Howdy, squiders, how are you?
So far so good on my front. I’ve gotten through my query research (and goodness, I’m going to have to figure out comps, and I can’t think of any YA fantasy I’ve read recently that fits the bill.) and have consolidated all my story ideas into a single document.
(I think I’ve got to query as YA, even though Dan and Lana are a little old–18 at the beginning of Book 1, and 20 by the end of Book 3–but that probably fits better from a theme/trope standpoint.)
(aaaaaahhhh comps)
The story idea consolidation took me longer than I expected it to. The last piece of that was going through my Tumblr likes.
Guys, do not use Tumblr if you ever want to find anything again.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I love Tumblr. It is my favorite social media, and the only one I use on a semi-regular basis. (Semi-regular, in this case, means I spend a lot of time for a few weeks or months, liking and reblogging memes and stuff from whatever TV show(s) I’m on at the time, and then don’t touch it for like two months.) (Also this autoposts there, the last remaining hold out.) It has its own lore, the randomest stuff goes viral, I learn all sorts of weird things that someone else found interesting, and all my favorite fandoms are there.
I initially made a tumblr with the idea that I would use it for marketing, but you cannot actually market on tumblr, and also I always get distracted by everything else going on.
(You guys are welcome to follow me there, if you are also on tumblr. I’m here. Recent stuff includes writing memes, a lot of Psych–my current hyperfixation, some Gravity Falls due to the resurgence of interest because of The Book of Bill, Star Trek, and whatever else randomly caught my interest.)
Anyway, what tends to happen is I’ll get deep into the tumblr rabbit hole, come across something that either is a cool story idea, a writing prompt, vibes, or otherwise gives me that pleasant little “this could be a story” tingle, and I’ll like it.
Guys. Guys. There is not a way to efficiently search through tumblr, let alone your own blog or likes. If you reblog something and tag it, you can look through your tags, but this assumes I reblogged it, which most of the time I do not.
It took me hours to get through my likes, and even then I gave up, still not having reached other tumblr notes in my story idea document. Some things are lost to the aether forever.
I’ve got to stop doing this. If I want to save something, it’s got to go straight into the story idea document. I will never find it again otherwise.
So, lesson learned. RIP things I never found again.
(Even if I could search my likes, I don’t know how I’d find anything. Not like the words “story idea” appear in any of them. Alas.)
