Monthly Archives: August 2020

August 7, 2020

This entry is part 16 of 20 in the Flash Fiction: Desperate Measures

Written in 20 minutes. No time for rereads.

“Let’s go to the hospital,” Jason told Drew and Elizabeth as the ambulance pulled out of the parking lot of the motel. “When Spinelli wakes up—”

Elizabeth walked to the passenger side of the SUV and nearly pulled open the door before she saw the phone laying on the ground.

She knew that phone case, of course, because Cameron had begged for it for weeks and she’d reluctantly bought it—why a teenager needed something plastic that cost seventy-five dollars—

“That’s Cameron’s phone.”

In front of her, at the passenger door, Drew touched her arm. “Elizabeth—”

“Cameron—” She picked up the phone—the screen was smashed. “Oh my God—was he in the car?”

“No, we left him in the apartment—” Drew began as Jason joined them. Elizabeth frantically shook her head.

“No, no! He had his phone in the apartment, he loves this stupid thing—he can’t breathe without it—”

“Cameron!” she screamed, turning towards the woods. “Cameron!” She saw a sneaker at the edge of the brush—Cameron’s sneaker—another stupid purchase he’d just had to have—

Elizabeth started to run—

“Get Chase!” Jason snapped at Drew as he took off after her. He had longer legs — it should have been easy to catch up with her but Elizabeth had a brief head start and the adrenaline of a mother whose child was in danger—

Cameron loved that phone—he’d never let anything happen to it—

Elizabeth crashed through the woods, screaming Cameron’s name, not even blinking as branches whipped past her. She stumbled over a root, hit the ground on her knees, wincing before shoving herself back to her feet and taking off again.

“Cameron!”

She stumbled into a clearing—her fall had allowed Jason and Drew to catch up—

Sam stood in the small area, a gun shoved under Cameron’s chin—it was almost laughable—Cameron had shot up in the last two years and was nearly a head taller than Sam—

But with one arm around Cameron’s neck, the other at the trigger — Sam had all the power and she knew it. She must have heard Elizabeth screaming after Cameron in the woods—had stopped—

Or had planned it.

“Sam, what the hell are you doing?” Drew demanded. “What’s going on?”

“Sam—put down the gun,” Jason told her. He edged closer to her. “We can talk about this—”

“Talk about what?” Sam snarled. She lifted her chin. “This is fair. A son for a son! You killed mine, I’m taking yours!”

“That doesn’t—” Drew shook his head, looked at Jason and Elizabeth blankly. “Danny’s alive—”

“Not anymore! Julian won’t donate again! You heard him!” she screamed. “He refused—”

“That—that was a misunderstanding—”

“How is that my mother’s fault?” Cameron choked out. “Let me go, you crazy bitch—”

“Cameron,” Jason snapped. “Don’t talk—”

“Why? No one is asking any questions that make fucking sense—” Cameron broke off as Sam shoved the barrel into his throat.

“I would never hurt Danny. Do you want to test Jake?” Elizabekth asked, her hands up, her voice quiet. “Did you think I wouldn’t—”

Sam laughed, a bitter long, dark sound that caused chills to dance down Elizabeth’s spine. “Jake won’t help. Nothing will help—Jason’s family didn’t match five years ago. Do you know why?”

“It’s—” Jason looked at Drew, but Drew shook his head. He hadn’t been around during Danny’s cancer the first time. He looked at Elizabeth who just frowned. “It’s one of those things—”

“That’s what we thought then—but I wanted to test again—I wanted to test Jake—” Sam’s voice broke. “I found a hairbrush he left when he was t here—a-and it didn’t match—”

Elizabeth’s heart sank as she and Jason traded a stunned glance. “Jason’s not—but—the results—”

“You think I’d get that lucky?” Sam snarled. “You think I didn’t think that? I tested Jason. Jason isn’t Danny’s father!” she shrieked.

Elizabeth sucked in a startled gasp, her hands flying to her mouth. “Oh my God. Oh my God—”

“Wait, what—” Cameron’s eyes darted back and forth. “What’s going on—”

“I knew it was a lie—I always knew it was a lie,” Sam retorted. “You all swallowed it, but I always knew he raped me—”

“Sam—” Drew edged closer to her. “Please. Let Cameron go. We’ll figure this out—”

“No! Franco matched! Franco matched! And he refused to help me! He refused! And I thought well I’ll make him, I’ll make him help me! I’ll—I’ll follow him, and I’ll kidnap him or I’ll shoot him—I will make him help me!” Sam screamed.

“But you killed him instead,” Drew said quietly. “You didn’t mean for him to die.”

