I tweeted a few days ago about Danny’s paternity test — like did we ever do anything to confirm his paternity or did we take Todd Manning’s word for it?

Couldn’t get it out of my head.

So on a day when I have to write an entire paper and study for a quiz…I wrote a short story.

You’re all going to scream at me to write more. I know this. And I love you for it.

I shall not.

Because I’m intrigued by the concept and how it might play into a larger narrative. So I might take this concept and go with it.

Or, hey, if GH is really reading Damaged (and I swear if Drew ends up being a gaslighting con artist, I’ll know they are), maybe they’ll take this idea, too.

So enjoy a ficlet, Blood Will Tell. I have to go write that paper and do laundry.

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I need to get myself moving on making my older stories available in ebook format, so here’s a poll to pick the next one:

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I went through and updated the Recent Updates page and fixed the workshop links for some the stories. I didn’t go further into July, but the ongoing stuff is done.

I also added tags to Bittersweet so it now shows up on the Year Written and Year Set pages. I added Ghosts of Elizabeths Past to the Sort by Title Page, and I also added summaries for all Ficlets on that page. I’ve been remiss in finishing up that project. My hope is that that page serves as kind of as master list for you guys to keep track of what you’ve read any what you haven’t. (You could literally print it and check stuff off). Adding summaries, I think, helps.

I spent a lot of time in my life doing the Sort Stories section so I hope you guys find it useful. If you haven’t been there in a while, check it out.

A note about the Workshop pieces: They will not be tagged or listed in any of the Sort sections because that’s not what they’re meant for. They’re not supposed to be as good as what I post elsewhere (though I’d argue they’re slightly better than my 2002-03 work. They’re not edited for typos or content and they’re just a way to train my inner editor and work through some concepts.

Case in point? The Homecoming series is me thinking through a storyline about magic. I got two parts in and there’s stuff I like, but there’s also stuff I wish I had done differently. Posting in the Workshop lets me get feedback but I don’t feel married to any of it. I can rewrite, revise, reuse at will. None of that stuff is permanent, so enjoy it but it’s not like any of my other work and I’m not going to apologize for its lack of cohesion or quality.

You read the Workshop at your own risk, just as you read the Fiction Graveyard at your own risk.

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An update that is not for the Workshop. That’s insane right? So I didn’t watch October 9’s episode yet, but enough of Twitter was livetweeting that I got the gist and had this idea this morning.

If you’re currently not watching (and who would blame you? I’m watching for Steve), Elizabeth is dating Franco. Apparently, another magical brain tumor has swept in and fixed his insanity. Whatever.  Franco found out he grew up with Jason’s twin brother, Drew, who apparently died at the age of three. He initially lied to Elizabeth about it, and then came clean. And then asked HER not to tell anyone because, hey, lying about Jason never got anyone in trouble.

So I wrote something that made me feel better. I haven’t watched the episode yet, so all I know is what happened above. I’m sure she agreed because destroying Elizabeth’s character is what makes GH go around these days.

Ghosts of Elizabeth Past

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Hey, I wrote Homecoming, Part 2 in 22 minutes.  That’s really it for today. Revising Mad World is happening — it would just be quicker if I weren’t a grad student, ha. See you guys later this week for a longer workshop session.

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Hey! I’m working on an idea for a Halloween story, so here’s a 40 minutes addition. Supposed to be a Micro Fiction, but eh, what are you gonna do?

Homecoming

I’ve finished most of the prep work for revising Mad World, and I’ll be digging into it either later today, tonight, or tomorrow — at some point this weekend. I’ve gone over the outline and added about six or seven extra chapters of content and moved around a ton of the back half of the story. Hoping to get the new content written over the next week, and then spend the last two weeks of October editing the rest of it so I can send it to Cora in November. At that point, I’ll be finishing Bittersweet for NaNoWriMo.

Just based on scheduling and availability, I’m looking at sometime in January for you guys to start getting Mad World. I’ll be more specific as we get closer.

While you’re waiting on Mad World, look for more work shop entries. I’ve got some idea for the smaller micro pieces, but I also have two concepts going on in the hour set (the Sky is Falling one as well as bringing back the Scottish story). I’m making a concentrated effort to produce more content, even if it’s these smaller pieces.

I’m looking to create a new layout in celebration of Steve’s return so I’m going to be overhauling my Online section which is woefully out of date. If you have a site or know of one you’d like me to put on the page, please leave it in the comments!

(Who else is just waiting for the day Real!Jason gets back to Port Charles and says Elizabeth’s name? I don’t need them together right away, I just need him to say her name. No one does it like he does.)

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I wrote a new Micro Fiction, Mail Order Bride, because I didn’t really have the energy for a full hour and I also had this idea playing in my head.

I’m making headway in getting caught up with reading and taking notes that I put off last week to draft Mad World. I had a few extra hours yesterday and started doing some revision exercises.  I didn’t actually edit anything, but I started looking at scenes, tracking narratives and characters arcs. I found some holes — I’m going to need to add about 4 chapter in the front of the story, and probably sprinkle another 2 or 3 chapters in the middle. Just adding content, playing around with what I wrote.

I won’t know until maybe the end of the week just how much work I’ll be doing — if anything needs a big overhaul or just light editing and addition of new scenes.

I still have to fix the broken links from the changing of the Flash Fiction page to Workshop; I just haven’t had a chance yet.

