June 8, 2015

So I don’t post here as often, mostly because I’ve been updating Damaged more than the stories I work on here.  So first things first, I’ve switched Damaged back to weekly long episodes of at least 10 pages. The shorter episodes were an interesting experiment but it didn’ t work for me. I posted one episode early this morning, I’ll post another on Friday, and the final one for this arc next Monday.

Also, on Monday, I’ll post Chapter 9 of All We Are. However, if you’re a Patreon supporter, I’ve posted the chapter early.  For the moment it’s password protected, and the password can be found once you’re a supporter.  You find the chapter by clicking on the Patreon link, then the Creator Post tab.

I don’t want to make a ton of content exclusive for supporters, because it’s not fair to those of you who have stuck by me through everything, so I think I’ll stick to occasional extras (like deleted scenes) or early previews.

All We Are returns next Monday, and The Best Thing July 15.

May 25, 2015

So the last week of May is here which means I’ll be slowing down quite a bit of a work after the next few weeks (not much call for substitutes in the summer). I’ve had a ton of things planned for ages, but health and time restricted a lot of it. My health has bounced back in spades with the exception of some rough allergies this weekend and my time is easing up. So I thought a preview might be in order.

Supporting Crimson Glass

Every time you visit this page, every time you read and comment, you make my day. Especially those of you who’ve stuck out the last few months as my updates trickled to a stop. My writing has picked up and I’ll be back to posting more in June, and everything will be back in July.

I posted a few weeks ago about creating a Patreon page in hopes of defraying some of the website costs. They’re minimal (I pay $11 a month for a fantastic hosting plan at Dreamhost and about $15 in domain costs a year), but I’ve been borrowing the money from my parents for the last few months. I’m back to work, but my student loans are coming due as well.

I completely understand not donating because I can barely afford to support my favorite podcasts at Storywonk (they just added a Veronica Mars podcast to their writing seminars, Buffy, Outlander, and Star Trek podcasts so yay!) and time are tough for everyone.

The way Patreon works is if you were to pledge today, you would be charged on the first of the month. If you pledged June 2, you wouldn’t be charged until July 1. That’s why I chose a monthly campaign.  I also edited the rewards as summer kick off.

From May 25 to June 30, if you pledge $1, you can request an update to any story on the site OR the first chapter of any story I’ve listed on the Coming Soon page or talked about in the recent story status pages.  I will post all requests by the end of July at the latest. 

If you pledge $5, the reward remains the same: you can give me a plot for a short story which I will write by the end of the summer. 

I hope that maybe makes some of you who might have considered supporting the site lean towards it a bit more 😉 You have an entire month to consider it. Once you pledge, I’ll contact you for the requested story.

So check out our Patreon page for more information!

Story Updates This Summer

Damaged, though a bit off track this week, is scheduled to continue every week until 18 June 2015. I’ll take off a month to plot and write the next arc, which will be posted starting 18 July 2015.

All We Are will return 15 June 2015. I may bump that up if I can get a decent buffer completed.

The Best Thing will return 15 July 2015. This will give me enoug time to get All We Are and Damaged on a good footing and complete enough buffer chapters so preclude another huge hiatus.

I haven’t quite decided what my next project will be, but I hope to be a position to announce that later in June.

Site Updates This Summer

I’m working on the summer layout but haven’t quite settled on the colors I want to use. If you could consider the three palettes below and then vote in the poll. Click on the images to get a better sense of the them if you’d like.

summer_03 summer_02summer_01

[socialpoll id=”2273592″]

The ebooks page has been updated with my expected releases for the summer (The Witness, I Shall Believe, and All We Are).  I should have covers for them shortly. If there are any of my novels (save those listed or short stories and novella collections) you’d like to see in ebook form, let me know in the comments.

Your Weekly Roundup

Not much to update for this section — Damaged was only updated with one episode earlier this week. It was a busy week and I didn’t finish writing in advance. I’ll be forestalling that with the next arc by taking time off (haha, planned for a change) in order to get a headstart.

