I’m not going to lie — I was pretty sure this day would never come. And admit it, there are some of you who wondered as well 😛

The Best Thing, Chapter 34 has been posted. The final chapter. It’s done. Wow. I wrote an author’s note at the end — if you’ve read the story at all ever, please drop me a brief line to let me know what you think. And if you’ve been waiting for it to be done before you started, ha — well, you’re good to go now. I should have the ebook up by the end of the week.

This is about the time I post the old plot sketches, but um, it turns out the plot sketches are long. The first one is about 25 pages long, and the second one is roughly 31, 32 pages. If you’re interested, I’ll be happy to upload them as .doc files to read in Microsoft Word, but they’re LONG. And DETAILED. There’s some great plot elements I cut out like a custody battle and a lot of the Carly/Courtney stuff was changed. But that’s up to you guys, let me know.

As I’ve mentioned before, I have plans for what’s next, but I haven’t been able to get to much of it this last week with the papers. Hopefully I’ve got the balance worked out and I’ll be able to get back to Bittersweet, finish the last few scenes for a revision of the first eight chapters and get them off to the beta. I don’t know what that’ll happen, so just watch this space. Now would be a good time to sign up for updates.

I will, however, be changing this layout to something much less…pink sometime this week.

Thanks again guys. I need a nap now 😛

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So as I sit here in Macroeconomics, which I had hoped would offer me space to write since the lectures are relatively useless because all the material and assignments are online — I’m struck by how difficult it is to write fanfiction when there’s someone sitting behind me and someone less than a foot away from me on either side. Ha. I can get some plotting done, but it’s been difficult to find time to actually write. (Plus, I have a Macro exam and two papers to write, one 5-7 pages on America’s new empire at the turn of the century and 8-10 on the influence of post-colonial thought on writing global history all due by next Tuesday.)

So I may not have as much this month particularly to devote to long chapter stories. But maybe I can carve out some smaller short stories.  Anyone have something they’d like to see in a story? This is a call to inspire me 🙂

The Best Thing’s final chapter is still scheduled by posted on Friday, so stay tuned for that 🙂

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Hey! So by now, you’ve noticed that I didn’t update The Best Thing yesterday. I finished the last two chapters, but I’m waiting for Cora to get back to me — I asked her to rip it apart and suggest any changes. She’s worked almost as hard as I have on this story, and I want the ending of the story to be as good as the first thirty-two chapters.

I started graduate school about two weeks ago and I’m taking a full load of classes. Two graduate level History reading seminars with about two hundred pages each a week reading, an undergrad Macroeconomics course I need for my Social Studies certification, and two online teacher education classes. I’m also auditing an American history class to help me write my research paper next semester. I’m getting tired just thinking about it, haha. Oh, yeah, and I’m working three days a week 😛

This is exactly the adjustment period I had anticipated last fall had I started on time. I should be on a normal schedule and routine after this week. My Macro class is being graded completely on online tests and homework, and the teacher is useless so far, but I have to attend those classes. That looks like my best bet to get some writing done during the week.

The good news is that Bittersweet already has nine chapters completed. I still have some editing to do on them, some scenes to revise before I give them back to Cora, but at some point, I will have enough buffer and beta’d chapters to deliver the fresh content I promised.

I’m not thrilled with the header image, haha, and the pink hurts my head. But I’ve been playing around some of the other editing. I’ve made the story lists on pages like In Progress and the completed Alternate History and Universe pages. I plan to leave this layout up just through Valentine’s Day. Changing won’t be much of a problem. This layout is much easier to change.

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Hey! So briefly, as you can see, CG has a new layout. We’ve switched to two columns. I removed some of the sections, but you can find everything up in the primary navigation bar below the header. If there’s anything you want me to bring back, let me know, but I think this looks a lot less cluttered.

I’ve made a lot of improvements–there’s still a few more I want to work on but this is as close to the best version of a CG layout as we’ve had since the site relaunched two years ago.

The only thing I didn’t do was the header image, haha, which is why it looks like that. That’s my temporary one until I finish it. I should have that up by tonight or tomorrow, but I didn’t want to leave the site down.

Let me know if you find anything wonky!

ETA: Header image is updated, though I’m still eyeing a change.

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I updated The Best Thing, Chapter 32 today, and barring any crazy rewrites that might be needed on the final two chapters (I’m expecting to have to redo a few scenes, maybe add some more) we’ll be wrapping this up on February 5, 2016 or maybe a week or so later.

At the moment, Bittersweet has eight chapters that are with Cora, but obviously our priority has been to finish up The Best Thing. I myself have made some changes to the first eight chapters, I’m waiting to hear her take on my first eight. I’ve started writing the next part of the story. I hope to have Bittersweet midway through February, but I’d rather push it to March and make sure that you guys get the best version of this story possible.

Damaged is still scheduled to come back in March, but it depends on how the next few weeks ago. I’ve started graduate school this week and it’s going to be another week or so before I’m able to really get an idea of how much time that’s going to take between attending classes and doing the work. My plan is for you guys to have new content every week, but I may miss one or two here and there. When I constructed that schedule, I really didn’t think I’d have bronchitis for the better part of December and January. Even now, it’s lingering and sucking my energy up.

