Update Link: Chain Reaction – Part 9
Poll: Which Tortured Poets Collection To Write First

Finally made it to the weekend. It was a long week. Next week should be a bit simpler. We’re testing, but I lucked out — about 75% of my students are freshman, and they’re testing Tuesday-Friday. My juniors, about 10% of my kiddos, are testing on Tuesday, and Thursday. This means in my first two classes, I have maybe 1-2 kids for four straight days. If testing spills into fourth period AT ALL, that’s all freshman and 1 junior.

Basically, the majority of my students are spending half their days testing. So we’re reviewing and playing games all week, lol, and my seminar kids are just going to relax with a basic project. Anyway, that’s all to say I’m going to have A LOT of downtime next week at work to prep and get work done DURING the day, so nothing at home, yay!

I’ll be updating one more time tomorrow, then we return to our normal M/W/F flash fiction schedule for the rest of the school year. I’m going into edits on These Small Hours, and prepping Fool Me Twice Book 3‘s alpha draft, so I need those Tuesday/Thursdays back 😛  Plus, May 6, I kick off the summer class I need for my cert. I might need to rework my schedule a little once I get the syllabus and see how much time is needed.

I’m juggling a lot of things — as usual — but I’m really set up well in my classes to be able to actually use my lunch break to do something productive in my real life instead of working through it, lol.

The vote for the TTPD story collection ends on Sunday! Get your votes in now!

 

Update Link: Warning Shots – Part 5
Poll: Which Tortured Poets Collection To Write First

You know, Jason and Elizabeth are really annoying, and let me explain why. I had a plan for this story. Short little episodes that sort of slip in and out of Elizabeth’s first year of college and depict the growing gap in the Liz & Lucky relationship (how does Liz handle the obvious problems when she doesn’t have the added pressure of a miracle returning to her?).

And I planned to just write the VDay episode and just move on to the Spring Break. That’s the outline. But something funny happened between outlining the dialogue and actually writing it (it happened in Chain Reaction too) something always happens in the transformation. Sometimes it fits exactly what you planned, and then other times — you just have to stop and either delete so ir fits your plans or see what happens.

This part and the next planned is me seeing what happens on this little detour for Warning Shots. Does it end up being a detour or a complete derailment? I guess we’ll find out 😛

When I write Flash Fiction, I always come up with at least the plot sketch for the first half of the story to at least give me something to write towards, then I let the feedback and the story itself shape the rest of it. So I always write the actual prose during the timed 60 minutes, but I always have a plan for what I want to do. It’s part of the reason I can write between 2500-3500 words in an hour. If I were just pantsing it, parts would be half as long, lol.  If you’re curious, here’s what that angsty Liason breakup scene in Part 7 of Chain Reaction looked like before I wrote it:

Update: Chain Reaction – Part 8
Poll: Which Tortured Poets Collection To Write First

Skipped last night — my day was absolutely ridiculous and today honestly was only mildly better. I’ve thrown kids out of my room pretty much every day so far this week, and, uh, that’s literally my least favorite part of the job. But you know, you chase a kid around the room and put him in a chokehold, I don’t really have a lot of choices. Then I had a meeting, THEN I had grocery shopping, and just like — bleh.

Anyway. Here we are.

I broke down The Tortured Poets Department into 4 separate short story collections, each with its own featured story that’ll be novella (25-50k) in length. You can vote for which collection I write first in a public post over at Patreon.

See you tomorrow at our normal 8PM posting — the Phillies are playing in the afternoon, around 1PM so I’ll be free to go to my usual schedule.

Update Link: Warning Shots – Part 4

Happy Monday 🙂 I think we’re all in the mood for a small break from the angst, lol. I hope you guys are strapping in because I’ve been breaking down The Tortured Poet’s Department, and like, the angst level is off the charts. I also am getting lots of inspiration for what *might* be somewhat longer stories than the snippets of folklore. I think the longest story there is 4k (“exile”). I broke down the first 16 songs with some thoughts about what I might write. I think I’m actually breaking the album into four short story collections because otherwise I will be writing 31 stories until I die and will drown in the angst, ha.

A note on Warning Shots – this first part of the story is very episodic because I really just wanted to create a backstory that would launch us into the real chunk of the story. I’m probably going to give the second part of the story a new title because that one will feel much more like a traditional story, with a more linear narrative. There are eight “episodes” and then I’ll be moving onto the second part. It will still be much lighter than Chain Reaction, just because Liason at this point is just lighter. They’re not bogged down in everything that complicates them later.

And in my last piece of good news — I am making huge strides in my evermore feature, “no body, no crime” which was inspired by a prompt from Tania 🙂 It’s written in the style of “The Last Time” with 45 scenes. I’ve written 21 of them and it’s at about 12k, so I think maybe another 10-12k for this. I’m hoping to have that for you by the first week of May! If you have any ideas for any Crimson Swift stories, please don’t hesitate to let me know!

Update Link: Chain Reaction – Part 7

Last Sunday update 😛 Next Sunday, it’ll be my day off before going into edits.

