Category Archives: Site News

May 9, 2021

Update Link:  Not Knowing When – Part 16

Happy Sunday and Happy Mother’s Day! I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend! I’m looking forward to this upcoming week for a few reasons, but mostly because Fool Me Twice is finally returning! Chapters 21-29 are edited and scheduled to post every Monday & Thursday through June 7. I’m hoping to have Chapters 30-38 ready to go by that point.

I’m also hopeful because I’ve finished writing the content for my class this year, and I don’t feel the need to rewrite it like I usually do at this point in the cycle. I also get the final word on whether I’m being asked to come back next year to teach (just waiting for the superintendent to sign off!) so a lot of things are going my way. I’m still struggling a bit outside of the professional stuff, but I’m talking through a lot of things in therapy and I’m trying very hard to be kinder to myself and set more realistic expectations for my writing.

This is the last Flash Fiction update until around June 11. By then, I’ll only have two days left in the school year (two half days where the kids will be jumping off the walls, LOL) so we’ll start working on a summer schedule.

I’m not entirely sure what project I want to work on after I’m done editing FMT. I had Smoke & Mirrors going, but there’s some hitches in the process that I’ll get into with another post or a vlog at some point. I’m toying with Mad World Book 4 because I think there are reasons I needed a break, but I also think there are reasons diving back into either that or Broken Girl will actually be good for me.

I’ll see you guys tomorrow with the return of FMT!

May 2, 2021

Update Link: Not Knowing When – Part 15

Where do I even start? This has been the absolute strangest year and I feel like I’ve bouncing around so much mentally. I’ll have a few good days and I’ll think I’m back on track, then I’ll have an entire week of just terrible days where getting out of bed is the worst. I’ve been trying hard to deal with it on my own, but honestly, it’s kind of beyond me to handle. So I started therapy through Better Help this week. I have a counselor who specializes in anxiety and stress and her first big piece of advice was to be more mindful and to set tiny, realistic goals that are attainable every day.  I thought I was doing that, but my idea of realistic is, uh, the opposite, LOL.

What does any of that mean for the writing? I’m not sure yet. I love writing, but it takes mental and creative energy that’s been difficult to find these days. Especially when I need to use a decent amount every day at work. One of the other things I have to work on is my constant drive for perfection in everything I do, whether that’s in the writing or in the materials I create for my students. You guys might remember that I walked into this job without zero preparation or materials. There wasn’t even a textbook or a program for me to pull resources from. The curriculum is pretty vague, so my program is one hundred percent teacher generated. Since I turn over every fifteen school days, I’ve been constantly rewriting it. This last cycle I finished on Friday was the best one yet, but there was one major piece of feedback from my students I couldn’t ignore — so I’m rewriting my materials one more time to create a full fledged textbook of my own that I’ll be able to build on.

I’m so happy with the end product of an entire year of experimenting but you might imagine it’s been incredibly stressful and exhausting to be writing my program every month at the same time I’m trying to deliver the content and write in my spare time. You also know that I tend to be my own worst critic and I never feel like anything I write is good enough. I made a resolution this year to be kinder to myself, and I haven’t been very good at keeping it. I’m going to try again and hope this time, I actually listen.

My plan for May is largely to finish what’s in progress. Not Knowing When will be completed next week, and then after that I’ll be taking May off from Flash Fiction just to reset and look at my two remaining projects to make some plans and a new schedule. I’m still not finished editing Fool Me Twice — I’ve been stuck on writing Chapter 30 (the last brand new chapter) and then after that, I have to finish the first round of edits on Chapters 31-38 before completing the second round of edits on Chapters 21-38.

I know it’s highly unlikely I’ll finish that before I’m scheduled to come back on May 9, so I’m adjusting my expectations. I’m going to finish the second edits on Chapters 21-29 and bring those back. We’ll be posting on Mondays & Thursdays, twice a week. I’ll have nine chapters, which gives me about a month of posts. About that point, I’ll be winding down my school year so I’m hoping to have finished enough chapters to keep posting through the end of the book. If not, we’ll deal with it at that point.

After I finish posting FMT, I’m going to take some time off — probably whatever is left of June and the first week of July. I’m going to rest from the year, reset, do some work around the house, and just try to figure how to devote time to writing without setting insane schedules (like writing three books a year, what is wrong with me, lol). I may be writing Flash Fiction during that period or I might not. We’ll see how long it takes to finish editing FMT.

