had a Tashigi moment today.

Normally, I'm more of a Zoro-type person. I'm hateful, obsessive and I like to sleep. A lot. As in all the time. Beer is pretty good too.

But today, I stepped into another One Piece character's shoes.

I am, in essence, blind. My vision is so abysmal that I am twice the limit for being declared legally blind. In other words, when you show me that eye chart thingy with all the letters, I can't read that giant "E" on the first line. Normally, I wear contacts to correct for this, but on occasion I like to scare people by whipping out the old-fashioned glasses. I have a few pairs, with varying prescriptions, hidden away in the house. My most recent pair are the only ones with an actual accurate prescription for correcting my vision, so those are usually the ones I wear.

But today, after taking my contacts out, I dove into the drawer where I keep my glasses...

And they weren't there. I got to spend a few minutes wandering around the house, tripping over things looking for them (muttering "Megane... Megane..." the whole while) and still didn't find them. I'm wearing an old pair right now, so I can actually see.

Well, I guess I'd better go back to looking...

P.S. I found them about 30 seconds after I posted this. They were in the medicine cabinet right NEXT to the drawer where I usually keep them. I probably decided I'd be better able to find them if I stashed them there. I love it when I confound myself.

Nitojutsu Chapter 10

2008-03-03T05:21:50Z

Finally! It's done! FINALLY!

This chapter is over 6000 words long, which makes it about twice the length of my normal chapters. I was getting tired of chopping this plot stuff up further and further though, so I just went with it. Anyway, enjoy...

Nitojutsu Chapter 10: Kajou & Miki! In the Falling Rain

P.S. I just couldn't resist that chapter title. I bet a bunch of people were all excited, thinking I was going to put smut in this chapter. I just like to tease.

Review Replies - Nitojutsu Chapter 9

2008-03-02T06:06:36Z

Okay - round 2! Fight!

#1. Smoker being obsessed with Luffy... I didn't really think of it that way when I was writing it, but I suppose it may be true... heh heh. Smoker is totally awesome anyway, which is why my car is named after him. Gotta love a guy with convictions and determination!

#2. The so called "Kuina Thing" - yes indeed. It's a complex issue that needs to be dealt with, and requires quite a bit of thought on my part. After all, the "Kuina Thing" is something of a fundamental part of the whole Zoro x Tashigi dynamic.

#3. Gladdecease is my friend now.

#4. Fortress of Stupid is indeed a very apt name, isn't it? I think it's both musical to the ear and beautifully descriptive.

#5. Tashigi ROCKS, and has more than one surprise up her sleeves...

Reality Check

2008-02-25T08:53:49Z

Well, I said I was going to post a second chapter of Nitojutsu very quickly. That, obviously, did not happen. What really occurred was that I fully intended to finish off chapter 10 right away, but then I proceeded to completely forget about it for about 4 days. I'm completely burned out these days. Finishing off my grad school paperwork, gathering my materials, keeping up with classes, looking for a good paying job in a science field, and writing fanfiction... Unfortunately, I have to keep my priorities in line.

So, work on Nitojutsu will recommence shortly. Sorry for the delay.

P.S. Moku-Moku is going in to the body shop tomorrow morning (or rather later this morning by now, I guess) to repair that hit & run damage from a couple weeks ago. I ought to be mainly stuck in the house after that, though I will have a rental car. ::Sigh:: So expensive...

Nitojutsu Chapter 9

2008-02-19T03:05:08Z

Nitojutsu #9 finally went up today. Honestly, I don't know what's wrong with me - this chapter is just plain stupid. Oh well, I was cackling like mad while I wrote it, so it's all in good fun.

Nitojutsu Chapter 9: Just Passing Through! Stakes & Cells

Excuses, Excuses...

2008-02-15T04:20:06Z

So, perhaps some of you actually care to hear my excuses for being so terribly, horribly, inexcusably late with Nitojutsu Chapter 9. So, if you do, I am here to explain.

