Very sorry guys. I was relaxing today and reading, and just kind of lost track of time. I didn’t even eat dinner yet, LOL, and it’s just past 7 PM EST here. I do feel bad about noping out of both updates for King’s Command this weekend, so I’ll try to make up for it at some point this week with an update.

I basically ignored EVERYTHING this weekend, including prepping for the upcoming week — I didn’t even do my lesson plans which are due on Thursdays. I feel better for relaxing after the horrible day I had on Friday and all of the last week, but that just means I have a lot to do tomorrow since we’re supposed to be back in my building on Tuesday, so my schedule changes. I have to prep dinner, do laundry, prep posts and lesson plans — Of course, we’re supposed to have a terrible ice storm so let’s see if we’re even back. 2021, man.

And because I do feel so bad about this, I’m going to post an excerpt from Fool Me Twice tonight — a Liason scene that’s from Chapter 16 but doesn’t give a way too much. It takes place maybe two weeks after Jason returns. Enjoy!

Floating Rib: Parking Lot

They’d renamed the bar six months before Jason had been shot and shoved into the frigid waters of the harbor, but somehow he’d let himself forget that fact. Even so, the interior had always looked the same, and Jason just wanted to go inside and lose himself the way he’d used to—

But someone had redecorated it, and the dingy color and broken down furniture had been replaced by newer and brighter colors. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t Jake’s.

Nothing was the way it was supposed to be, and Jason just stared at the building for a long time, feeling more lost than he had a right to be. It was just a bar. Just a place.

But it had always been his safe place. The one spot in the entire world he could count on—

His phone rang again, and Jason looked down at it, expecting to see Michael, Sonny, or Carly’s name flash across the screen. Spinelli had given up almost an hour ago, but the other three had called every few minutes.

He didn’t know what to say to any of them. How to handle it. How to process what had happened or why it had hit him so hard—he’d never liked AJ, that was no secret. Why did it twist something inside of him so hard to learn that AJ had been alive all that time, that he’d returned to rebuild his life—

That Sonny had killed him, and Carly had helped to cover it up?

But the call wasn’t from Sonny, Carly, or Michael. It was Elizabeth. Thinking it was about Jake—if he could see his son, maybe—

“Elizabeth?”

“Hey. Are you busy right now?”

Jason looked at the sign over the bar, then shook his head. “No. I’m not.”

“Great. Can you meet me at the corner of Van Ness and Arnold? There’s something I need to do, and I could use your help.”

Relieved at the distraction, Jason agreed, “I’ll see you in a few minutes.” He hung up the phone, then got back into the SUV.

When he arrived at the street corner Elizabeth had given him, he pulled up behind her car, then stepped out to find her leaning against a chain-link fence. “Hey. What’s up? Is everything okay?”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. She gestured towards the building behind the fence—the building he hadn’t noticed before now. And the parking lot out front. Jason took in the lines of motorcycles, swallowing hard.

She’d brought him to a motorcycle dealership.

“Elizabeth—”

“It’s been a long time since we went nowhere fast,” she told him, “and I had a really bad day. I thought maybe you might need a ride, too.”

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Update Link: Not Knowing When – Part 11

Hello 🙂 Happy to report it’s been twelve hours since I woke up and still no migraine turning. That’s a good sign, and I think the new nasal spray/steroid combo the doctor gave me on Thursday is helping. I’m just hoping it won’t be like the prednisone which resolves the problem while I’m using it but then it comes back. I feel better today – I was even able to cook dinner which was the first time I felt up to it.

I finished the Fool Me Twice subsite and linked the banner above to the site. I even scheduled the excerpt going up on Tuesday. I’m even happier about this decision to change the release schedule than I was the last time I changed it, LOL.

Not Knowing When has about five parts (after tonight), and I think I’ll be wrapping this up just around the same time I’m finishing A King’s Command. I haven’t finished plotting that one out yet, but five weeks would put me at ten more parts ish, which sounds about right. This means Signs of Life will be coming back some time in late March with the final story in the Collect Your Regrets (Devil On My Back) universe starting around the same time.

I’ve decided what to do with Flash Fiction once the in progress stories are done. I’ll be keeping the Friday-Sunday schedule for now, until September when I go back to work because my Fridays will be full days. When I finish Signs of Life and Devil on My Back, I’ll be switching to a new plan. I’ll update a story on Fridays & Sundays, and then on Saturdays, I’ll be bringing back the concept I used to write The Ghost in the Girl. Basically, taking a scene or storyline point that will be a short story (four parts) and doing that.