A new short story, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, was posted. I’m so happy to be writing again. I can’t wait for you guys to read what I’ve written for All We Are.

May 23, 2015

So this has been a good week in some respects writing wise. I finished two chapters of All We Are, and plan to tackle more of that tomorrow and the rest of next week. The Best Thing is still a bit slow going, but I’m confident I can get it back now that I’m writing nearly every day.

I wrote another possible response to the Jake and Elizabeth story. It’s a tag to Monday, 18 May 2015’s episode, so if anything has happened after that, I’m not sure. I wasn’t able to watch yet. That’s called You Can’t Always Get What You Want. I’m not sure how good it is, and it’s mostly because this story should really be a multi-part ensemble story that really lets Jake take some time to deal with things, but I don’t have the time for another long story. Maybe one day. For now, it’s a superficial go at it.

I only managed one episode of Damaged this week due to All We Are and the short story working so well. I plan to get caught up on that tomorrow and Monday so that this week works out better.

Yesterdays, the ebook, got a facelist. The .epub version has a new cover. I have to update the other two versions. I really hated the first go at it, so I’m finally happy with what I have.

May 17, 2015

So I mentioned in a previous post that I might be considering a moving the site to its own domain (like it was at crimsonglass.com) so I can use Google Ads to hopefully defray some of my hosting costs.  Googe Ads doesn’t support subdomains like we are at cg.dearisobel.org

I wasn’t really keen on the idea since the ads would clutter the page and might not even work, but then I thought about the support campaign my favorite podcasters at Storywonk use, Patreon.

The idea is that you ask the people who read you, who support your creations to pledge a nominal amount a month towards specific goals. For Storywonk, it’s the addition of more podcasts. Here at Crimson Glass, it would be to pay for my website costs.

This is not a requirement. I am not turning this into a subscription site by any means — it would actually be illegal, or at the least, copyright infringement, for me to sell my fanfiction to you. You will still receive the same type of updates I normally offer.

However, if you were to help me out, there is a bonus content I intend to offer.

– Finished and formatted ebooks for novels still being posted, rather than the giveaways I normally do.
– Early Access to new short stories
– Feedback posts for upcoming stories — maybe you can help me untangle some plot elements

And anything else I can think of you or you can suggest.

If you think you might be interested, please check CG’s page at Patreon. If not, I love you anyway. It took me a few months to support Storywonk at even $1 because I don’t make a ton of money.  I’m not expecting much — this is fanfiction, after all. :

Love you guys!

May 15, 2015

So I love love love my new latop. I’ve adjusted to the new keyboard, it’s so fantastically portable–everything I hoped it would be.  I’m back to writing and can’t wait to see some of my projects working again.

So to recap posts and updates over the last week:

  • Damaged: Three episodes were posted on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Next week, it’ll be Tuesday and Thursday.
  • Story Status update posted.
  • If you missed it, Safe to Love You was completed and posted. It’s listed under short stories at the moment, but I should move it to novellas since it just moves over 11,000 words.

Updates in the pipeline, possibly this weekend:

  • Ebooks: Yesterdays is actually formatted and ready, I just haven’t created a cover that I like. The Witness is also almost ready, but I have to work on the cover. I hope to knock both of thosee out tomorrow and have them up. I’d like to get in the habit of releasing a new ebook once a month.
  • Fiction Graveyard: I’m still getting files edited and I don’t want to start posting again until they’re all edited so I can just zip through them.
  • Spring Design: I’m working on it and hope to have it up in a week or two. I think it’s time to brighten it up.

Also, I’ve been contemplating moving this site back to its own domain. We used to be at crimsonglass.com, but during my hiatus, I lost track of the renewal date and lost it. I can’t get that one back, but I could go to crimsonglass.org. I’m considering it because I’ve been thinking of putting Google Ads on the site in hopes I can make enough money to pay for the hosting. It’s cheap hosting, but it’d be great not to have to deal with it every month. Any thoughts on moving the site?

