Hey! I wanted to check in and note that I cleaned up the Fiction Graveyard page. I realized that Slide had never been noted on the table as having been reposted (there’s a prologue, two chapters, and I posted the concept for the rest of the story). I have a handful of projects that still need to be reposted from there, and that might be an easy content update over the next few months.

March and April are going to be crunch time — I’ll actually be out of the worst of it come May 1. My orals will be done, my first draft of my research paper, the bulk of that research, etc. After that, it’s maybe two papers and a final draft. Thanks for the patience y’all have shown for the last two months (really three) without new content. I’m super lucky to have you guys.

So one of the things I can probably do is to squeak out some time to finish editing the last few Fiction Graveyard projects and maybe finish the graphics at Mad World (that header was meant to be temporary).

In other news, for my $5 and above Patreons, I released a super rough first draft of an original novel I’ve been writing for about three years, How It Falls Apart. One of the reasons I haven’t finished it is mostly that my free writing time goes to my fanfiction, but it’s on my list of things I want to finish after I graduate. I’m trying to commit to some sort of content being posted there once a month just to thank everyone who keeps the lights on at Crimson Glass, because Patreon is how I pay for my hosting and GH DVDs.

Something else I can probably do that won’t require a lot of time are more articles for my Fanfiction 101 series. I can write one of those in about 20-30 minutes and I can talk about planning and writing any story you guys want. If you’re interested, please check out what I’ve already written and leave a comment.

I’m sure there are some of y’all thinking — if you have time for editing and writing about writing, why can’t you put some of that energy into actually writing? And I get you. I really do.  The thing is that I am putting energy into writing but writing Mad World, Book 2 is emotionally draining and it requires my entire attention. I need to get myself into the moment and just start writing because what I have planned requires my all of my energy and inspiration. Right now, I can’t do that as often as I’d like.

Rest assured, when I get done school in mid-May, Book 2 is getting all of my attention. It’s my plan to release two novels this year — one in August and another in the fall. I don’t know what that second book is going to be — maybe Counting Stars. I’m not sure yet, but Book 2 is coming in August, maybe late July if I can get some real momentum going in May and June. It’s possible and there are already seven chapters written, so I got that on my side.

But I don’t want to disappear for months, and without the energy to write creatively, I’m working on things I can do for you guys that are interesting. So give me some feedback — do you want me to finish off Fiction Graveyard? Write more content for Fanfiction 101? Write more at my personal blog? I need an outlet away from research and school, so I’m happy to do more. I just don’t know exactly what you might be interested in.

I’m going to sign off before this turns into a book 😉 I’ll be out of town next week from March 3-9 doing research in Maryland for my paper, so I won’t really be on Twitter as much (I think, I shouldn’t be anyway). So leave comments here or send me a DM on Twitter if you need anything 😉

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Hey! *waves* Checking in. I feel so much better since my last post. I went back to the doctors and got loaded with up more meds, including antibiotics and I’ve felt better in the last four days than in the last two months. I’ve been playing catch up all week with classwork, but I wanted to keep my brain and muse going so I started a small mini project.

I reorganized the Coming Soon page by dividing it into writing categories (Draft, Plot Sketch, Development, and Idea Stage) and then writing cover copies for each project. The cover copy would basically be what you might read on the back cover should you get the novel in paperback. I’ve written ten cover copies to cover ten of my fourteen projects. (Yeah, I’m not sure when that happened, ha).

So if you’re interested in seeing more details about upcoming projects and learning what order they’re probably going to be written (Drafting & Plot Sketches are more likely to come first), then go on over and check them out.

I need a few more days to get completely caught up and back on track before I start adding writing back into my regular routine, so let’s hope my health holds and I can get back to business 🙂

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Hey! This is just a brief check in to let you guys to know what you might expect to see in February and March. I had hoped to be able to do more writing over the last few weeks, but of course, I got smacked with being sick right before I went back to school. This means I’m starting my last semester of graduate school already trying to play catch up.

I went back to the doctor today because I was eighteen days into some of the worst chest congestion I’ve had in a few years. It’s some sort of upper respiratory infection and I’m on my second round of medicine, this time with an antibiotic that I’m hoping will clear it up so I can get back into the swing of things. If this doesn’t do it, I need to go see a specialist.

This semester is going to be incredibly time-consuming. I have two graduate classes, one of which is requiring me to write and research a 35 page article and another looking for a 15 page research paper. I have an online class to get my ELA teaching certificate and that’s always a bunch of busy work. And on top of that, I have to prepare for my oral examination so I can graduate in May. This is basically me getting assigned questions from three of my former professors that require me to do a bunch of re-reading and analysis so I can go in and have a long discussion with them. It’s like defending your thesis without writing the thesis, if that makes sense.

All of that is to say that it’s obvious that my writing cannot be a priority this semester. It’s in my top 5 things that are important to me, but right now, it’s Number 5 after my health, my family, my education, and my job. I really really want to write some short stories and flash fiction to keep some updates going but I refuse to make any specific promises.

I love you guys and I promise you — this is the last semester of my education and without that, 85% of my schedule gets cleared. It’s going to be completely different after the first week of May. I just have to put my head down and keep at it.

First step, getting healthy again so I can put all of my effort into graduation!

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