Update Link: Watch Me Burn – Part 44

Well, a day late is better than skipping the update altogether, I guess. I suppose I’m just enjoying my last real weekend of summer vacation. I didn’t get to meet with my department chair last week, so I didn’t get the final word on what curriculum they’re going to use (which REALLY makes me hope they didn’t pick one, and I can just get them to use the program I’ve been using for two years, lol). But I’ll get that information this week, which means next weekend I’ll probably be planning, lol. Four days of staff development begins tomorrow, which includes a department meeting.

So I woke up late yesterday, and then I had my nephew’s birthday party — and the day got away from me.

In more interesting news, I’m putting together the theme for Signs of Life which I’m going to start reposting on Tuesday. I’m undecided on the color scheme, though, so if anyone wants to offer some feedback, check out the Practice Page and let me know. Non-Flash Fiction Updates go live at 7 AM because they are scheduled in advance.

Oh! And the next Flash Fiction series has been picked, thanks to those of you who posted in the poll. You guys voted Hits Different, a 1996 Alternate History/Universe hybrid story in which Jason wakes up after his accident to find out the Quartermaines have gone to extreme lengths to keep him under control, including divorcing the wife they never told him about.  That will be out in November.

Upcoming Posts This Week

• Tuesday: Signs of Life, Chapters 1-8 (Repost of Cleaned Up Chapters)
• Thursday: Signs of Life, Chapter 9
• Friday – Sunday: Flash Fiction – Watch Me Burn, Parts 45-47

 

Update Link: Watch Me Burn – Part 43

Other Links: Patreon Long Update | Poll: Pick Next Flash

Happy Friday! I posted at Patreon yesterday with a check in (public post) on how orientation went, what I expect my writing workload to look like in September, etc. There’s also a poll to pick the next Flash Fiction series that closes tonight at 11:59. It was posted on Monday for Patreon supporters, then opened on Wednesday for anyone who’s signed up on Patreon (including the free tier), and now I’m linking it here.

Watch Me Burn should wrap up in October if I don’t miss any updates or early November if I do, so I want to be prepped with the next series.

I’ll see tomorrow for another Flash Fiction Update! Don’t forget, we’re finishing up our summer schedule next weekend with a Friday-Sunday trio of updates before settling into the Saturday weekly update for Flash and Tues/Thurs updates for Signs of Life.

Update Link: Watch Me Burn – Part 42

Well, today is the unofficial last day of summer vacation for me. Tomorrow, I have orientation with my new district, and Wednesday is the day when I’m supposed to start reviewing my new curriculum and program, which means after that — I can start prepping for the first day of classes which is two weeks from tomorrow. Next week is Staff Development.  I have one more Monday off which is Labor Day, but I’m not committing myself to updating that day since I am planning to update September 1-3, which is that Fri-Sun.

The other piece of news I wanted to share today is that I’ve mostly figured out how to format in Adobe InDesign, but I’m having some issues getting converting the file to specific formats. If you’re interested in helping me test out of a file, check out this post on Patreon which has a test file to download. If you want, download it, test it on your computer or reader of your choice, then let me know what you used and how the file looked.

I’ll see you guys for the next update on Friday!

Update Link: Watch Me Burn – Part 41

Flash Fiction Schedule

It actually works out that I delayed until today — going forward, Saturday is going to be part of the update schedule. The Flash Fic schedule is going to be a little up and down for the next weeks as we close out August. Next week, I’ll be updating Monday, Friday, and Saturday. Then the week of August 28, I’ll be updating on that Labor Day Weekend — Friday through Monday. After that, it’s time to go back to school, and we’re doing one update a week. I know I keep talking about that, but I know that not everyone reads my updates, so I figure if I mention it every update, you’re more likely to catch it.

Next Flash Fiction Series

I was happy to see a few people interested in the story I posted yesterday (and thanks for the comments on Twitter, too!) That particular story idea was inspired by watching a lot of true crime. There’s a series on Oxygen about medical-related murders, and one of the episodes talked about a doctor who was basically a glorified drug dealer. She was prescribing what they called the “holy Trinity” of drugs that were the most lethal combinations. I took that plot idea, and looked around the GH timeline for a place for that kind of story, and the Connor Bishop story seemed like a good place because Jason and Elizabeth are between stories, so there’s no real baggage or stuff for them to handle. I ship off Sam in the prologue, and we can just have them enjoy their romance, deal with Emily, and go into investigation mode.  Anyway — story ideas come from weird places.

I have stories in development that might be a good fit for the next Flash Fiction series, so maybe it might be fun to do another poll as we wind down Watch Me Burn, which should be around the end of the year.