“I followed him to her house. I knew you were weak,” Sam snarled at Elizabeth who just stared at him. “I waited for him to leave your room—but he didn’t—you made the boys leave—I knocked you out so I could get to him but—”

Her voice trembled. “Franco caught me, and I had to kill him, and it’s your fault—I couldn’t get him out—I had to kill him and now my baby is going to die—” Her fingers trembled. “I had to kill him—if you hadn’t let him—if you hadn’t—”

“He came there to attack me.” Elizabeth swallowed hard. “To force me to take him back. I wouldn’t—I would have helped you,” she said softly. “If you’d told me, Sam. I still can. We can—there are other people we can look for—please, don’t take my baby from me. I can help you—”

“Please, Sam—” Jason locked eyes with Cameron’s terrfied blue ones. “Just let him go—they’ll udnerstand what you did—”

“You protected a rapist all these years!” Sam raged. “It’s your fault! You can’t get away with it!”

“Then shoot me—kill me—” Elizabeth pressed her hands to her chest. “Take your revenge on me, Sam. Not Cameron. He never did anything to you—”

“Mom—no—”

“I’m the one you hate. Who you’ve always hated. Take me, not him—”

Sam’s eyes were wild as she shoved Cameron to the ground, aimed the gun at Elizabeth, and pulled the trigger.

August 6, 2020

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.

 

 

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.

This entry is part 11 of 16 in the Flash Fiction: Darkest Before the Dawn

Written in 20 minutes. No time for rereads.

Spinelli knocked lightly on the side of Ellie Trout’s work station, and his girlfriend turned to flash a bright and happy smile at him. “Spinelli!”

“Hey. Hope you don’t mind me dropping by.” He couldn’t quite get past how happy she looked to see him. It was still very strange to him that Ellie liked him, but he wasn’t complaining.

“No problem. On the phone you said it was, like, important, and that it had to be during Brad’s break—so…?” Ellie looked at him expectantly.

Spinelli winced, then sat on the spare tool in her cubicle. “Listen, here’s the deal. I have a friend—who is not a drama queen and dumb about this kind of thing—she is pretty sure Brad is acting very weird around her and it started when he ran a DNA test for her.”

Ellie furrowed her brow. “A DNA test? Those are pretty standard. Why would Brad be weird about it? Other than the fact that he is a major league tool,” she muttered darkly. “I hate him.”

“Duly noted. Uh, well, it turns out that my friend—who works here, making it, like, totally above board and all that good stuff—ran this test for a friend of mine—”

“Spinelli.” Ellie rolled her eyes. “Can you just bottom line it for me? You think Brad screwed up a test. You want me to run it again?”

“Well, that’s the other question I have — is it possible he just—left the original tests in the computer or something and just gave my friend the paper results?”

“Uh…” Ellie frowned. “I don’t know. Electronic results go into the database. Did she look them in there?”

“Yeah—they matched the paper, but you guys have different databases down here and I know—”

“Oh—you mean, like when we literally ran the test matching the sequence—can I pull up those results?” Ellie turned back to her terminal. “Yeah, probably. What’s the patient name?”

“I don’t know. I just have the file number.” He slid it across the table to her. “My friend ran it through the standard system, but, um, I think maybe the actual names weren’t attached to the file.”

“Well, we’ll see—” Ellie tapped a few keys. “Man, I’d love to nail Brad for something. He’s just a dink. He was supposed to be laid off, but noooo, Tracy Quartermaine just had to donate enough money—”

She turned back to him. “Okay, so what I have here is the original sequencer. Looks like he ran a marker test on a—four month old male? Does that sound right—”

“Yeah—”

“He ran those markers against three people—” Ellie squinted at the screen. “Two sets of male DNA and one set of female—”

“Two sets of male—” Spinelli straightened his shoulders. “Are there names?”

“Nope. Initials though. J, D, S, and F. Weird. We usually use numbers. I wonder why he did it like this—I mean, every tech has their own thing and it usually doesn’t matter because it’s our internal system but—”

“Ellie,” Spinelli said with a bit of impatience. “What were the original results?”

“Oh, right! Sorry—so, it looks like D is the son of S and F. Does—does that help?” She looked at him. “I mean—”

“Wait—” Spinelli frowned. “He ran a maternal and paternal DNA marker test? How is that possible? Those two male DNAs should be related—”

“Oh, nope. No one is related to anyone—except, S and F. To D.” Ellie pursed her lips. “Is there a point where I get to know names?”

“Uh…maybe. Can you print that out for me? I need to go, um, deal with this.”

——

Jason rocked back on his heels and studied Sam, uncomfortable to have been caught shopping for Elizabeth’s Christmas present. “No, I, uh, just don’t know what—” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Did you need anything?”

