Johnny’s Girl/Cissy by startwearingpurple

[startwearingpurple]

Okay I’m doing it!

i have two WIPs I’m trying to finish and/or get a bunch of progress on. So that’s my goal for November, to write 20,000 words on each of them.

The first one: “Johnny’s Girl”. This is a story about Johnny Lupin, Victoire & Teddy’s son, in his sixth year at Hogwarts which I thought up years ago and never really wrote. I actually plotted the whole thing out last week finally. I have about 8,000 words written, random scenes mostly but the prologue is complete. I don’t have a particular goal for the finished length of this one, but it’s bound to be like 45k at least. If I can get this one to 30k by month end, I’ll be happy. It’s been a long time since I wrote a Hogwarts story, usually I write grown-ups now haha

The second one: technically untitled, cause titles and summaries are my least favorite part of writing (I haaatttte writing summaries). This is a spinoff from The Dragon Keeper that probably no one wants to read except me, but screw it, it’s in my head and won’t go away until I write it. This is already at 30k words and is mostly plotted out. The file is just named “Cissy” right now until I find a real title. This story has been coming easier to me to write than Johnny’s Girl, not sure why. Would love to finish it but if I can get it to the 2/3 mark, or even 3/4, that’ll be nice.

I did a double NaNo many years ago (one of them was “A Weirder Shade of Midnight”, actually!) so I think I’ll be okay writing in two different stories. Hopefully they don’t bleed into each other. Okay. Progress goals 

[Pixileanin]

Hi! Happy Day Three!

Hope your weekend allowed you to make a few words here and there. Here's a small treat for you, just in case you need one:

[startwearingpurple]

Thank you! I did write a bit yesterday, only about 1300 words, and am now sitting down for some writing after a visit to Foamhenge and a bit of Christmas decor shopping today. Got Taylor Swift blaring and my water topped up so we'll see how much I get done before I need to cook dinner 

[startwearingpurple]

So I divided up Johnny’s Girl into chapters, and now I’ve made it harder to track the word count  It’s just easier to keep track of the story this way. Especially since I habitually write out of sequence. I was just today writing a bunch in chapter 10, and it was fun, so hopefully I can keep some momentum going in this story over the long weekend.

And sharing a bit of chapter 1 just for fun:

Spoiler

Dora Lupin, in a crowd of third-years further up the Gryffindor table, turned to give her brother a look of disdain. “What?”

Hazel had always rather liked Dora Lupin. Dora seemed to be the only other person at Hogwarts who found Johnny as annoying as Hazel did. Their older brother Remus had usually just heaved a sigh and shook his head in resignation at Johnny, but Dora very openly considered her brother an utter twat.

“Did you just hear our Liam get sorted into Hufflepuff? Our Liam!” Johnny gestured to the Sorting Hat, though by now Liam Lupin had made it to the Hufflepuff table and appeared to be introducing himself quite happily, completely oblivious to his siblings. “Bloody hell, Dora.”

Dora didn’t look at all concerned. “Bugger off, so he’s a Hufflepuff. Who cares? Dad was a Hufflepuff.”

“How are we supposed to take care of him if he’s not in our house?” Johnny demanded.

Dora rolled her eyes. The Slytherin prefect shushed Johnny again. He subsided, looking exasperated with both of them, but his attention turned back to the first years.

I did write a bit more about Cissy yesterday, but right now I think I’ve got Hazel and Johnny living in my head, so it’ll probably be that story all weekend long.

[starlitcastles]

Hello there!

