All posts by fuzzynerd

Life, Writing, General, Insomnia

Writing Log: Day 4 – Month 1

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

As I started this log towards the end of the month, there will only be 7 days for month 1 of my log. It seems a little silly, but at least the numbers for next month will make it look like I’ve started working like I’m possessed. 🙂

Just a small amount of work done on the book today. It was a pretty busy day. Still, one of the things I learned writing my first book was to not be too hard on myself when I missed a day of writing or couldn’t quite hit my goal. It’s going to happen sometimes and beating myself up over it will only make it harder to keep this up.

Writing Log – Day 4 Month 1

Transformation (Second Shroud Novel) –  8,781 words to date (535 today)

Other Fiction – 0

Blog Entries – 144

Emails – 0

Total Fiction This Month: 9,875

Total Words This Month: 12,155

General, Writing

Writing Log: Day 3 – Month 1

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Day three of my new writing log and I’m getting more excited about the whole process. Again. This was definitely one of my goals but I am constantly surprised just how much I enjoy all of this. The writing itself is fairly hard work. Mentally anyway. The whole idea of writing an entire book is also still incredibly intimidating to me. I have an unfortunate habit of looking at the entirety of the work and thinking about just what it will take to finish. The “one day at a time” mantra was never so apt in my life as now. It’s also a huge divergence from the world we live in today. The world with everything coming fast and faster. Movies stream as fast as you can turn on your TV and find what you want to watch. Electronic books are instantly available wherever you happen to be. Even physical stuff can be ordered online one day and show up either next day or the day after. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of the online shopping experience. Dealing with people in stores drives me a little nuts every time I have to go. But it does mean that this writing thing is very alien to my other daily experiences.

This is what I have discovered to far when it comes to my writing process (these are the things that I have found to be most important to my process and may or may not work for anyone else’s):

– Discipline is very important: This, along with motivation, is one of the most difficult things maintaining on a daily basis. As I greatly enjoy a multitude of activities when I am at home it takes a decent amount of discipline for me to tear myself away from a video game (World of Warcraft or Diablo 3 recently) to sit down and write.

– Motivation is equally is not more important: This one factor has probably been the single biggest hurdle throughout my life. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post I have been going through as much of my old writing as I could find (easily find at this point). One of the things I came across was a journal that spans from halfway through 1997 through most of 1998. There aren’t very many entries despite this long time period. I wasn’t surprised though. Consistency has always been an issue with me because day to day, my personal motivation to do something like this waxes and wanes. Once I actually sit down and get into the writing mindset, motivation is no longer a problem 99% of the time. It’s getting myself to sit down and do it that is the trick. With my first book I used the task as a personal challenge to see if I could even finish a book. Now that I’ve done so, I’ve beaten that challenge. That meant that the doubts and inner critic came back in full force and have been plaguing me for some time now. This writing log is part of how I handle my doubts and annoying inner critic. It gives me visible proof of my daily progress, and that is something that greatly helps with my motivation.

– Simple goals: This was something I’ve learned through this whole process. It is so very important to keep your daily, weekly, and even monthly goals both simple and reasonable. This goes back to the short, medium, and long term goal planning we probably (hopefully) all learned in school at some point. This is very true with writing. My current daily goal for fiction writing is the same goal I had writing my first book: complete at least 1,000 new words each day while taking at most one day off each week from writing.

– Writing must be a habit: This ties in with everything else but is certainly worth mentioning. For myself, I have to make writing a daily habit. I need to be thinking about it during idle times, when I’m bored, when I’m in bed about to fall asleep, in the shower, wherever. If I’m not doing this, I lose the thread of the story I’m writing. I have to spend valuable time re-reading what I’ve written to get a clue as to what should happen next. This is both frustrating and boring. I’ve discovered that if I just stay on top of my writing, even if I don’t hit my writing goal for the day, the story stays fresh enough that the next day I can pick up where I left off without missing a beat. Plus, making writing a habit helps reinforce that whole discipline thing. Bonus!

That’s about it for now. If I can think of more I’ll add it to the list.