“No. No. I just—” Sam bit her lip. “I felt bad about the last time we talked. At Kelly’s, before Halloween.” She folded her arms. “I had no right to ask you that question. We’re—you know, we signed the papers and everything. I just—”

She looked at the lineoleum tile. “I don’t know. I know you saw me that day with John, and you didn’t say anything about it. And maybe I was mad. Because you hated me spending time with him before and now it’s like it doesn’t matter—”

“I didn’t like it before,” Jason said carefully, “because I knew you were telling him things we should have been handling together. I was angry because I knew I wasn’t treating you well. That I wasn’t there for you. I hated him for being able to help when I couldn’t.”

“Oh.” Sam met his eyes. “Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Um, you know, that’s part of the reason I don’t like Elizabeth. Like—she always seem to get you and—it’s not that I didn’t—but it always took me longer, and that was—I hated it. And I hated her. Then I hated you, and it just—” She exhaled on a huff of air. “It twisted everything inside, and I don’t know if we ever fixed it.”

“Sam—”

“And none of it really matters now,” she continued, “because we are divorced, and I don’t know, I think maybe it’s for the best?” Her voice trailed up—and he knew she was asking him the question.

Was he sorry their marriage was over?

“I’m sorry that I hurt you,” he said after a moment. “That we hurt each other. Back then, a year ago, a few months ago. But yeah, I think it’s for the best. The divorce.”

Sam did a slight double take, and he thought maybe—maybe she’d been hoping for something else.

But he was…happy now. Even if he didn’t know what to buy Elizabeth for Christmas, he’d been happy these last few weeks since Halloween, since the day she’d declared herself the Queen of Regrets and offered him the position of king.

He didn’t want to go back. Didn’t see a reason to.

“I’m dating John,” Sam told him. “I just—I thought you should know.”

“I hope you’re happy,” Jason told her. “That’s all I want.”

“Well, then you’re a better person than me,” Sam confessed. “Because I don’t think I’m ready to wish you the same. Not with her. Maybe one day.”

She walked away, leaving Jason at the jewelry counter. He’d promised to tell the truth and he wasn’t sorry for it. He just wish the truth didn’t always seem to hurt someone.

August 5, 2020

Your Update Link: Whatever It Takes – Part 14

Another day, another flash fiction for you. I just sat down to look at my calendar of Flash Fictions, and it looks like Whatever It Takes will wrap up next Wednesday — only two more parts! It’ll go into revisions as well. Then Darkest Before the Dawn and Desperate Measures will wrap up the week after — all four series will be completed on August 22. I’m going to take a vacation, reset, and work through revision ideas. Then I’ll be back with the sequel series to Darkest Before the Dawn in September. I should know the schedule by then as well.

Yesterday, I managed to finish merging the Ficlets onto the temporary Alternate History page, and all that honestly means is I put them all onto the table in chronological order. It’s honestly the easiest part of the whole project, LOL. Next, I have to write all the copy (summaries and details), THEN I have to do the hard work of moving the stories into that category, creating graphics, etc. But hey! This is also an important step.

Today, I’m going to be spending all day writing Mad World. I was having some tiny issues with the end of the story — I knew exactly how it should end, but sometimes it’s hard to put characters into situations without them doing absolutely stupid things, LOL. And I try really hard to keep my characters from being dumb. So I was glaring at my screen yesterday, then Ang came along to help me fix it. So today and tomorrow, I’m finishing up the draft. Then I’m taking Friday and Saturday off from Mad World — and I’ll be reading the draft on Sunday. On Monday, we’ll go into revisions. This should be interesting.

See you guys tomorrow for the next part of Darkest Before the Dawn!

This entry is part 14 of 16 in the Flash Fiction: Whatever It Takes

Written in 20 minutes. No time for typos.

“There is no way in hell I’m letting you meet with him alone,” Jason snapped the second Elizabeth returned from the hallway.

When Ric had made his demand to meet her, Jason had said no—and she’d left the room to make the arrangements. She wanted her daughter back and didn’t want anyone getting in her way.

“Well, since I didn’t ask for your permission,” Elizabeth retorted, with a flash of irritation, “I guess I won’t have to worry about it. You need to call Spinelli and find Sam. If she doesn’t still have Lily, then she’ll know where she is. Find her. I’ll distract Ric—”

“Elizabeth,” Steven said with a wince as Jason glared at his sister. “That might not be the best thing to do. I think we’re better off tracking Sam as a team—”

“No one in this room gets to tell me how to do anything,” Elizabeth said, stabbing a finger at the three of them. “You—” She pointed at Jason. “Left me in the middle of the night six months ago without a word. And you—” At Steven “—have suspected my daughter was alive for how long? And Kelly—you were my friend—”

Elizabeth shook her head. “No. I’m done being a victim. I’m done being protected. My daughter is alive. She’s been stolen from us, my life has been destroyed. My husband has been shot and blow up twice, my brother was nearly killed—” She squared her shoulders. “I’m not doing this anymore, do you understand?”