I don't think we've met yet but I've seen you around on the forums and wanted to say hi so hey, hi, hello there and welcome! I also wanted to drop by with some questions to help you into writing as well as reaching your goals in terms of your writing for this month! Well that and to cheer you on as well seeing that you have two stories that you’re trying to work on and hope that you’re able to get both of your stories not only finished but eventually published and or shared with others if you do plan to! I understand the part where you mentioned about writing both summaries and titles being your least favorite part as far as writing goes since I struggle with that too! I also hope that you will be able to keep writing Cissy seeing it’s something that seems to consistently be on your mind and am wondering if that’s a potential sign for you to perhaps write it. I also hope that you’ll be able to get to both of those marks as you write during this month! Regarding Johnny’s Girl, that’s cool that you already have the prologue and the random scenes along with the 8, 000 words but do hope that you’ll also be able to shoot up to 45,000 words too! It’s great that you’re working on a story that’s also from years ago and interesting to see how it changes when you do try and work on it years later!

I would like to also mention that I will be leaving you questions for if and when you have the time or need something to help you keep going in terms of writing:

• Do you try to write your stories based on inspiration or motivation? Which one do you lean more towards?
• When writing Johnny’s Girl, have you found yourself having to change anything compared to when you first started and or from what you have plotted?
• Do you have a schedule, plan, or anything to help you write both Cissy and Johnny's Girl so that way you can keep organized in writing both works this month? Or are you deciding to write one story one day and the other the next day? I hope that question makes sense! ;w;
• What's your advice for other writers who struggle to finish their draft? If you don't have any, do you know any good advice, quote, or motivational things that could help or you would pass along?
• Since you mentioned that you’re writing Cissy, I have to ask if there’s anything that you found out in regards to writing it?  For example, have there been any changes to the scenes or realizations about your writing or anything else along the way as well?

Anyway, I also wanted to say: best of luck to you as well! You can do this! You got this! GO YOU!

From,
Diana/Di

 

 

[startwearingpurple]

1 hour ago, starlitcastles said:

• Do you try to write your stories based on inspiration or motivation? Which one do you lean more towards?
• When writing Johnny’s Girl, have you found yourself having to change anything compared to when you first started and or from what you have plotted?
• Do you have a schedule, plan, or anything to help you write both Cissy and Johnny's Girl so that way you can keep organized in writing both works this month? Or are you deciding to write one story one day and the other the next day? I hope that question makes sense! ;w;
• What's your advice for other writers who struggle to finish their draft? If you don't have any, do you know any good advice, quote, or motivational things that could help or you would pass along?
• Since you mentioned that you’re writing Cissy, I have to ask if there’s anything that you found out in regards to writing it?  For example, have there been any changes to the scenes or realizations about your writing or anything else along the way as well?

Hi! Nice to meet you, I’m Megan 

Okay I really had to think about this one, cause I was like jeez what do I do? Like what galvanizes me to write? Mostly inspiration. At the beginning especially, if I can’t get a story to gel in my head then motivation ain’t pushing it up the hill. But once I get going, motivation is at least some of it. Still mainly inspiration. I usually write cause I feel like scenes and characters live in my head and won’t go away until I write them. Siobhan’s story lived in my head for yearrrrrrs before I figure out how it needed to be written and was able to finish it.

oh I’m a pantser, my stories are in a constant state of flux until I post them. I’m always changing things. Any plotting I do gets rearranged/changed/additions/deletions throughout writing. Johnny’s Girl has changed quite a bit from the original idea as I finally got Hazel to move into my brain, so to speak - Johnny on the other hand is a character who’s been around in that particular story universe for I think 15 years now (I believe I wrote “Just Another Midnight Run”, where Johnny first appears, in 2009), and I’ve written him from a 3 year old to an 11 year old. Johnny is 16 in this story so he’s definitely changed from his first appearances. He’s a total maniac. His voice is very distinctive in my head so writing him was easier than getting a grasp on who Hazel was. I actually only plotted it a few weeks ago, before that I was just writing bits as they occurred to me. Which is frequently how I start writing.

