Your Update Link: Darkest Before the Dawn – Part 11

Reminder: I use the little photos to indicate different topics in my update posts, so you can skip to anything you want read more easily.

Good morning! (Can I still call it morning? LOL) This update is late for…reasons.  I had a great day yesterday and stayed up a bit late working on a few things — and that was a mistake. One of my favorite YouTube channels uploaded a 4hr36 minute documentary about the career and downfall of YouTube influencer Nikocado Avocado, and…I started watching it. I did not finish it — but I was up until midnight, then turned off my alarm and rolled over. I have no good defense except I have a shameful secret: I am OBSESSED with YouTube influence drama scandals. I’ve traced it back to the fact that my soap operas are boring and these people are MESSY. I’m not proud of it…but that’s why your flash fiction is late.

ANYWAY.

I had a great day writing yesterday — I wrote two chapters and today, after lunch, I’ll be starting the FINAL chapter in Book 3. That’s right, folks — I am FINALLY at the end of this beast. I have two epilogues planned but because the draft is so crazy messy, I think it might be easier for me to write effective epilogues once I’ve done the first pass at revisions. Either way, we’re finally nearing the end of the journey with this trilogy which feels suuuuper weird, I’m not gonna lie. I’ve been living with this story in one way or another since 2004, and almost full-time for the last four years so I think we’re all going to enjoy moving on to something so different like a 2017 rewrite.

Once the first draft is done, it’ll be posted at Patreon, and then I’m putting it away for two full days. On Sunday, I’ll reread it — this might take me into Monday, too, I won’t lie. I’ll start making notes about revisions. After that, I’ll start structuring the beta draft, figuring out what to edit, what to cut, what to add, etc. I hope that will take me about a week. Then — I’ll start moving through it chapter by chapter. The hope is to be done the beta draft by August 31. I lost about a week of revision time (optimally — I’d be starting that chapter by chapter work next week) so I might be a week off everywhere, We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

In my final bit of news for the day — I’m making more progress on the Alternate History temporary page. The plan for this week is just to finish writing out the new summaries and copy. I’d love if you guys took a quick look at it and let me know if you think it makes sense, if it helps you get a better sense of what you’re reading. I finished updating the copy for 2002 last night, and will finish the rest of it by Satuday, I think.

 

 

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Today’s video is the next video in my FMT vlog series. I’m filming tomorrow for Mad World and Fool Me Twice, so if anyone has anything they want me to talk about, let me know. 

Fool Me Twice – Video 2 – Who’s in this Story Anyway???

• I start with a brief recap of Video 1 — setting out the premise and why I write the story.
• Who should be in this story? Who gets the POV and story?
• Four main POV characters — Jason and Drew as main, Elizabeth and Sam are secondary leads.
• Drew as a blank slate.
• Who are my endgame couples? Do my readers want Jason/Sam? (Spoiler Alert: I’ve met you guys, so no.)
• Brainstorming characters – who should be in Jason and Drew’s story and why?
• Trying to avoid spoilers.
• More Andre and Anna. No Peters allowed. More WSB and Cassadine. Deeper levels of bad guys.
• Jason as Patient 6. My Patients 1-4 will be different. (Drew being 5)
• Using Cassadine and Spencer back story, digging back to Cassadine screwing with memory and brainwashing for long time.
• Bringing in Helena’s hatred of Elizabeth
• Who are the characters? What are their relationships to each other? What is their history? What can they bring to the table separately from their connection to Jason and Drew?
• Mini-rant about Ryan story centering on Ava and how I am NOT rewriting it.
• Summary – connecting Video 1 to 2 and how it fits together in the process.
• What makes me excited to write this one.