Jason exhaled slowly, then nodded. “You’re taking a weapon. I know you don’t like guns—”

“But you taught me how to use one,” she finished. “I’m sure you can find one I can handle in the next hour. And while you’re doing that, I want you to get Spinelli to track down Sam. Call Justus. Have him on standby. If I have to shoot Ric, I don’t intend to go to jail.”

—

Half an hour later, Damien Spinelli arrived at the safe house with a weapons box and a computer. He looked skeptical about the plan but even he knew that look in Elizabeth’s eye. He handed over the box, sat down, and started to track down Sonny’s former mistress.

Jason unlocked the box and withdrew the smaller handgun he’d bought for Elizabeth after she’d left Ric. “When was the last time you were at the range?” he asked her.

“After you left, Steven took me to recertify my license,” she told him. She took the gun from him, then took the bullets from the box he handed her and expertly loaded it. “He thought I might need to remember how to protect myself.”

“I don’t like this,” Jason told her. She glared at him, but he took a deep breath. “But you’re right. I’ve spent a lot of the last year not telling you anything. Trying not to hurt you. And that’s all that’s happened. I never—” He hesitated. “I never thought there was a chance Lily was alive. I never would have left—”

“I know that.” Their eyes met, held. “I can’t think past the next few hours, Jason. Whatever happens, after today—I don’t know. I just want my daughter back and I want to make sure Ric Lansing can’t ever hurt me or anyone I love again.”

“All right. Let’s go take a few practice shots.”

—

Elizabeth hadn’t wanted to learn how to use a gun, but Jason had insisted. If he wasn’t going to be allowed to kill Ric, he wanted to make sure she could protect herself. In fact, the first time he’d kissed her had been at the gun range, she remembered fondly as she stepped onto the elevator at Harborview Towers and pressed the button for the penthouse level.

She’d been a terrible shot at the first lesson, but the fear and worry and anxiety had somehow disappeared the moment she aimed the gun and pointed it at the target. Steven hadn’t wanted her to learn. Patrick had scoffed. All the men in her life had simply told her no — she couldn’t.

But Jason had given her that security back and taught her how to protect herself. Had bought her a gun she could handle and made sure she knew how to use it.

She would take that with her today because today —

Today was the last time Ric Lansing was ever going to call the shots.

“Mrs. Morgan—” Max blinked when she stepped off the elevator. His face was ashen as he straightened from his perch by the door. “I thought you’d gone back to Boston—”

“I’m here to see Ric. Is there any news about Sonny?” she asked quietly, knowing how devoted Max had been to Sonny and Carly, wondering how this had happened under his watch.

“No, no. No news. Ric’s inside.” Max’s mouth twisted as he said the name. Ric had wanted all the power his brother had wielded, but had never stopped to consider that power only lasted as long as you could control it.

If Elizabeth intended to let Ric live after today, she wondered how long it would be before someone finished him off.

He shoved the door open. “Miss Webber’s here,” Max said.

“Ah, Elizabeth. Close the door, Max,” Ric told the guard as Elizabeth walked in. He sauntered towards her, a tumbler of bourbon in his hand.

“You always wanted Sonny’s life,” Elizabeth murmured. She folded her arms, arched a brow. “Now I guess you have it.”

“I worked harder for it than he did,” Ric said flatly. “Now, we’re here to make a deal—”

“We’re not actually.” Elizabeth lifted her chin. “You stole my daughter from me—”

“I was trying to protect her from Sonny and Carly,” Ric cut in.

“Oh? I must have been mistaken since Carly’s dead, Sonny very nearly is, and you’ve never given a damn about me,” Elizabeth retorted. “Stop pretending, Ric. It doesn’t work with me.”

“Elizabeth, you know I’ve always wanted the best for you—”

“I know who you are,” she told him. “And I have since the night you put those drugs into my champagne, drugged me until I couldn’t consent and raped me. The only reason you’re alive is because I didn’t let Jason kill you. You owe your life to me. Now I want to paid. Give me back my daughter and I might let you live.”