 

Writing Log – Day 3 Month 1

Transformation (Second Shroud Novel) –  8,246 words to date (1,497 today)

Other Fiction – 0

Blog Entries – 818

Emails – 0

Total Fiction This Month: 9,340

Total Words This Month: 11,476

Career, Writing

Writing Log: Day 2 – Month 1

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Getting a real late start on the book this evening. Not too surprised by that though given how late I was up and how much I had to sleep in because of that. Of course my schedule isn’t particularly an issue seeing as I am not currently traditionally employed. I consider my writing to be my job and my career now, but it is certainly not paying the bills yet. I believe I’ve sold a whopping 10 copies of my first book so far. I’d had the vague hope that my first book would be some kind of amazing breakthrough. Vague because I didn’t hold much stock in that particular dream. I am very willing to put in the hard work and time it will take to start supporting myself with my writing.

Of course, I’ll be much happier when I’m done with the first chapter of this book. It feels like it’s been dragging on forever. I’m sure that fact that I’ve only been working on it in very small chunks until yesterday has seriously contributed to that feeling. I guess it’s time to get down to business. 🙂

A couple of hours later and I’ve made my 1k word minimum for the second Shroud novel. I took a break, intending to write a little more later but that’s not happening tonight. I went back to my main computer to finish converting and uploading the old stuff I wrote back in my high school and (first) college days that I plan on including in my Bits and Pieces book. When I went through the actual old archive folder I found a few more files that hadn’t made it into my current writing folder. They were in the old Corel WordPerfect format but thankfully Microsoft Office doesn’t have any trouble reading them. Unless they are password protected. It turns out two of the files I hadn’t copied were protected. (Likely why I never moved them over.) So a download of the trial version of WordPerfect and 30 minutes of password guessing later I managed to open both files. Thankfully my passwords back then were pathetically easy. One of the files was all of three sentences and a waste of time. The other though is an actual journal of mine that I started in the summer of 1997.

It was incredibly interesting reading what was going through my mind back then. It definitely brought a lot of old memories back to the forefront. Most of it was pretty sad and depressing, not to mention embarrassing. Then again, journals aren’t meant to be read by anyone. I probably will still include it anyway as I can contrast how I’m doing now with how bad things seemed then quite nicely. I’ll just have to change a few names and fix some of the more glaring spelling and grammar issues. I’m also going to try and find as much of the hand-written stuff as I can. The really old writing is probably lost at this point unfortunately. Though I do still have two “love” letters from a girl I had a crush on in elementary school. Maybe I should try and contact her to see if she has the letters I wrote her? That would be a weird email/call to get.

Now that I think of it, there was another girl I used to write letters to. This was back in high school though so their contents would be far more interesting. I guess I’ll have to do some digging and see what I can turn up. It’s actually pretty exciting and a whole lot of fun to go back to all of this crap I’ve done over the years. I wonder if any of the stuff I wrote for my old website is still around? Definitely time to go through my giant pile of old CD-R’s!

 

Writing Log – Day 2, Month 1

Transformation (Second Shroud Novel) – 6,749 words to date (1,021 today)

Other Fiction – 0 (Converted the last of the files in the current archive folder)

Blog Entries – 679

Emails – 0

Total Fiction This Month: 7,843

Total Words This Month: 9,161

General, Insomnia, Life, Writing, Changes

Getting Back to Business

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Now that I’ve had a chance to get settled into my new home as well as get many of the little but important tasks done that come with moving, I’ve decided that it’s time to get back to my writing in earnest. Since moving back to the Midwest I’ve only dabbled at writing the second book in Stephen’s trilogy. Until today I’ve only managed 4,675 words over upwards of 7 sessions. Definitely not as much as I was managing with my first book and I still had a full-time job. There were days I wanted to really sit down and write but there were too many other things that needed to get done.

One of those tasks was to apply to college. Yes indeed, I am once again going to attempt to finish my first degree. It was funny (definitely funny sad) when it came time to fill out my education history. It turns out that not counting this newest school, I’ve attended a total of 6 colleges between 1998 and now. By far my most successful attempt up to now was the first one. I finished a grand total of three semesters at SIU Carbondale. My major back then was Computer Science because I thought I’d loving programming or designing computers for a living. The first year went well, but I didn’t get to take any core classes. I loaded myself down with the general education crap the first year to get as much of that out of the way as I could. So when the second year rolled around, I was excited to finally be taking some classes related to my major. Unfortunately, once I was in those classes I ended up very much disliking them. My long-time dream of a career in computers was suddenly broken and I had no idea what I wanted to do.

