Update Link: A King’s Command – Part 17

Happy Friday! Today was such a crazy week! I started my new cycle with my students, and we had two half days in a row–which is the equivalent of losing an entire day of classes from my cycle, so I’ve been scrambling all week to get my students into their routine. Plus, meeting brand new students (I have 34 sixth graders in this cycle, yikes!) and developing new relationships takes such a crazy amount of mental energy. I’ve been dragging all week.

The great news is that I’ve finally reached the gorgeous moment I’ve been preparing for since October — my curriculum is written. All that I’m doing now is tweaks. I literally do not have to do a SINGLE piece of work this weekend because I have graded everything and even scheduled Monday’s post.

So with that done, I get to fully turn my attention to my actual life this weekend (and the four day weekend next week!) I’m finally scheduled for the vaccine in two weeks, so that’s awesome. We’re going back in the classroom next Tuesday (Feb 16), and I’m mostly okay with it, especially now that I know I’ll be getting vaccinated so soon. I’ll be working on FMT and a few other things that I’ve been pushing off for a few weeks.

I’ll see you guys tomorrow!

Your Update Link: A King’s Command, Part 16

ICYMI –

• Saturday’s update was cancelled because I was having sinus issues.
• Fool Me Twice is being split into two releases: 20 chapters on Feb 23 and 18 on March 23. I’ll have the first chapter as a preview on Feb 16.

See you guys on Friday!

First, thanks for understanding about last night’s postponement. As the day wore on, I actually started to feel worse, and was worried I was legit getting sick. Since I haven’t really been in contact with my students this last year, I haven’t really been getting sick either so I was completely out of meds. I did some storm shopping this morning, and grabbed some sinus meds. I’m already feeling better after one dose. I didn’t go grocery shopping last week and realized I literally had not gone outside in more then ten days. With the weather being so cold right now, I’ve been cooped up in my office working most of the time, and I think the air in my house just started to bug my sinuses.

I’m pretty sure at this point (at 10 AM) that I’ll be able to update tonight, but if that changes, I’ll let you know.

Second, and the reason I’m posting this morning is to give you some news about Fool Me Twice and that February 23 date.  I really, really wanted the entire story to be done by then so I could put it out of my head, take a week off, and then dig into Broken Girl. However, you guys already know that January was a bad month for me, and it didn’t really start to turn around for me until the last two weeks. I wasn’t ever able to really make up for those first two weeks and a half weeks of editing time lost. I should be at least halfway through the story by now, but I’m still on Chapter 12.  Yesterday, I started to feel like I was rushing edits so I could get them done and that’s not what I want to do.

There’s just no way to have 38 chapters fully edited and cleaned up to my standards by February 23.

So I have two options — I could postpone FMT entirely for about a month OR I could split it into two big updates. I thought about putting this to a vote, but I know you guys and I figured you’d rather read something sooner rather than nothing and waiting a whole extra month.  Plus, this is only the second time I would have released a book at once, so it’s not like you guys are used to this schedule anyway.

That’s my news — I’ll be publishing the first 20 chapters of Fool Me Twice on February 23, then the final 18 on March 23. This gives me time to do two full round of edits which the story needs to be smoothed out and preserve continuity.  I talked it over with Ang, and we both agree that Chapter 20 is a good place to leave you guys for a month and for me, it also feels realistic. I can get the next nine chapters done by the end of this week and I have two weeks for the second round of edits. Just making the decision makes me feel better.

Fool Me Twice is the last novel that was on the old production schedule where I really didn’t leave myself enough time for certain parts of the project, so I’m pretty sure this is the last time we’ll have this schedule crunch. I just want to give you guys the best product I possibly can and this book is REALLY important to me. It’s ambitious and rewrites a time period on GH that a lot of people didn’t watch or didn’t enjoy, so I want to do it right.

I’ll see you guys tonight!

Hey, just a quick note — I’m skipping tonight’s update. Not Knowing When will be back next week. I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this here on the blog or if I’ve only complained on Twitter. Until this week, I literally had a thousand things that were stressful than this, LOL, but now we’ve cleared out the worst irritations.

