My dearisobel.org domain was due to be renewed a few days ago, but I forgot that I hadn’t updated the credit card information in some time so the site was down for a few hours. It’s all fixed now and things should be working as they were before.

A health update: I’m starting to feel a lot better. My doctor seems to think my constant colds are caused by a mild form of asthma. I’ve started some medication for that while I await some more thorough testing and I’m starting to feel my energy bounce back. I’ve also been scheduled for a root canal to take care of a nasty tooth ache that’s been plaguing for me months.  Hopefully with both of those conditions under control and warmer weather hitting, I’ll be back in top shape.

I’ve been writing a bit. Nothing as prolific as last fall or even a year ago but I’m writing things I don’t immediately toss, ha. This break is a bit more lengthy than I had anticipated, and will probably continue a few more weeks. I love you guys–you’ve all been super supportive about this and I hope to make it worth your while soon.

With my energy returning, I’ll be working on site things — getting back into the swing of things with ebooks and the Fiction Graveyard as well as working on the new spring layout for this site. See you guys soon 🙂

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So with yesterday’s posting of All We Are, Chapter Eight, I am officially out of story chapters to post. I’ve been relatively good since I came back in November of not letting too much time pass between chapters but in late December, I caught a nasty cold and sinus infection I honestly don’t think I’ve kicked in the last few months. I spent last week sick as a dog AGAIN. It’s so frustrating. I’ve been so sick that I can’t work, my room looks like a pit and my brain feels fried.

Pretty sure I can trace my writing troubles back to that point in January, so now that my health insurance is kicking in on Wednesday, I can go to a doctor finally and hopefully begin to clear things. It’s so frustrating to me to want to write and feel unable to do so.

You guys are wonderfully patient, so I wanted you guys to know what was up and hopefully look forward to an end of my brain drain 🙂

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Nothing like constantly opening up your writing projects only to close them after almost an hour of nothing that you want to show the rest of the world.

So I’m going through a bit of a dry spell, so to speak. I get moments where I feell good about writing, but they’re small and few between lately. Inspiration is easy, it’s translating my thoughts from outline to prose.

I’m not sure what it is or why I’ve been having trouble the last few weeks, but this is just a note to let you guys knowt that updates are going to slow down for a while. Damaged is not back on hiatus, just slowing down a bit. I don’t want to start posting in the new format until I have several episodes ready to go. I have two more chapters of All We Are ready to go and will be posted this week and next. After that? It’s really up in the air.

I’m going to keep opening my writing projects and hoping for the best, but I’m not going to promise anything.

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So I took a few minutes and scheduled three weeks ahead for All We Are because we got to Thursday night and I hadn’t posted for this morning yet. Yikes!  All We Are has been updated to Chapter Six, our honeymoon chapter.

I did almost no writing this week save one scene for an episode of Damaged. I have no good excuse for this except that I got my hands on SimCity and got horribly distracted. Also it was my nephew’s birthday, I worked, and I’m studying math for the Praxis.

Anyway. I’m sorry. I’ll be better next week. I updated the music page finally and All We Are has a full Volume 2 soundtrack, which is good for everyone else. You can find that link on the story page or click here to check it out on Spotify. I try to keep Grooveshark updated but tracks keep randomly disappearing and it’s annoying.

And because I feel like this got missed in the long annoying update from last week, Damaged has a brand-new theme. I intend to tweak it further now that I’ve got it looking much more the way I want it too. Please head over and let me know what you think. I worry that the text is too small. Monday is your first new episode of the new format so stay tuned!

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So it’s Friday, which means if all has gone well, you’ve read updates for All We Are, The Best Thing, Damaged, and the additions to Fiction Graveyard. Yay! If it’s gone badly, well, there’s not much I can do about it now.

Anyway. Before we get into the nitty gritty, The Best Thing is going on hiatus again for at least two weeks. I know, you guys must really hate me by now, but hey, if you’ve been putting off reading it because it’s too long, this is a fantastic chance to grab the ebook that has all the current chapters (even through Chapter 21) so you can be fresh and ready when the second half the story starts.

