Update: Counting Stars – Chapter 4 Excerpt

As I said yesterday, I really wasn’t sure what kind of headspace I’d be in today. Lauren’s service was beautiful, and her dad gave a really beautiful eulogy. He shared some really fun memories, including the night we watched the debate in his basement back in 2012 and how we stayed up until 2 AM at his house for the election. He and Lauren’s mom were always so generous with their homes and their energy, like a second set of parents.

The whole London family came, and that was really special. We’re scattered across a few states now, so unfortunately we only get together for weddings and, now, funerals. The last time we were all together was Ammar’s wedding in September 2020, and Lauren’s in 2016. We went out afterwards and told stories and shared memories most of us hadn’t thought of in years. I’m really blessed to have so many amazing friends and that we can still get together like no time has passed. As good as last night was, we keenly felt Lauren’s absence, and I know we will for years to come.

No flash fiction, but I wanted to post something today. We only have a few chapters left of Mad World, and tomorrow’s chapter has a cliffhanger that I didn’t want to stretch another day, so I’m pulling one of my favorite scenes from Counting Stars. I haven’t edited it yet (and it used to be in Chapter 3), but it’s one of my favorites in this first act. I shared a piece of this a few days ago on Twitter, so it was a good one for today.  Counting Stars will be published starting November 7, with four chapters posted on Mondays until its completion.

Update Link: Watch Me Burn – Part 7 | Mad World, Book 4 – Chapter 112

It feels so strange, knowing that we’re a week away from the end of Mad World. I’ve lived with this project so long, it just doesn’t compute. A reminder that I am doing a read through for typos and continuity errors, so I can create a final set of ebooks (I will also update the chapters on the site), so if you notice any, don’t hesitate to let me know.

Lauren’s service is tonight, and I’ve been asked to speak. I’m not really sure where my head is going to be after this or when I’ll be home tonight, so I’ll just note in advance that Scars might not happen tomorrow. If that happens, I still have one more free Saturday before we go into the fall schedule, so it won’t throw us off that final completion date. I won’t post about it or anything. If it doesn’t go up, I’m not writing.

In more positive news, I’ve been working really hard on my Discovery project, and this week has been a big breakthrough on Fool Me Twice, Book 2. I’ve finished plotting 75% of the book, and just have to finish up Act 3. Then I’ll move into Chapter breakdown. If I don’t write it this fall, I will definitely be tackling it as the next project, so it should be out next summer.

Update Link: The Last Time – Scenes 15-18

Yesterday: Mad World, Book 4 – Chapter 111

Hope everyone is having a good week. I know I warned you guys Flash Fic would be a bit wonky this week, but I really didn’t plan on skipping two days. Monday morning, I woke up early to get it done before lunch with my mother, but I ended up writing the eulogy for Lauren’s services on Thursday. I thought it would be more difficult, but the beginning was just in my head when I woke up, so I sat down to write it. But then it kind of messed me up a bit all day, and it was hard to clear my head again.

Yesterday, I had a work event. My VP asked for some of our NJHS kiddos to volunteer at sixth-grade orientation, so I decided it was a good idea to go supervise them, even though it was unpaid and voluntary. It was actually a lot of fun and helped get my mind off things. I really love all my kids, but I won’t lie and say that there’s a few of the incoming eighth graders that are my favorites, and they showed up yesterday.  Teaching is such a demanding job with so little monetary worth, but you can ignore that a lot if you genuinely love the kids. When this group graduates this year, I’m going to be weeping like a crazy person.

Then I had an MRI, which I didn’t think would be so bad  because I’d already had two MRAs which is similar, but the MRI was on my spine, and it was more restraining. It just put me in a weird headspace, so I just figured, better to skip and relax and come back today.

Anyway, we should be good to stay on schedule the rest of the week.

Update Link: Watch Me Burn – Part 6

ETA: As you guys know, I prep these posts in advance. Halfway through writing, Lauren’s husband called me. He wants me to speak at her service. We spent about a half hour talking about what’s happened, how we’re doing. And I had to press pause, obviously, on the writing. So it’s a bit late and I don’t know how long it’s going to take. I have a set amount of scenes to do today, so I’m just going to write until they’re done.

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Moving into the final two full weeks of summer vacation, which is a bit sad, honestly. Thanks to the doctor appointments and tests, I don’t really feel like I’ve had a lot of time to relax. Every single week, I had something scheduled. And then, of course, last week felt like a fog. Once again, thanks for the kind words. Writing really helped me process and tune out when I needed to.

I’m planning to update Scars three times this coming week to get back on track. I’d wanted to update yesterday, but I didn’t sleep well, and woke up late with a migraine. I just wasn’t in the right frame of mind to write anything.

This upcoming week might be a bit wonky, I’m probably going to update early in the morning for Flash Fiction Mon-Wed, and there’s a chance I’ll miss Thursday. Having an early lunch with my mom (we haven’t seen each other all summer because it’s too damn hot to leave the house), I have orientation with my school on Tuesday, and then my wisdom teeth on Wednesday. I’m only getting one tooth pulled, so it shouldn’t be the insane recovery that you’d get with all four, so we’ll see.

Mad World is scheduled and goes live at 7 AM on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sat until August 25 so if I miss posting an update to the main blog (which triggers the emails), you can come to the site and check the sidebar for the most recent chapters.

See you tomorrow.

Update Link: Mad World, Book 4 – Chapter 110

I was going to do Flash Fiction today, but I’m honestly not up to it. I didn’t sleep well. See you tomorrow.

Update Link: Scars – Part 15

Hope everyone is having a good Friday.

