Hey! Thanks for voting so far. We’ve got almost 90 votes, but the voting between Mad World, For the Broken Girl, and These Small Hours is really tight. So I wanted to give those of you who voted for the other chooses, Fallen From Grace and Burn in Heaven, a chance to vote again.

All of these projects are still going to happen so if your preferred story doesn’t win this month, I will likely revisit it later this year for NaNoWriMo proper in November or the next Camp NaNoWriMo in April.

Story descriptions are still in the post below or click here to read them if you are following a link to this page.

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So from now on, I’m only going to do one featured story at a time in order to cycle through them less, and you guys are going to vote on them for good.

Trying to choose short stories to highlight tells me that I like my Ficlets much better than my Short Stories, so one of my resolutions for next year is to write more of them that I like 😛

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Fiction Gravard tomorrow evening! My morning and afternoon are booked with holiday stuff 😉

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So I didn’t quite like my first pass at a redesign for The Best Thing graphic package (which is the story and the featured banner). I used the same photos and same concept for the most part for a third try. However, just because I was not overly fond of the first go around, doesn’t mean that’s not the public prerference. (and maybe you don’t care — I have issues, this is not news).

The first banner was really a place holder until I got my Liason DVDs to get better screencaps. I couldn’t find the right tagline, but the graphic itself is not awful. The second banner, for me, ended up with too much emphasis on Elizabeth, instead of Jason. So I used the same concept and pulled back the coloring on Liz to focus more on Jason. The amount of overthinking I do on graphics is astonishing, isn’t it? Oy.

So Poll #1: The Best Thing banner. Here are your choices:

Banner #1

Banner #2

Banner #3

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And second piece of business for the day: Christmas layout! I mostly want to change the layout because this has been up for ages, but I can’t choose which one I want to do.

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So I woke up yesterday thinking about how much I love reading about marriages of convenience in my historical romance novels. (The Devil in Winter by Lisa Kleypas may be one of the best books I’ve ever read). I’ve written about the plot device once in Poisonous Dreams, but abandoned it in the rewrite. Reposting the very first version of that story had me just day dreaming about what it would take to make a marriage of convenience with Jason and Elizabeth work.

One thought led to another, until I had to start writing down the scenes and dialogue. 6, 559 words later and I had a full outline for a story. Ha. I have issues. Anyway. I can’t figure out what to call the damn thing. Sometimes a title just comes to me, and sometimes it’s like pulling teeth. So, here’s your blurb. I’ve put up a poll with two choices, but if you have a better idea that would be great too 😛

Set in 2006. As Elizabeth plans to take a paternity test, she learns she has been suspended from her job, suspected of providing Lucky with pills. Ric gives her an ultimatum: Lose your job, your child and go to jail or testify against Jason. She turns to Jason for help, but their solution may just end up causing them more problems than they can solve. 

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Or comment with your own choice. Later today, I’ll finish adding Silent Reverie and work on some of the other Graveyard story content. Just a friendly reminder that any story on that page is either abandoned or in the process of being rewritten, so don’t get too attached to any of them.

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So on July 31, the current featured stories will expire, which means I have to pick new ones. Please choose either from the ones below, or pick another one. The two highest vote getters will be featured for…six weeks to two months.

Stories That Have Already Been Featured:
Shadows
Daughters
First Do No Harm
Take Me By the Hand
Rest in Pieces
Two Strikes
Intoxication
Lullabyes
Sliding Door
Carly and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
The Witness
Hand Me Down

Poll Ends 31 July 2014!

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So I’m not the best at naming stories, haha. I named Tangle in 2008, before I even knew what I was going to do with it. And I haven’t liked it since about Chapter 3, six years ago.  So before I relaunch the rewritten version, I want to rename it. But again, I suck at naming stuff. Ha. Anyway.

Here’s a brief preview of what story is going to be about to help your poll choice. There are no spoilers below, as all this information would be revealed in Chapter 1.

Set in 2024. Elizabeth disappeared with a trace in November 2010, leaving Jason to raise their three children (Cam, Jake and Juliet) by himself, though he’s been assisted by their large extended family.

Lucky Spencer, divorced from Sam and sharing custody of their pre-teen daughter, has never given up on Elizabeth’s case, vowing to find out what happened to her, even if it it’s just to put her at rest. Once a year, he looks into her case, trying to find an angle he’s never investigated before. He discovers a serial killer who abducted petite brunettes from Virginia, West Virginia and southern Pennsylvania during the time period Elizabeth vanished. It’s a long shot, but he’s grasping at straws after nearly fourteen years.

Nadine and Johnny had a vicious and bitter divorce after he slept with Lulu Spencer, and their daughter Amalia is often caught between the middle, as a pawn. Robin and Carly have joined reluctant forces to raise Elizabeth’s children with all the love and devotion she would have given them herself.

Cam and Morgan return from a sojourn to Europe to spend the summer in Port Charles, surrounded by their closest friends and family, which includes Jake and Juliet, Morgan’s sister Cece; Mal Drake, Molly Lansing, and Kristina Davis.

So, my ideas for titles are in the poll below. If you hate them all, just comment and let me know. I hope to post this story in the next three weeks, so hopefully I’ve got it renamed by then.

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So this is something I’ve been considering off and on about my completed stories, and even the planned ones. Every once in a while, I get an idea that isn’t really a short story, but it won’t be a full-length one with lots of chapters. I generally write long short stories, between 10-21,000 words if I’m not writing 1500 or massive 100,000 word stories.

But sometimes, I think readers click on a story with a summary that they’re looking forward to, only to learn it’s a short story of no more than 20,000 words. For example, First Do No Harm is 12, 258 words long, and those of you who’ve read it, know it’s because it’s about a specific plot that is resolved, but the relationships aren’t.

So my question is: Would you prefer if I came up with a way to organize my stories so that you know going in how long they are? For example, if I labeled stories like A Few Words Too Many (currently clocking in at 101, 224 words) as a novel, stories like Shadows at 20, 921 words as novellas and First Do No Harm and If I Don’t Try With You as novelettes, while keeping anything under 5,000 word count in the short stories section.

Click yes if this something you’d like. and click no if you don’t want it, but also if you don’t care. It wouldn’t take a lot of work, but if it’s honestly something that only concerns me, I’m not really going to worry about it 😛

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Thanks for voting in the poll! You can view the results below and watch out for the first chapter (and the second) of Mad World.

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