Update Link: Signs of Life – Part 6

I hope everyone is having a great week! Today is the first day of my summer vacation, and I am READY to get some more sleep, get the house in order, and just relax for a few months. It’s been a very long school year, and I definitely need this vacation. I have to write curriculum for next year, but that’s not until next month, and fingers crossed —  I can do the majority of it remotely.

Thank you so much for the overwhelmingly positive response to Fool Me Twice! It was such a huge and ambitious project — it definitely has more moving pieces than anything I’ve written and tackles a much harder period of GH history than I’ve attempted. Setting something in the last five years of GH is no easy feat and I appreciate everyone coming along with me on that ride. I know some of you guys are NOT Carly fans, LOL, so I love that you’re supportive of my undying love for her. I know it feels like Elizabeth gave her a lot of slack, but I promise you — that’s something we’re coming back to in the next book. I’m not done dragging Carly through the mud just yet.  And stay tuned — the Carly in Michael is going to jump out. Sometimes you gotta be stupid before you can be smart.

I’m happy to be bringing back Flash Fiction. Signs of Life will be updated on Sundays & Wednesdays, and Scars will be on Fridays & Tuesdays. Both of those stories should take us about the entire summer or so.

I’m taking off the next week or so from thinking about the next project. I’ll be starting whatever it is on July 1 for CampNaNoWriMo. I’m leaning towards Mad World because I always write it in July for this event, but I’m also going to consider Broken Girl. Both of those projects would be completed with the next book. Let me know if you have a preference!

I’ll see you guys on Friday!

Hey! For some reason the update post got pushed out ahead of schedule. The chapters went live at 6:30. They should be working now!

Chapter 35

Update Link: Start with Ricochet, Chapter 35

In case you missed it, I posted Chapters 31-34 yesterday. Today, we are bringing the first book to a close with chapters 35-38. I’m really happy to finally have this project done and delivered.

If you’ve been reading and haven’t left a reply yet, please make sure you do today. I’m still finalizing the plots and character beats for Books 2 & 3 so I want to know what you guys want to see more of. What you connected to.

The only thing left to do is complete the book. Because FMT’s editing process was all over the place, I’m actually going to do one more read through of the entire draft so that ebook will probably be out sometime next month.

As for what’s next — I’ll be able to start flash fiction this week on schedule but I might miss a day here and there with other things going on. The next time you hear from me will be Wednesday morning with the long overdue return of Signs of Life.

Update Link: Start with Ricochet, Chapter 31

Thanks so much for voting in the poll! I’m so excited that I’m nearly done with this project. Today, I’ll reread the final four chapters for last minute tweaks and typos. They’ll go live at 6:30 AM tomorrow. I can’t wait to see what you guys think! Please let me know EVERYTHING. I’m still finalizing plots for Books 2 & 3 so I definitely want to know what you guys want more of — what you hope to see. I know the big movements, but I haven’t sat down to plan.

Enjoy and please remember to leave me a review!

Poll Results are in! Overwhelmingly, you voted to get all eight chapters at once! I’m actually going to split them in half. Chapters 31-34 go live on Sunday and Chapters 35-38 go live on Monday. If I do it all at once, you’ll be waiting until Monday. I thought you’d rather have some ASAP. I hope that’s okay!

Hello! For the past several years, I’ve been using Patreon as a way to pay for my hosting costs and invest in research and materials for my writing. I’ve been able to fully pay for my hosting, upgrade to a new domain, film and edit videos for my channel, and also make some financial decisions that give me time to write. I no longer work a second job which gives me more time to write (I quit tutoring in October of 2018).  Thank you so much for your love and support over these last few years. I am the luckiest fanfiction writer in the world.

All of my writing is available here at Crimson Glass for free, but Patreons get access to content before I post it here and they also get behind the scenes content. I publish all drafts of my stories and give a lot of more information. I also do livestreams and video content there.

If you are a current Patreon, your benefits kick in automatically. You can change your tier today to anything except the Stalker tier — I’m creating that on June 30. It will take affect starting next month since you’ve already been charged. If you would like to sign up, you can do so *on* July 1. If you sign up now, you’ll be charged for both months.

Here are the benefits going live on July 1. The biggest change is the distribution of in progress novels, so check out your current tier. Please let me know if you guys have any suggestions or thoughts for changes or extra benefits!

• Crimson Fan ($1)
  • Access to a weekly check in blog where I talk about the writing in detail and often give spoilers.
  • Access to livestreams which I give a TON of writing details. I use these to work through problems I’m having.
• Crimson Love ($3)
  • Benefits in Fan Tier
  • Weekly releases of chapters (if I’m posting in progress stories) on Sunday.
  • Any ebook releases a day before they go public.
• Crimson Devoted ($5)
  • Benefits in Fan & Love Tiers
  • You get the full posting draft when it’s ready for release. This is the version of the story as it will be posted on the site.
  • Ebook releases a week before they go public.
• Crimson Adored ($7)
  • Benefits in Fan, Love & Devoted Tiers
  • You get the full beta draft when it’s ready for release. This is the version of the story after my first round of edits.
  • Ebook when it is completed.
• Crimson Obsessed ($10)
  • Benefits in all previous tiers.
  • You get the alpha draft draft when it’s ready for release. This is the first, super messy version of the story.
  • Beta & Posting Chapters as they’re edited.
  • Flash Fiction Story Request: You can request a plot for Flash Fiction.
• Crimson Stalker ($15)
  • Benefits of previous tiers
  • Alpha Draft chapters as they are written.

