In Memoriam: My Jump Drive

Brave Document Carrier UMF013, I salute you!

So, I have a funny story.  Actually its not funny at all unless you count cosmic rape and mind-fuckage funny.  A couple years ago I lost my BIG external hard drive to a horrible accident.  It got knocked off the surface it was sitting on.  Now my baby, my little jump drive full of both fanfic, original novels, and personal photography, has died.  For a while I honestly believed something was out to get me.  It might sound pathetic but I cried for half an hour and cursed God (whom I apologized to later; he understands). 

With it went all my story notes, chapters in progress, unposted fics (including one-shots and multi-chapter fic), and any character pictures I hadn't uploaded to this blog. I will have to start over again on everything that wasn't safely on the internet or shared with friends, which to be honest is 99% of everything.  I guess I should be used to this by now - the world screwing with me.  I also should have learned from the first time this happened but I was like, "that thing is so tiny what could happen to it!"  Well, I found out. 

As of now I'm swamped with schoolwork so unfortunately it will be a good 2-3 days before I get a chance to re-start chapter 18 of Imperium.  I wasn't happy with it anyway so maybe its a blessing.  Unfortunately I lost the 10 pages I'd written on a new story "Hollow."  Its moments like these I curse my piece of shit printer or I'd have copies of everything printed out.  I will also have to begin editing "Son of Mars" again.  The new version I had was lost, leaving me only the version on ff.net. 

Not many of you are aware of my greatest Resident Evil story "Metamorphosis."  It is a gigantic alternative universe series a friend and I are working on.  Have been working on for years. Its story plan currently has 13 books in the main series as well as a couple sub-series.  I had an entire folder (about twenty files) full of just notes and information regarding this series.  It has all been lost.  Well, the OLD files (about three years old) still exist, but anything we've done recently is gone.  So all our new edits?  Yup: non-existent.  I think this is what upset me the most.  My Fallout stories mean a lot to me but Metamorphosis/Inheritance is my baby.  I have put so much time and energy into this its like watching a person die everytime I lose it. 

Combined with a close family member being hospitalized last week I've had it pretty rough this weekend. 

Please universe, be gentle.  I think you've already messed with me enough for 2012. 

I didn't really want to go into a big long complaining blogpost about this.  Really I just wanted to share the nifty picture of my old jump drive's innards.  I will get on salvaging what writing I still have as soon as my two exams are over this week and things calm down.  In the meantime, take care, my fellow fanficy comrades.

And Happy Valentine's Day if I do not write before then.

So, I think I'm back.  I mean, as back as I can be with five classes taking up some of my time, but Mars willing I will be able to at least tap out a chapter more often than I have been.  Life is still a roller coaster.  I know it may be strange to some of you, if you are reading this, that I do talk about my personal issues like that -- the depression and anxiety -- and I want you to know its not because I want attention, actually far from, but I know quite a few people that have experienced very similar issues in their life and perhaps if I talk about it then if someone out there, maybe you, feel the same things then you know that you are not alone out there.  Some might say, "oh, you're depressed?  So that means you're fucking sad, boo hoo, get over it."  Its not that simple.  I wish it were that simple.  Its an issue that effects many aspects of the lives of the people that have to go through it.  For me its sometimes my inability to interact with people, even on the internet.  That constant paranoid feeling of being judged even when you're not, or looked upon with a critical eye, or just that fear that you'll say or do something wrong.  And when I have felt like I've done something wrong I don't know how to go about fixing it, so I just disappear under my rock.  Its a very lonely rock sometimes.

But I won't give up.  I guess I should just take a page out of our dear Courier's book and take this shot in the head life gave me and get up and get moving.  Won't let it slow me down.  We all carry burdens; emotional, physical, even situational.  In this day and time it gets easy to get left behind, forgotten.  That's when we need a reminder that there is someone out there, someone who cares and is willing to listen.  For everyone.  You just need to know where to look or when to open your eyes and see it.  For me its my close friends, some I've met online, most I've met in real life.  I'm not the type to have a lot of friends.  More of a small close-knit group type of person.  I think that's why sometimes its so hard to meet new people and know how to interact with them, because I'm not quite sure how I'll be taken by strangers.  No matter how much we have in common.  I'm going to try. 

And I want to say that even the smallest bit of encouragement or recognition from you does wonders.  You may not be very aware and I may be too scared or embarrassed to PM you with a thank you much of the time, but those that stand by me and continue to read my writing, truly remember me, they mean a great deal to me.  Because, I remember your names (pennames for the most part in the case of fanffiction.net) and I smile when I get a review or a message from someone that's been loyally following my works.  I feel a great responsibility to do the best I can for you.  It is a bit much to say we are friends, since I do not know many of you personally, never even spoken via messengers, but I will say that some of you feel like comrades.  Kin, in a way.  We've all come together with a single purpose and whether we know it or not support each other with our words.  A "great job!" or "cool story, bro!" goes a long way for people.  In some cases it might be the thing that brightens someone's day more than anything else can.  It could make the worst day better just by having that message in your inbox letting you know that there is someone out there that you've touched somehow, in some way.

Yeah, this is a bit serious, but in a way I guess I'm a serious person despite all my joking around.  Maybe I've just been in a mood since I finished Lonesome Road, where it really did emphasize just how much one person can influence another by just doing what they do.  It doesn't matter whether you write, or whether you just read.  You contribute to a larger community, feed it, help it grow.  People may say fanfiction is pointless, but how many times have you read a good story that really makes you think, makes you consider things, feel things you might not have before?  Its the same as any fiction.  As long as there's a love behind what you do it will shine through.  We can all be bright lights in this world and shine upon other people.  I have always had, and will always have a deep appreciation for my readers.  Its something many writers should have, seeing as without your readers you're not really anything.  You could write the greatest masterpiece, but what does it matter if there's no one to share it with you? 

