March 6, 2024

Update Link: The Last Time

I hope no one is disappointed, but I’m postponing Flash Fiction. I have a low grade fever and what feels like a nasty cold coming on, so I decided to just take the night off (and call out tomorrow). That being said, I was planning to release this story tomorrow anyway, so we’ll just switch 😛 

Heath Update, 9:52 PM: I tested positive for Covid on a home test, and am going to a doctor tomorrow to confirm. Hopefully it’s mild and getting some meds in me tomorrow will sort things out, but obviously Flash Fic may end up being pushed. 

You didn’t think the surprises were done this week, did you? The Liason fanbase continued our Billboard celebration with TWO more mobile billboards. More than 900 fans contributed to this project! Don’t forget you can also buy Liason Anniversary mugs, with $2 of each sale going to The Smile Train, and one of our lovely leaders, Teri, is matching funds up to $500, so let’s show everyone how amazing this fanbase is!

And that brings me to my continued contributions with the first “single” from my Crimson Swift: Red collection. You might remember The Last Time from my 2022 Summer Flash Fiction series. I ended up putting it on hiatus for a few reasons, one of which was that it dealt with Alan’s death, and I was writing at the same time my friend passed from cancer, so I really just needed to take a break.

But it was a natural choice to join the Red collection as the “featured” story (the longest story by far — it’s 30k!). I’ve cleaned up and edited Scenes 1-36, and then finished writing scenes 37-57. I hope you enjoy!

I’ll see you tomorrow for Flash Fiction, and then on Friday for more Fool Me Twice. And maybe, just maybe, there may be a surprise or two up my sleeve this weekend. We’re celebrating the return of Liason in style, and I’m eager to do my part!

 

March 4, 2024

Update Link: Fool Me Twice, Chapter 39 | Chapter 40

In Case You Missed It: folklore, a Taylor Swift inspired short-story collection with a story for each track.

Hey!! I’m popping in with a rare double email today because I’m just so excited about the celebration we kicked off today!

FIRST, we’re selling Liason mugs with $2 of every sale going to charity. Check them out!  We sent mugs to Steve, Becky, Hudson, the writers, the execs at GH, ABC AND Disney!

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, a group of us go together and planned a mobile billboard! It went to Prospect Park (the GH studios), ABC, and Disney exec offices, and traveled to other places in LA!

Stay tuned! We have an awesome year ahead of us!!

Update Link: Fool Me Twice, Chapter 39 | Chapter 40

In Case You Missed It: folklore, a Taylor Swift inspired short-story collection with a story for each track.

Why I’m Excited for Jason’s Return — At Least Right Now

*waves frantically* This might be one of the most exciting and hotly anticipated days for Liason fans since October 2017 when our couple had that amazing reunion at the PCPD lockup. If you’re a regular viewer of the show, you know Jason’s last return was not well-received due to TERRIBLE writing, but everyone mostly agrees that the only relationship that wasn’t torched was with Elizabeth and Jake. In fact, Jason and Elizabeth were sharing scenes together in July, and he was planning to hide another dead body for her.

Plus!!! Jason’s return is being penned ENTIRELY by our new head writers, Patrick Mulcahey and Elizabeth Korte. I know Korte is known as a Carly fan, but she also used to be known as an amazing Elizabeth writer — along with Michelle Val Jean, Korte CREATED Liason — it was her idea to put them together. And Patrick was a writer back in the late 90s — he penned several of our favorite early Liason scenes like the park after they met at Jake’s and the lucky quarter episode.

AAAND there’s a spoiler that an old face from the past shows up on Liz’s doorstep — we know from spoiler pictures that Jason is going to be in a gun fight — is it SO far-fetched to speculate that just maybe our HW are mining Liason history?

Now of course, my excitement could fade, but I loved this couple for half my life, so there’s no reason not to get a little excited right now 😛 PLUS YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW THE BEST PART — Liason fans have planned a HUGE surprise for Steve’s first air date. Stay tuned on Twitter around 9 AM today (March 4) and follow our anniversary tag #25YearsOfLiason! I’ll post more info on Wednesday when I do Flash Fiction.