Hey! Just ducking in to let you know that I’ve completed the beta edits on Book 1! It’s taken WAY longer than I had ever thought (I had originally hoped to be done in January, heh) but we’re there. The only thing I have to do is a final read through for typos.  Since the chapters are done, I wanted to see how you guys wanted to read the last few chapters:

[socialpoll id=”2757998″]

I’ll leave this up until sometime tomorrow and let you know. I wouldn’t post anything until Sunday or Monday because I want to do that final read through.

Oh — and just a note for anyone who read Chapter 30 and thinks I might be letting Carly off too easy — make sure you’re paying attention to the characters letting her off the hook because they have their reasons and I plan to redo the Nelle gaslighting Carly thing in Book 2 to really break Carly apart into tiny little pieces, heh. I’ll see you later!

Update Link: Ricochet, Chapter 30

You know that old eighties song? The Final Countdown by Europe? I swear, I have it running in my head literally every minute we’re in school. Four more days! Two this week, then two next. I am so ready to be done and so are the kids.

I’m finished editing through Chapter 34, and I’m scheduled to finish up the final edits this weekend. I’ll be glad to put this project away finally. I was supposed to be done with it months ago, but well, it’s been one of those years.  It’s also complicated by the fact that this is literally the longest book I’ve ever written. It’s at 224k and still has some more scenes I need to write. Not that many — there’s about four, I think? Maybe five?

In other news – I was scheduled to bring back Flash Fiction next weekend on my first day of summer vacation. I’m still coming back with Flash Fiction, but I don’t really know what my schedule is going to be like. I know I probably won’t be starting Flash Fiction next Wednesday. My mom is having some medical tests, so my sister and I are spending the night down at her place.  I’m not thinking about it too much yet until we know what’s going on. They think it might be a type of blood cancer but it almost might not be, so I’m working on not making that the center of my brain until I have to.

Until I know more, I’m just not committing to anything writing wise after this week. Once FMT is finished, we’ll be posting until the first or second week of July. I am going to be writing Flash Fic, I just don’t know if it’ll be on the regular update schedule I planned. I’ll keep you guys in the loop.

Update Link: Ricochet, Chapter 29

Happy Monday! It’s actually a relatively happy Monday for me. Our grades were due yesterday, so I am done grading and assigning work for the year. Then, they decided to make this entire week half days for the students due to the heat. I’m still stuck at work until 2:50 every day at least through the end of this week, but my instruction time has been cut from 84 minutes to 45. Huge difference. Even better — the two meetings I was supposed to have this week after school are going to be earlier. Instead of being at school until almost 4 today and tomorrow, I get to come home on time.

I’m still struggling with my sleep — it was super bad last week. I literally feel like I dragged myself through Friday on sheer will and then just collapsed this weekend. If it weren’t for the absolutely amazing students I have this cycle, I think I’d be at the end of my rope. I’m thinking it won’t be like that this week only because I don’t have to put on the act for so much of the day. I love my job, but teaching is definitely about putting on the show. Sometimes the show feels easy and part of you, and sometimes it’s a grind. It’s been a grind these last few weeks because of this sleeping issue.

I will be out of edited chapters on Thursday, which is sort of a concerning thing but not really. I have eight chapters left to edit. The flashbacks aren’t written, but they’re pretty short. Four of those chapters have the other scenes that have been cleaned up, and four of them need light editing and some rewriting. I actually think we won’t see a break in writing. I’m stuck at work until 2:50 every day this week. Because of my schedule during the day, I am literally done teaching and duties at 11:05. I’ll be bringing my computer to work and I actually do expect to get most of that done this week at work. My energy doesn’t crash until around 4 PM.

Anyway — we’re in the final countdown now and I’m beyond ready to move on from this project.

Update Link: Ricochet, Chapter 28

Well, two days later — still no stove and my sleeping is all over the place. There’s always something, huh? For a few weeks, I’ve been waiting up before my alarm (set for about 5:30). At first it was like 4:40, 4:50, nothing too terrible, just annoying. But lately, it’s been like 3 AM or 4 AM and I can’t get back to sleep. It’s adding up and by the time I get home from work, I am exhausted. I’m afraid to nap because that’s going to mess it up more.

It’s been very hard to write these last few days because I spend my entire work day peeling middle school kids off the ceiling (did you know summer vacation is in two weeks? they definitely know). So we’re going to take a day at a time. I have chapters for next week. I really just need to finish a few flashbacks and some light edits on the next five chapters. The last three need some more work because I’m adjusting the Sam storyline. I’m going to attempt to get those flashbacks done this week, and finish editing this weekend, but as long as I stay ahead of the chapters, I’m not going to worry so much.

See you next Monday!

Update Link: Ricochet, Chapter 27

I hope everyone is having a relaxing long weekend. I’ve been looking forward to these three days for weeks, but then of course — Saturday, my stove breaks. Such a bummer! I was having a really good morning and writing at a good clip. I went down to make some lunch, and boom! The burner wouldn’t shut off. My dad had to come up, turn off the gas to my stove and oven and it’s still not fixed even this morning. He’s supposed to come to up to take care of it, but it’s been so annoying. It’s also been really crappy weather, LOL. Last weekend, it was hard to write because it was so hot in my office and this weekend, it was too cold. NEW JERSEY GET YOUR SHIT TOGETHER.

I did manage some major editing. Chapter 30 was brand new and is finally done. I’m going to finish cleaning up at least 3 or 4 chapters today, depending on my schedule. Dad is coming up today to put in the new valve, and then I’m supposed to head down their place for dinner. It’s my birthday, so we’re doing a little something. The good news is that I’ve done enough to guarantee we won’t have another break in posting.

Two weeks from summer vacation! Let’s do this!