Happy New Year, you guys! I hope you all had a safe, fun evening last night 🙂 I’m back with my updated copy of Bittersweet, Chapter Two. A week from today, I’ll be posting Chapter Nine, which is brand-new.  See you guys tomorrow!

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Bittersweet

As promised, Bittersweet finally returns! From today, December 31 through next Sunday, January 7, I will be reposting Chapters One through Eight. I’ve made some small cosmetic changes as well as fixed some continuity issues.

I wrote those chapters in November 2015 before I had plotted the end of the story, so a couple of lines had to change. I definitely recommend rereading if you haven’t read the chapters in a little while.

Starting January 8, I will be posting new chapters of Bittersweet on Mondays and Wednesdays. Posting Bittersweet will take about four or five months depending on a few factors.

I’ve run into some issues writing the last few chapters because I’m unsure of a plot point. I have some ideas to fix it, but I might have to write a few scenes to make it work. I’m still playing around with it, but it really shouldn’t effect the story until we get into March, so I have plenty of time to complete it. I also might be overthinking the issue, which means I don’t have to fix anything and I can just finish writing the story so you guys don’t get any interruptions.

So here is today’s update: Bittersweet, Chapter One. It has been updated here, at Archive of Our Own, and at Fanfiction.net. I am not updating it at Road to Nowhere. I’m not super wild about the transition to Tapatalk and haven’t decided if I’m going to keep posting there.

Also, Sean Kanan is AJ in my head, but I made the graphics for Bittersweet before I had decided that, so it’s still Billy Warlock. I have to fix that when I get a chance.

Workshop: Fool Me Twice

Thanks so much for the responses to Fool Me Twice. It’s definitely a struggle to write for Elizabeth in 2017, but as always, I’m trying some things out.  There are three reasons I wanted to workshop FMT rather than doing my usual process: I wanted to be sure I could write the characters as they are today, I wanted to figure out the supporting characters, and also it’s a current storyline. I wanted to write my version of it before I got influenced by what’s happening on screen.

I will probably workshop the entire main story and then go through and edit and add on to it. So it might feel choppy, it might  not feel as fleshed out as my usual work. It’s mostly me trying to get my thoughts out. Please tell me if the flow isn’t right, if there’s something you think I should add. An aspect I’m not dealing with. The workshop is where y’all get to beta 😛

Fool Me Twice will be updated in the Workshop at least once a week on Fridays. I may or may not toss some micro fiction writing sessions in there sometimes, but they will not be planned. As always, check out my Twitter feed (which is also on the sidebar) because I post

when I start the clock. It will be updated Friday evenings, between 6-9 PM EST.

Mad World

I did not get as far into my new draft this last week as I wanted to. I talked a few weeks ago about how I had re-envisioned Mad World into three parts of an overall story — and the first part requires me to rewrite the panic room storyline.

I’m trying to write a version of Elizabeth who would actually stay in the house without being the gullible idiot she is so often forced to be on the show. It’s like writing Sonny for The Best Thing. Writing that story took two years because I needed Sonny to be just right. Elizabeth is going to deal with a lot of things that real people deal with and I just feel a responsibility to make that actually feel realistic. I’ve heard from some people about Sonny in TBT that it was mostly authentic and that meant a lot to me.

So Mad World is just more difficult and draining than I had anticipated, but it’s moving along. I just have to set more realistic goals for myself than I did originally.  I will keep you all updated.

Other News

+ I’m playing around with longer synopses on the In Progress and Alternate History & Universe pages. Right now, there are just vague tag lines. But I wanted to try to write something a bit longer and descriptive, akin to what you might read on the back cover of a paperback. I posted a new synopsis for Bittersweet on the In Progress page, so let me know what you think about that.

+ I haven’t forgotten my other workshop series. I’m still not satisfied with the magical story, Homecoming, so expect a new opening for that. I really really like the idea I have for that story, I just have to find the right way to present it. I’m also working on the Scottish story and some thoughts about some of the others.