May 9, 2015

The story ended up being about a third longer than I had anticipated, so apologies for that. I wrote about 10,000 words from about 11safetoloveyou PM Thursday night until about an hour ago. That’s more in two days than in nearly two months. I think I’m back.

I’m going to dig into Damaged for the rest of the weekend, to make sure I’m all set for the next two weeks, then it’s all about The Best Thing and All We Are. I’ve missed writing.

Thanks you guys for being so ridiculously patient. I have the best readers 🙂

Click here for the entire short story, or just here to read Part Two.

May 8, 2015

safetoloveyouYou’re not dreaming. A brand new short story from me — it’s my first Elizabeth/Jake fiction, other than my brief foray back in December with my New Year’s Eve. It picks up after yesterday’s episode. I wrote about 7000 in less than 24 hours. Seriously guys, this is the most I’ve written in forever. I have to finish up the last scene and since it’s a bit long, I’m splitting it into. I’ll post Part Two tomorrow. So here you go: Safe to Love You, Part One

May 7, 2015

We’ll go back to weekly round ups once I get back into normal updating with The Best Thing and All We Are, but for now, because it’s nice to post anything, I’ll be posting Damaged news here as well.

So I uploaded a second episode for this week, April 24, 2014. I mistakenly titled it 2015, but it’s been corrected. Thanks to the warm response to the first episode.

Next week’s episodes are broken up over three days, so I’ll be posting them Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. That’s how we’ll do it — for weeks with three, on MWF, and weeks with two, T/Th.

Click here to visit Arc 001’s page, and read. Please let me know what you think!

And head over to the Opinions page to answer an editorial question for May.

May 5, 2015

So my health is much better. I had a double root canal yesterday and my major root canal this afternoon. My mouth is super sore, but I’m pretty stoked not to be constantly in tooth pain — we’re down from sharp knives in my jaw to a dull ache. I can live with that for another week.

I also managed to finagle a smaller and lighter laptop. I’m still kind of getting used to the keyboard, which is a bit more off center than I’m used to, but packing this baby up to take to work or a cafe is soo much easier and I’ve already written a decent amount.

I’ve written material for The Best Thing and All We Are, but  nothing I’m ready to show to my beta. I lost my groove with both projects and will probaby have some more difficult stops and starts before they start flowing again. But Damaged is working for me, so I’m going with it for now in hopes it gets my writing goes on all fronts, because once my prolific nature gets going, you’ll just be annoyed with me.

So, click here to head over to the Damaged site properly, or to the page where the arc begins.

April 27, 2015

Hey! Thanks for sticking with me through the last month of no updates. I appreciate the warm wishes and promises to stick around until I get back to posting. You guys are fantastic 😛

So I suspect my major problem was a sinus infection that never got resolved due to lack of antibiotics. I went to the dentist two weeks ago for a toothache, and was given antibiotics for a separate infection. Since taking that, my tooth feels mildly better, but my sleeping and breathing is better overall.  I have a nasty cavity that needs to be resolved through a root canal next week (double root canal over two days actually, oy) and I suspect that’ll take care of the rest of it. I already feel so much better.

I have been writing–some plot scribbles and plans while I sub. One of my major problems is transcribing it at the end of the day because my laptop is kind of big and clunky and doesn’t travel well. I’m looking into a smaller model I’ll be able to transport in my bag, which means I’ll be able to take it out and write every where.

This week, I am planning to add a few things to the site. Most notably, the overdue ebooks for The Witness and Yesterdays. I’m also tidying up Fiction Graveyard, so updates to that should resume soon.

One of the biggest obstacles to writing seems to be the fact I’ve fallen out of my routine of just writing. I’m looking for ways to change that.

Again, you guys are fantastic and stay tuned for the ebooks to be added this week! And maybe a short story I’ve been playing with to get my muse cooperating.