After my third semester at SIU, with no real direction anymore, I decided it was better to just work until I could figure out what to do with my life. It was a reasonable enough idea at the time. So now, 5 more colleges, many, many jobs, and one tour in the Navy later I have finally found something that I think (hope) I can do: writing. To that end I am returning to school for an English degree with a focus on creative writing. (I don’t believe it is necessary for any writer to have an English degree or any derivative thereof, but I’m tired to shooting for degrees that I think will get me some high-paying salary. This time I’m going for something that I am truly interested in.) I’m pretty excited to be going back to school full-time too with no other distractions. This is only possible thanks to an amazing unicorn and my Richard. 😉

Still, school is a long ways off since I’m not starting until the fall. That being the case it is my goal to get the second Shroud novel done, and quite possibly the third one as well. To that end, I will be keeping a daily writing log here as a way for me to keep track of what I do each day and maybe how much time I spend working on writing and/or publishing. At the very least it will help me stay accountable (to myself anyway) as well as give me a sense of accomplishment. This is something I did very briefly for the first book, though I only recorded the word and page count for each chapter as I finished it rather than what I did every day. I will also be tracking what kind of writing I do each day since blog posts, emails, and homework all take time and energy.

 

Writing Log – Day 1, Month 1

Transformation (Second Shroud Novel) – 5,728 words to date (1,053 today)

Other Fiction – 1,094 (Yesterday for the Bits and Pieces book)

Blog Entries – 638

Career, General, Life, Unemployment, Changes

Change Begets Change

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

It’s been an eventful year so far and we’re only in the second month. I’ve published my first book, which is pretty awesome. I still have to finish the print layout to have a physical version available. Sales have been very meh so far, but that’s really what I expected to happen. I am prepared for the long slog to success when it comes to my writing. The only thing I’ve really been disappointed about is the lack of time, energy, and motivation I’ve had lately to continue writing. Still, given the reality of my situation I’m not getting to bent out of shape about it.

The year started off well enough. I went home for the holidays and had the chance to visit all of the people I never get to see being stuck living so far away. It involved a crazy amount of driving though (about 3,000 miles) so it wasn’t so much a break or vacation as a frantic attempt to visit everyone. Still, it was my one chance for the year to do it. Coming back to work was a little tough when all I could think about were the people I’d just left behind. Eventually though, I managed to get back into the swing of things.

All was well until the time came and went for my first paycheck of the year. This was nothing new, unfortunately. During my short time with my company, they’ve been late paying me for at least 6 or 7 paychecks. When you’re paid twice a month, it’s really tough to suddenly have to wait until the next normal payday to get both paychecks. It was frustrating to the extreme, but there was little to do as they always managed to catch me up. It wasn’t until the missed a second payday that I became seriously concerned. I also found out I wasn’t the only one who hadn’t been paid. It turns out NONE of the other employees were paid, and we were all very concerned. So here we were well into February and we hadn’t been paid for any of the work we’d done in 2014. I was down to enough money for food and another tank of gas, but nothing for bills or rent. The fact that no one had been paid also had me seriously worried about the future of the company.

To make a long story short, we were finally paid yesterday. Almost 2 full months into 2014 and only for hours worked in January. I have since discovered there are five open lawsuits against the company for unpaid wages. The ship was sinking all year and I had no idea until this latest fiasco. At this point I’m pretty sure I won’t see another paycheck and that the CEO of this messed up company will suddenly disappear. Not that it matters much as I have since received an email notifying my I’ve been let go.

All of this crap had me thinking over the past couple of months that it was time to make a change in my life. Make some decisions and changes to improve my situation. Hopefully. The first thing I’ve decided is I’m taking a break from the 9 to 5 rat race to go back to college and finish my degree. The shenanigans this year just reinforced how unhappy I was stuck away from the people I love doing work that, while important, demanded a lot of sacrifices from me. When I really think about it, I’ve been going where life takes me for the past 9 years or so. With the responsibilities I shouldered over the years I’ve had little choice about what I do and where I live. I like it’s time to go against the flow and make some decisions for myself.

So now here I am, getting ready to leave the life I’ve gone with for years behind. Big changes. I’m going to be a full-time student again. I’m not really sure how to feel about it just yet. I know it’s going to be strange walking into my first class. I haven’t been there for 15 years. I’ll be one of the older students in the class. The kind I used to wonder about when I was a kid fresh out of high school. Despite my fears and uncertainty about such crazy changes, I’m also very excited and more hopeful than I’ve been in a very long time. New life, here I come!

