April 2026 Camp NovMo: Soulwatchers!

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AH I'M ABOUT TO HIT 80K AND THUS MEET MY GOAL!!!!!!

Though I might have to delete the scenes I'm replacing so maybe I won't actually hit it LOL.

But it's fine. I have plenty of time. :)

STILL IT'S LOOKING GOOD.

Please enjoy the coopering energy in this scene (spoilers because it's toward the resolution so you see that all is well, but this is a ROMANTASY, darnit, you knew it would have a HEA right???)

Spoiler
“Why would you want an adze?” Robert said, bewildered.

Adelphina shrugged, deciding that the real answer — that she had asked for an adze to kill demons — might not be the answer Robert would approve of. Hoping to improvise with a lie, she glanced at the adze and realized for the first time that she had no idea what it did. Guessing that it looked a cross between a hammer and a short crowbar, she said, “The door was locked, so I figured I needed a tool to get inside.”

Based on the stunned expression on Frederick’s face, she knew immediately she had made a mistake.

Robert stared at her, raising a solitary eyebrow. “An adze?”

Adelphina shrugged. “I figured, if I couldn’t pry the door open with the prying part, I could bust the door down with the hammer part.”

From Frederick’s horrified expression, she could only assume that her explanation had only made things worse. Beside her, she heard a strange wheeze from Damien. She turned to glare at him, only to realize he was choking back laughter.

Robert took a deep breath. “So you decided to ask for an adze?”

Adelphina nodded, feeling her cheeks burn.

Robert took another deep breath. “In the future, your majesty, may I remind you that you have a locksmith as part of your staff who would be happy to attend to any door-related problems that you may face in your tenure as queen. Furthermore, should you forget about the details of these particular domestic matters, I would be more than happy to assist you.”

“Noted,” Adelphina said, giving Robert a curt nod.
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

Moth and Myth <- My comic! :D




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Just wanted to say that I love that you're so excited about reducing the word count! I feel that in my heart too :3

Also, your ending outline is hilarious. I am really curious about Soul Watchers so I hope you get to keep working on it!


Is the Mermaid story another of the backstories that gets mentioned? Because MAN YOU KNOW HOW TO WRITE INTERESTING BACKSTORIES that I wish were the actual stories XD




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LOL. I admit, when I wrote my Swans series I lovingly called it my unpublishable monstrosity and let it bloat into a truly monstrous size. But now I have people begging me to publish and... well... I can't entertain publishing it at that size, LOL. So, to the chopping block I go! :)

And yesssss Soul Watchers! I'm working on its second draft, and honestly I kind of adore it. It *will* be finished, no worries! :D (The first draft was finished, so already that is a FANTASTIC sign, hahaha. I abandon first chapters -- usually not entire novels, hahaha.)

The mermaid story is actually its own novel -- All That Glitters! It's based on "The Golden Bird" by the Grimm Brothers, and "The Golden Mermaid" by Andrew Lang -- two VERY similar fairy tales, lol. I love the fairy tale so much... it is such an epic story in every way with such a solid animal/prince friendship. EXCEPT the way how they treat the princess/mermaid is awful and she is treated like a prize and as soon as the prince steals her, she falls madly in love with him for no discernable reason and actually cares for him, and it's like... WHY.

So my plan was to novelize it and turn the one girl in the story (SERIOUSLY THERE WAS ONLY ONE GIRL IN THE STORY HOW DID SHE GET SO FLAT) and turn it so that 1) she's not the only girl and there are several awesome women in this book, and 2) ALSO she actually has a personality and agency instead of just being a prize. So, expand the epic heist scenes, make the romance actually SPECIAL instead of the eye-rolling cringe it is, make it less of a sausage fest, and just... increase the epicness of an already epic story by making it less blatantly misogynistic, hahha.

ANYWAY. I worked on this as a nano several years ago and wrote about half of the first draft. (40k words, about!) BUT THEN. My computer was having problems and deleted half my writing and most of my notes immediately after November, so I was really upset and abandoned it. However, I've been able to reconstruct my writing (I emailed earlier chapters from my niece and found some random .txt files from autosaves), and though I still don't have my old notes, my new outline SHOULD help me finish the story, since I was stuck on the mermaid part. :)

...this is probably too long of a rant, hhaha. But I had fun writing it, so OH WELL. *posts*
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

Moth and Myth <- My comic! :D




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I love these details!
And while I didn't read any of the stories you mention, I adore what you plan to make out of them. Call me a fan of All That Glitters now =D




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Ahhhhhhhh I've been hit by FATIGUE. WHY. (Don't answer that.)

Anyway. I trimmed over a thousand words for both Book 2 and Book 3. Now Book 2 is 104.8K words while Book 3 is 142.4K words.

I still haven't swapped the chapters that will cause Book 3 to suddenly shrink, though I'm really close to finishing them so maybe I should work on that.

I am ONE HUNDRED WORDS away from hitting 80k for Soul Watchers, so feasibly I can do that... but I won't. Today anyway. Maybe tomorrow, lol. >.>
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

Moth and Myth <- My comic! :D




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WHoaaaaa look at you go!!!
I know my worth, anyone else opinion doesn't really matter
-Agent Carter




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I HIT THE 80K MARK!! While writing the dungeon scene, lol. Woooo!

Going to make his radiance snake around her when he goes past her. :3 <3
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

Moth and Myth <- My comic! :D




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WOOOO 80K!!! That's awesome :D
It's Kay, babe!
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Your local (friendly?) cryptid crow
HAKUNA BATATA




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You are killing your writing goals, Snoink! Great job!
There is always something left to love.
- One Hundred Years of Solitude




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Okay! So quick recap!

For my goals, I wanted to hit 80k (which was essentially write 10k) and trim some of Book 3.

SO! I...

- Hit 80K by writing 10k words!

- Cut 10k words from Book 3!

Which... I guess means I wrote a net zero of 0 words, lol, but it's epic and needed to be done. :)

SO YAY! MET THE GOALS!
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

Moth and Myth <- My comic! :D




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So I was rereading your posts, and this struck out to me:
Woah, it is kinda interesting to see that fixing the barrel attracted so much attention! Also, also: “a kiss, Adelphina was morbidly pleased to see that Damien did not return.” Yes, Adelphina? =D

“ While writing the dungeon scene,” *intrigued eyebrow raise* Exciting stuff!

Congratz on finishing Camp April :3




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OH NO NOT THE PURPLE TEXT! XD

Ha! The night before, all the girls celebrated Adelphina's and Damien's "wedding" with a party when they found out they "eloped", so he is pretty popular. XD

YES. DUNGEON SCEEEEEEENE. :3
Ubi caritas est vera, Deus ibi est.

"The mark of your ignorance is the depth of your belief in injustice and tragedy. What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls the butterfly." ~ Richard Bach

Moth and Myth <- My comic! :D



Look, a good poem is a poem that exists. Any poem you write is better than the poem you don't.
— WeepingWisteria