Hey, just poking in to let you know that about an hour ago, I finished the first draft of Book 2. I’ve given it to the beta readers and will be spending the next two weeks or so working on edits and fine tuning it. I’ll also be working on the Book 2 layout for the website and getting the ebook for Book 1 finished.

I know it’s a long time between projects at the moment, but I think this way ends up working better. If I wait to finish the entire story before I start posting, you guys get reliable and steady updates. I prefer this to the long hiatuses 😛 I can’t wait for you to read Book 2, starting August 1!

Hello! If you follow me on Twitter, I said I’d be finishing this story this week after thirteen long years. It’s been sitting on the In Progress page since May 2014, so I’m glad to finally get it off my list and for you guys to get something new to read.  There’s a YouTube playlist that accompanies Come On Eileen, so check it out to truly enjoy the atmosphere of the complete fluff of this story.

In Mad World news, I’m really excited to announce that I’ll be posting Book 2 as of August 1 with new chapters on Mondays & Wednesdays. I’m still finishing up the first draft, but it should be done no later than July 15 (hopefully a lot earlier but that’s my complete deadline). I’ll be working on an ebook for Book 1 and and a new layout for the page.

Excited to finally start posting the next part of this story!

Hey guys! I’m still working out the right schedule to work flash fiction into regular rotation, but honestly most of my energy has been focused on getting into daily writing with Mad World. I got off to a slow start thanks to illness and technical issues. I’m happy to report that, thus far this week, I’ve written three chapters clocking in at 13k chapters total. I’m up to Ch 33, with seventeen to go. If I keep up this pace at a chapter a day, I’ll finish the first draft on July 6, which puts me in decent shape for an August release. I’ll keep y’all posted on how that’s going.

As to flash fiction, I got a late start tonight so I decided against working on a wrap-up to Fool Me Twice. I’m trying to leave myself an hour to wrap up the loose ends and put it back into novel development. So instead, we have a weird little idea I played with a long time ago but never posted. I hope you enjoy. It was written in 23 minutes and the ending is a little weird because I ran out of time and I honestly didn’t know how to finish it, ha.

Surprise Visit

When I was posting my new flash fiction yesterday, I realized how disorganized the Flash Fiction page had become. So I reorganized it by category and fixed it so that all the flash fictions I’ve posted have a place to go now.

I also went through and added all the Recent Updates from this entire year as well as finishing up December. I’m pretty bad at remembering to take care of that page, I know, heh.

In case you missed it, I did add a new flash fiction yesterday — an addition to the Desperate Measures flash fiction I posted back in March. That’s another idea I might take and push into a longer story at some point. I want to write a wrap-up flash fic for Fool Me Twice at some point so I can put that back into novel development.

Desperate Measures, Part 2

I hope you guys like the new layout! It’s simplified and I think the colors are easier on the eyes. I mean, it was to the point I didn’t even want to click on my own site, heh, so I can’t imagine you guys were happy with almost two years of orange and blue. I hope you guys like it.

I know I have to update the Recent Updates page. I don’t think I’ve touched it in months. It’s one of the small housekeeping tasks that has been neglected around here. I’ve been writing but I have had serious tech issues as my six-year-old laptop started to finally die. It’s still functional, but it’s crashed a few times.

The new one arrived yesterday and I’m hoping this will let me finally get into the full writing schedule I wanted to. I have written two more chapters of Book 2, and am working on completing Chapter 30 as we speak. I set a tentative deadline for June 30 which means I’d have to write a chapter a day to get it done. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep up that pace, but I’m going to try.

Anyway, I’m posting a follow up to Desperate Measures which I posted in April. I hope you like it! I really want to get back into a regular schedule of posting flash fiction, but to be honest, there are some days when I really don’t have any inspiration. If you have any prompts, please feel free to leave them in the comments!

 

 

I’m cleaning out my Scrivener files and while going through The Best Thing, I found two small scenes I had cut when I made changes to the story. Seeing them reminded me that I had never posted all the planning material and plot outlines for that story. So I put up a small series in the Workshop with my outlines, my thoughts, and my back and forth with Cora over some of the finer details. It includes the entire custody battle I cut as well, so if you’re interested, check out the Workshop (it’s at the bottom of the page) or click on the first post: The Planning Stages.

I’ve also blogged about my writing process at Dear Isobel, so make sure you’re keeping up there.