Career, General, Life, Writing, Changes

Still Sinking In

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

As of right now, I am officially a published author. My book is up and running on Smashwords. My publishing work isn’t finished of course, there are several other sites I need to publish to as well. Still, the book is out there. I spent a huge part of this day formatting my book to the Smashwords specification. I know that bit will get quicker the more items I publish. I just don’t know what to feel right now. I’m happy of course, but this is still scary to me. Success with my writing would be such a huge, life changing event that I can’t help hoping against hope for this to mean writing full time. Maybe a good night’s sleep will bring the reality of this step home.

 

For those interested, my book can be found here:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/399672

 

Writing

And I’m Spent

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Pushed hard to finish the book this weekend. I finished chapter 20 on Saturday, thinking it was finished. Quickly decided that wasn’t the case and pushed on to chapter 21. Wrote 13 pages between Saturday and Sunday. Today was my last free day to get this done so I went at it even harder. Wrapped up chapter 21 with 21 pages (funny how that works out). Quickly wrote up a short three page epilogue and the book is done. Holy crap, what a feeling! It’s both over and underwhelming. I’m crazy excited to have come this far and really eager to push this book out the door, but now it’s time to take a break for a week or two. Come back with fresh eyes so I can get the first edit done properly. In the meantime I’m going to start on some ideas I have for short stories. Tomorrow anyway. Onward and upward!

Career, Writing, Inspiration

Ending a Novel

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

I finished up chapter 20 today, which wrapped up the climax shown in the prologue. That meant it was time for a big decision: do I end the book here? My first inclination was that yes, I should end it here. After all, the climax itself was resolved in a very thorough manner. It would be a bit of a cliffhanger, though that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I am certainly eager to be done with this story as well. Impatient really as I can’t wait to get to the whole editing and publishing part. So when I finished chapter 20, I was ready to throw in the towel. Write a little epilogue so I didn’t leave readers hanging completely and call it done. It was the reaction from my girlfriend, who has been reading this story as I wrote it chapter by chapter, that changed my mind and got me to thinking. I was super excited to be done. She was very much not excited. I’ve asked her not to give me any feedback until I do my first edit since I have a list of things I’m going to add/change anyway. She’s done a great job sticking to my request too. It was her tone that gave it away though. She was very disappointed.

So I’ve been thinking about it all day now and even tried to put myself in the readers’ shoes. The story is really for them after all. Then I realized ending the story right here might just piss people off. I spent a lot of time and effort tiptoeing around a lot of secrets and subtext because my main character is completely in the dark about all of this and all of the others are actively keeping things that way. The climax is the breaking point, not just of the action, but of the information. I realized that if I didn’t keep going, I wasn’t going to give the readers the payoff they deserve for being in the dark along with the main character. This is why I’m two pages into chapter 21 and actually pretty glad I’m still going. I still plan to finish the book this weekend, it just means I’ll be doing more writing than I thought.

All of the writers that I’ve researched have said pretty much the same thing about writing a novel, or anything really: make it as long as it needs to be and no more. I have been keeping a close watch on my page and word counts because it gives me a feeling of accomplishment to look back every week or two and see just how far I’ve come. This being my first novel, the process has felt pretty long and drawn out. This has been discouraging at times so I always write down my page and word total when I finish a chapter. In the beginning, I was also worried that this story would be far too short. I grew up reader authors like Robert Jordan, J.R.R. Tolkien, and others. When I was that age I also thought that writing stories that long was what it took to be an author. Thankfully I am content these days to compare myself only to myself. For the most part. I’m doing this for me, because it’s fun and it’s something I’ve always wanted to do. So I am happy with how long my book has turned out to be, and amused that I was worried it would be too short. Character development takes awhile after all, or at least it does for me. Either way, I’m still crazy excited to be almost done!

Writing, Inspiration, Career, General, Insomnia, Life, Unemployment

Crisis of Confidence

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Wow, almost two months since my last post here. Didn’t think it had been that long ago. Well, as the title suggests I went through a bit of a crisis of confidence where my writing was concerned. I took what was supposed to be a short break at the beginning of October. That turned into almost three weeks of little or no writing on my book. It coincided with the whole government shutdown and furlough thing. You’d think being stuck at home would inspire me to write non-stop, but I couldn’t stop worrying about when we’d get to go back to work and how I was going to pay my bills if we didn’t get back soon. So instead of writing I played Terraria, which conveniently enough had a content release the same day the shutdown started. Go figure.

