Category Archives: Site News

January 6, 2019

I feel like I do a lot of apologizing these days. I had every intention of doing a flash fiction marathon, but my holiday week off just got away from me. I’ve had trouble kicking the last cold I got right before Christmas (even now, I have some lingering chest congestion).

Since I finished Mad World last summer, I’ve really struggled with writing more.  I’ve only managed six and a half chapters of the sequel, a handful of flash fictions, and maybe one or two short stories. My NaNo project crashed and burned, and even my plans for the next season of Damaged can’t seem to get off the ground. You guys are probably used to this by now — I have these huge bursts of productivity, and then I can’t seem to relight those fires again for months.

I think I just really don’t know how to pace myself and recharge my creative fuse. I don’t really know what makes me go into those weird bursts or how to keep them steady over times. I want to pay more attention to my process this year to see if I can crack the code.

I also think I have to get used to just writing whatever my muse wants and not forcing myself into things because I made promises. So here’s what I plan for Crimson Glass this year.

  1. I’m going to stop promising Damaged Season 3. I have all of the plots, I just can’t seem to write them and I hate going back on my promises. So I won’t give anymore dates. You’ll get Damaged 3 when it shows up and it’ll be probably a surprise.
  2. I’m going to write at least two novels this year. I don’t know what they’ll be. I love the idea of having you guys vote on my projects, but I think I’m just going to have to let my muse direct me. I have something I’ve been thinking about all the time and I think I just have to let myself go and write it.
  3.  I’m going to turn my attention back to getting ebooks up, including short story and novella collections. I may have polls to vote for that. I think they’re a great resource, particularly for people who like to wait until my stories are gone to read.

At the moment, I’m not sure when you’ll be hearing from me next because I don’t really have anything in the pipeline and my semester is starting in two weeks. It’s my last semester, and I am really looking forward to not juggling graduate school and a job at the same time. I also have a few possibilities for a full-time teaching position next year so fingers crossed that 2019 is my year 🙂

I really want to have the sequels to both Bittersweet and Mad World done this year, but Bittersweet is proving to be a bit tough in the plotting because all I know for sure is that Jason and Liz are going to return and I’m going to deal with Brenda.  I set up a lot of bread crumbs in the first story to give me a lot of options, and I’m not really sure which ones I want to pick up on yet.

The odds are that you’ll gt Mad World, Book 2 sometime this summer and the full-length version of Kismet, my flash fiction series set in 1997 with an aged Liz, but you never know what will happen.

Happy New Year 🙂 Make sure you follow me on Twitter, Facebook, or subscribe for updates so you never miss anything!

December 25, 2018

Hey! Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates! I had myself an incredibly lazy day, lounging, listening to podcasts, and cooking myself a really good dinner. In my family, we do a huge event on Christmas Eve so that my brother and sister can celebrate with in-laws on Christmas Day.

In case you missed it, I posted a Christmas epilogue for The Best Thing, and we’re kicking off a flash fiction marathon tonight. Every night until New Year’s Day, I’ll be doing a new flash fiction. I know some of you guys are hoping for continuations of various stories, but I gotta go where the muse wants to go 😛

This is a continuation of the Victorian story I started, Yesterday’s Past. I’ll set up a series section tomorrow. I hope you enjoy Part 2.

December 24, 2018

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! My Christmas flash fiction marathon didn’t start on Saturday like I had hoped — my family kept showing up and annoying me, haha. We’ll get started tomorrow on actual Christmas because all my family obligations are tonight. I’m actually hurrying to finish this post before I leave for my sister’s.

In the tradition of last year’s holiday epilogue for All I Want For Christmas, here is an epilogue for The Best Thing, taking place at Christmas in 2008, four years after the original story ended. I hope you guys like it! Have a great holiday! I’ll see you guys tomorrow!

December 22, 2018

Apologies for going quiet after finishing up Mad World earlier this month. The end of my semester didn’t go as well as I wanted it to – my final paper was basically a disaster I was just happy to see in the rearview window.

I’ve been working on Damaged off and on but I haven’t made as much progress as I’d like. Super frustrating — but I’m hoping to get some serious work done this week once Christmas is over.

I am going to post new content during the last week of December. I’m going to do two things — a holiday story on Christmas Eve (not sure exactly what yet but something) and then starting tonight, I’m going to do another flash fiction marathon. Whether I continue old stuff or do or new stuff, you’ll be getting at least daily updates for the rest of 2018!