In early December, I started having this weird muffled whooshing in my right ear. I went to urgent care, they gave me Prednisone until I went to my primary doctor which wasn’t until January. He told me it’s Eustachian Tube Dysfunction (which I can barely spell), and gave me *another* round of Prednisone. I finished my last dose on Thursday and, uh, the problem is back again. And it’s worse today and messing with my attention. It’s been all I can do to get some editing done, and even that hasn’t really been good. I’m calling the doctor on Monday.

I’m gonna try to get the rest of my editing done, then going to lay down because that seems to help. I’ll keep you guys in the loop. Should be feeling better tomorrow, I hope, but we’re also having a snow storm so who knows.

Your Update Link: A King’s Command, Part 15

This weekend, we start the double updates of a King’s Command and Not Knowing When returns from hiatus. I think that A King’s Command should be done by the end of February — that would give us about 10 mor parts. After that, Signs of Life comes back from hiatus, and it’ll be nice for most of the Flash Fiction to be done. Once all of them are done, I’ll start Part 3 of Collect Your Regrets.

That story needed three parts because Tania originally asked for a rewrite of an Elizabeth storyline that took place before Steve’s Jason came back, so I either had to change the timeline of that story, keep Billy’s Jason, or fold the twins into the story. I honestly didn’t know the best way forward. Then I thought — well, I’ll set it at a different time period when Jason is still there–then Jake is still dead. Heh. So we got Part 1 reuniting Liason in 2012, Part 2 bringing back Jake, and then Part 3 — you might think we’re picking up on the Cassadines shenanigans, but we’re actually going to fast-forward to 2016.  I’m not sure what it looks like yet.

I finally updated my Recent Updates page and archived the 2020 updates. I actually do want to go back one day and complete archived pages for 2017-2014 because I think it’s fun for me to go back and see the growth of the site. But that’s a minor project far away in the future.

I had a pretty good week this week — the plumber ghosted me once again on Monday, but my BIL put me in touch with some guys who came out on Tuesday, and it’s been glorious not worrying about that. I also had great week at work, finishing up one cycle and prepping for the next. Just finally feel like some things have turned a corner. I’m editing Fool Me Twice, and that’s taking a bit of time for me to get into the groove. I’m not sure I really understand my editing process yet — every time I write, I learn more about how I work. I’ve managed to crack the Discovery and first draft process, but editing continues to be a crapshoot.

I won’t miss my Feb 23 deadline, I’m just not taking the twists and turns I thought I would. I’ll have some more on this on Sunday after a full weekend of sitting down with the project and figuring out where we are. Patreon supporters are going to be getting updates this week — Obsessed Tiers get new chapters as I edit, Adored Tier get weekly updates, and on Sunday, the Devoted Tier gets their first January reward — all 11 (hopefully more by then) chapters edited posted. Check out the support page for more information.  Those are still not the completed versions of the story, mind of you. But there is more new content.

I finished the ebook cover for FMT Book 1, I’m attaching it below. I’m not super sold on it, but it’ll do for now.  I’ll see you tomorrow for the return of Not Knowing When!

Your Update Link: A Shot in the Dark – Part 18

Not a lot to report today. I spent this morning working on Fool Me Twice. After adding two brand new chapters and 10k, I had to look ahead to the next cluster of chapters to see how many much reworking they’d need to fit the new material, then I wrote the next flashback. I started working on the Fool Me Twice ebook cover, but I’m not much of a graphic designer and I hate everything, LOL, so I’ll try again tomorrow.

I’m looking forward to this week because I should be able to stop working outside of my contracted hours (well, at least by 3:30) and actually relax at night. Hopefully. I even prepped all of my meals — even the lunches. If the plumber would ever show up and take care of my pipes, this would be a good day.

This ended up being the last part of A Shot in the Dark, so I’ll be back next week with A King’s Command on Friday & Sunday and Not Knowing When on Saturday.