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Earlier today, I completed drafting Mad World. I’m super happy about that — it’s the first project I’ve been able even put “Finish” anywhere near since February 2016 when I posted the end of the The Best Thing so to just get to the end of a multi-chapter story makes me happy

That being said, one of the major reasons I finished it was turning off my inner editor and not stopping to edit or rewrite scenes before moving on to the next chapter. This means there’s work to be done. I’m basically rewriting my entire Lucky story because I had a good idea two weeks ago. And my Carly subplot needs to be refined and tweaked towards the end. My Jason and Elizabeth central narrative needs some tweaking to make it a bit more deeper, a bit more resonant, and I changed course on the PCPD narrative halfway through and wrote the rest of the story as if I had already rewritten the first half. So, yeah, it needs work.

Also, I mentioned that I had rescheduled a due date for a paper but now I have to do that paper this week. I also kind of…put off some readings and note taking in order to finish today. I’m not sorry — I’m glad it worked out that way but now I have to do some catch up to get back on track.

So I’m going to let Mad World sit for a week. I took a revision class and the instructor recommended an even longer sitting period before going to revisions, but I’d like my huge round of revisions to be done before November so I can do NaNoWriMo again.

I’ll still be doing a Fiction Workshop next week, but I’m putting Mad World aside so I can look at with  more fresh eye. Right now, I hate pieces of it, ha, and I may like it better in a week.

Still…it’s currently at 236 pages and 90,000 words so that ain’t shabby for three months of work 😉 I’ll be updating about it periodically on Twitter as I rewrite and revise and checking in here as well.

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Workshop Update

I wrote Sky is Falling, Chapter 3 in about 50 minutes.

Life & Mad World Progress

If you follow me on Twitter (and you should, I’m always tweeting about writing lately), then you’ll notice I’ve been posting about getting closer to the ending of the first draft of Mad World. It’s going so well for me that I actually moved around a due date for a paper at school. I get to pick the week I want to write a paper, and I had planned on this week because my Tuesday and Wednesday classes were cancelled in the evening.

And then Mad World started working, and I thought…I could finish this first draft this week if not for this paper. So…yeah. I made what a lot of my people in my life would say was an irresponsible decision to put my fanfiction first. But it’s not just as simple as putting fanfiction first, it’s putting me first. My creativity. My happiness. This project is going so much better than the last few (how long did it take me to get to 17 chapters in The Best Thing?) This is going back to A Few Words territory where I wrote that sucker in a month and ignored everything else. When I let my creativity be in charge, it’s good for me.  Even my classwork is going faster because I’m concentrating more evenly, devoting time to everything that matters so I’m just…happier.

I tweeted about it this as well, but part of the reason I’m feeling more settled in my priorities is a podcast called Big Strong Yes from Chipperish Media. It’s a book club that reads self-help books, but not the normal ones. We just finished Rising Strong by Brene Brown, and if you’ve ever read it, you’re going to see a lot of that book reflected in Mad World. I owe a huge debt for Elizabeth’s characterization and her therapy. She’s going through the Rising Strong process in this novel. We’ve just started Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert which is devoted to creativity, and I’m just already excited by it. So if you’re like me, and you’re constantly putting what makes you happy on the back burner or struggling with priorities, this podcast might be good for you.

Okay, promotion aside, what does it mean that Mad World is nearly finished? I’m finishing the Discovery Draft, which is me turning off the inner editor. In July, when I was writing for Camp NaNoWriMo, I kept letting myself get stuck on scenes, rewriting scenes. I spent three days on Chapter 8 and while I like the changes, it really set me back time wise. I’m used to polishing chapters as I go, getting them as close to publishable as possible before going on to the next. It’s how I wrote The Best Thing, All We We Are, and the first two chunks of Bittersweet and Mad World. It’s not a bad thing, but it does slow down my writing process and sometimes I lose the momentum. So a discovery draft is me turning that off and just writing, which means I get the big parts done.

That being said, Mad World needs a bit a work. There’s some scenes that need to be written, an entire subplot I need to write, another I need to finish, so I’m thinking to take most of October to do that. It might go slower, it might go faster. I don’t know. I’ll keep you guys updated on that process.

Site Maintenance

Also, I tried to mess with the subscriptions plug in so you no longer get every single post I make — just these summary ones on the main page, which will cut down on the amount of email you’ll receive. Let me know if you typically receive emails and aren’t getting any since I’m testing it.

There are still broken links from the change over to Fiction Workshop format. I hope to ferret those out this week and fix them. I’ll keep you posted on that as well.

I also think I’ve fixed the share options, so posts should share to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr (which…exists but I don’t use much)

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When I last updated the new “flash fiction” series, Sky is Falling, I mentioned I would be basically workshopping it as a flash fiction series and that I would be probably rewriting the King’s Command flash fiction series as well. I’m actually going to overhaul the Flash Fiction page and its entries in order to really work with this idea.

There’s little change to you, except that the names of the page will change and I won’t be numbering them anymore. I’ll be trying out smaller concepts and ideas, as well as longer ones. Do I have enough material to keep going?

Like I said, you guys won’t really notice a difference. I just wanted to explain why the page name changed and the entry titles are going to look different going forward. Oh, and also — I have to fix links on the Recent Updates page, so for now, if you’re looking for Flash Fiction entries mentioned in previous post, you need to find it using this link: Workshop. I’ll be updating the links later after work.

I did a ton of writing on Mad World this week and I’m finally in the sweet spot. I had the chance to write the scene that was at the center of the reason as to why I took the story out of the 2004 universe with the Brooke and Alexis stories and focused it more firmly on Elizabeth in 2003. It’s always really satisfying to finally write a scene you’ve been looking forward to months.

I’m scheduled to finish the first draft sometime this week, and I’ll keep you posted for an official release date.

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