As always, thanks for your support and patience! I’ve got a huge backlist of stories while you’re waiting for me to get myself together 🙂

April 26, 2021

I messed up the first time and it didn’t push out the update to the blog — so I opened up my Scrivener files to write and my brain said nah, and I briefly considered quitting writing (I don’t know why) and instead, I looked over my brainstorming file and then this happened. Spent about an hour and ten minutes or so. Don’t know what it is. Let me know if you want more.

A Weird Thing But You Can Read It If You Want

April 25, 2021

Hey guys! I don’t have a Flash Fiction for you today, and Fool Me Twice isn’t returning on Tuesday. The last two weeks have been a real struggle because I’m going to physical therapy twice a week right after work and it’s exhausting. I’m really sore and my neck really hurts sitting at my computer. I haven’t really been able to write or edit all that much.

I don’t have a Flash Fiction today because I spent all day with my family yesterday putting together a surprise party for my father’s 60th birthday and I am just so exhausted today. I do, however, think I should be able to have one next Sunday because I’m not doing anything on Saturday.

Fool Me Twice will be the weekend week of May, around May 11. I’m finishing physical therapy this week, so I’ll have the week after to get caught and get some work done. I’ll see you guys next week!

April 11, 2021

Update Link: Not Knowing When – Part 13

Happy Sunday! I’ve had a pretty productive week writing wise, and the main reason I didn’t update Flash Fiction twice is that I wanted to make sure I continued working on Fool Me Twice and Smoke & Mirrors. I edited eight chapters of Fool Me Twice and wrote two chapters of Smoke & Mirrors. I’m almost finished the beta draft for Chapters 21-38 for FMT (the first round of edits), and I’ll be moving into the second round of edits (polishing it) during week 2 of my posting hiatus.

As for Flash Fiction, this Sunday morning flash fiction time is working out pretty well. I’ve arranged my Sunday schedule to give me time to rest and relax and still do errands. I’m going to tackle Saturday next since starting this week, I’ll be five full days in the building and I’m back in the classroom full-time which is awesome. I can’t wait for windows. Up until now, my weekends have started kind of weirdly since I was remote teaching from home on Fridays so it was both work and not.

I hope to add back a second Flash Fiction update on Saturday mornings at some point, but it might not be for a few weeks. Thanks for bearing with me. For now, it’s just going to be these Sunday morning updates.

Since there’s no Fool Me Twice updates this week, I’ll see you next Sunday!

April 8, 2021

Update Link: Ricochet, Chapter Nineteen

Good morning! It’s a good thing I checked this post before it went at 6:30 — it almost posted the link for Chapter 16 for some reason, LOL. I hope everyone is having a good week. My second day back after spring break and I already miss not setting my alarm. Tomorrow is my last Remote Friday — starting next week, I’m back in the building five days a week from 7 AM to 3 PM.

Having a good week writing and editing! I finished Chapter 22 on Tuesday, then yesterday, I edited two more chapters for Fool Me Twice. I’m on schedule to complete my beta draft next Thursday, and then the final round of edits by April 30.  After Saturday, I’m on a two week posting hiatus for FMT while I finish the edit. This is a great chance to catch up or reread. New chapters will return the week of April 27. If everything is on schedule at that point, I’ll be back to posting on Tuesday, Saturday, and Sunday. If something comes up and I get delayed a bit, I’ll be dropping the Saturday updates.  I’ll keep you in the loop.

Still working on Smoke & Mirrors, but with editing FMT finally getting back on track, I haven’t been able to spend as much time as I wanted the last few days. But as long as I devote 25 minutes a day, I’m writing a scene a day and progress is being made.

See you tomorrow for Flash Fiction!

April 6, 2021

Update Link: Ricochet, Chapter Eighteen

This week’s chapters are some of my favorites in this portion of the story, so I’m super glad we’re getting to this part of the story. Because I’m setting up  a whole trilogy, I definitely felt like everything up to the twin reveal was a slow burn build, but now that we’ve got that out of the way, we can hit the ground running with the story itself.

I did a ton of writing this weekend! I’ve finished the first three chapters of Smoke & Mirrors, and I’m having a lot of fun with it. Writing it has reminded me that I like writing, LOL, and today I wrote three scenes for Fool Me Twice — I’m working on Chapter 22 which is a brand new chapter. I have three more scenes to write tomorrow, and then my plan is to edit through Chapter 29 this week. Chapter 30 is also brand new, so I’ll work on this weekend, and then *fingers crossed* finish editing the last eight chapters next week.

I’ll check in on Thursday and Saturday to let you know how that plan’s going. See you then!