August 4, 2020

Your Update Link: Desperate Measures, Part 15

Hey! As I said yesterday, today’s Flash Fiction was delayed. I thought it would be due to the doctor’s appointment I had this morning, but the tropical storm decided that I wasn’t leaving the house, heh. The worst of the rain for my area with the flash floods would have been when I was supposed to be driving there and back, so I rescheduled. I still decided to wait until the worst of the rain and wind had cleared in case I had a power outage. We’re all good here now 🙂

Plugging along with Mad World. Can’t believe there are only three chapters left! Some of the early feedback from Patreons is starting to roll in, and I really appreciate all the ways they’re helping me sort out where stories and characters kind of get dropped. That’s one of the interesting things that happens when you write something with so many characters that is so big — you start getting really focused on the big things, and the little stuff gets dropped. Revisions will be weird, lol.

The first video in the Fool Me Twice vlog is dropping today — I’ve embedded it below with text highlights. On Friday, I’m making the next set of videos — a follow up to Mad World to kick off revisions, and a summary of discovery for this week. Let me know in advance if there’s anything you want to me talk about in those videos.

I’ll see you guys tomorrow!

 

 

 

  • this title is totally taken from the Sega Lion King video game. Every time you started the game, you’d get Timon’s voice saying “it starts” and, like, I died a lot so it’s embedded in my brain, lol.)
  • Also — I filmed a first version of this that ended up being a 16 min rant about how terrible the show did with this story.
  • How I start stories — I start with kind of premise. What am I doing? Why am writing this? What makes me want to rewrite this story?
  • Talking briefly about last year — I get more into last year’s problems in Video 4.
  • Learned a lot about my process that I’m going to apply this year.
  • Excited to write a story without a lot of trauma and sexual violence, soooo yay. Except Franco is in this one.
  • What is the premise. (I debate the plural of this word briefly).
  • I rewrite the show more than creating new universes. What story am I rewriting?
  • Two reasons I rewrite:
    • 1. I like the show’s version, but they zigged instead of zagged. What if they’d zagged? (this relates to the story I wrote with Broken Girl. Love the 2006 Liason reconnection, but wanted a different spin centering on Liz not Lucky.
    • 2.  The show’s version was garbage. See: Mad World. And Fool Me Twice is also this. LOL.
  • Biggest problem with the show is that they didn’t think through the implications of the memory swap, didn’t use all the history they couldn’t have, Oscar and Kim didn’t work in practice because they had no emotional connection to Drew because he didn’t know them. That would have changed Drew’s story a lot. How to fix Oscar.
  • Franco got centered for no reason that made sense – if you want that, let’s do something interesting with it that builds on history.
  • My idea is to take advantage of all the ways to deepen the story and create long-term consequences. A big miss was the Ava situation — could have given us a way to deal with AJ and Morgan again and bring up Sonny/Carly’s sins.
  • Sam got screwed out of a whole-ass emotional journey and all of those characters deserved more.
  • Also want to play with Drew/Liz friendship.
  • I want the show to call Sonny/Carly out on their hypocrisy more.
  • Using the same beats the show did but changing the bad guy and spending more time with emotional beats and reconnections.
  • Mini-rant about GH because none of the stories have consequences. I’m thinking of 90s – Jason’s lost of memories in 1996 like Franco in 2019 — but Franco got his back and nothing changed. Jason didn’t — everything changed. Serial killer story changed nothing.
  • Books 1 and 2 mostly plotted out — Book 3 depends on Books 1 and 2.
  • this first video rambles a bit because it’s really kind of my thinking through ideas of a story and all the things I’d like to do.
  • Really want to focus on Jason/Drew relationship, particularly building a character for Drew.
  • Then I have brief recap of everything that we’ve taked about that gets moved into the next step of the process with shade thrown at the useless of Peter.

This entry is part 15 of 20 in the Flash Fiction: Desperate Measures

Written in 20 minutes. No time for typos.

“Damn it,” Chase swore. He looked at Jason. “Do you have that app? Can you track Spinelli’s phone—”

Jason frowned at him, then looked down at the phone. “Uh, no—”

“Yeah, you do.” Cameron snagged the phone from him, his fingers trembling as he navigated the touch screen. “All Apple phone users have it. Didn’t Spinelli set up your phone when you came back?”

He showed the Find Friends app screen to him — “Look, he linked your phone with his.”

“Where does the phone say he is?” Chase demanded, clearly itching to grab the phone. “Where?”

“I don’t know—”

Jason squinted at the screen and then zoomed in— “The only place he might be is that motel—” He looked at Drew, knowing the shared the memory. “Where Danny was born.”

“Okay, okay. What’s the name of that motel?” Chase demanded. “What’s the address?” When Drew reeled off the information, the cop pulled out his own phone and started to cal it in. “Okay, you stay here, and I’ll handle this—”

“The hell we will—” Drew snarled but Chase was already out the door, slamming the door behind him.

