Hey! I posted Part 2 of Death by Candelight at the Liason Haven yesterday, so make sure you go check it out. As always, the story remains exclusive to the forum for at least month (I can’t remember if I waited that long to post Death Becomes Her at CG, but going forward, that’s the policy I’ll adopt). So look for the story to be posted here at CG in May and elsewhere.

I actually can’t believe I managed to finish and post it at the same time I was preparing for my orals. True story: I actually didn’t even start writing Part 2 until Saturday. I had written out the script and beats, but it wasn’t converted into prose until this last weekend. My schedule just kept collapsing on itself until I had just this last weekend. I work well under deadline, but that doesn’t mean I like it.

I had my orals yesterday and I passed. It was not enjoyable for a lot of reasons, so I don’t even feel that celebratory about it. I still have one major paper to write — a 35 page journal article whose rough draft is due on Monday, April 22. But that’s the last major assignment. Everything else is kind of run of the mill. I’m looking forward to being done. All course work is turned in on May 15, so that’s the date I’m circling on the calendar to get back to writing on a more regular basis. I go back to work full-time at that point as well, but I don’t have to come home and study anymore so that’s going to be great.

My goal is start to posting new chapters of whatever is next by August, whether it’s Counting Stars or Mad World, Book 2.  Between then and now, you’ll have some flash fictions or anything else I can whip up, but I don’t anticipate returning to regularly scheduled story posting for a few more months.

Thanks for your patience! Go check out Part 2 of Death by Candelight at the Liason Haven.

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Hello! Sorry this is so late — I posted Part 1 on Thursday afternoon and my schedule has been crazy since then. I was so excited to be asked to do another mystery, and as always, I went overboard. This is the same length as Death Becomes Her (around 40 pages) which means part 1 is about 19. Right now, it’s exclusive to The Liason Haven, which you will need to join to read. I’ll be posting at CG sometime in May.

Part 2 is coming on Monday around 2. I hope you enjoy it!

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Hey, it’s your (monthly, I guess) check in from me! It’s April and time for Camp NaNoWriMo — a month I’ve never been able to participate in since it always falls during that terrible time of a college student’s life — the last month of classes. Everything is due this month — my major research paper (April 22) and my orals (April 15). Oof. But we have a deadline in sight! All of my work is due May 15. That’s it. I’m done my academic career, which means I pretty much get 85% of my life back.

I imagine I’ll take about a week after courses are done to recharge and clean up my entire life, haha. I’ve let so much slip–laundry, cleaning–everything is kind of organized chaos and I’m looking forward to getting that sorted.

BUT I’m also going to be going into writing overdrive, so I’m super excited about that. I decided to take a low-key writing project for Camp this year — I’m going to finalize plot sketches for six projects I’ve been playing with for a while so that they are ready to go. Some of them are in decent shape, and some of them need to be rethought.

I’m going to doing my sketches for Mad World, Books 2 & 3.  Book 2 is mostly planned, but I want to work in some bread crumbs for Book 3 and some characters aren’t doing much in the second half of the book, so I finally figured out how to deal with them.

I’m also going to be doing sketches for For the Broken Girl, Kismet, and Malice. Broken Girl is my rewrite of the Lucky drug addiction in 2006, Kismet is the flash fiction series turned into a novel, and Malice is the sequel to Bittersweet. Burn in Heaven (sequel to A Few Words) rounds out the six projects — it’s actually mostly done but I have no ending yet.

Counting Stars doesn’t need to be plotted — it’s actually ready to go for writing so I might finish that one first and then dig into MW Book 2 or maybe even write them at the same time. I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes.

The plan is to have one of those ready for July — I want to be able to content being posted for the Liason 20th anniversary this August.

I am super excited about being done graduate school — even if I get a full-time job next year (crosses fingers), I still won’t have to juggle classes and classwork like I’ve been doing. For the last three years, I’ve been working two jobs, going to graduate school, and writing. Really excited to just have one job and writing on the side in my future.

But you don’t have to wait until July for new content! I’m working on an entry for this month in the GHWhoDunIt over at the Liason Haven. I was originally going to have it done for April 4 (today) but I caught one of those awful colds that just laid me out flat as I was editing it, so it’s been moved to next Thursday. I’ll make sure to keep you guys updated and I’ll post the link here then so you can go read it.

I’m hoping to mix in more flash fiction updates. You won’t get any until after April 23, when my rough draft and orals are done, but after that, I’m hoping to go back to once a week.

Thanks for your patience! I’ll see you guys next week!

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