I hope you guys enjoy this turn in The Best Thing. Super excited for you guys to finally see the end of the story. I hope to have the ebook giveaway up before the end of the story, but I will definitely be posting the various outlines so you can see just how different this story turned out.

See you guys next week!

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Hey! Just a small update to mention that I added Chapter 31 of The Best Thing on Friday. Remember to subscribe to the site using the link to the right under “Subscribe to this Blog” You’ll get brand-new chapters delivered to your emails seconds after they’re posted so you’re not always dependent on me remembering to add a post to the main page.

I also got around to updating the page that lists updates without chatter. I always forget to do that, sorry!

And in more important news — I finished writing The Best Thing. After roughly twenty-one months, I finished the last chapter (Chapter 34 to be exact) on Saturday. It felt weird to finally be writing the scenes I had been planning for ages. I’ve sent them to Cora, so I may not be quite done with the story, but the first draft is officially done, so that’s a major part of the battle. We might actually stay on an actual schedule after all. Now I can concentrate on Bittersweet 🙂

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So yes, The Best Thing has finally been updated after nearly four months. Unless there’s there’s some sort car accident in which I am immobilized, we are going to finish this story sometime in February. I have three chapters beta’d and ready to go and my plan is finish things this weekend. I know, I know, I’ve said it before but this time I’ve figured out why I’ve been stuck.

It’s my own fault, too. This story has been difficult to write all along because I’ve constantly challenged myself to write from Jason’s POV at least as often as I write Elizabeth–if not more–and to really explore Sonny’s illness. And that’s hard because it forces to get inside the head of a paranoid egomaniac suffering from bipolar disorder. It’s hard and it takes longer, but every time I stop challenging myself to write this story the way it should be, it suffers. I’ve stopped fighting it. I’m over my bronchitis, and other than grocery shopping tomorrow and seeing Star Wars, I have completely cleared my schedule for two and a half days.

As always, thanks to Cora, who with her invaluable feedback, helped me to stop pretending the end of this story could be written any other way.

I’m updating The Best Thing tonight. If I finish the last three chapters and get them to Cora on schedule, I’ll do another update on Wednesday, and then next Wednesday as usual. Thanks for your patience, guys, it’s about to pay off.

I’ll be posting The Best Thing in January, Bittersweet in February, and then Damaged, Season 3 in March. See you guys next week 😀

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So to make up for my general lack of being around this month, I went ahead and posted the second half of Tangle, up to and including the Chapter 17 that I don’t think I ever posted. Chapter 18 was about half finished when I abandoned that version of the story, so like the repost of Mad World, I posted what I had left. Unfortunately, the outline for Chapter 19 disappeared so I’ll have to look through my files with a fine tooth comb to locate it.  I don’t have an ETA for the rewrite, but I’m hoping sometime in 2016 🙂

I know that it seems that updates slowed downquite at a bit at Crimson Glass this last year between health issues and crazy mojo sucking real life issues, but looking back I actually completed quite a lot so I’m going to stop being hard on myself. You guys are fantastic, I’m the one who yells at me 😛

The Best Thing – I had a slow year on this one. I only wrote about fifteen chapters, with three more remaining. Still fifteen isn’t awful considering how much I didn’t write between 2009-2013 😛 With an average page length of 11 pages and word count of 4000 per chapter, that’s a 165 pages and 60,000 words.

All We Are – I completed seventeen chapters, clocking in at 162 pages and 63, 149 words.

Damaged – I completed Season 1 with an additional 96 pages and about 35,000 words and wrote all of Season 2, with 204 pages and 94, 665.

With taking into account several short stories, that’s 627 pages of content and 217,849 words in the last year. There are actual published authors who haven’t written as much as I did  this last year. So while, yes, that was a bit a slow down from 2014, 2015 wasn’t too bad, so I’m going to forgive myself for not updating as often as I’d like. I like to think I post quality material and taking a bit of extra time to make sure it’s good is not a bad thing 🙂

However, 2016 is going to be different. I’m doing a lot of writing and planning to stay ahead of myself so that updates will be a bit more even and frequent. I don’t enjoy going entire months without new content, so that’s one of my New Year’s Resolutions to myself.

So have a happy holiday season, enjoy the rest of Tangle, or peruse one of my other holiday stories or hey, read last year’s All I Want For Christmas. See you guys in 2016!

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Sorry for disappearing the last two weeks. I caught a cold from either one of the germ-infested students I teach or the dirty children my sister gave birth too. It’s really a toss up at this point. Anyway, I’ve spent the better part the last week hacking up a lung and binging Grey’s Anatomy because that required no brain power. I stopped watching that show somewhere in the fourth season and I’d forgotten how good Season 1 and 2 was. Anyway.

I’ll be back sometime tomorrow or Thursday and catch up with the last two weeks of Fiction Graveyard. I hope to bring back The Best Thing in January, but my writing energy has been sapped. Every time I get a cold, I go down like death. I’m the worst sick person. See you guys in a few days. Have a great holiday!

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