I finally finished the fanfiction rec list I mentioned a few updates ago; I meant to have it ready earlier in the month, but at least I posted it before November really got going. I feel like the two people who commented saying they were interested in rec lists will already have seen most of these, at least within the fandoms they're interested in, but hopefully the rest of you will find something new to read! For future reference, you can find this and any other rec lists on the Misc. Writings page, though I'll probably make a quick note of it in the updates anyway if I add more to it.

(I am a little bummed about not being able to include one of my other favorite Pokémon fics on the list since the author appears to have taken it down from FFN and I haven't attempted to see if it still exists on any forums yet. If you happen to come across Mentor by Dagzar anywhere, though, and don't mind that it apparently won't be finished, give it a look!)

The webcomic rec list honestly should've been done well before that one, especially since I had most of my comments written down and just needed to clean them up, but apparently it's harder to do that than I'd thought it would be. It should hopefully show up soon.

That "soon" should be read as "sometime in early December", by the way, because after taking a break last year I'm going to be participating in NaNoWriMo again. Updates will be scarce to non-existent, yadda yadda yadda that doesn't mean a whole lot seeing as they've been scarce all year. :/ But since I'm writing a fanfic (again sob sob why are my original ideas never ready), it is something that can be posted to AO when it's a bit more polished... and as my primary NaNo plan is to write a bunch of mostly-standalone short stories that still add up to one larger story, I feel as though I'm more likely to have stuff that's ready to post instead of a monolithic thing full of monolithic plot holes that collects dust on my hard drive like At Liberty, Incarnadine Harvest and Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen. The caveat is that, like the aforementioned Incarnadine Harvest, this year's story is not a Pokémon fic (unless I do in fact change my mind over the next few days, which is ill-advised but not entirely implausible) and so will likely not be of interest to the majority of my usual visitors. Still, I know there are at least some people who might enjoy it if I post it here in addition to the more general fic venues, and dammit I need to be doing something on the actually-write-crap-and-actually-post-it front. (In more Pokémony news, though, I do have other plans for some writing that is a bit more relevant to most of your interests. More on that in another update, though.)

For now, anyway, I am definitely working with this Golden Sun fanfic. I'm already 800+ words in as of 12:30 AM (after which I stopped to finish up the rec list and this update), and will get to the other half of my day's wordcount after some sleep and some work. I just hope that leaves me enough time to either feel more confident about what I want to do with the GS fic or else make just enough headway on one of my other ideas to start that instead and not fall too far behind.

Oh! One other thing before I go: I finally updated My Oshawott Never Smiles and fixed the issues that had been pointed out to me. (Hopefully fixed, anyway.) Negrek I am so sorry and I swear that next time you leave concrit on a fic I will not take almost two years to act on it :(

...and that means that I'll be diving head first into National Novel Writing Month in an attempt to actually get some serious writing done (since apparently I can never write any fiction unless it's for a) NaNo or b) a grade). As such, you probably won't see me around much this month. Once again, though, the story I'm going to be writing should be suitable for dcNET when I'm done editing it... and editing Incarnadine Harvest from last year... and At Liberty from the year before... and I should probably stop now. I'm depressing myself. (But I am going to try really hard to finish those up one of these days! Really!)

Unfortunately I was unable to finish the ASB for Beginners revamp in time, and it's going to have to take a back seat to the NaNovel; I did make some major headway on it over the past few days, however, so with any luck it'll only take me a little while longer to finish it up once November is over. That'll be just in time for another important deadline, as you might notice if you check out the To-Do List over there. Hm. I wonder what that is, anyway?

Just so I don't leave you all in the lurch while I'm off a-noveling, I did finish creating the prize image for the Pokémon League Swap Meet Puzzle since that was something I could do quickly. If you've already solved the puzzle you'll have to enter the answer again to see it, but you should already know what that is so it shouldn't be a big deal. If you haven't solved it yet, then maybe this'll serve as some incentive to keep trying! I've gotten some positive feedback about the puzzle relatively recently, so I'm glad to hear you guys are enjoying it! (Now, I wonder if I should update the puzzle to include fifth-gen Pokémon... probably not until we get their English names, at least... hmm.)