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First, thanks so much for your warmth and understanding last night. Sarah, I had completely forgotten I owned a diffuser, so I dug it out and found my peppermint oil. Thanks for that reminder! That actually helped a lot last night and I’m using it this morning as well. I went out this morning to get Excedrin Migraine because that has helped in the past, but I had ran out of it and didn’t have the energy to get yesterday. I feel a lot better this morning, which I had hoped for.

What follows is a little bit of explanation about my history with TMJ so you can see why it flaring up like this is a cause for concern. If you want to skip to the part about FMT, feel free to do so.

My TMJ

Last night, I canceled Flash Fiction Friday because I had a screaming migraine — something that indicated to me my TMJ was back in full force.  I knew my TMJ was creating issues thanks to the diagnosis from my specialist on Thursday on what’s causing my ear problems, but I was really hoping that some of the worst parts would spare me this time.

When I was a sophomore in college back in fall 2010, I took six classes, including two foreign languages classes, and had to write 16 papers in 15 weeks. By the end of the semester, I had these pains in my jaw and could barely sleep. I went to the doctor, then to a specialist and spent about a year on a variety of meds that barely controlled the pain. I was on low-grade anti depressants and taking a combination of like six pills a day, including pills to help me sleep.

In early 2012, I was on a trip to London with friends, and I was so tired and worn out from the flu that I wasn’t paying attention to my meds. Instead of taking the anti-depressants (in low dosages treats TMJ), I took five of the sleeping pills. I realized almost immediately what I’d done, but my best friend and I were freaking out, and I had to force myself to throw up — but I was TERRIFIED to sleep, and so was Lauren.

It was at that point that I knew I didn’t want to control TMJ through medication anymore.  For my last year in class (I graduated in 2013), I really focused on learning to relax and manage stress better, and that mostly worked. I’ve had some flare-ups, mostly during the 2018 semester at grad school when I was doing two grad classes, full time student teaching, working a part-time job, and then lost my grandmother in April.

As you might imagine, this last year really tested my stress levels. I live alone, a lot of my best friends live more than ten minutes away, so we didn’t form a quarantine pod with one another. I’ve struggled in my new job, and the world around us has just made it harder to concentrate on self-care even when I know knew it was important.

To find out that the ear problems I’ve been having is just another symptom of this stress condition I’ve dealt with for ten years — it was kind of my wake up call that I need to take a good look at the things that cause my stress and do what I can to manage, reduce, or even eliminate the stress.

FMT & Stress

I really love the idea of writing and releasing an entire novel at once, then moving on to the next project, but I also have to accept it’s not going to happen with Fool Me Twice. And it’s so disappointing because of all my projects, this should have been the story that made that system work.

Zero percent of my problems have been with the story itself. It’s not like Broken Girl which I had to start three times or Mad World which needed a reset and additional chapters (and a whole extra book). I did a complete discovery for Fool Me Twice, wrote the alpha draft in ten weeks despite working a full-time job, and the edits are not insane. They’re typical — strengthening beats, rewriting/adding a few scenes, and cleaning up inconsistencies. My schedule should have worked. But between the world, my job, and my physical health, it’s just been impossible to keep a schedule with this project. Basically, what this boils down to is that I spent some time thinking about what is creating the stress with FMT and how can I deal with that.

Writing is, unfortunately, the one place in my world, where I have complete control. I have to go to my job, I have to pay my bills, and I need to clean my house and do basic stuff to be a functional adult. In the past, when life has overwhelmed me, when I’ve been in grad school and juggling two jobs, I put writing off. I didn’t write a lot between 2016-2018, I’m sure you guys remember.

But writing is also one of the few spaces that gives me joy. Writing, reading, and my students. These are the things that make the stress worth living through.  Sometimes I thrive on deadlines, and sometimes they make me miserable. Right now, it’s making me miserable.

I don’t want to delay releasing Fool Me Twice to the general public. I love this story. I am so proud of it. I don’t want to wait 2-3 months to publish just so I can drop it in one or two parts.

FMT – Release Updates

Feb 16 – I was originally going to publish the first chapter as a preview before dropping 2-20 on Feb 23. What I’ll publish is the opening scene as an excerpt.

Feb 23 – Chapter 1

Feb 25 – Chapter 2

And then I’ll be publishing on Tues & Thurs for the next few weeks. I have my notes for the first ten chapters and it’s just a clean up situation on those chapters which I can actually finish in a few days. I anticipate having those full ten chapters complete cleaned up and scheduled by this Friday, if not earlier.