I really shouldn't get too heavy into the philosophy I suppose.  I really wanted to let people know that yes, I am alive and that yes, I do continue to write and work on the stories that you've all come to love and want to see more of.  I guess my return was officially the one-shot "The Divide" which was sparked by my completion of the Lonesome Road, although I was trying very hard to update Imperium for Christmas.  Alas, the holidays were busy around my house, especially with a close friend coming down to visit for a couple weeks.  Its my goal to have chapter 17 out soon and get this story moving again, just as I wish to continue with my others.  I have also been looking at Son of Mars and realize that I deeply want to rewrite some bits and re-edit it, perhaps have an extended version so I don't know when I'll update that one.  You may see the previous version be replaced very soon. 

I'm also organizing my stories and figuring out which ones I want to write on the most and which I should put on the back burner.  I have many more than I have actually posted up on Fanfiction.net, but I write on them just the same.  Over time some of these have lost their spark and I realize they're not a good idea anymore, probably never had been.  These will be discarded so the better stories can move up and take their place. 

It will take time to get it sorted out.  In the meantime the following is a list of projects that have burned themselves in my mind as priorities or are just thumping around up there at the moment.  Some you know, others, you may not:

1. Imperium et Liberatus
2. Son of Mars (Re-Write)
3. A Terminal Affair
4. Resurrection Road -- although this one may wait a bit until I have completed one of my shorter stories, such as Terminal.
5. Someone I Used to Know -- If I actually started writing hard on this I could have it completed in no time.
6. Golden Rule -- A legion story that's been bugging me for a bit, I keep going back to it.  It centers around a fairly lost courier and Aurelius of Phoenix. 
7. Hollow - won't say too much, but pretty much a male courier story.  Twisted, depraved.  Hopefully some depth.
8. Carry On - A very short, maybe 3-4 chapter story involving the Courier and Ulysses.  He's seemed to have found a way into my heart and won't leave.

I may update this list in a few days.  Its getting late and I have class tomorrow. 

Vale.

Life Attack

Pretty weird title, but pretty true all in all.  I was pretty much attacked by life.  OMGs.  I know.  I just felt like with as busy as I've been the last month (probably more) I needed to come on and explain my further absence.  Without reading the last post I made I'm not sure what I've said before so if I repeat anything, I'm sorry.  I'm currently getting back into school again.  My classes begin in January, which may or may not bring an insurgence of written material, for when I'm in school I have a tendency to write more (oddly) because I'm constantly having to find stuff to do in between classes or something of the like so I jot things down here and there.  Also, I've been spending a lot of time with my best friend, Tsugi, and my now 1 year old niece (yays!) and helping them out with everything.  I know how much everyone really wants updates, but my friends here and life comes first.  It just sucks that I have barely had time to write anything else.  I really miss writing for you guys, interacting via comments or messages and just seeing what you have to say.  My third reason for being away so long is I'm currently trying to find another job to help financially. 

A HUGE reason I've been gone is I'm currently organizing my possessions.  As in: getting rid of everything I don't need and taking to goodwill as well as looking through all my internet stuff.  I have over the long years of being on the internet amassed a great deal of online names and random websites and I want to find the passwords (some long lost) and delete all of them that I don't use (which is the majority).  This is a big undertaking for what passwords I may have are scribbled in various places among notebooks and files.  I have three large tubs filled with notebooks and binders with stories and other documents as well as a couple bookshelves.  I've been writing since elementary school and I'm 25 now so you can imagine how much stuff I have.  Its a long and hard job to look through these as well as forcing myself to throw away stories I will never write.  I jokingly said I don't want to become one of those hoarders you see on TV.  Then I looked at all my notebooks and went, "okay, so we're already close to that."  Okay, no, I'm joking again.  I have a very small space to live in and a large assortment of possessions so it just seems like I have a lot, but if I had a place of my own it would be pretty sparse.  Sigh.  So.  Organizing.  Family.  Friends.  School.  Crazy life.

I've also been working on another writing project with a friend of mine.  Its a Resident Evil Alternate Universe called "Metamorphosis", the sister (twin sister, really) of my already posted story "Inheritance."  It features the same character, Sasha Alexander, but in a much different life.  It takes place in mostly the movieverse, but with a great deal of tweaks that we have put in ourselves.  So far it features at least 10 stories in the series, not counting the special two-parter explaining my friend's character's background and a seperate Mercenaries series involving the one and only Ada Wong.  2/10 of the stories are complete, being Dissolution (book 5) and Liberation (book 6).  Okay, so Liberation isn't complete yet, but its about 3/4 of the way through.  Its a project that has been going on since at least Apocalypse was out and really hit big time work for us after extinction.  Recently we have decided to add in some details revealed in Afterlife and have been revamping the series to fit the new specs.  Meta is not a story I've really shared much outside of my close friends, but it is one of the most important to me because of my own slew of original characters (over fifty) and canon characters that populated the storyline as well as the personal sentimentality for writing it with one of my best friends. 

Damn, I am all over the place with this article, but it would probably never get finished if I tried to edit it so I'll leave it at this.  I hope to have something, even if its just a bit of something by Christmas.  My Christmas present for you! 

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving (if American) and have a wonder _insert special winter holiday season here (Hanukkah, Kwanza, Christmas, or Yule!) _ if I don't see you before then.  Hugs to everyone for their outstanding patience.  I miss you and feel terrible for not updating anything recently.  I haven't even had time to check my e-mail or sign into fanfiction.net.  So if you've sent me messages, requests, or anything else and I haven't responded that's why.  So I am really really really sorry!

--Shadow!