Heeeyyyy, poking my head in to let you know how things are going and when life is getting back on track!!

TL;DR: Flash updates return Tues, Thurs, Fri with options for more based on scheduling.

Bathroom is very nearly finished. They installed everything but the sink today, so I got to shower without a 25 minute drive back and forth to the parents house which is how I’ve been spending most of my life for the last two weeks. They need to do the sink and some little bits and bobs tomorrow — supposedly, it’s going to take a few hours tomorrow. I’m disappointed it’s taking another day — it was promised to be done today, but there was a mishap with my parents’ bathroom (shower door installers cracked the tile) so my contractor went to fix that before coming to my house today).

That puts a kink in my plans — I had hoped to get things all cleaned up today. Things are everywhere from moving things upstairs so I could lock up the cats during construction and my work days. Lizzie the Terror hated being locked up, so she dug out the carpet by the office door, so bits of subcarpet is basically everywhere, lol. The contractor left late every night, so there’s just so much I haven’t been able to do at home that I was planning to do tonight. Then this evening, I would do some Flash while waiting for the new album at midnight and then another update tomorrow while I relaxed and listened to the new album. Now, I’ve got to keep the cats contained tomorrow morning before I can start cleanup tomorrow afternoon. I was soooo upset, I’d been planning for this three-day weekend for MONTHS and my day off is basically garbage now other than staying up late tonight.

This weekend is super busy! I’ve got plans for dinner with my sister so I can take her to the album release party for her birthday, and then the next morning, I’m taking the nieces for their birthdays (September & November babies!) to see the movie again and then lunch, and THENNN NLDS GAME 1 on Saturday night with my sister or parents. Sunday, I’m going to sleep late and then prep the upcoming school week.

BUT — life gets back to normal after that. The Phillies will be playing for a few more weeks, but they don’t play every night. I don’t know times yet (so stupid honestly but what are you gonna do), but I should be updating on Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday next week for Flash.

I knew September was gonna be annoying, lol, but we’ll be back to normal soon. Thanks for your patience 🙂

 

Normally, I wouldn’t come in to let you know I’m not updating today, lol, but since this is the only day I could realistically promise, I do feel it’s necessary to come in and let you know why exactly I’m not updating tonight.

My schedule is a little tight, but it’s not impossible. And I actually have the energy. The challenge is story-related.

Before I started writing, I had the Cates murder mystery completely plotted. I know all the big movements, the peaks and valleys. And I wrapped my head around some of the subplots as I envisioned them at the time of writing.  It’s part of the reason I was able to update as much as I have since starting the story on July 8.

I’ve written 39 updates and around 106k words in the last 11 weeks. That’s…insane, lol. It’s literally like updating every other day for 77 straight days.

But as I started writing, the characters started doing their own thing. I got interested in the dynamics of the teen groups and what relationships could/should exist based on the way the show has aged the characters (they put Rocco/Danny in the same age group and aged them both, so in my head it makes sense to put them with Aiden). And then how their relatinships complicated their parents, and so on.

I also got really interested in Jason playing the supportive role — he’s usually going out to do the action, but that’s not where he’s needed in this story, and how does he handle that? Plus the Liason relationship impacting the Jason/Sam/Danny dynamic, etc. And as I started to play up jurisdictional things to bring Molly in (and add more layers of complication as signs begin to point inside the house for the killer), I realized that Anna and Pikeman was a useful beat to play. And honestly, there’s a ton of things I could be doing that I’m not (I don’t have the room for Michael/Willow/Drew though I’ve hinted at them and Carly/Sonny are sort of in the background where I like them currently but they can and should play roles when it’s necessary).

There’s just a few story elements I’ve pulled in that really work (including Gia), and I actually need to sit down and plot how all these new pieces fit into my larger whole in interesting and complex ways without feeling like I’m pantsing it. This week feels like a good time to take a moment, take a deep breath, and refit the puzzle pieces together. I still plan to update at some point based on the schedule (bathroom remodel starts tomorrow!) but I don’t know what day.

I promise, as soon as I can, to be updating 3-4 times a week. I’m in a good place at work — I just need the homefront to cooperate.

If you’re looking for something to read while I’m plotting, I’ve got a couple of recommendations –

• Karma – a murder mystery set in alternate 1997 with an aged Elizabeth working at GH.
• Counting Stars – 1999 rewrite after Jason leaves, but Lucky doesn’t come back.
• A Few Words Too Many – rewrite of Liz’s pregnancy in April 2003. The first novel I wrote when I came back, and there’s still a sequel on the backburner.

 

Update Link: You’re Not Sorry – Part 39

I secured two tickets for The Release of a Showgirl’s launch party on Oct 3 for me and my sister, so I’m having a very good day! I already took that day off for a personal day, so it’s a solid Taylor day for me!