Hello! I’ve finally gotten a chance to edit and add my GHWhoDunIt mystery to the site. I had hoped to do it two weeks ago, but my schedule got away from me. And then my computer broke down over the weekend. I’m still not done reinstalling all my programs and settings from the reset so Death by Candelight doesn’t have a banner on the Alternate Universe page. Hopefully I’ll get that done later this week.

I’m starting a writing blog over at my other site, Dear Isobel, where I talk about my writing projects. I did that a little bit during the doomed NaNoWriMo from November 2018, so if you’re looking for any insights into what I’m writing or maybe even slight spoilers. I want to cut down on the “check in” posts here. I mean, they’re useful I guess, but I’m sure a lot of you would be happier if you only got emails from me with actual content updates. This is going to be a happy medium. You can sign up over there for blog updates. (You’d also get any other blog posts I make, though. Sometimes I write about Days or GH or post romance reviews.)

I’m setting a target date to complete Book 2 for Mad World by June 30, which would hopefully mean I could start posting it around August 1. Between now and then, I’m definitely going to be doing more flash fiction, cleaning up some old stories, looking at some of the older features and working on them. Maybe I’ll get back into doing the ebooks. I don’t know. I’ve got the time on my hands now. I’m officially done school and all I have to do now is going to work 😛

So check out the blog! If you read Death by Candlelight over at the Liason Haven, there aren’t any changes. I just cleaned up some grammar and spelling issues I missed the last time. I Iiterally wrote and posted a lot of that story while I was preparing for my orals and I think I was really stressed out about getting it edited and posted on April 15 before leaving for my exam that day. Crazy. But it’s done! If you didn’t read DbC because you didn’t want to join the message board, then here it is for you.

Hey! I know you guys are probably looking for an update to one of my flash fiction series but I kind of wanted to play around in a new world, so here’s an alternate vision of how Jake’s kidnapping might have played out. An Answer to A Prayer. It was written in 30 minutes, and I don’t really know what I think about it, but I’m getting back into the groove.

In other news, all that’s left of my semester is to revise my large research paper and take one online final. That’s it. We’re almost done!

Hey guys! I attended my final class of the spring semester on Monday which means I’m free at nights now, yay! I have three more assignments to finish, but they’re all due by Monday, May 14.  I will be completely done at that point. Words cannot express how much I’m looking forward to that.

What this means is that I get to put writing back in my daily schedule — even more importantly, I get to make it the focus of my daily schedule which I haven’t been able to do since 2015. This is great news for all of us!

This weekend, I’m going to post Death by Candelight here and at the other sites. Then, next week (or maybe this weekend), we’ll be bringing Flash Fiction. I’m also going to write a few shorts and ficlets I’ve had floating around.  I’ll also dig back into my novels.

I’m not positive exactly which novel I’m going to work on first. I’m going to play with three of them — Counting Stars, Mad World Book 2, and For the Broken Girl to see which one the muse likes. I don’t anticipate having any novels for you before August – I definitely want something regular to post by then since August is the beginning of Liason’s 20th anniversary year and I’m sure the fandom is going to go all out.

We’re in the home stretch guys! Thanks for your patience and support!

Hey! I posted Part 2 of Death by Candelight at the Liason Haven yesterday, so make sure you go check it out. As always, the story remains exclusive to the forum for at least month (I can’t remember if I waited that long to post Death Becomes Her at CG, but going forward, that’s the policy I’ll adopt). So look for the story to be posted here at CG in May and elsewhere.

I actually can’t believe I managed to finish and post it at the same time I was preparing for my orals. True story: I actually didn’t even start writing Part 2 until Saturday. I had written out the script and beats, but it wasn’t converted into prose until this last weekend. My schedule just kept collapsing on itself until I had just this last weekend. I work well under deadline, but that doesn’t mean I like it.

I had my orals yesterday and I passed. It was not enjoyable for a lot of reasons, so I don’t even feel that celebratory about it. I still have one major paper to write — a 35 page journal article whose rough draft is due on Monday, April 22. But that’s the last major assignment. Everything else is kind of run of the mill. I’m looking forward to being done. All course work is turned in on May 15, so that’s the date I’m circling on the calendar to get back to writing on a more regular basis. I go back to work full-time at that point as well, but I don’t have to come home and study anymore so that’s going to be great.

My goal is start to posting new chapters of whatever is next by August, whether it’s Counting Stars or Mad World, Book 2.  Between then and now, you’ll have some flash fictions or anything else I can whip up, but I don’t anticipate returning to regularly scheduled story posting for a few more months.

Thanks for your patience! Go check out Part 2 of Death by Candelight at the Liason Haven.