Stay tuned to my Twitter feed to see when I start the clock!

I can’t believe we’re actually here! Thank you so much for taking this journey with me. My goal with splitting Mad World into three parts was to redo this panic room storyline and have it make more impact than it did on the actual show. Each book is designed to be a self-contained story, so I hope you feel like when I leave you here after Chapter 19, that there’s satisfactory closure.

I don’t yet have a date for Book 2, and a lot of that depends on how the next two months of my life goes. I’m finally writing Damaged, Season 3 (which is about two years overdue), and if I finish that by the beginning of February, I’ll be writing Book 2 in Febuary and March. I already have seven of the thirty planned chapters written, so believe me, I’m working on it.

Let me know what you think of this story as a whole — what are you looking forward to in the next book? What did you like about this book? Make sure to read my author’s note at the end for some clues 😉

Thanks for following me on this journey. This book is probably one of my favorite writing experiences. I had written Chapters 1-4 about a year ago, but then, in the space of three weeks, I wrote more than 70,000 words. I can’t really remember another time a story came together quite like this.

Chapter Nineteen

I can’t believe we’re actually here! Thank you so much for taking this journey with me. My goal with splitting Mad World into three parts was to redo this panic room storyline and have it make more impact than it did on the actual show. Each book is designed to be a self-contained story, so I hope you feel like when I leave you here after Chapter 19, that there’s satisfactory closure.

I don’t yet have a date for Book 2, and a lot of that depends on how the next two months of my life goes. I’m finally writing Damaged, Season 3 (which is about two years overdue), and if I finish that by the beginning of February, I’ll be writing Book 2 in Febuary and March. I already have seven of the thirty planned chapters written, so believe me, I’m working on it.

Let me know what you think of this story as a whole — what are you looking forward to in the next book? What did you like about this book? Make sure to read my author’s note at the end for some clues 😉

Thanks for following me on this journey. This book is probably one of my favorite writing experiences. I had written Chapters 1-4 about a year ago, but then, in the space of three weeks, I wrote more than 70,000 words. I can’t really remember another time a story came together quite like this.

Chapter Nineteen

December 3, 2018

Here we are at the last week of Mad World, Book 1, which is incredible to me. This was such a labor of love for me — this book went through so many revisions and drafts that I almost can’t believe we’re posting it.

In this particular chapter, I’m using some terminology and ideas I read in an amazing book called Rising Strong by Brené Brown. I’m not usually one for self-help books, but I read that one as part of a podcast called Big Strong Yes. It really helped me kind of reset my own world view so when it came time to write Elizabeth’s therapy session with Gail, it seemed like a natural fit.

Here is Chapter Eighteen. I hope you like it!

December 1, 2018

I’ve haven’t done one of these in months, so I’m bringing it back. I had another plot bunny I wanted to try out — I’m always trying to find a historical angle I can write about. (I know you guys still ask about the medieval Scottish story, it’s on my list).

I wrote a blog post about Nanowrimo and why it didn’t go well, so check that out over at my blog. I started working on Damaged, Season Three and actually made a lot of progress over the last two days. I’m putting the first eight episodes into production this week (which is a fancy way I saying — I’m gonna start writing them) and hopefully we’ll be able to keep to that promised Feb date.

For now, please enjoy a new flash fiction.

Yesterday’s Past

November 28, 2018

Hey! Today I’m posting Chapter Seventeen. I honestly cannot believe we only have two chapters left or that this story is over next week. The feedback has been great and I love that you guys are picking up and appreciating the PCPD world I’m building, because you really need to buy into that for the next book.

Chapter Seventeen

So Nano was a complete bust this year. There are a lot of reasons for it, and I want to get into more fully over at my blog where I’ve been writing about the process, but it basically came down to a few things. One, I ended up putting a story in the poll that was never going to work, and two, I’ve been sick for most of the month which made it so much harder to be creative and push this plot.

I’ll go into detail about why it wasn’t going to work (and give away plot details and whatnot) and maybe even post the stuff I did write at some point.

This mostly blow up my spring schedule for posting, but I have some thoughts on how to get it back on track. I’ll check back in a few days when the meds I got today kick in.

For now, I hope you enjoy today’s update 🙂