Your Update Link: A King’s Command 14

I think we’ll be wrapping up A Shot in the Dark tomorrow night. I was able to get what I wanted done in last night’s part, and we’re just about at the end of the narrative with the Jake return story which was the point of this part in the Collect Your Regrets universe. We won’t entirely finish with the Cassadines just yet — this series has one more part which is the story Tania asked for in the first place, but I’m not opposed to revisiting the Cassadines in another part of the series. We’ll see how Sunday’s entry goes.

Next weekend, A King’s Command moves to double updates on Friday & Sunday. Saturday’s update will either be the final part of A Shot in the Dark or the return of Not Knowing When.

Today, I wrote two brand new chapters for Fool Me Twice. It was supposed to be one, but I realized as I writing that it was going to be around 9k (ended up being even longer at 12k) and that’s WAY too long for one chapter. That’s why Flash Fiction is late — I finished the new Chapter 8 at 6:55 and I just–needed a break, LOL.

In housekeeping news, I’ve made some changes to the Production Schedule for 2021 & 2022. Nothing crazy — just some adjustments to release dates and projects. I realized, looking over my original dates, that I hadn’t really built in a lot of breaks between projects, and taking those few weeks at the end of December just made my life so easier. If a few things in January had gone differently in my personal life, I’d be really happy.

The biggest change is that I’m not starting Broken Girl’s first draft until March. I’m editing Fool Me Twice in February, and releasing on February 23. I’ll be working on that really up until release day, so BG won’t be getting my focus anyway. Better to push it off, give me time to finish soundtracking and then have a week between release of FMT and BG alpha draft. I’ll be writing Book 2 on March & April, editing in May and June, then releasing June 15.

Then I go into production on Mad World 4, writing the alpha draft in July & August, the beta in September, then releasing October 19. I’m actually going to work on Books 2 & 3 of Fool Me Twice at the same time. I’ll do discovery for both, then write the alpha for both and edit them separately. You’ll get those in February 2022 & June 2022. And the final release of 2022 is Book 1 in my Hand Me Down series, Feels Like Home, a future fic that is set in 2024, but picks up the show in 2008.

I gave myself two weeks between each of those projects as vacation time — which I realized I hadn’t done this year. I went from one project to the next. If I want to start early, that’s fine, but I also have the space to say no.

I also worked more on the Facelift. All the 2002 stories are good to go on Alternate History. They’ve been moved over and their Inspiration & Timeline information has been edited to hopefully give you more context for when the story takes place. All the stories have a Featured Banner — you might have noticed that some of the stories are now 150×150 and not 125×125. I’m not going back to change the older ones, but I like the bigger size for creativity issues.

The only thing I’m not doing right now is working on the banners for all the stories. Those take a bit longer and will be easier once my screencap collection is done, which I’m not touching until the summer.

Your Update Link: A Shot in the Dark – Part 17

Hey! So it’s been one of those insane weeks. It started out rough — you guys know that, based on my post last Sunday where I thought I’d really reached the end of my rope, mental health wise. And then my week continued to go off the rails until Tuesday when I just felt like…insanely exhausted by the whole prospect of the world.

And then Wednesday happened. Lots of good happened in the world that day–the new administration came in, Amanda Gorman’s gorgeous poem, and I also had a MAJOR breakthrough at work. I’ve been working on digital content for my class for the last three straight months, writing digital textbooks and creating interactive notebooks and videos for my students while we’re on remote/hybrid instruction. It was insanely time-consuming and over the last few weeks, I actually chucked a lot of what I’d done in the fall and rewrote it as my ideas and vision for the program changed. It’s literally eaten so much of my time and energy, and just made me feel like I was never going to get to the end of it.  But on Wednesday, I finished. And over the last two days, my entire life feels so different.  I’ve been able to use my prep for grading and getting materials for the rest of the week ready.  I feel so much better and able to take on things.

Today, I learned my district is staying out an additional two weeks. We won’t be returning until February 15, and that’s also a relief. So just a lot of things went better for me this week, and lifted me out of that rock bottom situation I felt like I was in on Tuesday.