nope, no real plan. Just writing in whichever story is jumping out at me. Again, total pantser, I just write and if something comes out that affects a plot, the plot might change! I have been thrown off by this week’s events in the US so it’s been hard thinking of writing when I’m dissociating cause we’re in the worst timeline now (unseasonably warm? Cause we’re in hell). I’m going to have to drag myself back to writing. I meant to do some today but instead I went to aerial yoga, got some vaccine boosters, and came home to doomscroll for a few hours. Gonna try to sit and write this evening. The only writing I’ve managed since Wednesday morning has been late at night. I don’t do well with schedules, I always revert to a constant state of flux, so I’m not trying to schedule writing time beyond “hey let me sit down and write until I need to make dinner”.

so for other writers, oh god, I’m big on re-reading to get going again when I feel stuck writing. Taking an existing scene and rewriting it from someone else’s POV, that always helps me. Aside from that I run on middle-child, former-gifted-child need to “win”. I need the praise and approbation. I can’t leave it unfinished if I started posting it. I get the “everyone is watching me/has expectations” and I have to get an A, that thing. So yeah I don’t think I have good advice. I just do stuff and hope for the best. You’d think I had better advice given how many finished novels I have posted but that’s all I’ve got. 

with Cissy, I have made several changes but nothing huge - the overall arc of the story was clear in my head as soon as I finished writing her in a little side one-shot compilation from “The Dragon Keeper”. That one has felt easier to write, which I think is partly because I am writing her in her 20s in that story and in “Johnny’s Girl” it’s a Hogwarts story and I’m a little rusty on those, haven’t written one in years. Not since Unsinkable and its sequel, I think. Maybe a one shot or two but that’s it. Anyway the school story feels harder to write right now. Even my kids are out of school these days!

 

thanks for stopping by, that was some interesting questions to think about! I am definitely going to write Cissy all the way through, and once it’s done I probably will post it (Mel at least I think will read it!). Summaries are the worst, but I actually did come up with one for Johnny’s Girl that I think isn’t terrible. So that’s a plus! Some people have such great summaries, I’m always so jealous. In some ways coming back to stories from years ago is nice, cause it makes me feel like I accomplished something off a to do list haha. But I think you still have to get that hook into the story to get really writing on it. Or I do, anyway. The long novel I wrote this year already was from an idea of a long time ago. It completely changed when I started really writing it. Only like two scenes survived into the finished version. But it was never going to work the original way, and I think that’s why I struggled writing it back then.

 

[Felpata_Lupin]

Hi there!

Just stopping by quickly with some good wishes for this writing season and both your projects!

Also, can I say again how impressed I am by the vastity of your work? You're obviously so invested and passionate about your characters and universes and creations, and it's beautiful to see! And I really loved that little snippet you shared with us from "Johnny's girl"! I love the Lupins, and I love Hogwarts stories, and I would definitely enjoy to see what Teddy's children would get up to at school, it's so cute that there are so many of them, and with such different personalities 

Very happy that you joined our little online family here!

Good luck again!

[startwearingpurple]

Thanks Felpata  I really appreciate that.
 

Well, today I wrote a serious scene in Johnny’s Girl this morning, but then spent the day muddled down in casework and did not get any writing done even on my breaks. And when I left work I came home and doomscrolled a bit, made spaghetti and meatballs, argued with the cat that she does not need two dinners (headlines in our house read ‘Local Cat Has Never Been Fed In Entire Life, Says Local Cat’, as the meme my sons love to quote goes), then remembered Disney+ has Wolverine and Deadpool today so I watched that. And now I’ll probably get a late night inspiration when I should be sleeping  

And yes, sometimes Johnny Lupin can be serious! 

[Pixileanin]

A serious Johnny Lupin?? 

I am excited for this!

Also, lol to your cat! I think we might have its sibling over here. 

Man, this is what I miss without Disney +. I plan to turn it on over Winter Break to catch up on stuff. You sound like you're stepping towards your writing goals, awesome stuff!