“Give him five minutes to get out of the building,” Jason said flatly to Drew. “Then we’ll go. He can’t stop us if he doesn’t know we’re on our way. I’m not—” He looked at Elizabeth and Cameron. “We’ll call you when we know—”

“Not a chance in hell—”

“I don’t want to argue with you about this,” Jason told her. He stalked over to a cabinet, unlocked it with his keys and drew out a set of boxes. He slid a gun into the back of his jeans, looked at Drew. “You want to carry?”

“Uh—” Drew scratched his temple. “Yeah. Sure—” He looked at Elizabeth. “Look, I know you can handle yourself, but you’ve been through enough—”

“How do we know you won’t find Sam and get her out of the country?” Cameron demanded. “Sam needs to get arrested so Mom is exonerated—”

“I get why you don’t trust me—” Drew flinched when Cameron rolled his eyes. “I just want to figure out what set this off.” He looked at Elizabeth. “I know there’s bad blood, I know that—but this is not right. You know that. Something had to have happened—”

Elizabeth frowned. “Last year—when she got sick—she went after Sonny. You think she’s going after me and Franco—”

“I think,” Drew said, with a sigh, “that it’s also because of Danny.” He took the gun from Jason, tucked it behind his back. “We found out before she took off that his cancer was back. I thought she was just having trouble handling it, you know? But then she didn’t contact me. Even to check on Danny.”

“That’s no excuse—” Cameron began but Elizabeth held up a hand.

“That might be true. But I’m still going with you.”

“No, you’re not.” Jason pulled open the door. “Let’s go, Drew.”

Elizabeth scowled and charged after the brothers as they left the apartment. A moment later, Cameron went after them.

He stayed out of their sight, taking the service stairs when they took the elevator. He didn’t know why either Jason or Drew was bothering to argue with his mother. He knew that look on her face —

He reached the street before they did, and found Jason’s SUV parked out front. He quickly went to the other side of the car—then heard their voices still arguing as the trio approached the car.

Cameron waited for the snick of the car lock, silently opened the door, climbed into the back seat—then into the empty space in the back of the car. He sat against the seats, holding in his breath, hoping they’d been distracted arguing.

“You haven’t won an argument with me in twenty years,” he heard Elizabeth snap when the door opened and she slid into the back seat. “I don’t know you even tried it today.”

Cameron sighed in relief as he heard the engine switch on — he’d managed to get in without being detected.

——

“Can you at least wait at the SUV?” Drew asked as they pulled into the motel parking lot. He frowned at the sight of ambulances and police cars. They parked near the entrance, the side of the motel that looked over the woods.

“Why are you still arguing?” Jason asked Drew. He turned off the car, looked at Elizabeth. “Stay behind us.”

“That I can do since you wouldn’t give me a gun,” Elizabeth muttered. SHe climbed out of the car, and Chase was already striding towards them, his face flushed with irritation.

“Can’t you just stay in one place?” he demanded of them. “She’s already gone—”

“What about Spinelli?” Jason asked.

“He’s being loaded into the ambulance now—” Chase gestured in that direction. “Why don’t you head over to the hospital?” He stalked away.

“Maybe she’s still in the area,” Drew suggested.

In the SUV, Cameron slid out of the back seat, silently opening the door, grimacing as he realized that he’d have to show himself to his mother — he hadn’t really thought out this part of the plan —

“Don’t move—” Sam’s voice was hot in his ear, behind him, something hard shoved into his back. “Come with me.”

“Listen — Sam —”

“Or I’ll kill her right here and I don’t care if I get caught.”

August 3, 2020

Your Update Link: Darkest Before the Dawn, Part 10

Happy Monday! Feeling great today — woke up on time and getting everything done on schedule. It’s really satisfying to be on top of things again and resetting realistic expectations. I’m also dipping my toes into the CG Facelist project as well again. I updated the Recent Updates page with news from July 21-through Saturday. Because it’s all Flash Fiction, I didn’t spend a lot of time with links because you can find all the Flash Fiction on the same page. I just linked that at the top. I’m hoping to get back into the habit of updating that more often.

I also continued the Alternate History redesign. I decided the best way forward was to finish planning the reoganization by writing the new copy for the page and merging all relevant stories onto that page. Then, when I start to update the individual stories, I can take my time, work on the graphics, and get it all done faster and more efficiently. You can view progress on the Working AH page I set up to avoid any issues on the current AH page. I’m finished writing the descriptions through 2005, but tomorrow I want to merge Series & Ficlet titles so that it’s all up to date.

In writing news, I spent the weekend working on finishing Mad World’s first draft and dipping into Fool Me Twice’s discovery draft. I have four chapters left to write, putting me on target to finish on Thursday. Chapters 51-82 have been posted on Patreon for $3 and above tiers. The last eight chapters and epilogues should be up by Friday.  Around 600 pages have been made available — honestly not sure how long the last eight chapters will be. This thing is a beast, LOL.

