Your monthly ramble about what I’m writing now and what I’m planning to write next.

In Progress

The Best Thing – The ending of this story is still in flux. I made a story change that affects how long the story will be. I can do two things: I can gloss over some of it in a few chapters or I can use it as launching pad in a possible sequel to continue the progress. I’m not positive which way I’ll go yet but I should know within a few more chapters. The story, as always, works in fits and starts mostly because of writing in Sonny’s POV with his disorder. I’ll be able to talk more about the changes once we hit the section of the story where it comes into play, but a lot of what’s happening Chapter 18-Chapter 21 or so were scripted another way.

Anyway. At the moment I’m typing this, I’ve completed nineteen chapters with an eye towards getting around to about 30 by the end of the first week in February.

All We Are – I hit a bit of bump after  I completed Chapter 7. Not because the story is difficult, I just haven’t had a ton of time to write it.  I’m planning to stake out some space in Starbucks over the weekend (and maybe even tomorrow) to knock out another chunk of chapters. I plan on posting the first chapter on 30 January 2015 and then once a week for a bit.  As I always mention, this is a relatively straightforward story that doesn’t depend so much on character as it does on plot, so when I sit and write it, it flows relatively well. I just have to…sit and do it.

Damaged – Oh my God, it’s actually back in the status list after completely disappearing for some time. If you visit the site, you can probably see that it’s in maintenance mode because I’m doing a few things with the site, but I walked away from the story just to see if I could come back to it with any kind of enthusiasm. I haven’t quite mastered the enthusiasm but I’m sitting back with some of the concepts and I’m tweaking it. It’s back on my radar, so it’ll be back.

Life For Rent – It’s about to be moved from in progress to series, so there’s less pressure on me to get it going with the second part. It’s on my radar and it’s actually relatively well plotted and story boarded. I just…have to sit down and tweak a few things. Honestly, I could get hit with the muse and it could be started tomorrow. There’s no reason it hasn’t been written yet except I haven’t gotten around to it. Ha.

Turning Points/Come On Eileen – Pretty much in the same both. At some point, I’ll deal with them. I promise. That’s why I leave them on the in progress page so I don’t forget.

Coming Sooner

Mad World – I’m pretty well settled on this story being next in the rotation which I plan to start digging into as soon as All We Are is finished being written. It’s plotted and storyboarded (with a few minor exceptions). I’ve even worked out the sequel in some fashion so I can lay breadcrumbs. I still want to run it by a beta reader first for thoughts, but yeah, it’s as ready as ready can be.

Burn in Heaven – I’m still ironing out plot details. The overall outline is done but the timing of some incidents is still be worked out and the ending is still a bit vague. I know how I want it to end, but I’m not positive how to get the scene to unfold in a believable way. But it’ll be here soon enough.

Coming Soonish

Counting Stars – It’s relatively in the same space I was the last time I discussed it.  My first pass at the outline was a bit superficial in some ways, so I wanted to pull it back a bit. I haven’t had a chance to go back and work on the outline, so until that happens, it doesn’t move up on my radar.

Bittersweet – So the thing about this story is that I swear it’s a rewrite of The Sisters, but not a rewrite of that story as it existed on this site. It’s actually a rewrite of the Luis Alcazar storyline, which The Sisters is supposed to be about. Because ha, The Sisters is a rewrite of Deserving, which is my version of Alcazar. I know it’s convoluted. Anyway, in my outline, I’m actually rewriting Jason’s entire return. I have a ton written for this, and like The Sisters, it is going to be a series (or least two stories with an open possibility for a third). I’m still working out the large picture details, but I have a ton of individual scene ideas.

The odds are that of all the stories in this section, you’re more likely to see this before you see anything else because it’s working for me right now in a way that some stories haven’t and you never disturb the muse. But I still want to do Mad World and Burn in Heaven first.

Fallen From Grace – This is basically in the same place it was before — I’m debating revisiting my original outline to see if I want to play with it a bit or write it as I had originally intended. It’s pretty low on my list priorities at the moment but I’ll come back to it because there were some scenes I wanted to work with.

For the Broken Girl – I’m still doing the background research on this since it’ll deal with drug abuse and domestic violence–cheerful, right? I’m also trying to visualize how I want the first half of the story to work and the ending. It’s one of those weird stories where the middle scenes are so detailed in my head that what I know about the story is already 5000 words, ha. Yeah. I just have to continue my research.

These Small Hours – It’s the age old question — when is this coming back? I’m still working on the outline, I know. I’m sorry. It’s been a tough one to reoutline because I want it to work for all the characters and aspects. My original outline ignored everything in favor of the Johnny/Nadine, but it doesn’t work that way. I’ll get it there, I promise. I just..have a lot going on in my head.

Illusions – I haven’t even looked at this story in a few months. I have some research to do on New York City in the 1940s, Pearl Harbor and whatnot.

Stories and Concepts

Collision – The issue with this story is that I actually have it mostly plotted out and broken down into scenes, but it was going to be a rewrite of the show on the same scale that I’ve done with Damaged and honestly, that’s not something I can deal with now. So I just want to pull it back a bit, I have to do some cutting and refining. I haven’t really sat down to do it, but I still love love love the concept I had for this story and I’ve never really seen it anywhere else.

Heaven Forbid – This story is going into the trash heap. I’ll be posting the discarded plot sketches shortly.

Inside Your Fear – It’s waiting to be reoutlined. I had envisioned it as a short story, but it’s not going to work that way. Probably going to be a full length story when I get around to it, but more novella than novel. Think maybe a bit longer than Shadows.

Slide – As the sequel to ISB, it’s still going to get written, I just haven’t quite done a lot with the concept. I have a feeling the major reason I haven’t worked on it much is that I’ve fallen out of love with ISB quite a bit. It’s the same reason why Burn in Heaven as a sequel to Poisonous Dreams never quite worked out, though my dislike for ISB is not at PD levels so it’s not likely I’ll rewrite ISB, ha. I just have to get over my issues.