I ran out of my buffer chapters again, oy. I tried to get one done in time for next week, but I know even if I rush the next chapter, it likely wouldn’t be beta’d in time, and there’s no way I’m going try and hurry it through Cora, who has her own life going on. So, a slight hiatus is best for everyone.

But it’s okay because not only do you get both TBT and All We Are this week, but starting March 16, shorter episodes of Damaged will be posted, each about three scenes long which are much easier to write since I do one a day. You’ll have a lot to read, so you might not even miss TBT so much.

If you did not receive an email with Episode 005 of Damaged on Monday, then you’re not signed up for those specific updates. Damaged is on a separate website so it can have a different look, but it does not share the same update list. Please go to the website and sign up! Otherwise, you’re stuck waiting until I get around to a summary update after I post All We Are on Fridays. So go sign up! Don’t miss it when I start posting twice a week!

Yesterdays was the featured story since November 2014, but now, your featured story is The Witness. I know it’s been featured before, but I can’t help myself. Of all my older stories, it’s my personal favorite. Read, revisit it, let me know if you like 🙂

Okay, with that out of the way, what are your updates this week?  In the Fiction Graveyard, I posted all of Lupercalia. I was going to add more but it looks like the stories that are left to add all have the same editing issues that keep me from posting Poisonous Dreams #1 in bulk, so Fiction Graveyard is off the regular roster for updating again. I’ll work on getting chapters edited, but it’ll be updated when I get the chance.

You also have Chapter 21 of The Best Thing, which officially delineates our halfway point. Omg, you’re saying, I’m sure, this bastard has another 21 chapters to go? What the hell. Ha. I feel ya. I still have to write those 21 chapters, how do you think I feel? This was not supposed to be so insane, but I added the first part of the story to the outline, in which Jason and Elizabeth fall in love again–I had originally planned to just open the story with them engaged, so you know, yeah, that added a good sixteen chapters to the whole thing. I have issues.

You have Chapter 5 of All We Are, of which I am particuarly proud. It took a week to write in order to strike the right tone, but I think I nailed it (if I say so myself), and I’m looking forward to posting Chapter Six, which is the last of the calm before the storm. I’m writing this story pretty fast, so as soon as it’s finished, I can dig into Mad World have that ready to for posting.

And of course, Episode 005 of Damaged, which finished up my introductory arc of five super long episodes to build and establish my version of Port Charles, April 2014. Episodes from the future arcs will begin again with the numbering, so you’ll get Episode 001 of an Untitled Arc starting March 16.  Damaged also has a new theme to make it more distinctive from this website and I’m still working on it 🙂

Your Links
The Best Thing, Chapter 21
All We Are, Chapter 5
Damaged,  Introductory Arc: Episode 005
Fiction Graveyard: Lupercalia, Prologue-Chapter Two

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Hey! Just a little FYI on how Damaged is going to be updated. I’m posting the last of the five introductory episodes tomorrow. Then starting next week, episodes will be posted twice a week. I will not update here with each update. You’ll get a summary at the end of the week of what’s been posted. So if you want to read Damaged episodes as they post, then you want to go to the website there and sign up for those updates.

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So! This was my first week back at work. It was a short week, only three days, but I definitely can see a change in updating is going to have to happen. I’m working as a teacher’s aide for a company called Source4Teachers, which is like a staffing agency for teachers. I pick where I want to work and when, so some weeks I’ll work all five days and maybe I’ll work one day a week. Depends on the quality of the job available.

Anyway! So what I’ll do is schedule all the posts I want to do on the weekend, so that chapters will still go up on this site on their regularly scheduled days. Fiction Graveyard on Mondays, The Best Thing on Wednesdays, and All We Are on Fridays.  Then on the weekend, I’ll do any necessary clean ups and post to Fanfiction.net, Archive of Our Own, and Road to Nowhere. So Crimson Glass, the website, will have the chapters first, so make sure you sign up for the updates, because now you never know when I’ll get around to posting elsewhere!

That’s my change — in order to keep some semblance of schedule. That being said, all of this week’s updates have been moved to this morning. (And ha, I’m actually scheduling and writing all of this on Thursday evening to test the system).

