Flash Fiction: Hits Different – Part 12

I go back to work next Wednesday, so I’ll probably update Flash twice more on Friday & Monday with Mad World Updates scheduled on Thursday, Saturday, Monday and Tuesday, which would mean updates every day for the next week before going back to weekly updates on Wednesdays.  I hope you’re enjoying Mad World and the Flash Fiction 🙂

Update Link: Hits Different – Part 11

In Case You Missed It: Mad World, Book 4.5: At Christmas Chapter 1 | Chapter 2

Hope everyone is having a good holiday week 🙂 I spent a little time today getting ahead of myself for the return to work next week so I can keep my nights free. The real hope is to get far enough ahead on break so that I can start taking the weekends off again, lol. I still spend Sat/Sun morning content prepping and grading. I’d like to eliminate at least one of those days.

See you tomorrow for another update of Flash Fiction at our regularly scheduled time!

 

Update Link: At Christmas – Chapter 2 | Start with Chapter 1

Feels so strange to be typing the subject line “Mad World” updated, lol. Blast from the past. I hope everyone had a great Christmas holiday! As always, in my family, we do the big celebration on Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day is spent with in-laws. I always spend it with the cat 😛 Sasha and I relaxed most of the day, binging Criminal Minds.

I probably won’t update this story again until Thursday. As I said, I’m writing this as I go which I haven’t done in YEARS, lol, and I only finished Part 3 today, so I want to get myself a bit more lead time. I’ll do some Flash Fiction updates on Tues/Wed.

Don’t forget if you read the chapter, to give me a quick thumbs up to let me know you were here 🙂 I know not everyone likes to reply, but it’s always good to see the readership numbers.  I know there are some readers that wouldn’t mind a proper Book 5 in this universe, but I don’t know if there’s a large demand for it.

The site had a lot of downtime yesterday — that was from my webhost, Dreamhost. It’s been an issue since they did some server changes since March, and I’m just hoping that it doesn’t happen again.  You can always find me on Twitter (@crimsonglass) so if the site has any downtime, check my status over there, and you’ll be able to find out if I’m alive.

See you tomorrow!

Update Link: Mad World, Book 4.5: At Christmas

Merry Christmas Eve to those of you who celebrate, and I hope everyone is having a great last week of the year. I always try to do something special for my readers this time of the year, but sometimes my schedule doesn’t allow for it.

I’m always reminded how incredibly lucky I am to be able to have what is basically a second career writing for our small, but fiercely loyal community. So many of the same readers’ names show up every update in the replies, and I’m so insanely aware of how rare it is to still have any kind of readership for a couple that hasn’t been together since December 2008, especially as the show’s ratings continue to fall. I started writing Liason fanfiction when I was freshly out of high school in 2002, recuperating from foot surgery. And almost 22 years later, through college, graduate school, a pandemic, and my first few years as a teacher, you guys have been here, and it’s meant a lot to me to have this place to come to.

In 2017, I started a semi-annual tradition of writing epilogues for some of my favorite stories, revisiting our characters during the holidays. I don’t always manage it, and it’s been gone for a few years, but I’m back this year with a special entry.

I wrote Mad World between 2017-2022 in a series of four books. I started writing in 2017 the story that would ultimately become Book 2, but I quickly realized to tell the story the way I wanted to, I needed to go back and rewrite the panic room, so I added Book 1. And then, well, as you know, the story kept expanding and the universe kept getting bigger until I had maybe half a million words, 115 chapters, and a world that I really loved spending time in.

I always planned to return to it with a few follow short stories (I hinted at Lila’s passing, but it was never written in the book), and I started working on a Christmas story last year. But it never came together because of my schedule at my last district. This year, I took another look at it, and well, here we are.

At Christmas is still in progress! I didn’t finish writing it yet, but I’m confident in my ability to complete it, so you’re getting sort of a mini-flash fiction type series. I have it planned and plotted, and I already went back and rewrote Parts 1 & 2 in some spaces. I’m expecting to write between 36,000 to 40,000 words in about six parts, and be done posting by January 1.

You should have semi-daily updates, except for Wednesday, when I plan to do flash fiction.

Previous Holiday Epilogues

• 2017: All I Want For Christmas, Second Epilogue
• 2018: Bittersweet, Second Epilogue
• 2019: The Best Thing, Epilogue
• 2020: The Next Best Thing (absorbs The Best Thing Epilogue & expands)

NOTE: As I was linking these, I realized that the plugin I used to power my graphics broke at some point and a lot of character and banner images are broken. I’ll fix them as I come across them.