I’m only spending about 20 minutes a day right now on the FMT discovery, but I’m excited to start planning it with the changes I’ve been working on. The first episode of my FMT vlog will be posted tomorrow. I’ll embed it and add text highlights.

The last thing I want to say for today is that tomorrow’s Flash Fiction update will be up in the afternoon. I have a doctor’s appointment at 8:45 AM, and I won’t be back by 10 AM because the office is almost a half hour away and wait time for this place has been known to last almost an hour, lol. So I’ll get the update up when it’s ready.

This entry is part 10 of 16 in the Flash Fiction: Darkest Before the Dawn

Written in 20 minutes. No time for edits or typos.

Elizabeth nervously played with the straw on her iced tea, then looked up with relief when Spinelli finally came in through Kelly’s door. He waved, then weaved through the tables to join her in the corner.

“Trying to be incognito?” he asked. “This must be really top secret.”

“Not top secret—” Elizabeth waited as a waitress came over and Spinelli gave her a drink order. When they were alone again, she continued, “It’s more that I just don’t want anyone to hear. I might be wrong—” She wanted to be wrong. Oh, man, so much. “It’s just…something is so weird and I can’t pretend that—”

“Back up.” Spinelli held up hand. “Whose results are we talking about?” He hesitated. “This isn’t, like, before, right? With Aiden? Or Jake? Like what level are we talking about?”

“A few months ago, Jason was talking with Tea Delgado about her son.” Elizabeth sighed. “This was, um, back in early August, I think. Before the whole water thing. And Tea mentioned that her son—you know, Victor?—he has this genetic illness. An illness that is…common in the Cassadine family.”

She saw the moment Spinelli knew what she was referring to. “Oh. Damn. You don’t mean—”

“Jason thought it was strange. And there were a few other things—namely, that Todd Manning was involved—that it all kind of happened in the same area—that Sam kind of…had a rough time—” Elizabeth sighed. “Anyway—he didn’t get a chance to do anything with his suspicions because—”

“The world went insane for a while?” Spinelli finished. “Yeah, okay. So how’d you get involved?”

“Well, he told me. In the hospital. After Ewen—” She bit her lip. “And I—I know how much he wanted it to be true. He blames himself.”

“Stone Cold does like to make everything his fault,” Spinelli said with shrug. “It’s one of his fatal flaws. You ran the test?”

“I don’t have the ability to just—” She gestured, then broke off when the waitress brought his drink. “I can’t just get a blood test run on my own. Patrick did me a favor, and it went through the system like a normal test. It wasn’t even a full DNA test — just one looking for enough markers. Those are faster.”

“Right, right. Then what?”

“Brad Cooper brought back the results,” Elizabeth said. “He gave them to me, and I gave them to Jason. Unopened—” she added. “I had nothing—I wouldn’t—”

“Elizabeth.” Spinelli shook his head. “I know you. Even if you’d thought about it, you’d never go through with it. So—Jason was the first person to see the results?”

“Yeah, he said that we were wrong, and we just—we put it away.” She bit her lip. They’d put it away and continued on the path they’d already been traveling. Back to each other.

“So why are you suspicious now? What’s been going on?”

“Brad Cooper. He’s acting weird around me—running from me, just being—really shady.” Elizabeth made a face. “I didn’t really know him before the test—but I know—you’re dating that lab tech, right? Ellie?”

“Yeah. She could run the test for you again if I can’t find anything on the main frame—” Spinelli hesitated. “Wait—Brad Cooper? Ellie said something about him.”

“It’s what made me wonder about all of this,” Elizabeth continued. “Because I know Steven was talking to the head of the department — they were going to make cuts. Layoffs. And Brad had only been hired a few months ago. He would have been first in line.”

“But ELQ made a donation after the water crisis,” Spinelli said. “Oh. You think—”

“Tracy Quartermaine,” Elizabeth finished. “Who does not like Sam.”

“No, I, uh, remember vividly how much she does not like Sam.” Spinelli scratched his nose. “You think she found out? Why would she care? It’s not like it was his kid.”

Elizabeth looked at her iced tea, pushed it across the table. She didn’t want to say it outloud, didn’t want to admit that everything she had right now was built on a foundation that was about to crumble.

Because if she was right, Jason was going to be able to give Sam back the child she’d lost—the loss he blamed himself for. And Sam would forgive him.

“Elizabeth.”

She looked up to meet Spinelli’s kind eyes. “You’re doing the right thing,” he said. “And this is how it went down, you’re going to do something really great for Sam. I wish I could do the same for you. I wish I could bring Jake back.”