It wasn’t until I’d been back at work for a week or two that I really started thinking about my writing a lot. It had been there the whole time in the back of my mind, but I didn’t feel good about how my story was turning out. I was also stuck. I didn’t know how to get where I needed to with the story. So all of this was on my mind most days at work. In the end though, I think my job was what convinced me to try to get back to writing. I know, through and through, that I can’t handle doing the 9 to 5 for the rest of my life. The daily commute and traffic, parking nightmares, tedious work, and soul sucking monotony just aren’t conducive to having a happy life. That ultimately got me to sit down one night and try to pick up where I’d left off.

It was a new chapter, so I had an empty page just staring at me as I tried to think of how I wanted the story to go. Then I remembered Stephen King’s advice from his book On Writing: just write. Do it. Doesn’t matter if it’s good, bad, amazing, or the worst bit of drivel the world has ever seen. Write. Don’t worry about it. Silence the inner critic and worrier. Just write. And that’s what I did. I looked at where the last chapter left off, then thought about what the main character would likely be doing at that point. Didn’t worry if it was mundane or not, I just started back up. It wasn’t as easy as before I’d taken the break. It took me a couple of nights to really get back into the flow of the story. I did hit my word count minimum each night though, and once I was past the rough spot in the story I was excited to be writing again.

At this point I also went back to Dean Wesley Smith’s website to check out some of the other sections about writing and publishing that I hadn’t gotten around to reading yet. The section called Think Like a Publisher was incredibly informative. It’s all about self-publishing, put into simple terms. He laid out just how easy it is to publish your own work, and that’s made me more pumped about writing than ever. Last weekend I decided to try and make a big push on my book and managed to write over twice as much as I usually do. When I stopped to check my progress the other day, I realized I’m nearly done. It’s hard to describe how it feels to have come this far and to see the finish line ahead. With a longer weekend coming up my goal is to have it all finished by next Monday. I am incredibly excited to get this finished, but I’m also more hopeful than ever about my future in writing.

Mr. Smith basically provides a step-by-step guide to the process of publishing as well as how to succeed as an Indie publisher. I know this first book is just the beginning for me, and I can’t wait to get started on my next project.

Oh, interestingly enough this month is National Novel Writing Month. It’s an annual challenge where writers sign up on http://nanowrimo.org/ and try to write a novel within the month. I’ve thought about trying it myself, but I just don’t have the time to write a second novel while I’m still finishing my first and working the exhausting 9 to 5 still. Of course, the novel only has to be 50k words. Not too difficult to get done in 30 days. That’s only about 1666 words a day. My current minimum is 1k. If I get my current book done by next Monday, that will leave me with 19 days of the month. That’s a little over 2600 words a days to hit the 50k mark by November 30th. I’ll think about it. If I don’t do it this year, I definitely want to try next year. Maybe by then I’ll be writing full time!

 

If you’d like to check out Dean Wesley Smith’s site, it’s right here:

http://www.deanwesleysmith.com/?page_id=3736

Anime, Dramedy, Insomnia, Life, Love, Writing

Watching Toradora

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

So I’ve just spent the last several hours watching an anime called Toradora. The title is a mashup of the Japanese words for tiger and dragon. The two main characters are Ryuji and Taiga, the dragon and tiger of the story. It’s probably supposed to be a romantic comedy, and it certainly presents itself in a fairly light manner. The drama is pretty heavy handed though. Some of the conflicts are pretty forced. That hasn’t stopped me from enjoying it. I guess that’s obvious or I wouldn’t be awake at 3 AM writing about it.

I discovered anime when I was in high school. The first one I ever watched was an over-the-top comedy called Outlanders. Barely had a plot at all. I loved it. A crazy alien girl sent to wipe us filthy apes off the face of the planet falls in love with a pathetic photographer. Really, I watched just about any movie, show, or anime that had a bit of romance in it. Ah My Goddess! was next after Outlanders. Definitely had a crush on Belldandy. I didn’t think about it too much back then. Why I was drawn to that. Too close to the situation to see clearly. Isn’t that the biggest kick in the ass? To be so wrapped up or overwhelmed by what you’re feeling to be blind to the realities of the situation. Looking back it’s pretty clear that all of those movies and shows about falling in love, struggling to express it, all of it was a surrogate for what was happening to me. I’ve heard it said that nothing hurts as much as your first love. A bit of forethought could have helped me quite a bit. Not a good idea to take a class just to be with someone you’re in love with after they dump you. You still have to show up to class. Probably why I’ve never pursued anyone I work with. Messy. I digress though.