Update Link: Hits Different – Part 10 | Start at Part 1

I decided none of us should have to wait a whole week to find out what happens after Jason and Elizabeth go on that bike ride (I’m especially curious because I didn’t know they were going to do that until he handed her the helmet!)

Like I said, no idea how often I’m going to update during break. I’m hoping to have more than just Flash updates next week, but we’ll see. Hope you enjoy and don’t forget to tell me what you think! Happy Holidays!

Update Link: Hits Different – Part 9

Look, I remembered this week! Only a day and a half of work left before winter break, and I am ready. My kiddos are driving me nuts, even the ones I like, lol. But tomorrow, I planned a pretty easy day and we have a half day with a special pep rally that takes most of the day on Friday, so at least there’s that. I swear, I’m just going to sleep for the first few days, lol.  Hope everyone is having a good week and that you’re ready for the holidays!

I don’t know yet if I’m going to update more often during the break like I usually do. I’m hoping to have something for you guys next week but a few things have to fall into place first. Either way, I’ll see you next Wednesday for more Flash!

Update Link: Hits Different – Part 8

Whoops! I completely forgot that I switched Flash Fiction to Wednesdays last night. In my defense, the whole week has dragged so hard that I’m not sure what day any day is. That’s that mid-December school blues. We’re all just trying to survive one more week until break.

I’ll be honest with you guys, last week’s update didn’t feel like my best work. (You guys are always too nice to say it, but I’m sure some of you thought so, too). I had a plan for the story and I changed it up mid-writing (which happens in Flash Fiction) so some of this is happening in ways I hadn’t thought about. I’m mostly writing my way through it, so last week felt like me trying to figure out exactly what was going on, lol. But I feel like I’m going to get back on track tonight.

Originally, I was going to have Liz and Jason work together longer (maybe a week or two) before he finds that letter — and then he’d go to the apartment, and they’d fight more, and he’d be more suspicious of her motives, but then I was setting that up and all of a sudden, I had Jason confronting her with the letter, and then I wrote that part with Jason’s POV and the idea that he’d be more receptive to his past if he was finding it out for himself, and I had to readjust on the fly.

Anyway, I’m working it out, and I appreciate your patience as I do 🙂 See you next week!

Update Link: Hits Different – Part 7

Well, let’s see how this works out, lol. Hope everyone is having a good week. Hard to believe it’s already Wednesday night. December’s going a lot faster than I expected. Updates on the main site are going to be a little slow for a while now that Signs of Life is done. It’s just Flash Fiction until sometime in March.

Hope you enjoy this update! See you next Wednesday!

Update Link: Hits Different – Part 6

Hello 🙂 Welcome to the last weekend update for Flash Fiction! With NaNoWriMo over, and having mostly established a nightly writing routine (I write every night starting around 7), I felt really comfortable moving it to a weeknight. Right now, it’s going to be on Wednesdays because that’s a pretty good night for me. I may be switching it up when we get into the baseball season in April and May, but I’m going to look at the Phillies schedule, and maybe we can just do it on off days, lol. We’ll worry about that then!

I’m not doing as much work at home this year, but when I do it, it’s almost always on the weekend, and I’m super quick and focused in the mornings so I really want to keep Sat & Sun mornings for that when I need to. Not working at home during the week has been really great, so there’s that. Also — when I’m sick (like now) my body does that survival mode thing where I get through M-F and crash on Saturdays, so then Sunday is even more important.

Anyway! I finished NaNoWriMo this week! I wrote 53k and finished 15 chapters, which is roughly half of the draft I planned for These Small Hours. I’m going to keep working on this during December, with a goal of completing by the end of the year. It took me a little while to find the characters’ voices (I haven’t written 2008 in, like, ever), but I feel good about where I ended up.

See you on Wednesday 🙂

Update Link: Signs of Life – Chapter 40 | Epilogue

Last chapter posted! Thanks so much joining me on this journey! It was a lot of fun to revisit this story and expand it after finishing the “first draft” during flash fiction. It really changed the scope of what I was willing to tackle in the flash fiction series, and I hope you guys enjoyed all the expanded content!

I’ll see you on Saturday for Flash Fiction!