Ladies and gentlemen, it is that time of the year again!

Hey guys! Long time no talk!

This semester me and some other students are producing an anthology for original fantasy, science fiction and horror short stories of up to 6,000 words, which we intend to make available in both e-book and PHYSICAL THING YOU CAN HOLD formats. I know many of you here are swell and excellent (swexcellent, if you will) writers, so if you could check us out, tell people about us or even submit something to us I would really appreciate it. You can find us here, at this website for your internet, and the deadline for submissions is February 23rd 2014. [original journal]

Ladies and gentlemen, it is once again that time of the year!

For those new watchers I've accumulated since last time: for the past four years, I've run an annual challenge during the two weeks' lead up to Valentine's Day. The idea is to look at the seven titles given below, and come up with a relationships-themed image or literature piece for one of the titles, posting them between the 1st and the 14th of February. My own goal is, as always, to complete all seven in that fortnight, posting one every two days, but you can do as many or as little as you wish! When you're finished, drop me a link and I'll stick it up on this journal for everyone to see.

So without further ado...

Valentine's Challenge: Titles 2013

Anniversary

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Serendipity



I Ship It

AA's V-Day Challenge 2013: I Ship ItJay wasn't entirely sure how she'd been drawn into this conversation, but she had been. More to the point, she was starting to wish that she hadn't allowed her brother to talk her into being at the Changeling Valentine's Day Party (apparently any day that was a major celebration in any culture was fair game for a party, Jay felt that someone should be putting their foot down). So here she was, sat at the edge of the party trying not to think about the fact that her fiancé had dumped her (admittedly with rather excellent results) and the fact that Dmitri had been sent to one of the field offices to fix a computer glitch that was jeopardizing a Sector Three mission. (He'd broken into her apartment a few days earlier and covered every available surface with flowers and weapons, it had to be the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for her).
She glared at Jacques as her teammate sauntered over and claimed one of the other seats at the table.
“Ah,” the Frenchwo

Indomitable

Chivalry

Mature Content

Promise



Masquerade



_{Previous titles:
2012: Rivals, Star-Crossed, Contentment, Fussing, Poetry, Blind, Alone Time
2011: Birthday, First Date, Confrontation, Bliss, Comfort, Candlelight, Culture Clash
2010: Beginnings, Bashful, Longing, Obvious To Outsiders, Embrace, Future Hopes, To Die At The Same Time
2009: Dislike At First Sight, Roses, Words, Angst, First Kiss, Just Friends, Chocolate, You Know It's Love When, An Inconvenient Crush, Heartbreak, Conflicted, Confessions, Dream, Endings}

...to bring a quick feature.

LOOK AT THE PRETTY
PRETTY
ARTS


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SDFGHJKHGFDSFGHJKHGFDSA

(Also shoutout to Elgieplz, who has been suffering from a really nasty-sounding illness these past few weeks but even so managed to give her Secret Santa assignee a sketch in lieu of a finished product. Get well soon Elgieeeee! )

AKA: I have a rather big problem and it's past time I aired it

EDIT: FFFF I have no idea where dA hid this journal. Silly Stash Writer! Here's it reposted, sorry 8I;

Okay. So, creatively, I have a rather vexing conundrum ahead of me.

Here it is:

Wielders, my webcomic, is plotted out, requires a few cosmetic and/or nonessential worldbuilding tidbits but that's it. I'm also already 38 pages in. By working on it I am actually creating a story that people can read now.

However, I fell out of love with Wielders so hard and so fast this summer that I've kind of been left scratching my head. The setting seems plain. The story feels uninspired. I know the character arcs so completely that they don't seem interesting. Plus, they're all teenagers and I've lately got a taste for writing adults.

In the other corner, there is Lords and Lays, a story for which I feel like I'm genuinely creating something that I might one day be proud of, something that I am seriously investing a lot of thought into and building up in a big way. However, that won't be ready for general broadcast for another three, four years, maybe. And in the meantime, I have nothing to show people. Not having any story to show anyone is really painful to me! If I have L&L as my sole project there's a real chance it might be rushed out before it's ready (it might do that on its own)!

What to do.

Possibility? Scrap the future Wielders plot and come up with something different. I can still go about four chapters without really tying myself down to the plot that I'd had in mind from the beginning - the first while is a lot of worldbuilding and revealing the elements of the setting upon which the plot relies. Theoretically, I could scrap the overarching plot altogether and take it episode-by-episode, resting the bulk of the story on the continuing character arcs/the character's lives, and just filling it out with 'monster-of-the-week' type stories.

Of course, even this radical shift would require me to suddenly gain the motivation to actually work on the first four chapters, which is something that has eluded me for a couple of months now.

Has anyone ever been in this position before? I've never lost love with a project like this, and it's a real shock to the system. Any tips on getting the mojo back? Any other relevant thoughts to share? I'd really appreciate what input people can give me.