+ I was thinking of writing something less intense than Mad World for the next project and maybe dipping into a new time period. So far since I started writing again 2014, I’ve written for 2003, 2004, 2006, and now for 2002 and 2003 again. I plan on ordering the Liason DVDs for 2007-08 this spring, so it might be time to bring back These Small Hours, which is a lot more action and plot oriented than Mad World. Still thinking that over.

+ Damaged is still on my plate. I’ve got so many ideas, it’s just been difficult to figure out how to make them all work. I’ll keep y’all updated.

+ If you’ve been listening to my chatter for the last two years, you know I’ve been pursuing my teaching certification. This is the semester when I finally get to finish it. I’ll be student teaching fro January 2 through May 4. I’m teaching U.S. History I at the high school level, and I’ll have six classes of about 150 kids. I’ll be writing my own lesson plans, doing my own grading, etc. It’s going to be crazy and it has to absolutely take priority.

The good news is that I’m only taking on other class and I reduced my hours at my other job to make my schedule a bit more less evil like it as last semester. I don’t know yet what the impact on my writing will be, so we’ll play it by ear. Luckily, Bittersweet is designed to take us through most of the semester, so you won’t see too much of a difference.

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Hey! As promised, another update for the Workshop: Fool Me Twice, Part 2. I’ll be back on Sunday with the relaunch of Bittersweet.

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I’ve been playing around with a couple of plot ideas for rewriting the fallout of the two Jasons and the Friz engagement. I decided, for various reasons, to workshop this plot to make sure it works and to deal with any kinks. I’m not a Friz fan, and Franco makes me want to vomit, so don’t worry about that. It’s also not a straight Liason romance, though it’s a Liason friendship story.

I wrote it in 45 minutes. So enjoy, Fool Me Twice: Part 1 1. I’ll be back with Part 2 on Friday, and then Bittersweet starts up Sunday, December 31.

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I’d wanted to write a story for Christmas for a few weeks but my schedule prevented from doing anything in depth. I really wanted to write a sequel to my 2014 AU, All I Want For Christmas, but I couldn’t quite settle on a plot.

So instead of writing a full-fledged sequel, I wrote a second epilogue in the style of Julia Quinn’s second epilogues for her Bridgerton series. It’s a peek into Jason and Elizabeth a year after the first epilogue.

So refresh yourself on the original: All I Want For Christmas and then read the second epilogue.

I also did some housekeeping and the soundtrack is now embedded on the main page.

Merry Christmas! I’ll see you guys on Friday for the Workshop.

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I knew I had posted some original plot sketches and outlines at one point, but I lost the category for the longest time. I found them, fixed the page, and added it to the “Extras” section. It’s messy and I’ll come back to it after the holidays.

For now, it just has a discarded partial story that set up the Jake is alive and kept by Cassadines plot I had in mind back in 2014 before they cast Billy Miller as “Jason” and started down that path. Also, there’s an outline and beta conversation about All We Are and plot sketches for A Few Words Too Many that are really different. So check out Plot Sketches.

I’ll try to post more after the new year — some of The Best Thing stuff is available, and I have some other discarded material to deal with. I want to clean up what I already posted as well.

I’ll be back this week with some more news 🙂

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I set my timer for 30 minutes, but I wasn’t quite finished the scene. So this was finished in 39 minutes. This is a second attempt at the magical story I started in October (Homecoming). I mentioned that the stuff in the workshop would be fluid and that if I didn’t like the way it was going, I would just start it again.

So, here’s Homecoming, Take 2: Part 1

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Now that we’re passed the first week of December, I wanted to give you guys a better sense of where Crimson Glass is going in 2018.

Starting December 31, I’ll start posting Bittersweet. From December 31 to January 7, I’ll be re-posting Chapters 1-8. They haven’t been hugely rewritten, but they’ve been cleaned up and slightly to adjust to better suit the later part of the story. You don’t have to reread, but I would recommend. Re-posting them here at CG will just make it easier for me to re-post them at the other archives.