That gives me five weeks to get more chapters together. At the end of that five weeks, I’ll reassess. If I’ve finished the full 38 chapter edit after the first five weeks, I’ll drop the whole book. If I don’t, I’ll keep the 2 a week until that full edit is done. I think that’s the best way forward to give me space and time to relax, to focus, and to put out quality work.

Thank you so much for your continued support and understanding. I generally thrive under deadlines, but I have to reset the deadlines right now so I can concentrate on my real life, my health, and still maintaining the parts of writing that gives me joy. I love the creation of my stories, and I love watching you guys read it.

Flash Fiction

At the moment, I plan to be back tonight with Not Knowing When, and back tomorrow with King’s Command. I have Monday off from work, and I’m contemplating doing A King’s Command that evening, but I am not committing to that at this point. I’m going to be relaxing this weekend, and getting ready to return to the building on Feb 16, so I’ve got a lot on my plate this weekend. I also anticipate maintaining my Weekend schedule with Flash Fiction as long as my health improves.

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Hey, sorry, no update tonight. Woke up with a screaming migraine that isn’t going away. I think I mentioned that I haven’t been feeling one hundred percent the last few weeks due to an ear situation. It was being treated with prednisone until about two weeks ago, but it hasn’t gone away. I went to a specialist Thursday and it’s not going to be an easy fix — plus he didn’t give me more Prednisone, so the ear problem is combining with sinus issues, and it’s just a whole thing.

I developed TMJ (a stress condition where you grind your teeth and clench your jaw) while in college. I mostly control it through behavioral changes and relaxation, but that’s not been possible this year. Apparently, the whooshing in my ear is literally my carotid artery pressing against my ear canal because the jaw clenching has shifted the ear canal closer. And something in the whole system is inflamed and making me miserable. Which I am.

I’m really hoping this is like the old days with TMJ where I would get screaming migraines for a day, and then wake up better the next day. I’ve literally been laying down all day and don’t feel better. I’ll check in with you guys, but I’ve been so useless this week — I haven’t done an inch of work on anything outside of my job since Sunday. If I can’t get work done this weekend, we’re going to need to start talking about delaying FMT on Feb 23.

I’ll keep you guys in the loop.

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Update Link: A King’s Command, Part 17

Hello! Reporting in from a very relaxing weekend. I did roughly ten minutes of work the entire weekend (going through email and just double checking everything was ready to go for tomorrow morning to post at 7 am).

I’ll be finishing up the beta draft Chapters 1-20 on Thursday, then plan to finish the posting draft over my four day President’s Day weekend since I have four straight days off, and I’ve made my notes for the first ten chapters. Then, the weekend between Feb 16-23, I’ll be getting the draft ready to publish here at CG and on the other platforms, and finishing the subsite. I’ll also begin the beta draft for the back half — doing a reread of those chapters, making notes for the edits — and on Feb 23 — the first 20 chapters go live.

Between Feb 23-Feb 28, I’m taking five full days off from editing and working on the soundtrack for Broken Girl. Starting March 1, I’ll be doing the beta draft for Chapters 21-38 of FMT and starting the alpha draft of Broken Girl 2. I plan to start small with the alpha draft (1-2 scenes a day), and I expect that the back half of FMT won’t be as stressful as the first half because I’m personally doing a lot better.

This week, for the Facelift, I’m also focusing on getting my YouTube section completed, at least for the in progress vlogs – Mad World, Broken Girl, and FMT. On Tuesday, my February Site & Story status post/video goes live. On Thursday, I have a FMT vlog going up. Next week, I’ll have two new series which I’ll talk more about when I’ve had a chance to edit them.

See you guys in the next one 🙂

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Update Link: Not Knowing When – Part 10

I can’t believe we’re getting more frickin’ snow tomorrow. The nerve of this winter, honestly. I am not looking forward to shoveling AGAIN. I just did it last week, ugh. Anyway 😛 We’re finally bringing back the third of my flash fiction stories. Very excited that this new schedule is actually getting things done, and I’m excited to be bringing this one back. Had a really good day today. Usually on the weekends, I wake up and work for a few hours in the morning, but today I played the Sims for like two hours instead.

GLORIOUS.

Also, I just bought new gorgeous rose gold velvet hangers and I now have enough hangers for all the clothes that need them, and that makes me feel very adult and mature, LOL.

Worked on editing FMT today — cleaned up four chapters. Five more to clean up, then I’m writing fifteen new scenes between Sunday-Thursday. Next Friday, I have a four day weekend from work and I’ll be working on the second round of edits — they should be done by next Monday. Very happy to be getting some work done. See you guys tomorrow!

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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!

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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!

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