[startwearingpurple]

Johnny is developing the ability to occasionally be serious! It’s interesting writing him as a teenager. I last wrote him at 11, which was kind of exhausting, but now he’s 16 so it’s fun aging him up. I’m particularly enjoying writing his sister Dora, who is 14 and a Popular Girl  

So I have two cats, a brother and sister. Their full names are Sir Flinders Petrie and the Honorable Gertrude Bell, cause I have to use my archaeology degree somehow  Gertie only cares about food and does not care who feeds her. She has tried to seduce two plumbers and a pizza delivery driver into giving her extra food. My sons like to joke that Gertie won’t be happy until she’s spherical. She hates to be carried around and only occasionally wants to be petted, she mostly just likes to sleep right next to me or on my lap. Petrie is not so food motivated as his sister, but he does like to commit a little recreational attempted murder by pouncing on us humans, and is an accomplished burglar. He can open drawers and is obsessed with stealing hair ties from my sons. He expects to be carried around like the king of the world, is always demanding attention and generally being a pain in the ass. They’re about a year and a half old now.

Disney+ has some really good stuff! Agatha All Along was excellent. I am thinking about bringing Hulu back for a month or two so I can watch the last season of What We Do In the Shadows.

[startwearingpurple]

Well, I have the next three chapters finished and working on chapter 5 now in Johnny's Girl. I have totally not been tracking my word count, I figure I'll do that sometime later this evening and see where I'm at.

Haven't written anything about Cissy all week. I think I'm in the zone with Johnny and Hazel.

Here's a snippet of chapter 3:

Spoiler

When she came out of Herbology, though, her good mood was swiftly ruined. Johnny Lupin was leaning against the greenhouse just beside the door. She tried to escape before he noticed her, walking quickly to the castle, but it was already too late. He straightened up when he saw her, waved and grinned to her classmates who called out greetings to him, and then jogged up to fall into step beside her.

“Hi,” he said, flashing a brilliant smile of white, even teeth.

She eyed him askance. “What do you want?”

“You really don't like me, do you?” he asked then, sounding genuinely astonished.

“You annoy the piss out of me,” she said with perfect honesty.

“I do?”

Exasperation filled her. “Surely that's not the first time you've heard someone say that.”

He considered this, ginger eyebrows knit together. “Someone who's not related to me, or trying to kill me.”

“I don't want to kill you. I just don't want to talk to you.”

“You're not related to me then, are you? I've got a lot of cousins. Sometimes it's hard to keep track.”

Her lips twitched in amusement despite herself. She hoped he hadn't noticed. “Not that I'm aware of.”

Edit: Ok I just checked the full word count. I'm at 21,280 on Johnny's Girl.

Edited November 17, 2024 by startwearingpurple

[Pixileanin]

You are awesome!!! Three chapters?!?!?

Also, 

Congratulations on your progress!

[startwearingpurple]

I finished another chapter and am about halfway through chapter 6. These are shorter chapters than in the last story I wrote, more in the 2.5-4k range as opposed to my last fanfic novel’s 8-10k, which is kind of nice. Feels manageable.

So tonight I’m going to try to finish off 6 after I pick up my car, which is in the shop today and hopefully will be done same day. The next two chapters I only have a tiny bit written but I know where they’re going.

[startwearingpurple]

Well, it’s December 1st! How did I do? Not terribly but I gotta be real, I didn’t try very hard - I spent most of the month doomscrolling TikTok instead of writing. I blame the orange atrocity.

Here’s my progress made:

Johnny’s Girl started out at a smidge under 8k. It is now at 28,700.

Cissy still doesn’t have a title, but went from 30k to 43k.

It’s not the best I’ve done in a NaNoWriMo, but I did do a good chunk of writing so that’s something.

[Oregonian]

I think that 33K words is a really good achievement, especially for someone who "didn't try very hard."  But you are correct in mentioning that these have been hard times, with plenty of doomscrolling.  *sigh*

[startwearingpurple]

Thank you, I'll try to think of it as the total words written cause that does feel like I accomplished something. I genuinely spent a lot of the month not pushing myself to write, so I could have done better. Didn't meet my goals but at least it is progress.