Then, starting January 8, I’ll be posting two new chapters of Bittersweet a week on Mondays and Wednesdays.  Bittersweet will run through March. After concluding, we’ll be taking the month of April off, and then in May, my hope is that Mad World will be ready. More on that in a second.

On Fridays, I’ll be posting a workshop item. I’m workshopping a few alternate universe ideas: the murder mystery one I started in the fall, the Scottish story, the magic story, and then I’m playing around with a few others.

Regarding Mad World: I’ve actually re-envisioned the story and it’s going to be almost an alternate version of the show set in the summer of 2003. It’ll be divided into three parts: a rewrite of the panic room and the kidnapping as the first book, and then the next two books deal with two more events set — the original Mad World idea moved back to 2003, and then a third one wrapping things up and dealing with the end of the Ric storyline.

There’s no reason to think I won’t be able to make the May 2018 publication date for Mad World. I’m scheduled to finish Bittersweet this week, and then I should be almost finished the first book in MW by the first week in January, and I’ll just plow through books two and three in January, February, and March.

I’m working on Damaged, it’s still a struggle to make storylines fit together and I haven’t given it enough attention. I’ve been trying to figure out why it’s not working for me, and I’m not there yet. I will be, eventually. It’s not the first time I’ve put Damaged on the shelf for awhile, but we’re at two years now and I feel super bad about that. I’m hoping that once I figure out why Season 3 is being annoying, I can plot that and Season 4 at the same time, at which time I plan to conclude the Victor storyline. There’s no thought for a Season 5 at the moment.

So in 2018, you should get about four full-length novels from me as well as various workshop items, short stories, and possibly Damaged. But you will be getting Bittersweet and all three books in Mad World. That’s a promise.

I’ll be back tonight to kick off Workshop Fridays 🙂

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I’m going to make this quick and sweet because I’m pretty tired and it’s been a long week. It’s December 1, so where are we with Bittersweet?

The end of the semester seemed to sneak up on me suddenly this week and I had two ten page papers back to back, so I haven’t been able to do much writing. I still have about 10 chapters left to write, which I hope to get going on this week. I’m hoping for at least one day when I can just do nothing but write because I know I can knock out a few chapters all at once if I just had the time.

The good news is that I doubled how much I had for Bittersweet, going from 11 chapters to about halfway through Chapter 23. I have the first twenty chapters already sent to Cora, and I’ll be sending the last of it when I finish. Still on track to come back in January.

And to celebrate surviving November, I have a Micro Fiction for the Workshop. Written in 17 minutes without proof reading for typos: Micro Fiction: Tequila Surprises

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Earlier today, I crossed the 50,000 threshold for National Novel Writing Month, which means I won. Yay for me 😛 What does this mean for you guys? Not a lot to be honest.

I’ve finished twenty chapters — but there are thirty-three planned which means if I write a chapter a day, it will still be another two weeks before I’m done the story.  But hey, I used to have eleven and a half chapters, and that’s where Bittersweet stood for almost two years, so nine more chapters in three weeks is a great step forward and I have every intention of finishing the story in the next two weeks.

In fact, I’m over the hump. The middle chapters,from about 12-19 were the hardest because I had to do a ton of foundation work to make 20-33 work. The same way that 8-20 of The Best Thing had the situation only moving incrementally until everything happened really fast. So I’m hoping to clear out all of Saturday to just write. If I can not relapse with my cold, if I can lock my door and keep my family out, that’s actually doable. I could easily write four or five chapters in a rush particularly once I get to a certain part of the story.

So I’ll keep you guys updated on how this is going, but we’re in the sweet spot and my schedule is a lot looser at the moment. I took off a few extra days from work so I could devote extra time to school and then have time for writing. I’m in a good space in all aspects of my life (except my car broke down, but that’s neither here nor there :P)

You’ve already read excerpts from Chapter Ten. Here is an excerpt from Chapter Eleven.

Continue reading →

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