If there are Christmas commercials on television, I get to listen to Christmas music. That’s the contract I have with the society at large, so I decided to go throuh and tag the stories that either take place during the holidays or feature a Christmas celebration. There aren’t a lot, as it’s never been something I do often, but there are some.

I’m also toying with doing a Christmas story this year. I’m not sure whether I’d do something set in a few years ago, something set this year or an alternate universe story. I was considering doing one for this year but I don’t know if I’m ready to write the new Jason.  The new marriage of convenience story I’m playing around with begins October 2006 and has a Christmas celebration, so maybe that’s something to think about. (Or maybe I’ll do both. I don’t know where my brain ends up.)

Anyway.  Working on both the novella ebook and the Fiction Graveyard stuff, but I keep getting distracted by writing, which I am sure no one is arguing with. Here’s your Christmas selection:

Christmas Stories (including one Thanksgiving story)

The current featured stories expire 11/30, so I’ll be replacing them with Noel and Lizzie Does Thanksgiving (or I might do that earlier, depends on my life, haha.)

Hey. I know I promised an update to Fiction Graveyard, but I’m getting a late start to the day so I figure you guys would rather I spend my time writing than formatting old, abandoned chapters, haha.  So If I can finish my planned writing (3000 words for NaNoWriMo and two scenes for TBT), I’ll be back with more updates.

In the mean time, The Best Thing – Chapter Ten is available.

So someone asked if I would adopt out a story from the Graveyard section since they are, for the most part, unfinished and abandoned. I replied to the comment, but in case the author doesn’t see it or someone else is curious, the answer is maybe. It would depend on the story. Several of the stories have already been rewritten or are in the process and some are sequels to previously completed stories. Those that are left are either abandoned for good or under consideration for being revised or rewritten.

For example, Silent Reverie is probably a good candidate for at least portions of the concept to find its way into a new story. I’m toying with wrapping pieces of it up into Mad World, which is still being outlined, but Bring Me to Life is as good as dead to me, haha.

So if you’re interested in a story from the Graveyard, just drop me a note or comment on the page to ask for sure. Any story that would be adopted, I’d have to ask you to use the concept rather than my own writing with credit to me for the idea.

– Silent Reverie is updated through Chapter Three, which constitutes what I had written for it.

– Poisonous Dreams #1 has the Prologue and Chapter One posted. I had competely forgotten the existence of this story as well as a song used in the first chapter, “Fiction” by Nik Kershaw which is fantastic 😛

Tomorrow, I’ll continue with PD and probably start one onf the versions of Burn in Heaven, if not both of them.  I actually forgot to list one of the stories that I’m rewriting, Inside Your Fear, which will I’ll get to it eventually.

So I set up the Fiction Graveyard page. All the stories are linked, only some of the them have content on the story pages. I’ll be added stuff slowly , particularly when it comes to Poisonous Dreams #1 (Yeah, I forgot the version I rewrote this year was actually the second one, ha) because that’s thirteen chapters, Aurora Dawning‘s first version is ten chapters and the original Shadows was at least thirteen, I think.

I also discovered one of my completed alternate universes never made it here — A Matter of Principles where Elizabeth is a cop married to alleged crime enforcer Jason Morgan. I’m not entirely fond of it, but it should still be here. I’ll add it at some point.

So in addition to the pretty Fiction Graveyard (located in the Readers section) page, two abandoned stories are posted:

– Bring Me to Life, of which there is only an abandoned prologue so it’s posted in its entirety such as it is.
– Silent Reverie, Prologue and Chapter One. There are two more chapters I’ll post tomorrow.

Plans for the rest of the weekend mostly include filling out some of the story pages to get ready to add chapters which will make life easier, working on the novella ebook collection, and doing some more writing.

Remember, remember the fifth of November 😛 I miss living in England so much, even though I’m so happy to be home. My third niece was born on Monday — Mackenzie Margaret, born 2:43 PM, 8 lb 12 oz. Her poor mama 😛 Haha. I love being an aunt. You get to enjoy all the fun stuff and get enough of a taste of parenthood while baby sitting to know that, dude, not in your lifetime.

First things first, The Best Thing Chapter Nine was added today. I have Chapter 10 done, I just didn’t send it to Cora yet because I wanted to send Chapter 11 with it, and I still have two scenes left. I haven’t had a moment to really sit down and do those two–I’ve been sick and it took me a while to really bounce back from October, which I spent mostly hacking up my lungs. My plan is to finish drying my hair, finish my laundry and then sit in Barnes and Noble for as long as it takes to do the rest of Chapter 11 and today’s NaNoWriMo entry.