I’m now on episode 25. (SPOILER ALERT: READ NO FURTHER IF YOU CARE ABOUT THE PLOT TO TORADORA) In the last couple of episodes, out heroes have finally admitted their feelings for each other. I won’t go into the ridiculous means the writers went to keep them from doing this much sooner. I’ve never been to Japan, but I have a hard time believing the willful obliviousness of some of these kids. There was a time when I thought it was just a difference between US and Japanese culture, but I’m not that young anymore. Not that I don’t understand, once they get together the story is over, right? Bleh. Pretty tired of this trope. It’s all over the media EVERYWHERE. As if the bits that happen after people start dating aren’t interesting? I have to wonder if this tendency in television and movies, magazines and manga, really builds up an image of love and relationships that has no bearing whatsoever on reality? I mean sure, when I was in high school it was damn hard to talk to girls, to tell the girl I loved that I love her. I did, and I got hurt. Some people don’t, and still get hurt. The rare few stick together from those early days. I think this constant buildup of the “before love” gives people expectations that can never be met.

My love life has been a train wreck pretty much from the beginning. I fixated on one girl throughout junior high and high school. I was in an abusive (emotionally) relationship for quite some time after that. It took me years to get out of that one, and more years to understand why I needed to. I don’t hate her for the abuse though. We were both young and dumb. It came down to wanting different things. Neither of us could understand that though. It’s easy to confuse intimacy and the closeness that brings with love when you don’t have the experience to tell the difference. I learned a great deal from that relationship. I learn from every relationship. At least I try to. So I’ve dated, married, divorced, married, divorced… I’ve come to understand what it means, really means, that we are all different. It sounds obvious, but everyone being different means relationships are all different. Not superficially either, but truly unique. How could they not be? You take two or more unique individuals and put them together. Never know what’s going to come out of it. You can’t be too afraid to try. I won’t say don’t be afraid because there’s a lot to fear. Just can’t let the fear freeze you in place, or stop you from taking a chance. Even if that ends up in failure, you’ve learned something. Another combination that won’t work. To quote Thomas Edison: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” (I am aware that this attribution is contested, doesn’t change how apt it is.)  So keep on learning from failure in the hopes of being able to recognize the real deal when you meet them.

Back at the ranch, I think what is pissing me off most about what’s happened in Toradora is just how forced this latest conflict is. Ryuji and Taiga were ready to elope if their parents tried to stand in their way. They’ve finally admitted their feelings and are taking the first steps to becoming a real partnership. They already know each other behind their social masks so really they’ve got big leg up over most new relationships. It can be pretty awkward when you start letting someone far enough into your life to really see all of the little “gross” things we do that are part of life, but that society likes to pretend doesn’t happen. Anyway, there’s some drama where they decide to run away. Sort of. Their friends all think it’s a bad idea but help them on their way. (True friendship or total irresponsibility?) After making their decision they both run home to get a few things. Ryuji expected to have to fight past his mother, but discovers she’s gone. She leaves him a letter and a watch that will get him into his grandparents’ home if he wants to. So naturally they end up there. Where else would they go, I guess? After they’re there for a day or two, they hatch a scheme to get his mom to show up. (BTW, the grandparents are incredibly understanding to take in a grandson they’ve never met along with his “bride”.) This is where they finally kiss for the first time as well. Practicing for when they really do get married. It’s actually an incredibly sweet and touching scene. Too bad it’s completely ruined by the next bit.

So after a happy family reunion, Ryuji and Taiga decide to return with Ryuji’s mom and go back to living the way they were until they can get Taigi’s dysfunctional parents’ permission to get married. Yeah, okay. At least they’re going to work on being a couple. Until Taiga comes back to her apartment to find her mother didn’t stick around to wait until she showed back up. And now, now, after all of the crap her family has put her through does she suddenly get a hair up her ass to go home and mend fences, leaving her fiance a note. A note. So of course Ryuji is devastated but is putting on a brave. All of her friends at school are upset, and more drama is about to ensue. Thus the writers have managed to narrowly avoid that kiss of death for a romantic comedy TV series, the happy ending. I think what annoys me the most is that I was far more interested in watching their relationship develop. All of the missteps they would no doubt take, Ryuji’s wacky mom breaking out with surprisingly insightful commentary from time to time. I guess that’s kind of shift to a more slice of life series, but why not? I like a lot of the things they’ve done with this series, but this forced conflict thing is just crap. It feels like they’re jerking these characters around for no more reason than to make the series longer.

I will no doubt continue watching this until it ends, or until the forced conflicts grow to such ridiculous proportions that I feel like I’m watching a puppet show by kids imitating bad soap operas.