“Me, too.” She sighed. “I think Tracy knew what we all knew—if Jason had been the reason Sam got her son back—”

“The divorce might not have been finalized.” Spinelli grimaced. “You don’t think that’s still on the table, do you?”

“I think,” Elizabeth said carefully, “that when this happened three months ago, that was a definite possibility. I don’t know about now. I can’t think that far ahead.”

“Okay.” And gratefully, Spinelli did not push her. “Well, I’ve got some good news for you,” he told her. “Ellie hates Brad, so I don’t even need to do anything nefarious. I can just…ask her to look up the test probably, and I can tell from there if it was messed with. Can you get me another set of samples for her to test?”

“I don’t know. That might be harder,” she admitted. “But let’s start with the original test result and see what comes up.”

—

Jason did not like shopping, and normally asked Carly to pick up something he needed. He’d give her a list and his credit card and that would be the end of it.

But he knew if he asked Carly to help him shop for Elizabeth and the boys for Christmas, he’d have to listen to her complain. Asking Michael meant he might tell his mother—

He just wasn’t in the mood.

So he stood at the jewelry counter in Wyndham’s, staring at the tray of necklaces, wondering why it was so hard to pick something out for Elizabeth after all the years they’d known each other.

“She’s not really a necklace person, is she?”

Jason turned around to find Sam standing behind him, a hesitant smile on her face.

August 1, 2020

Your update link: Whatever It Takes, Part 13

Hey! I posted earlier with the monthly Site & Status update so apologizes for double posting today. As I said in that post, I’ve got a few things planned for the channel this month — all the videos for the first two weeks are filmed, edited, uploaded, AND scheduled. I mean, look at that productivity. Basically, I have two videos up today — the Site & Story status, a video about writing Mad World, and on Tues & Thurs over the next two weeks, deep dives into working on Fool Me Twice and its discovery process.

I know I’ve had some people tell me they don’t have time to watch the videos (which I totally understand!) and would love transcriptions. I’d love to be able to get to that point as well, but since I don’t write scripts, it means I’d have to transcribe after the fact. I’m not saying no — I’m saying not right now. What will I try to do is post here at CG with some text highlights to help give you guys more context. The videos are really great for *me* working through my process, and began as a way for me to keep in communication with you guys, so I’m going to try to find a way to make them more useful to my community.

In other news, I released the first chunk of Mad World to my Patreons this morning. They got about 250 pages, which is chapters 51-65. Tomorrow, they’ll get chapters 66-82, and sometime next week, the rest of the story. I finished chapter 84 yesterday and will be working on 85 today. That puts me at about August 6 to finish up (as I had hoped). That draft is available to the $3 and above tiers.

 

Today’s other video is Writing Mad World. It’s about 19 minutes, and I’m embedding it below with text highlights below. Let me know if the text highlights help!

  • Writing Book 3 has been a struggle in a lot of ways but that I’m overall happy with it and I’m learning from this writing process.
  • I need to think about why I write a story (what am I actually trying to say, why am I bothering?)
  • What draws me to write the characters I write the most.
  • Why Mad World has been a unique experience — the creation of a world that I get to continue. By book 3, I’m not rewriting a story anymore, I’m living in the world that I created.
  • Brief rant about why I’ve never liked Ric.
  • Writing Liason as a public couple is interesting — we never got to see that on the show.
  • Books 1 and 2 were just easier to write because of the story in my head.
  • Why fanfiction can be just as challenging as writing original fiction. Characters who feel like the ones you watch while living and reacting in a story that I’ve created.
  • Mad World: The wrong starting point. The time jump idea was not a good idea, lol, and it’s messing with me. I get into the weeds a bit on why.
  • Learning to respect feelings about why something isn’t working: is it the material or is it the energy I’m bringing to it.
  • Wrong starting point really wasn’t giving Liz or Carly the space to confront, deal, AND resolve the trauma. It needed to breathe.
  • Adding extra 15 chapters to the beginning.
  • If I know things need to be added, do I do it now even it means going out of order or waiting for revisions?
  • Why adding 15 chapters in the beginning, with a middle 17 chapters that used to be the beginning means some challenges in the revisions.
  • Starting it in the wrong place was a huge mistake and it’s definitely a lesson I’m going to be taking into FMT — I get into that in a video I made for that story.
  • Building stamina from writing 1k to 3k to 6-8k a day.
  • Schedule in July — time lost.
  • Getting into again — how I’m taking the lessons in writing Mad World to apply to the next project. I talk for a hot minute about the whole trilogy process and how starting points have always been an issue.
  • Plans to check in more during revisions.