First and foremost - my poor, poor car. On Tuesday, when I planned to finish chapter 9, someone did a hit & run on it while it was parked at my house. This means one of my neighbors is a jackass who didn't bother to leave a note or anything. When I find them, they're going down big time. I'll whip out some Tashigi style Justice on their asses, no doubt. I spent Tuesday, and a good chunk of Wednesday, being straight up pissed. Plus there's the whole police reports and dealing with the insurance agency and whatnot as well. In addition, when I went to get repair estimates for it today - over a THOUSAND dollars! Holy crap on a stick, as some might say.

Oh, side note - my car is named Moku-Moku (MoMo for short). Yep, I named it after Smoker's Devil Fruit. Gotta love that guy. Well, I used to have a station wagon named Gomu-Gomu as well... and there was my ancient pickup truck named Don-Don (Do it with a "Don"!).

Okay, so that was my major trauma, but here were minor ones as well. I'm STILL working on grad school apps. Getting paperwork done, filling out applications, groveling for financial assistance and so forth. I hate it. Just doing that stuff puts me in a bad mood, and then I don't feel like writing at all.

Review Replies - Nitojutsu Chapter 8

2008-02-11T00:01:55Z

As I explained in the Author's Note of Nitojutsu Chapter 9, I'm putting replies to random reviews up here now so that my A/N isn't longer than the fic chapter. Today we have three to get us started -

#1. I wrote all of last chapter, and the thing I got comments on was my stupid little author’s note at the end. I didn’t think people actually read those… hm, a learning experience. I guess the concept of a person like me having a country accent is kind of funny, huh? Good thing I rarely let it show, even though I was born and raised in Appalachia.

#2. As for the chapter names – yes, I try to make them sound like episode titles. I have a weird knack for it, so I have been told.

#3. And as far as the romance is concerned – I’m getting there. Sorry, I really enjoy plot and I don’t like massive unexplained jumps or changes in character personalities. With the advent of last chapter, some things have been aired out and decided by Z and T, so now they can move forward without too much inexplicableness. For those of you who just can’t wait, go read Falling Rain (again). Heck, even go read the smut version. That should make your eyeballs burn bad enough you won’t be worryin’ about Nitojutsu for a while!

Purpose?

2008-02-09T00:16:49Z

Argh!

This post has nothing to do with writing. Not any writing that anyone else would be interested in, anyway.

I find myself locked away from my fanfiction for the time being, forced instead to write the thing I hate most -

Personal Statements/Statements of Purpose

Throw research papers at me. Philosophical interpretations of The Color Purple. Proposals for theoretical vaccines based on the Ebola virus. Anything but this.

I have to write at least a page about how great I am. Ok, you say, that's not hard. I'm a fantastic person! A genius, even! Yeah, no kidding, I'm the coolest person on my block! Or at least in my apartment, anyways!

Ah, but those dang peeps over in the grad schools, they don't care about how good I am at writing fanfiction. Or drawing. Or memorizing songs, or making witty jokes, or composing amusing online journal entries.They all want to know "Why are YOU so dang cool that we should let y'all into our program for like, research 'n stuff? Cuz we wanna know what you think you gots that we be interested in, yo."

To which, I would like to say "Yo! Genius here! Y'all should be DAMN happy I'm gracing you with my presence here! Hell, you should be honored I decided to APPLY for yer dang program. Damn straight. So lemme in."

That doesn't seem to fly, though. Nope, it's all about the groveling, and the extensive Plans For My Future that involve working my ass off for the university whenever I can, and giving them props for my valuable future research, so they can get their grubby mitts on the patent or whatever.

I tell you what though - I end up on the street this year, and they ain't gettin' so much as a BYWORD in my future novel on the nature of space and time or whatever massive scientific breakthrough I manage to make in the future. They will no longer exist, and I will make sure that they are the first to fall to my mighty Evil Empire when that day comes.