Taylor Swift Short Story Collections

Yesterday, I did a surprise “album” drop, posting a collection 17 short stories, each one inspired by a Taylor Swift song from folklore, the album she surprised us in July 2020. If you missed it, I’ve linked it above.

I plan to write a collection for each one of her albums, but I probably won’t do an entire collection at a time — this was special because I was launching the series and because of Steve’s return. I’m not really sure how to approach the other 9 albums (soon to be 10). Doing one album at a time, doing whatever song inspires me, etc. I’ll play it by ear for now, but it was a lot of fun and kind of crazy to be keeping this a secret from all by the top tier Patreons for the last two weeks. If you have any idea for any songs, please feel free to let me know!!

Fool Me Twice & These Small Hours

AND FINALLY, we get to the reason I’m posting today! I took a bit of a break from other projects to get this done, so I’m going back to finishing my posting draft edit (all of March’s chapters are good to go) for Fool Me Twice Book 2 and the alpha draft for These Small Hours. I hope you think the break was worth it 😛

I’m beyond excited to be launching Book 2 on the day Steve returns, and a little sad I won’t get to see the Jason/Drew relationship I wrote in Book 2 (and 3!). Billy’s loss is profound, and the Drew recast is awful. But I’m glad our Drew lives on in stories and in our memories.

Chapters will be posted on Mondays and Fridays. Sometimes 2, sometimes 1. It just depends on the chapter I’m posting that week and where I want to leave you for cliffhangers 😛

March 3, 2024

Update Link: folklore

For the last two weeks, I have been feverishly working on absolutely insane project and I’ve finished just in time! Steve returns tomorrow, and what better way for me to celebrate the potential return of our couple than with 17 short stories!

Each story was inspired by lyrics from Taylor Swift’s folklore, and I very much wanted this first “album” drop to be just like how Taylor gave us the album back in 2020 out of nowhere, completely done and launched. I’m planning to do a short story collection for each album, but more on that when we talk later tomorrow with Fool Me Twice.

I told you March was going to be wild!

February 26, 2024

Update Link: Fool Me Twice, Book 2: Ashes to Ashes – Teaser

Hello! I’m so excited to finally share with you some sneak peeks from Fool Me Twice, Book 2 and announce the official release date! Chapters will be posted on Monday and Friday beginning on March 4 (the day Steve returns!). I’ll be posting 2 chapters a week for a few weeks until the story picks up steam, and then the updates will vary a little bit. 1 chapter on Monday, then 2 on Friday, or 2 on Monday, then 1 on Friday. I wanted to break the updates at good cliffhangers 🙂

Enjoy the sneak peek at upcoming scenes! I’m so excited that we finally get to return to this! I hope you’re as excited as I am!

See you on Wednesday for Flash Fiction!

Catch up with Book 1 now!

February 21, 2024

Update Link: Hits Different – Part 22

Production Schedule | Posting Schedule

February feels like it’s taking FOREVER. And there’s still another week! Like WHAT.

Lots of things happening behind the scenes here at CG. March is going to be an insanely productive month, half of which you guys don’t even know about yet, but you will as soon as I can manage it. I took the results of the survey and developed a posting schedule for Fool Me Twice, Book 2 that will take us from March 11 through June 12. I’m hopeful that These Small Hours will be ready by mid July.

We’ll be wrapping up Hits Different  in the first week of May. For classified reasons, I don’t anticipate any double updates for the next two months, other than MAYBE during spring break in April.

I’m SO excited for the week of March 4! Steve’s first week back and a lot of great #Liason stuff happening. Make sure you’re following that hashtag and our special anniversary tag, #25YearsOfLiason. We’ll be welcoming Steve back, Liason style 😛

See you next week!

February 14, 2024

Update Link: Hits Different – Part 21

Hope everyone is having a good week! Sorry this is late. I’m tutoring my nephew in math, and we had to review his study guide tonight. Do you know they call it “decomposing” fractions now which messed me up, lol. I feel like we just used words like simplify and reduce, but that’s why I don’t teach this for a living.