Lastly, dcNET has another new affiliate. AobaruNet is a neat fansite with fun interactive games and interesting reviews–do yourself a favor and go give it a look!

I think that's all for now. Happy Halloween to those of you who celebrate it, wish me luck in NaNoWriMo, and I'll be back just in time for December 3rd, whatever that might be!

Le gasp! But it is true!

Few things. First and foremost, I won NaNoWriMo for the second year in a row:

50254 words of silly, parodyesque Tales of Symphonia "hardboiled detective" fanfic (think The Maltese Falcon on crack and starring Zelos), the vast majority of which are rambly fillercrap but were still a lot of fun and will provide a good foundation for the next draft, which will of course be posted here when it is presentable. I know I said that about last year's NaNovel, too, and I do still like that story and would like to get it spiffied up, but I just haven't had the motivation to so much as touch the thing since I finished it. Incarnadine Harvest, on the other hand, I am really excited about. Since I imagine the majority of you readers are Pokémon fans, not ToS fans, this is probably not wonderful news to you, but hey, maybe when I finish the IH rewrite I'll finally feel like working on At Liberty again–and rest assured that At Liberty is 100% USDA Choice Pokémon fanfic. It has a stoner hobo Armaldo and a Staraptor who makes siren noises in it. It will be fun. Dark and violent, but fun. :)

Second, the stuff I've been promising since forever ago. Ahahaha. Well, of the three main things I've been mentioning–the reffing guide, the Gen 4 Battle Factory page and the EV training page–the EV training page is pretty close to completion. Just needs a few more paragraphs and some more proofreading and cleaning up (with a little beta-reading help from one of my friends; thanks, Negrek) and then it should be good to go. The other two will have to wait a little longer, I'm afraid; without being able to look at game data my progress with the Battle Factory page is entirely dependant on my ability to actually make it to certain streaks with some degree of consistency, and that consistency tends to go out the window somewhere around the midpoint of streak 4. And the ref page... that's more a motivation issue than anything else, I guess. They will get done eventually, I promise, but at this rate I'm guessing only the EV training page will go live before the end of 2009. Sorry.

Third, if any of you have been following my HeartGold blog and it has not yet caused you to rip your eyeballs out, yes, I will be continuing it in an attempt (probably a futile one, given my track record) to finish well before the games' American release in April 2010. I have some final projects to take care of this week, which is also why I won't be able to finish the EV training page right away, but hopefully Chapter Four should arrive sometime around the 15th.

Fourth, I am once again annoyed with the way I have decided to structure my menu and sections. Expect another overhaul sometime between now and January. The links won't change, but where you find those links might.

Fifth, at some point I will probably be copying the updates from the older incarnations of the site over here, just for the purposes of having a more complete archive. On the off chance you want to see those again, well, they'll... be there. Yeah.

Sixth, as you may or may not know I enjoy creating fake Pokémon. For several years I've wanted to get a separate "Fakemon Pokédex" subsite set up so I can display them all pretty-like and with all relevant information in one place. I do actually have the site online on a subdomain and have been slowly filling it with content for the past few months; it isn't currently accessible if you aren't me, however. I was originally waiting to have at least one complete Pokédex finished before opening it to the public, but I've since changed my mind about that and am willing to let you all see it while it's still in progress. It isn't quite ready for unveiling yet, unfortunately. I'll see if I can't have it organized and presentable sometime around my birthday at the end of January. My 21st birthday present to all of you, or... something, I don't know.

Seventh, I am hosting a fakemon-creating contest on deviantART. Enter it! There are prizes and everything, including art by yours truly and some free shiny Pokémon from the sparklies page. Mmm, free shiny battle-ready Togekiss, you know you waaaant one... so go make up a fakemon and earn it!

Eighth, this has gone on long enough and it's high time I got back to those final projects. Adieu, and Happy Vague Innumerable December Holidays if I don't pop in again before the end of the month.