User blog:Sunshineandravioli/Just When I Thought It Was Safe to Update Fanfics...

As I'm sure most of you know, a month or two ago I was pretty inactive on the wiki, thanks to being very busy in real life. Once things calmed down a bit, I got back into camps, started my regular update schedule (which has been going rather well so far!), and settled in for what I thought would be a decent amount of time for me to just relax and actually participate in the wiki.

Of course, now that I've joined camps and dedicated to updating fanfics, things are starting to get busy for me again. I have the most amazing timing!!! XD What that means is that in the near future, I might be online less, miss a chapter or two (though that will be my main wiki focus above everything else during busy times), and be slow in updating my camps. I'm going to do my best to still be as active as possible, though, so no worries. :)

On another note, I'm sure y'all have noticed by now that I never did get my Total Drama Couples chapter up as promised. Right now, TDC is the fanfic I'm having the most difficulty with. To explain why, I'm going to need to explain a little bit of how I write...

Basically, when I get a good idea for a fanfiction (especially a competition one), I sit down and plan the entire thing out before I even begin to write the first chapter. I'll decide how many characters there'll be and who they are, pick a setting for the fanfic, plan out the number of episodes, pick the challenges, and determine the elimination order. Sometimes, to help myself even more, I'll write up a basic outline of each episode, deciding what plot points to cover, which characters to develop and how, and how the entire episode flows. This episode-planning has recently been done with TSI, which makes it far easier for me to write each chapter, develop characters, and occasionally to foreshadow future plot points- something that was done in chapter three if you want to look for it! I also did this a long time ago with TDFame, but upon looking over it now I find the ideas weak and no longer like them, which is why I've temporarily canceled it- I'm going to re-do this plot planning to bring it up to my modern standards. EX, Summer, and TWE don't have these heavily planned plotlines, but that is because Summer's plot was not determined by me, but by Codaa- he'd give me a basic plot for the episode and I would write it- and EX/TWE have little continuity, the chapters standing on their own, meaning I don't have to plan out how each event connects.

In short, I didn't do this with TDCouples. At the time, it was purposeful. As those of you who read the fic know, the judges and host are based off me, Nalyd, Zekie, and TDI19. I was planning to write up the challenges and then actually ask their opinions on who should be eliminated, then determine who was voted out from there. However, now that I'm actually writing these chapters, TDI19 is no longer on the wiki, Zekie is less active and thus, I don't get as many chances to talk to him, and let's face it, I bug Nalyd enough already. XD So, I'm left with absolutely no plan for the chapters- no challenge, no elimination, no plot lines, etc. This leaves me lost and panicked as I try to pump out a chapter that I don't even know how to write.

So, I've been thinking about what to do about this, and have come up with three options. The first: temporarily take TDCouples off my writing schedule so I can do all that work I should have done before I wrote the fanfic, then resume updating once this has been done. The second: move the update day from Tuesday to Wednesday, giving me more time to work on it (so far I've usually had only a day to write it, since Monday is pretty much dedicated entirely to finishing up TSI and posting it). The third: do both. I want to know what you guys think I should do. Are y'all willing to wait up to a month or more for new TDCouples while I plot out the season? Or do you want TDCouples and want it now, and thus think I should just move the day? My hope is that, with your imput, I can come up with a plan that will be best for all of you guys and for myself. :)

And to finish off, two more notes (which are completely unrelated to each other XD). First, I would really appreciate if you'd help me out by throwing around some ideas for Ex Chapter 5. I'm really lost on what to do next with it, but I really want to get another new chapter up (as the new Ex chapters have recieved the best feedback out of any of my other chapters). And the second, '''if you are working on the newsletter and haven't sent me your stuff yet, PLEASE, send them soon! There's only a week left for you to send in your stuff, and you've gotten an entire month extra to get it all done! Please check here if you think you may have signed up for the newsletter and forgot, and if you have your stuff done, send it to me on my talk page!!! Thank you!!!'''

~Love and Ravioli, Sunshine :)