I caught a minor cold — mostly a sore throat and stuffy head. I took off today, hoping it would help. Last thing I needed was to spend six hours on my feet, speaking. I just have to get through tomorrow and Friday is a half day (and our music day so it’s really laid back).

I wrote a lot over the weekend, but slowed down this week — not surprising since I got a little sick. I usually get sick this time of year, so hoping it’s just something minor. I’m still able to get through FMT, and I’m about halfway through the draft. Tentative release date is March 11, I’ll have more details on the schedule in another week or two.

February 7, 2024

Update Link: Hits Different – Part 20

In Case You Missed It
Fool Me Twice – Release Survey
Digital Shop: Fool Me Twice, Book 2 Beta Draft ($5)

Hello! Halfway through the week and it’s going, uh, okay. Not really sleeping well, so by the time I get home, I’m dragging a little, so I haven’t worked as much on These Small Hours as I’d like, but I’m not so worried about it. I’ve got time. I did however finally finish breaking down Hits Different by scene and tentatively set a finishing date around the first week of May. It might go faster as sometimes I throw an update up on the weekend, and it also might not since I may add scenes here and there depending, but all things considered, we’re definitely looking at May as an end date.

I put up a poll on Patreon to choose the next flash fiction series, mostly because I don’t have one that’s remotely ready so I need some time to brainstorm, and I’ve got a busy spring planned 🙂

Don’t forget to vote in the release survey for FMT. So far all the answers are pretty even, lol, so I need some tiebreakers!

See you next week! Or this weekend, who knows?

 

February 4, 2024

UPDATE LINKS
Fool Me Twice – Release Survey
Digital Shop: Fool Me Twice, Book 2 Beta Draft ($5)
Alphabetical Master List, Alternate History, and Recent Updates
One Single Glimpse

Hello! Another surprise post from me, and I’m so excited to tell you that I finished the beta draft of Fool Me Twice, Book 2: Ashes to Ashes last night!

I wasn’t planning to finish this weekend — I had about sixish chapters left for Act 2, and then I figured another week to complete the 8 chapters in Act 3. But I was watching a marathon stream from my favorite streamer yesterday, and it was really great background noise. Plus, the back half of the story just needed a lot less work. So I zoomed through and finished!

Thank you so much for your patience on Book 2. It’s been three years since I published Book 1 and I never planned for there to be THREE years between the releases. Books 3-6 will come out much more regularly. Book 1 was written as I started my last teaching job, and you guys know that district was…well, I’m in a new and better job now and it’s shows by how much writing I’ve been able to do this year as opposed to the last three fall semesters.

What’s next?

I sent the draft off to my beta reader, and I’m going to keep to the final deadline I gave her to be fair — which was Feb 29. I never thought I’d get through Act 2 and Act 3 so fast.  While that’s happening, I’ll be doing my own read through, checking one last time for typos and consistencies. I don’t expect there’s a lot in this draft since I’ve read this so many times.

I’m releasing a survey to determine the best update schedule for this draft so that I can post chapters at a time when the majority of my readers are available to read. Please answer the questions 🙂

Book 2 will be published starting sometime in March. I’m hoping for the week of March 11, but it might be the week after. I’m so excited for you guys to get to read this. I’ll be editing book 3 this summer and releasing it next fall.

I’ve posted the beta draft for my Patreons. It’s available for free for Crimson Devoted tiers and above ($5) and can be purchased for that price from the digital shop.

Housekeeping Notes

I updated the Alphabetical Master List for the first time since 2020 with all the updates since then. There’s 137 stories listed! I also found a short story I wrote in 2021 that I never linked anywhere, so it dropped off the radar after I posted. One Single Glimpse — a short story about Elizabeth being a frontline worker during Covid. I added it to the Alphabetical List and Alternate History page. I also updated the Recent Updates page with the last few Flash Fiction Updates.