My bathroom remodel is starting on Monday, and I’m not entirely sure how the schedule works — I’m sure they’re gone by the time I normally do Flash, but I’ll know more on Monday. I’m very excited to get a new bathroom, but still wish it wasn’t being done during the school year, lol.

Other good news — we’re moving into the final week of the Phillies season, which means we get to move into a firm Flash schedule and your girl gets to have a consistent bedtime again! The last regular season game is next Sunday, Sep 28, and unless things go tragically wrong this week, we don’t play at all until Oct 4 with the NLDS. But that’s in the middle of the remodel, so I’m not promising daily updates at that point.

As soon as I know more, I’ll post a schedule. For this upcoming week, I’m hoping for Mon/Thurs at the minimum, but let’s see how it goes once we’re in the remodel phase.

Update Link: You’re Not Sorry – Part 38

So sorry about not updating yesterday! I was gonna take a nap so I could recharge a little and then overslept. I am not built for these late starts! So I’m writing a little early today to conserve energy.

I hope you guys have been enjoying this story so far 🙂 It’s the way I love to write umbrella stories where you have chunks that hyperfocus on a major plot piece, then shifts to another so it doesn’t feel like we’re doing the same thing every update. We’ve spent a bit on the weekend with the antics of teenagers, so the scenes took a lot longer to write because instead of plot development, it was character beats that just sometimes take longer for my brain to process. Shifting back into the larger murder investigation now 🙂

We still have a long way to go with this story because I have so many twists and turns planned!

Update Link: You’re Not Sorry – Part 37

Our last West Coast trip of the season! I’m getting too old for 10:10 starts, and I don’t even get to sleep in tomorrow. You might ask why I’m staying up, and it’s because I’m insane. We need one more win (or the Mets have to lose one more game) and we clinch the NL East for the second year in a row and I NEED to put in my order for my merch as soon as it drops. Also, they need to beat the shit out of the Dodgers for a bye out of the Wild Card series.

I assure you, me staying up helps them. I’m convinced of it.

Anyways, if I’m still alive tomorrow, we’ll be back tomorrow for another update. They’re off on Thursday (and I’ll be dead by then).

I love baseball, but I am so ready to have a consistent bedtime for a while, lol.

Hey 🙂

Just a check in to let you know where I’m at and how things are going since we haven’t touched base in the last week. If you’re a TL;DR kind of person, let me sum up: I’m really tired. My brain feels exhausted, and creativity is a struggle. But I feel light at the end of the tunnel and still plan to update Mon – Wed & Fri this week for the Phillies’ west coast trip. September 22-October 3 is a toss up due to a bathroom renovation.  

Okay —

I’ve been struggling to adjust to my new schedule at work. I was definitely spoiled last year with a double period off and only having my own classes, even if 7 classes was a lot to deal with. This year, with the addition of a third course to prep, a homeroom to manage, and a study hall to run, I’m struggling to get things done at work. I constantly feel like I’m scrambling, then lunch hits, and I can’t even bring myself to do anything productive. In study hall, I get some things done, but it’s not easy as I manage the bathroom/nurse/list and check ins from students who don’t have me this year.

And then Friday, we had a sort of scary situation at work. They did a “hold” security announcement, which is just — lock your doors, don’t let kids out, and keep teaching. This would be fine since the kids are used to drills — but my classroom and the media center are the only rooms that face the front of the school and we got a front row look at six cop cars racing up the drive with lights on, sirens off, and coming into school with guns drawn.

And then they left, and the hold was over, and we were expected to just go about our day. Naturally, my class and those kids in the media center told EVERY one they knew, but we’ve had no news about what happened. Normally, we get something — but it’s been silence from admin. And the city. Which….is weird.

Anyway, it was just one of those weeks. I struggled to do anything when I got home, even little things. We had Back to School night a week early, and my sleep schedule was all off. But I felt better as we got into Thursday and Friday, and managed to get some work done, so I feel better about this upcoming week 🙂

Thanks for your patience. Those of you who’ve been with me the last six years know September is the hardest month for me, and it never seems to get easier.

I’ll see everyone on Monday!

Update Link: You’re Not Sorry – Part 36

Every year I manage to repress just how mentally and physically exhausting the first week is. It honestly feels like a blur.

