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.

So I’m still not ready to return to regular posting, but as a sign of good faith, a sign that I have not abandoned my writing, I’m posting a pretty crucial scene from the next chapter of The Best Thing. I was settling into a regular writing schedule when I caught a nasty cold that sidelined me of the marjority of the week.  I’ve been having some issues writing, and I think it’s because I’ve been staying particularly married to the scene outline I had planned in the beginning. The pace feels wrong, even sluggish, so I’m revisiting the way I’ve set up the next few chapters to see if I can fix that. I’ll keep you posted, but until then, here’s your preview for Chapter Eight.

I finished my dissertation this morning — the last of the editing, put the finishing touches on my bibliography. All that’s left is administrative — getting it bound and delivered to UCL on time and submitting it electronically.  So my life is my own again.

Other than finishing my resume and signing up for substitute teaching, I genuinely have free time. For the first time in six years, there’s no required reading, translations or papers to deal with.

It’s going to take me some time to really accept this, ha, but here are my priorities:

1. The Best Thing. I want to write about seven or eight chapters before I start posting again. Don’t worry — usually once I start getting back into a story, I usually can knock out one or two chapters a day. It’s just a matter of getting lost back in the story.  I’ll keep you guys updated.

2. Damaged. I’m keeping this one on hiatus as I want to do some plotting work and get some episodes written a head of time to offer me a buffer zone, which I did not do when I started it last spring, even though, ha, I know it’s how the world works.

Anything other than the above will be icing on the cake, but I have my eye on the HMD prequels, particularly Johnny/Nadine since I already started it and the rewrite of Tangle, Feels Like Home. Will keep you guys updated as to progress, but dude…freedom. No more dissertation!!

So I turned my first draft of my dissertation to my professor earlier this week and won’t hear anything about it until this weekend. I’m going to use this downtime to get back into my writing life. I’m not making any promises as these next two weeks are going be difficult — I’ll be packing up my life in London and heading back to New Jersey, and then settling back into adult life there. That being said, my life is no longer consumed with my dissertation, yay! All that’s left is revisions and edits.

I’m posting a cookie to a story I’m probably not going to write: Pictures of You.

Let’s hope this is the beginning of my writing flow 🙂

So you guys know I live in London right now, going to graduate school to get my Masters degree.  I leave here August 30, hopefully to return home to substitute in high school for a few months before getting hired to teach in a community college. In order for these things to happen, I have to get my Masters degree, which means I have to do the absolute best I can on my dissertation.

Right now, no matter what I seem to do, that saps all my creative energy. I just…don’t have the time to write or even the inspiration and I don’t want to churn out crap. The last few scenes I finished for Damaged were forced and I just…don’t want to do that to myself, much less the people who care enough to read it.

So, unsurprisingly, I’m just not making any promises. Once my academic life is done and my dissertation is turned in (September 14, 2014), I can turn my attention back to things that make me happy.

Just…bear with me.

In other news, I have added Chapter 7 to the The Best Thing, completing Part One (the shortest section of the story, ha), updated The Best Thing Soundtrack, Volume 2, and added the new featured stories as voted on by you guys.

So in the lieu of new updates, feel free to browse the site. If you haven’t read or commented before, please do so now. I hope you guys will still be around when my brain comes back.

After many moons, I posted Chapters 20 and 21 and the Epilogue for this albatross, ha.  You can click here: Poisonous Dreams to read it.

On my drawing board: I have Chapter 7 of The Best Thing compled and beta’d, but I’m going to hold off on posting it for a few reasons. Mostly though, it’s because I’m not done Chapter 8 and I like having at least one chapter in my holster. The mojo I was looking for with my fiction writing somehow happened with my dissertation, and I plan to start writing that this week as long as my supervisor approves my outline. Our very last visitor is leaving next Saturday, so I really can get the business going on that. During the period my first draft will be out for review, I’ll be writing and packing.

Thanks guys for sticking with me through this difficult time. I hope to make it worth your while 😛 I’ll be updating my story status page at some point today/tonight.

Trying to sit here and write, but it is damned difficult because there’s some heavy construction going on with drills and jackhammers and I feel like they’re in the next room. Honestly. Don’t they know we’re working on dissertations? (Well, some of us are. This was supposed to my morning to write fanfiction, heh.)

One of my plugins for organizing the stories is having issues. I don’t know if it’s breaking anything on the site, but I’m trying to fix it.  Will keep you updated.

Sincerely plan to post PD today. It’s on my to-do list and everything.

Finally, finally! I added Chapter Six to The Best Thing.  As always, abject apologies for disappearing but, ha, at least it wasn’t for six years this time. What’s a month compared to that?

I have plans to add PD’s last two chapters today. If I don’t, I will add them tomorrow. I’ll also be updating the status page at some time.

Oh, my subscription plugin was upgraded to some sort of nonsense called ReadyGraph. I don’t know what that’s about but I hope somehow you guys are still getting updates. I am not in the mood to go through that nonsense again.

So my downtime for writing while at home did not materialize as two days after I arrived, I came down with a nasty cold that was only exacerbated by my constant running around to see and do things while in the States, and then traveling all day on an airplane, being in London for five minutes before a friend came to visit and spending three days walking and huffing and puffing in the chilly airs of Edinburgh. I just got home around midnight Sunday night, and our friend just left this morning.

*collapses from exhaustion*

I love my friends and family, but a girl has to relax. I was in my flat for 14 out of 30 days in June, and almost a week of that, I’ve been recovering from the plague my family gave me while at home.

Anyways. I do have Chapter 6 and 7 of The Best Thing beta’d, and I’m about halfway through the next episode of Damaged. Literally, the only thing left on my schedule that involves me spending time away from my flat between now and August 30 when I move home is a barbecue in Suffolk this Saturday. I’ll be gone Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning. Finally, the life calms down. It’s been nonstop for two months.

I’ll tidy up TBT 6 and post it tomorrow, and then TBT 7 next week and hopefully will get back on schedule.