Mweh heh heh.

I'm a little stressed out right now.

Before I forget...

2008-02-05T08:09:14Z

Yet another new chapter of Nitojutsu today.

Chapter 8: Truce! Pride & Irrationality

This chapter was never meant to happen... in other words, I hadn't planned on including all these scenes, plot changes and dialogue at all. Fortunately for me, it just kind of rolled out that way. I ended up pushing the plot back more, but that's okay. This chapter has a lot of good character interaction.

I've been getting myself back into the right midset for Nitojutsu by watching AMVs on YouTube - there are quite a few very good ones, and more than half a dozen are ZoroxTashigi! I find that amazing, and they're very inspirational for a writer like me. Y'all should go check 'em out, to see what I'm getting at here.

#1

#2

#3

#4

#5

#6

#7

#8

And there are more that I didn't bother linking (cuz I'm lazy and it's 1 AM.)

Coffee Break

2008-02-02T09:32:20Z

Whew. Churning out a chapter a week of Nitojutsu is taking me back to my High School days, when I wrote constantly and did indeed put out chapters of two of three stories every week. They were all original fiction, and thus got no attention, but I did it anyway.

Ah, nostalgia.

This whole once a week schedule may need some revision - perhaps I'll go to once every two weeks? I have so many other stories I want to write, and in fact I have started on quite a few of them tonight. Nitojutsu Chapter 8 is getting some attention, of course, but so is Spicy Summers #5. I finally started churning out my FicWar fic, and two of my and angelicyokai's collaborative fics are officially underway. I also opened up and have written a bit on a few other fics I have lurking around on my compy.

In addition...

You know, I don’t get emails. And comments on my writing – as nice as ‘yay, loved it!’ and ‘update soon!’ are, I really enjoy discussing my stories on a deeper level, you know? Angelicyokai knows this, we talk about our various fics quite a bit. ::sigh:: And I should note that I’m pretty sure at least 60 people are actively reading Nitojutsu. And I get 6 reviews per chapter. Unless the same 6 people are reading it 10 times apiece… which they might be. I do things like that. Of course, I’m more than a little OCD and easily amused.

Lucky Numbers

2008-01-30T09:01:09Z

Nitojutsu chapter 7 - completed only 4 days late.

How pathetic, but I honestly hadn't really figured out what I was going to do with it right at this point. I know the general outline of the plot, who's who, what's what, but the path from point A to point Z is not a straight line by any means.

I'm writing very flowery today, and with lots of metaphors. I think it is entirely due to all of the FFVII fanfiction I've been reading the last couple of days (instead of writing my own fics, yes, I know.) It helped me turn out a very thoughtful and nostalgic (and I think lovely) bit of Zoro introspection for this new Nitojutsu chapter. Of course, being totally submerged in pairings like CloudxTifa and CidxShera, who doesn't get a little deep into the angst department?

As far as lucky numbers are concerned - I got up to 1700 hits on Nitojutsu with the last chapter. 17 is one of my favorite numbers. I also got 411 hits on my FanFiction.net profile - and that's my birthday! Finally, I had 13 Favorites and 13 Story Alerts on Nitojutsu with the last chapter as well - lucky number 13, as everyone knows.

Anyway -

Nitojutsu Chapter 7: Freedom! Personal Ghosts

Shades of Yellow

2008-01-26T00:46:26Z

Why is it that on every one of my Lemon fics, which are One Shots, I get at least one request for a continuation/sequel? Is it that my writing indicates that this piece of fluffy smut is a part of a larger whole? Or perhaps it's just because I like to leave the endings open, with characters going back to their normal, everyday lives at the end. I think that's only natural, but perhaps I'm wrong...