Another bright spot for you guys — I’ve mentioned that I write a lot at Starbucks but I don’t always get out there because I’ve been borrowing my father’s car during the week. I finally got a car yesterday, so I can do what I want when I want, so yay!

Your Fiction Graveyard updates are pretty small this week — mostly because I’m testing the new scheduling system, so I didn’t want to overload it. I’ve posted the last three chapters of Shadows as well as the rest of the original outline.  I’ll post Lupercalia, Shatter, and Poisonous Dreams next week if all goes well. We’ll work out the kinks. I had another unused scene for Shadows, Chapter 16, I wanted to post but I can’t locate it at the moment.

In normal story news, I have The Best Thing and All We Are updates. TBT was moved to today just because I was soo tired after working with pre-k and fourth graders all week, then spending the evening at a car dealership for my new car. And All We Are is normally posted today. I hope you guys like both chapters.

Damaged news! As I promised those of you who follow me on Facebook, I have news! I have nailed down the rest of my storylines and the changes I want to make. I’m going to spend the next three days working out the kinks and getting the website ready for those changes, but I will have a new episode for you guys on Monday!

Your Additions
The Best Thing, Chapter 20
All We Are, Chapter 4
Shadows, Chapters 13-15 & Outline

Minor Update: So the scheduling worked for the most part. Everything posted. The only problem was that the chapters in Shadows were out of order. I’ve fixed that now and hope I can avoid that problem next week.

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Sorry about the late update — I went back to work yesterday. Right now, I’m working as a substitute and classroom aide until my teacher certification is done, so I’m pretty excited to be back at work after six months of waiting for some paperwork to come through. I subbed for a kindegarten aide yesterday which was exhausting, ha. Fifteen or so five and six year olds. Luckily, I’ve been baby-sitting for nieces a lot so it wasn’t nearly as terrifying.

Anyway 😛 So now that I’m back at work, I may be shuffling some things around — I mentioned that earlier this week with the Fiction Graveyard updates, which take longer. Honestly, things might just get shuffled to the weekend with larger updates. I’ll be able to know this week since it’s a full week. I don’t want to lose time for writing after all.

I’ve added Chapter Three to All We Are and finally updated the music page. I’ll update the events calendar once I’m sure of my schedule. I also did a small story status post.

I got a lot of feedback to the FG story, Fumbling Towards Perfection. I really am sorry about it–but there are absolutely no plans to continue that story. If someone would like to adopt the concept, that’s just fine. But myself, I have no interest in it. I haven’t even really thought about since 2003.

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Relatively large update today due to my inability to get around to posting Fiction Graveyard on Mondays. Ha. So I might be moving updates around in the days to come — I’m starting back to work on Friday and while at first I’ll only be working a few days a week, I can’t guarantee how long it it’ll be before I’m back full-time at work, but I’ll adjust accordingly as we go.

Also apologies for the sporadic nature of this update — I was about halfway through posting the Graveyard chapters when I had to do an emergency baby-sitting gig. Sisters, man. Ha.

So your graveyard updates include new chapters for Shadows and Poisonous Dreams and one complete abandoned story, Fumbling Towards Perfection. It has only a prologue and a chapter, after which I abandoned it.

Next week, I’ll be posting the last chapters of Shadows, so I’ll post the only scene for Chapter 16 I wrote as well as an outline for how I had originally envisioned finishing that version of the story.

The PD #1 updates are still one chapter at a time, I haven’t finished cleaning up the chapters yet.

Graveyard Updates
Fumbling Towards Perfection: Prologue, Chapter 1
Poisonous Dreams: Chapter 3
Shadows: Chapters 10-12

I’m also adding Chapter 19 for The Best Thing. I really really love this chapter–the majority of it was not in my original outline, particularly the Sonny and Courtney material and then the Jason and Elizabeth scene, but I’m so happy about how it worked out.

I still haven’t gotten around to updating the music page or events calendar. Oy with my life. I will do that tomorrow when I update the The Best Thing’s ebook, which got lost in the mess of baby-sitting for half the day without warning.

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So not a lot of chatter today. I’ve added Chapter Two to All We Are. I still have to update the music and events page, I promise I’ll get to that at some point. Hope you guys enjoy.

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