Appreciate you guys being ready for the, haha, journey :p I promise you I didn’t turn into a Courtney fan overnight. I just saw the chance to write a 2001 parallel and was like,  YES LETS GO. I hope you like where I go with it, because quite honestly — there’s something coming you only know if you were voting in the Patreon poll months ago.

See you tomorrow for Warning Shots at 6!

Update Link: Chain Reaction – Part 6

Double Day Double Dose Update
Chain Reaction – Part 4 | Chain Reaction – Part 5
Warning Shots – Part 2 | Warning Shots – Story 3

Feels weird to only update once today, lol, but that’s what we’re doing. I did work on my evermore featured story which I am suuuuuper excited for you to read. I’m about 35% of the way through. I’m hoping to finish it up by the first week of May when we go back to our normal M/W/F update schedule.

I’m still digesting the new album, lol, so no idea when I’ll have a collection for Tortured Poets. I was not expecting 15 more songs, lol.

I’m so glad I decided to write so much Flash this week — I’ve written (before today’s update) about 20k in Flash since I finished up the first draft for These Small Hours, and I’ll probably add another 10-20k over the next week. That gives my brain a lot of distance to look at the draft with fresh eyes and should make the editing process even better.

Tomorrow’s update will be posted around 12 since the Phillies play at 1:30 and I’m heading to the parents to watch 🙂

Update Link: Warning Shots – Story 3
This Morning: Chain Reaction – Part 5
Last Night: Warning Shots – Part 2 | Chain Reaction – Part 4

I had planned to start writing at 4, and post at 5, but, uh I accidentally fell asleep. Turns out five hours WASN’T enough, lol.

Anyway —

Uh, so listen — a fair warning — Chain Reaction is going to be angsty. If you’re familiar with Taylor Swift you know there are the glitter gel pen songs (Shake It Off, Blank Space, Me!) and there are the fountain pen songs (everything on the new album, folklore, evermore, etc.) Chain Reaction? That’s a fountain pen story. It’s long (I plotted it out to Part 19 and that’s only halfway through). Warning Shots is your glitter pen. Light, fluffy with some small doses of romantic drama.

Adjust your expectations, my darlings, and strap in 😛

See you tomorrow around at 6 for the next update for Chain Reaction.

Update Link: Chain Reaction – Part 5
Last Night: Warning Shots – Part 2 | Chain Reaction – Part 4

When I decided to a double update yesterday and today, I didn’t mean for it to be prophetic!

I made it to midnight, and listened to the first 16 songs on The Tortured Poets Department. Finished around 1:15 ish, and figured well, there’s a 5% chance something is happening at 2. Lemme just listen to the album again until then. I’m a Liason fan, I know all about pinning my hopes on a small line of dialogue. I thought MAYBE we’d get a few extra songs — something like the 3 AM Edition of Midnights.

The way I SCREAMED when I realized it was a DOUBLE ALBUM. This unhinged woman dropped FIFTEEN MORE SONGS at 2AM!!! What choice did I have, I ask you, but to listen immediately. I finished at 3 am, stumbled to bed and woke around 8 to listen to it all again.

I have a few early favorites (So Long, London is the most track 5 of all track 5s, Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me is perfection, I Can Do It With A Broken Heart will kill you dead, and loml is devastating). I think I need to listen to the second half of the album again, but right now The Albatross is probably my favorite, though I’m sure that’ll change.

ANYWAY. Album Launch Day was a success, thanks to everyone who helped me stay distracted until it was released.

I’ll be back at 5 PM for another edition of Warning Shots. Then tomorrow we switch back to single updates because I have to dive into my Crimson Swift project because I have 31 new songs to figure out, lol, and I need to finish the evermore featured story.

I can’t believe she dropped a whole second album. Insanity.

Update Link: Warning Shots – Part 2 | Chain Reaction – Part 4

And here we are for our second update of the night! By the time this goes live, I’ll have two hours left until the album drops. I made a pot of coffee — hoping it gets me through. It’s not like my college days, lol, when I’d be out drinking until 1 AM and in class at 9:30 for German. But I am determined. I WILL MAKE IT TO MIDNIGHT.

As for this update — I couldn’t resist taking this event that happened in the OG Liason story — it’s one of my favorite little adventures they have that fall, and I tried to think how Lucky would have handled it if he’d been around. Hope you enjoy 🙂

Update Link: Chain Reaction – Part 4

Well, I hope you guys are ready for a double update 😛 I’m here with this now at 8PM, but I’ll be back in 2 hours at 10PM with ANOTHER update — for Warning Shots. I’m so glad you guys are both so invested in the new stories!

I’m doing my best to stay up and alert for Taylor’s new album, so double updates tonight! No Phillies game to distract me, so you’re stuck with me, lol.

AND double updates tomorrow, though a bit earlier — at 12 PM and 5 PM so I can watch the game. I cannot WAIT for this new album. She writes such Liason-coded lyrics, I just know I’m going to be ridiculously inspired.