So let’s get to the good news!

This is the first time we’ve had facelift news in months! I had some time today (what a strange concept!), and finished some 2002 materials on my Facelift page. Specifically, I finished moving over a cluster of episode tags and challenge responses I’ve gathered on a series page called Take the Chance. I realized I had a ton of short stories set around Elizabeth’s departure from the penthouse that were all very similar and written in 2002. So they’ve all been moved officially into Alternate History (the links are updated on my Alphabetical By Title Page), and they’ve all been updated with timeline information and YouTube videos for any song fictions. I did not update the links on the Ficlet page because eventually, I’ll be deleting that page.

Fool Me Twice is going well. I’m working on Chapter 7 now — Chapter 7 & 8 are new chapters I’m writing tonight and tomorrow. It was just supposed to be one new chapter, but after I revised Chapter 6, I knew I needed more and I’ve added an extra Liason scene, a new Liz/Felix scene, some Cameron scenes — I’m really excited by the changes I’m making. I’ll have a vlog up at some point to talk more about it. I started the subsite for Fool Me Twice. It’s under construction, but you’re welcome to check it out.

That’s it for now! I’ll see you tomorrow!

Your Update Link: A Shot in the Dark – Part 16

If you usually skip my blog updates, I get it. I’m asking you to read this one because I’ve asked for this before, and I think maybe some people missed it. Thanks. 

Hello 🙂 Thanks for the response to yesterday’s flash fiction. I won’t be updating tomorrow even though I have the day off from work. I’ll be spending my morning working on digital content for my students, my afternoon editing Fool Me Twice, and then relaxing in the evening.

I don’t anticipate changing my Flash Fiction schedule from the Friday-Sunday updates,. In fact, the only reason I can update on Friday nights this year is that my school district has made that a half day and I don’t have to spend all six hours teaching Zoom classes. Next year, when the schedule is back to normal, I won’t be updating on Fridays at all. The good news is that after next weekend, A King’s Command shifts to double updates, so you’ll get more that story more often so hopefully that’ll  make up for the cliffhanger.

Please do not ask me to increase my posting, even if you think you’re joking around or that it’s not a big deal. I already feel guilty enough for having started these stories and promised updates last fall, then not being able to deliver on that.  I love reading my replies,, and I love every single one of you who posts. I honestly don’t think you know how much I appreciate you and look forward to the replies. Now, I feel tense and worried before reading them.

I need you guys to think about what my life looks like right now as a remote teacher. I spend literally my entire day glued to the computer screen. I am on this computer from 7-3 teaching Zoom, going to meetings, and creating content. I never get a break from this computer, and there are days I don’t even want to look at it. Honestly, I got those replies as I was prepping to write tonight’s Flash Fiction, and I wanted to just close the entire laptop and walk away.

And that’s not your fault. That’s on me for not managing my stress and anxiety better. For not setting more realistic goals last fall, and not being kinder to myself about this flash fiction hole I’ve dug myself.

I try to be very transparent about my schedule — when I’m going to post, when I’m not — and what kind of content you can expect. I set deadlines and dates so that I’m not disappearing for weeks and months at a time. And I don’t mind doing any of that. All I’m asking is that you respect my schedule and not ask me to post extra on top of the content I already do. Flash Fiction Updates take almost 90 minutes of my time from prepping the posts and the site and then the writing–and that’s three times a week.

I love my Patreon supporters who keep this site funded, I love the readers who reply to every single thing I post, and I love the people who just visit and read (I see the hits, so I know you’re here). I’m just asking you guys to respect my time, too.

I repeat. I love you all. I am extraordinarily lucky to have the kind of community I do for the genre and fandom that I write. Please don’t think I’m not grateful. I just need some kindness and patience in return.

Thanks and I’ll see you guys next Friday.

Your Update Link: A King’s Command – Part 13

Running a bit short on time today, but I babbled a lot last night, so we’re good. I’m having a cursed kind of day, but that’s normal for me.