I fixed the chapter listing for Mad World, Book 4 — Chapters 97 & 98 weren’t properly showing up, but we’re all good. The WordPress plugin I use to power the entire site was called OrganizeSeries, and eight years ago, it was free with some plugins you could purchase. Since then, the publisher has switched over to a paid version and the free version doesn’t get a lot of support anymore. It’s pretty glitchy. I’ve been putting off upgrading because it’s not exactly cheap, and it’s a yearly license, but I’m probably going to add it into the budget. It’s not the first time we’ve had issues with the stories showing up correctly.

I’ll be updating Scars again tomorrow to get my updates back on track, and next week, I might need to switch out to another Saturday update because my school has orientation on August 16, and my NJHS kiddos are helping out. I might do an early morning update, but we’ll see.

I don’t know yet when Lauren’s services are, so we’re also going to be working around that because, obviously, if they’re not private, I’ll be going to that. I’m also having a tooth pulled next Wednesday, so we’re going with the flow for the schedule. It’s one of the reasons I left Saturdays open so I could make up any missed updates.

Remember to check the site a few times a week this month as there will be updates every day until August 31.

Update Links: Watch Me Burn – Part 5 | Mad World, Book 4 – Chapter 109

Hope everyone is having a good week so far. I’ll be posting a Flash Fiction on Saturday, making up for the Scars update I missed on Tuesday. I want to stay on track so that I can finish the majority of my summer flash fictions by the end of the year. We’ll try to do a better job of planning next year, but it’s been fun.

Thanks once again for all the kind thoughts I’ve received — especially to those of you who’ve reached out privately. I guess it’s also helped that I write a lot about grief in some of the stories, so I kind of understand what I’m going through. The way it sneaks up on you, the guilt for the few minutes or even hours that you don’t think about it — or you remember when you wake up, so it happens all over again.

There are definitely some hard moments ahead of me — Lauren and I were French students together (I majored, she minored), so a lot of the memories I share with my students are memories that Lauren is a part of. There are some jokes and stories that I won’t be able to manage for a while, or maybe I will some of the time. Grief is funny that way.

I scheduled the final chapters for Mad World this morning, making the final edits. That story concludes two weeks from today on August 25 with Chapter 115 and an epilogue. I’ll be doing a final read through this fall to clean up typos and fix an inconsistency (I mention Kelsey’s mother coming to Port Charles just once, and that was before I developed the Kelsey story in Book 4). Please let me know if you find any by commenting or messaging me on Twitter.

Update Link: The Last Time – Scenes 11-14

Yesterday: Mad World, Chapter 108

Thank you so much for all the kind words and thoughts on yesterday’s post. It was a really hard morning, but I worked on a few projects and actually wrote the epilogue to Mad World (better late than never), and it kept my mind pretty distracted. Sleeping was hard, and I didn’t really want to get out of bed, but here I am. I’m writing this post before I actually get started today, so I don’t even know how this is going to go since today’s scenes set directly after Alan’s death. That may or may not be a good thing.

I wanted to share another memory because it’s helping to go through all our old pictures. Lauren and I met in college, and we majored in History together. I had a second major in French, and she had her second major in Political Science. She took French as a minor, so we had a lot of classes together. One summer, we took French together, and we used to write notes in each other’s notebooks in the margins. Our professors both loved and hated us. There was a kid in our class who annoyed us (I can’t honestly tell you why after like 11 years to be honest), and we used to make jokes about throwing our water bottle at him. We never would, of course, but it would defuse our irritation to make notes like this.

We got through French together by the skin of our teeth (she found it hysterical when I got hired to teach it). We took a class where we were reading The Phantom of the Opera in its original French. We bought the book, opened to the first page, and we literally started crying in the Rutgers café because it looked like complete gibberish to us.  We ended up buying an English translation, so we could read it in English, then read the French, THEN read the English again. Somehow, we earned As.

We survived French, and German Lit. And Dr. Soll. And all the other classes that came later. A lot of Starbucks from the café and pints from the bars after classes. Absolutely never would have survived without her.

I had the posts started for Flash Fiction today but um, I can’t right now. At 9:25, I found out my best friend died from cancer. It was sudden. The symptoms just hit and she was in the hospital and intubated before her family started telling friends. I only found out Sunday night, and then she died last night at 2:58.

We went to college together. We traveled. We did insane and crazy things that we shouldn’t have survived. She was in London for grad school with me. And now she’s gone. And I can’t even process it.

I usually bury myself in work at times like these. It’s the only thing that really distracts me. So I’ll probably keep my schedule for the most part. I don’t know. I guess we’ll see.

Um, Mad World is mostly already scheduled so that goes forward. A new chapter went up today. The world is just a suckier place right now, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this.

This is a picture of Lauren and me in Prague in 2013. She was unapologetic history nerd, and we were standing at the window where the defenestration of Prague happened, kicking off the Thirty Years War. There might no one else in the world except for the two of us that were more excited to take a photo there.

I’m going to miss her for the rest of my life.

Update Link: Invisible Strings – Part 8

Well, we’re moving into the final weeks of my summer vacation — three full weeks left, and I have to have my wisdom teeth out halfway through that time. Boo to the world, lol. I’ve started to work on content for the school year — finished revising last year’s units and am starting on the new units I have to create for my eighth grade class. I’d rather get it done now than trying to do it during the limited prep time once we get back to school.

Finally scheduled that MRI I need to start treatment for my neck issues, so fingers crossed we’re going to get some relief on that.

I ended up switching Discovery projects this week — instead of Malice, I’m going to work on Burn in Heaven. I just had some thoughts and visuals for that story and it’s always better to get it out while you can.

See you tomorrow for another update of Mad World and flash fiction 🙂