Update Link: Dear Reader – Part 9

soooo heeeeyyyyyyyyy

Sorry for totally disappearing on you for the last *checks notes* week. I’d like to tell you I was hunkering down and finishing the edit on Book 2, but it would be a lie. (I did edit and we’re making good progress but it’s not where I want to be just yet). I just, uh, didn’t want to write? Is that allowed? I don’t know, lol. I was just feeling blergh on inspiration and wanting to do anything, even prep for school. Probably just a little bit of burn out. I felt better by Monday and did an insane amount of school prep thanks to the snow day and our two-hour delay this morning.

I also got some encouraging health news. I had my annual bloodwork done, and it turns out I’ve got a Vitamin D deficiency which could (and hopefully does!) account for a few lingering issues — some extra muscle aches, some mental fog, extra fatigue — I started supplements last week and I hope to feel better soon.

I’m not committing to a second update this week just because I really do want to focus on editing Book 2 and getting that out this month.

 

Update Link: Dear Reader – Part 8

I’m feeling a little sad, lol, because tomorrow I’m doing a 2024 Retrospective & 2025 Preview video for the channel (well, it’s in my schedule — will it get done? who knows!) and after that, the Recent Updates page gets archived. I relaunched it this year with a better organization, and it’s just honestly crazy to me how much I wrote this year.

I published Book 2 of Fool Me Twice and Book 1 of These Small Hours. I wrote the skeleton of the Hours trilogy which is going to let me publish two more novels within the first six months of next year. I also wrote three full-length Flash Fictions: Hits Different, Chain Reaction, and Warning Shots (each of which was more than 80K), an entire short story collection (Folklore), two novellas, and an episode tag.

In the first nine months.

I honestly find that kind of stunning. It’s hands down the best year since 2020, and it’s probably even better than that because of how much of the Flash I wrote and how regular I was with posting.

Anyway, none of that is possible without you guys reading. The supporters at Patreon who keep the light on and keep me funded so that I don’t need a second job in the summer and can write more or less full-time.

Thank you, and I’m looking forward to another great year!

Update Link: Dear Reader – Part 7

Updating a bit early tonight because I wanna log off the computer for a change and take a break from social media. We finally got a preview from the GH writing team, and well — I’m not particularly thrilled. I’ve enjoyed GH more in the last eight months than in the last decade, and even more so since August but it looks like they’re going with Lucky and Elizabeth as a couple, and I’m just soooo completely over that pairing. The preview dropped and it’s all over my feed, so I wanna take a break, lol. I’m used to not having Liason — that’s why I write fanfiction — but I was realllly looking forward to enjoying Elizabeth’s stories with the OLTL pets gone. Still holding on to hope that they’ll change their minds but well, who knows.

Anyway — it’s been an annoying day for lots of reasons, and that didn’t help so writing early and then going to do something else tonight. See you on Monday!

Update Link: Dear Reader – Part 6

Hello!  Glad you’re enjoying our usual holiday marathon! I’m leaning towards updating everyday next week as well, but it really is going to depend on how the next few days go. I’m almost done my draft notes for the final draft of These Small Hours, Book 2 — I just have to organize the changes for back half of Act 2 and 3, but the front half is where most of the changes were coming. I’m adding one chapter towards the beginning, then cleaning up a bunch of the next few chapters, adding a few scenes to expand a storyline, but for the most part, the back half of the book will just need clean up.

Very much hoping to go into the proof copy by Jan 1 and hoping to have the book to you by that Jan 17 date at the last. Let’s kick off 2025 strong! It’ll be hard to top the output in 2024, but I’m willing to try.

See you tomorrow around the same time!

Update Link: Dear Reader – Part 5

Merry Christmas! I hope everyone is having a great holiday. We usually do the family stuff on Christmas Eve, and then I get Christmas Day to myself, which I love, but this year, my sister-in-law asked me to dinner and well, if there’s a way to refuse doing family stuff during the holidays, I haven’t found it yet, lol.

See you tomorrow! Updates shift back to the evening for the last two days this week.

Update Link: Dear Reader – Part 4

Merry Christmas Eve! I just finished wrapping gifts and singing along to Hanson’s Christmas album like I’m still in eighth grade. I’m heading down to my sister’s later tonight to do the usual with my family, then to my brother’s for dinner tomorrow night. Hope you’re all having a great holiday yourselves!

I’ll be updating tomorrow around this time, too, then shifting back to 8PM the rest of the week.

Have a great evening and I’ll see you tomorrow!

Update Link: Dear Reader – Part 3

Happy holidays 🙂 I finally made it to winter break! It was pretty cold in NJ (11 degrees when I left for work!) but we managed to get through our half day, and I’m done for basically two weeks.

