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http://www.fanfiction.ws/s/6694532/1/bRed_b_and_bGreen_b_bShould_b_bNever_b_Be_Seen

Here's a poster that I made for it.
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Someone asked my age. I was born in 1969. You do the math.

December 1, 2010

Dan Q: A Hunter

The English translation of Don Quixote by John Ormsby (1885) is online at {http:///cervantes/don_quixote/}.

Unheeded Warning: Synergy

Audio files for Unheeded Warning: Synergy are located at {http:///user/public/?username=Dee}.

You may notice that I changed the tense of the narrative from past to present. I was having a botch of a time recording the dull past tense narrative, so I re-wrote some of the parts to accommodate a present tense action tale!

Author Note
October 2010

I dropped the story for almost 2 years. I was going to revise it, and I did revise a few chapters. Honestly, when I got to Chapter 32, I just didn't know what else to write. To me, coupling Max and Fang was just about the only plot depth that I had in mind. Everything else was subplot. I'm a rather inexperienced novelist. Plus, I'm pretty crappy at solving problems in my own life, so you can see that on-page problems follow suit.

(E.g.,

To write or not to write, that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
My family getting pissed off because I didn't do housework,
Or to argue that writing is my divine purpose in life,
And that it makes me happy? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The depression and ADHD hyperfocus that genetically
My flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
That I'd rather not face. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death I might be just as depressed
When I don't have to deal with everyday life,
Maybe the spiritual reality will be just the same: there's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life;
Who am I to say that trying to convince people that I'm a writer,
That trying to persuade myself that I'm supposed to express myself in print,
That it's not a coincidence that I was joyful in writing this story,
And that other people might just not get why being happy was more important than food,
That being selfish in writing was something I was drawn to do,
And that I didn't intend for my family to suffer
- it's not as though they went naked in the streets.
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscover'd country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action. - Soft you now!
The fair Ophelia! Nymph, in thy orisons
Be all my sins remember'd.

Sorry about ruining Shakespeare there.)

The entire premise for this story came from a month-long and very boring trip to China in September & October of 2008. The story idea was based on the ending of The Final Warning. Normally trips to foreign countries are supposed to be exciting, but basically I was a 内人 nei ren is the feudal Chinese term for a wife who doesn't leave her home) for the extent of the visit

So, living at my in-laws, not adjusting well to the time change, and bored out of my mind, I began to daydream about what would prompt Max to kiss Fang. So, Unheeded Warning began entirely on the premise of FAX. The first few chapters were written by hand, daydreamed, rewritten, re-rewritten, etc. These turned out nicely. The rest of the chapters ended up being a manic mini-NaNo in December 2008.

As of October 2010, I've started back up on the plot, and I have some ideas, but my silly characters keep on doing the strangest things. I really never know where Max & company are going to take me. It's fun, absolutely fun to let them wander through the story, but it gets a bit tough when I try to reel them in.

December 17, 2008

50,000 Words! OMG! It feels like an accomplishment. Still working out the resolution of the climax. Dun dun duuuhhh. Will Max return? Will Fang's true love ever be consummated? Is Valencia gonna kill Iggy when she finds out what he did with Ella, or is she never going to find out?

Time for happy author to take a nap. Or exercise. Hmmm. Exercise would probably yield better returns.

December 15, 2008

At the beginning of week three of my "Write a Novel in a Month" experiment (in which I have recklessly and thoughtlessly engaged myself without due diligence) I'm getting nervous. I didn't realize that I'd actually have to stretch out my wings and fly. It didn't occur to me beforehand that I would need to summon all my confidence just to complete a kooky project like this. Totally novice, letting my characters overcome my reasoning skills, I now have to actually make this plot happen ... and it is downright scary. Butterflies in my stomach. No kidding.

I have performance anxiety. The endorphin rush of getting reviews is addicting. The desire to please ... gosh, I haven't tried to beat that monster back into submission before. Not ever! No one really told me that I'd have to manufacture my own confidence in my plot twists and foreshadowing. I never asked either. I feel stupid. So much for avoiding negative self-talk.

Well, if you're following the story Unheeded Warning, I figured I needed to air out this laundry, but I refuse to do it in the form of an author note that would interrupt the flow of the novel. I'm beginning to tread on unfamiliar terra firma now, because the story is expanding outside of the official MR codex. I'm pushing my own crazy theories. My characters are behaving in uncharacteristic ways as the plot gets muddled.

Reader Questions Answered

Unheeded Warning

Ishasuki Mitochi commented on Chapter 27: Okay, I think I have a problem with how completely Ella is OOC in this chapter. Completely. It really, really bugs. Really.

Response: Sorry to disappoint so much. Thank you for reading this far. From this point onward, the fanfic will continue to veer away from the MR series.

My take on Ella is different than the MR series. In MR 1-4 she is shy. We don't see her interacting with the Flock very much. In Unheeded Warning she is more of a mainstream American girl; she is actually older than Nudge (not as Max guessed she "looked" around 11 years old).
Take care. Thanks for your candid review.

Ishasuki Mitochi commented on Chapter 19: Can you say 'awkward'? Well, I can. And that was. ...I think Max should explain the circumstances of the begging to her mother. It sounded different from the way it actually was, if you know what I mean.

Response: I was wondering if that would "fly" - haha - with readers.
So I'm thinking that Max has no discomfort talking sex with her mom.
And I'm working the angle that Max both wants sex and is terrified of having sex with Fang. So with him, she's a lot less open.
I hope it works. I guess I could revise it. But I'm trying to not change major plots once I post.
Thanks for your comment, so that it stays real.

6464MiniDiceofRandomness asked: I was wondering,do you have these chapters ready to type or do you make them up as you go along?

Rambling Response: This is really my first attempt at a longer story like this (at least I haven't written like this in approx. 25 years, meaning when I was in high school).

I'm just writing as I go, composing a scene while I should be sleeping, listening to my DH, helping DS with homework, etc. Then, the characters always do these crazy things that I would never have expected.
I never expected the Voice rant by Fang, for instance. But I did plan to incorporate the shock that Fang had toward learning that the Voice supported FAX.

It's been a wild week or so. Now, DH is just about fed up with no housecleaning, no dinner prepared, no income, you get the picture. Kudos to him, he was the one who clued me in to WANIAMO - Nat'l Novel Writing Month. Thank God for human trust and willingness to risk even in the face of a pitifully meagre likelihood of success.

Sometimes I write by pencil, and then embellish while I type. Typing seems to keep my mind focused enough to write.
Otherwise, just like my answer to your email, my mind is all over the place. Hence the weird metaphors.

6464MiniDiceofRandomness asked: How did Max lose her memory?
Response: Hey,

I'm glad you're thinking about how Max's memory issue came about. It's more than just a bump on her head, which is the easy explanation that many readers may accept.

The psychological stress that Max is constantly under is emphasized in her memory loss episode. People block memories quite frequently, but this is a dramatic portrayal so it is framed around Fang specifically. There are hints of what is probably typical adolescent sexual ambiguity and transference, too.

Although this wasn't in your question, I feel obligated to explain the return of her memory. It shouldn't take a day to regain memories lost due to psychological stressors. But the Flock isn't ordinary, so I have that on my side. Plus Fang foreshadows the return of her memories. And finally, the flow of the story is more symbolic than literal, so her progression through psychological issues is on super fast forward instead of normal time.

Oh, to clarify: romance is not required!