Which brings me to my next point. National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) started on Saturday. I’m going to do it this year, mostly because I usually had a shitty excuse before (busy with school, etc) but I got nothing going on this time.  The objective is to write 50,000 words in a month, I’m at just under 6000, which is about where you want to be. I’m actually doing a version of Tangle, haha, taking the disapearance of a mother as my starting point. I tell this to you because  the more you tell people, the more likely you are to finish it. So…be prepared for this site to be like my writing blog, haha.

Third, Damaged. I’m working on a format change that will allow me to update it more often and more easily. I’m just in the beginning stages, but will have more for you on that.

Next, my ebook project. It slowled down a bit while I hacked up my lung and I have to reset the release dates, but I’ll get them done eventually.

And lastly, the Fiction Graveyard stories are coming soon. I’m putting them together, and going to post them one at a time so it’ll be regular updates.  So…that’s where we are.

You aren’t seeing things 😛  I added Chapter Eight to The Best Thing today, woot! I’m halfway through the last chapter I wanted to finish for my buffer, but I knew I’d be finished that today or tomororw. My schedule for the next week looks dicey, so I didn’t want to wait any longer to post, because…you guys have waited long enough 🙂 Thank you for sticking around. I hope these next few chapters will be worth it.

I’ve been sick as a dog for most of October, a cold I just couldn’t throw off. Even though I’m feeling much better, those last residuals are still hanging around. That being said, since I plan to post chapters weekly, I built in a good recovery time so I am so glad I waited so now there will be no interruptions.

Hope you enjoy it!

 

 

So first, I’ve been hard at work at The Best Thing. I wanted finish up to Chapter 12 before I resumed posting once a week. I’ve finished Chapters 8 and 9, as well as Chapter 12. I’m about halfway through Chapter 10, and plan to finish Chapter 11 by the end of the week. So all things considered, I could resume posting as early as next week. Wouldn’t that be awesome?

Second, I’m working on editing a collection of my novellas and short stories (specifically the song fiction) into an ebook. (With an eye towards the ficlets and shorter stories in another one. The preliminary list I have so far for this follows:

Novellas
A Second Chance
Rest in Pieces
Shadows
Come Clean
Noel
No Angel
First Do No Harm
What Would Happen
Good Intentions

Short Stories
Daughter to Father
Breathe
Cry Ophelia
Please Remember
Where Can We Go From Here
I Surrender
I’ll Believe It’s Not My Fault
Lizzie Does Thanksgiving

As you can see, I hope to have that ready by next Tuesday, but I may push it back a week. I’m certainly pushing back I Shall Believe, since I’m not sure what made think I could get it edited in a week. Haha, I’ll update the release date schedule when I get a chance.

 

I finished editing the ebook version of Daughters, and have uploaded it in .epub and .mobi format. I’ve tested both thoroughly on my own software, but please let me know if they don’t work for anyone else. I hope to have something new in ebook a few times a month.

Working on The Best Thing, and in my head, should return before Thanksgiving.

I remember once I read a quote from Nora Roberts, who writes like some people breathe (that is…constantly) that she doesn’t get writer’s block. Writing is her job and who ever heard of plumbers getting plumber’s block. There’s something to this, but hell if I’ve ever been able to adopt this mentality. I keep trying.

The Best Thing is annoying me, so I’m going to write it out of order — pick out some of the key scenes, some of the more crucial stuff to get my juices going. Forcing myself to write some of this early foundation stuff is making my head hurt and I think it’s blocking me. I did this for A Few Words Too Many which stalled at some points, but I was smarter about posting that so you guys never noticed.

So as I work on that, here’s some relevant updating news.

– Some friends and I used to post a lot on a site called Liason Underground. With the resurgence of Jason in the guise of Billy Miller, we decided to restart the board. For the moment, it’s small and just general discussion and friends getting caught up. But we’re a friendly bunch and would not mind hearing from other fans. Here’s the new link: Liason Underground.

– Damaged is…on permanent hiatus. I have to post on that site to reflect that change. It’s just…not in my head anymore the way it was when I started, but I have a ton of ideas still for it, I just…have to step back and stop forcing it.

– Here’s the fun part of the post: Since I haven’t posted anything new in nearly three months for the most part, I feel ridiculously guilty about it. If you’ve visited the site much, you know that I’ve been on a mission to recover stories that were once lost to me in various computer crashes and…board bannings (ha, does The Canvas still exist?) Anyway.  I have portions of stories that were never finished and are unlikely to be continued. If people would like, I could  repost those pieces from the stories listed in the Fiction Graveyard so at least there’s something to read. I’ve posted a poll.

[socialpoll id=”2226726″]

– I started to repost Daughters at Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction.net. Beginning tomorrow, I will continue that process.

– If you have registered for this site and did not receive an activation code or password to start your account, please reply to to this message so I can sort it out. We did a bunch of this over the summer, but I haven’t gone through it since.

I assure you, my mind is usually on my stories, I’ve just been blocked in my brain. I am doing different things to break through.