I’ll be updating Dear Reader every day until Friday. Tomorrow and Wednesday, I’ll be updating in the morning because I have some family events at night, and then back around this time on Thursday and Friday. Next week is up in the air because I’m contemplating putting Masquerade on hiatus. I don’t write a lot of alternate universe and it just doesn’t seem like there’s much of an audience for this story right now. I’ll probably work on it in the background and just publish it as a standalone at another time. I’ll probably update Monday & Tuesday & Thursday, then switch back to Tues/Thurs.

Working These Small Hours over the break and hoping to settle on a release date sometime before I go back to work.

See you tomorrow and have a great holiday!

Update Link: Masquerade – Part 12

I was planning to update on Friday, but I started to develop a cold Thursday evening, and it just tanked most of the weekend. I slept most of yesterday and late this morning, and I feel a lot better. I usually get sick this time of the year because my immune system always gives up around the break. I’m glad it happened this weekend and not this coming week. I have a half day tomorrow and then I’m done for almost two weeks. Love how the break fell on the calendar this week. Our half day will be basically a blip for me — we’re completely done content, the classes are like 20 minutes long, and I don’t have any classes after 10:30 because I have two periods off for lunch and prep. It’ll barely feel like work.

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be updating flash fiction every day M-F for the next two weeks. This coming week is Dear Reader updates, and next will be Masquerade. Updates will mostly be in the evening either at 7 or 8, except Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, which will be more in the afternoon around 2-3pm. Let’s finish 2024 strong!

I hope you guys have a great holiday season wherever you are in the world, and I’ll see you tomorrow night!

Update Link: Dear Reader – Part 2

I very much need this to be Friday.  The children were sent here to destroy me and I never consider quitting my job more than I do the week before winter break.

I’m moving Thursday’s Flash Fiction to Friday. I already know I need tomorrow to rest and go to bed early, and my winter concert is this Thursday. I’ll see you then!

Update Links

• These Small Hours, Book 2 (Beta Draft) on Patreon (Free to $5 and above tiers, available to purchase for $5)
• Holiday Highlight: Bittersweet Epilogue
• Holiday Highlight: The Next Best Thing

This is a bit of a housekeeping post with a few announcements, some holiday story highlights, news about These Small Hours Book, and Flash Fiction plans for my upcoming winter break.

Flash Fiction

• I did some housekeeping on my Recent Updates & Flash Fiction page, updating information for Masquerade and Dear Reader, including adding graphics. I also updated the sidebar with the Tues/Thursday schedule.
• This week, Tuesday remains unchanged, but Thursday’s Masquerade update will be either Wednesday or Friday depending on schedule. Thursday is the winter concert 🙂
• I’ll be on break December 23–January 2. Thanks to the calendar, that means I’ll basically be off for two weeks straight. (We have a half day that last Monday so that barely counts, and going back on a Friday barely registers as a real day, lol).
• Mon, Dec 23–Fri, Dec 27:  I’ll update Dear Reader every day, including Christmas Day (I do all my family stuff on Christmas Eve in the evening and the next day is recharge and resting).
•  Mon Dec 30–Fri, Jan 3: I’ll update Masquerade every day.
• Then, in January I’ll switch back and forth on Tues/Thurs, so  there’s a bit more continuity.

These Small Hours, Book 2

• I finally finished the beta draft of Book 2 last night. This took twice as long as I hoped it would, mostly because I seem to repress how stressful and exhausting the fall semester is. Next year, I won’t schedule any novel work until November.
• I’m taking off this weekend to do some housekeeping, to rest, and to give myself a break from deadlines.
• I’ll do my reread at work because it’s a light week.
• Editing starts December 20 (hopefully). At the moment, I don’t know how long editing will take, and I don’t want to estimate since I’m always wildly off.
• I’ll work on the final draft during my break.
• Right now, I’m estimating the book could be released as early as January 9 or as late as January 18.
• The beta draft is on Patreon for the Devoted ($5) tiers and above. Patreon recently added the ability to make single posts for sale, so you can also grab the draft for the price of the tier. That’s pretty useful, and I’m excited to continue to reorganize the Patreon next year. 2024 was definitely a challenge to keep up, and it’s on me for not being organized and on top of things.

Holiday Highlights

Completely slacked on posting this last week, but we’re back on track this week! I’m highlighting one of my favorite ways to update during the holidays — epilogues for completed series.

• Bittersweet Epilogue – Bittersweet is one of my favorite stories. It’s the last story I started posting while still writing it (not even a draft completed!), and also the last one where I started posting and took breaks. Set in 2002, it rewrites Jason’s return hitting some of those same beats we did on the show but with my own twist. It has a sequel, Malice, that I am super excited to get into at some point. The epilogue takes place a few weeks after the story’s end. Bittersweet was originally written from 2016-18, and the epilogue was posted in 2020.
• The Next Best Thing – My second novel after returning to write in 2014, The Best Thing, is still one of my best stories. I finished it in early 2016, then I wrote a novella in 2020 revisiting the characters three years later. The novel was set in 2005 and takes a twist on how Sam and Sonny’s baby story played out, as well as the ultimate fate of Sonny and Carly.

 

See you on Tuesday!