Work Updates

Some good news — I did actually feel like the classes themselves went pretty smoothly — I’d prepped the right amount of content, and I’m mostly ready for the upcoming week (some slides I have to finish up). The only challenges really came from aministrative things — we have a new bell schedule, then we had a pep rally schedule, so that was a lot. I have a home room this year — and the new schedule split it into a 5 minute segment in the morning and 5 minutes at the end of the day. So that’s 5 minutes to take attendance, check IDs, dress code, and take phones for 30 seniors, half of whch I don’t know. And then study hall where kids don’t have to report on the first day if they have gold cards, even if you don’t have the gold card list yet — I’ve got 30 kids in the first study hall, then 27 in the other — again, half of which I didn’t know.  I felt ridiculously overwhelmed the first few days.

It’s sort of under control now, I think, but it was kind of crazy for the worst part of the week to have zero to do with my actual classes, lol.

September Writing

Right now the plan is to update Flash as much as possible over the next two weeks because we have finally have a date for the bathroom remodel — they’re starting my parents’ house on Monday, Sep 8, and that means I’m going to be the week of Sep 22. I’m a little irritated — I was hoping it would be sooner. Because I’d taken Oct 3 as a personal day for the Taylor Swift album release, and I’m really hoping we’re done by then. I’m also really hoping we can make arrangements for the toilet to be the last thing ripped out because I only have one bathroom and no family lives closer than 10-15  minutes away. I feel like I’m going to be spending ninety percent of my time at my parents and commuting 25 minutes to work and to feed the cats. I’m happy to get my bathroom redone, but man do I wish it was any other time of the year.

Luckily for all of us, the Phillies have their last West coast trip next week with games starting at 10PM, so we’ll have some daily updates, at least until September 22. I’ll see what happens once the remodel gets underway. If they can leave the toilet in place for most of the time, we should be fine, but if not — well — we’ll see, lol.

Planning up todate on Tues/Thurs this week, so see you then.

Update: You’re Not Sorry – Part 35

I really need to get myself together, lol. I’ve been building Google Sheet files to help me track important information about my students (gradebooks, IEP/504 info, etc.) and one of my colleagues asked if it would be possible to do attendance and participation in one file, and the way she wanted it done made me curious, so of course, you know me, I jump in and went down a rabbit hole — did I have time? no. Did I do it anyway? you bet. Anyway. I’m about halfway through, and it was easier than I thought it would be, but I have to stop and actually finish my last bit of prep for tomorrow.

ANYWAY.

This is your last scheduled update until next Sunday.

That does not mean I won’t update. I have no way of knowing how I’ll feel until we get into the week. I think I’ve done enough preparation that the first week should be easier than it was last time. But it’ll be my first year teaching three separate courses, and who knows if that will make me more tired?

So, you can either sign up for emailed updates, join Patreon (for free!) and I’ll make sure to post over there if I update, or check the site around 6ish every night (I can almost guarantee I won’t update any later than that) just in case I pop in with a surprise.

But next Sunday, September 7, is the first day I’m promising an update.

See you when I see you 😛

Update Link: You’re Not Sorry – Part 34

Tuesday is so much closer than it should be, lol. I keep wondering what I’ve forgotten to do since I feel mostly prepped. Like I’m sure there’s something. And I don’t know how my kids are going to manage homeroom with our lockers in a different wing, but well, that won’t be my problem since I’m not the crazy person who gave me a homeroom in the first place.

Haven’t really had the bandwidth for any writing projects other than flash at the moment, but I’m hoping that will shift as we get into the school year and I’ll have my prep periods. I would really like to confine doing any work at home to the mornings on weekends, but we’ve met me, lol.

See you tomorrow for our final update. *cries*

Update Link: You’re Not Sorry – Part 33

Hello 🙂 I was feeling okay on Wednesday, but Thursday was a really long day at work and by the time I got done, I was just exhausted — and I still had a few things to prep for next week (I have an Honors section of French II, and they’re reading a different book, so it’s double the work to prep book days). I did that Friday morning, and by the time I needed to start thinking about my writing, I was just completely fried. I set up the posts and everything, thinking I might try to push through but it just wasn’t happening.

I do plan to update tomorrow and Monday, and I don’t see a reason why that shouldn’t happen.

But just a reminder: I do try not to make promises about update schedules in the first few weeks of school, but if I say I’m going to be here, and then I don’t show up, it’s almost always because I was just too tired, and I don’t want to post here without a reason. Every time I update this blog, my WordPress installation sends out about 500 emails to the subscribed readers.

I’m trying to get into the habit of updating the General Chat over on my Patreon which just sends out notifications to anyone who wants them, and doesn’t rely on my hosting service.  It’s free to join Patreon for that chat and for other features. (and then of course, there’s upgrades).

Anyway, school starts Tuesday. Updates will happen when they happen. If you’re worried whether or not I’m alive, you can also check out the social media. I’m @crimsonglass on Twitter where I freak out daily during Phillies games.