At any rate, though I never plan for such things, if they've been requested I'm compelled to consider them. I can definitely see a continuation of Falling Rain as a possibility. Empty Rooms is most likely not going to happen, since I only wrote that pairing as a request, and not so into it myself. If angelicyokai asks for it, maybe then I'll write one, but only maybe. And as far as Thunder Kiss is concerned... I was tempted to write a second chapter the day after I published it! But again, this is not a pairing I am a fan of myself, and so I'm not actively writing a sequel as of yet.

Well, I have other things to finish first anyway. Back to Nitojutsu!

Origins & Endings

2008-01-22T19:05:45Z

Okay! I finished Final Fantasy I last night, all I have left (on this disc) is Final Fantasy II!

But that has nothing to do with writing. Well, I suppose I could write a fanfiction for it, but there's no character development in any real sense in those early games. Heck, they don't even come with suggested names - they're all ???? and you have to pick 'em. You have to make a new game to access your clear file collection for FFI, so my second round charcters are as follows:
Warrior - Jeff
Monk - Caine (Oh yes, I did. How terrible of me.)
Red Mage - Vespa
Black Mage - Dark

Well, perhaps I'll start on FFII tonight, or perhaps I'll actually be productive. I could, of course, write a couple of other fanfictions I've been meaning to work on, such as the FicWar fic or Shigi-rella. Or this random crack fic idea I had...

Anyway, now I'm sorely tempted to write a FFVII fic. Dang, I need a better hobby. Of course, if it was a perfect world, I'd be a student who made a living with writing and art. Like a webcomic artist. ::sigh:: I've wanted to write a webcomic for many years, but my artwork is never up to par... I even have a plotline and characters made up, from my original fiction series.

How depressing.

2:30 and #6

2008-01-21T09:30:23Z

It's an early morning hour once again, and so I have finally finished off yet another Nitojutsu chapter!

Chapter 6: Escape! Circles & Swords

Yes! Now I can get back to playing FF: Origins with little guilt. But I do have to go to work... and I should work on chapter 7... and I should wirte something for Spicy Summers... grah!

Origins

2008-01-21T00:19:03Z

So, it's been a week. And I have very little to show for the fact that I have existed in that time.

But the new semester has started in college, and I'm hunting for a job while doing some work for my old employer on the side. And I'm playing Final Fantasy Origins. That's Final Fantasy I and II, for those who aren't mega FF otakus like me. I also spent some time on FFX and I beat Kingdom Hearts (again). I'm almost done with Final Fantasy I, but my characters are on strike after I sent them a-levelin' for several hours last night. I caught the Tyrannosaurus after only 45 minutes!

Obviously I don't pay them enough. Maybe it was the names? (Warrior/Knight=Krunk, Thief/Ninja=Butter, Black Mage/Wizard=Mr. E, White Mage/Wizard=Panzy)

Oh, that's right. This is about writing. Yep. I'm working on Nitojutsu chapter 6. That's it. Oh, and I wote about 3 sentences of Spicy Summers chapter 5 too. Hey, it's progress!

Now, to find that War Mech...

Rain Final Edit

2008-01-14T05:59:36Z

I finally did the final edit of Falling Rain (Non-Smut Version) for FF.net... only about a month after I said I was going to. Heh heh... I'm a bit lazy sometimes...

Good stuff. Yeah.

Nito-nito-nitojutsuuuu

2008-01-13T04:26:57Z

Yep, I finished chapter 5. You can read it if you like:

Nitojutsu Chapter 5: It's a Plan! Glass and Metal

Other than that, I'm writing a bit on all kinds of things. Nitojutsu, Spicy Summers, a new Lemon... etc. etc. etc. I get creative on my day off.

Ideas

2008-01-12T17:06:22Z

I'll most likely be posting the next chapter of Nitojutsu tonight, since it's almost done. Friday or Saturday (possibly even Sunday) will be my update day(s) for that fic from now on.

In other news... I have an Idea (Plot Bunny) for a new One Piece lemon fic... featuring Zoro and Sanji. I said I wasn't going to write one, but I may have to break my vow. ::sigh:: Go where the Plot Bunny demands, I guess.