Ebooks

I decided to go with Adobe InDesign to work on ebooks after playing around with some tutorials. I finished up the basic tutorials yesterday, and I’ll be starting the page layout ones today. I already pay for the Creative Suite, so I can have Photoshop, Premiere, and Dreamweaver, so I might as well utilize something I already have.  I should finish the tutorials this weekend and start formatting ebooks for it this week. My priority is to get Fool Me Twice, Book 1 out in ebook first because Book 2 is on its way.

Speaking of..

Fool Me Twice, Book 2

I will definitely be moving the publication date. I don’t think it’ll be ready for November. I had hoped I’d be able to use substantial pieces of the first draft in the first round of edits, but the story is just better with me rewriting most of it. I have used scenes, and there’s a storyline later in the book that can lift right out of the first draft. But pretty much everything that’s not Jason/Elizabeth needed to be rewritten.

This is honestly the best choice — and those of you on Patreon who followed the alpha draft and are now following the beta, I hope you’re reading along and seeing the benefits. I absolutely love this draft so much more, and it’s just the best choice for the book.

The original deadline for this round of edits is September 30. I might still make that, but I need an extra round of editing before I do the final polish. I’m thinking December at the earliest, January at the latest.

Fall Release Schedule

Luckily, with weekly updates for Flash Fiction and Signs of Life coming this fall, I won’t disappear like I usually do! You might have read Signs of Life during its Flash Fiction phase, but it’s been substantially revised in edits. I added around 40k, scenes were moved around, lengthened, or even changed. I can’t wait for you guys to read the new material!

Update Link: This is Me Trying – Prologue

Hey! I overslept this morning, and sometimes I wake up with migraines when that happens, so I’m moving Flash Fiction to tomorrow. I try to give you guys something to make up for missing scheduled updates, so I thought you guys might enjoy the prologue of a story I’ve been playing with a bit. I had an idea for a rewrite of Dec 2004/Jan 2005, and I’ve been plotting it in my spare moments. I had a really vivid idea for the prologue, so I wanted to get it on paper while I had it. It reads like the prologue — but it can also be a short story.

You can find it linked above — it’s a PDF download from the Free Digital Shop on Patreon. I’ve been moving all downloads over to the Patreon. You should be able to download this one without an account. I’d love to know what you think!

Update Link: Watch Me Burn – Part 40

Hope everyone is having a good week 🙂  I’m feeling a bit more productive this week — must be my brain getting ready for classes again, lol. Can’t believe I start work next week. Summer went slow and fast all at the same time.

See you guys on Friday!

Update Link: Watch Me Burn – Part 39

Sorry for the extra delay! I wanted to wait until I had at least three hours without a power outage, and we hit that at 6 PM, so I decided to start writing at 7.

It’s Monday, and we’re moving into the final weeks of my summer break, so it’s time for a round up. More information included under the Read More Tag.

Continue reading →

Hey! Dropping a quick note to let you guys know Flash Fiction IS coming today, but we’re having really weird power issues in my area right now. It’s been since 7:30 AM — every 20-30 minutes, the power just blinks out, and it went out about five minutes into starting Flash Fiction today, so I’m just going to wait until I get something from the electric company. I’m lucky — I use Google Docs and Scrivener which both auto save, so I can just keep working, but Flash Fiction is supposed to be timed, and it takes about 2 minutes to reload the computer, another 2 minutes for the internet to come back — so it ends up eating time.

There’s no Phillies game today, so I can pretty much pick whatever time I want to write, so here are the next two windows for Flash Fiction:

• If my power is on and reliable by noon, I’ll start at 1 PM and post at 2 PM.
• If it’s not reliable until 3PM – 4 PM, I’ll start at 5 PM and post at 6 PM.

If I haven’t posted by 2 PM or 6 PM (EST), then I won’t be updating at all today. Hopefully it gets cleared up and fixed asap.

Update Link: Watch Me Burn – Part 38 | In Case You Missed It: NaNoWriMo Poll

Today is the last day for the NaNoWriMo poll! It ends tonight at midnight!

You know, most of the time I don’t feel like I’m actually 39, lol, but physically there are some days when I wake up and I’m like, nah, this body has definitely been on the planet for 39 years and two months. On Wednesday, we went to pub quiz and won (there was a question about the de Medici family in Florence, so it definitely felt like Lauren was there), and I drank a bit more than I usually do. I don’t typically drink anymore because I always associated it with being out with my friends and drinking alone feels sad, lol. AND THEN while I was at the bar, the Phillies pitched a no hitter, Castellanos got his 200th career home run and a rookie got his first home run in his FIRST at bat — so I went home and rewatched the entire game from start to finish — and by then it was 1:30 am so I stayed up to see if Taylor Swift was going announce 1989 TV at her final show in LA — all in all, I didn’t go to sleep until well after 2 am.

No regrets.

Anyway. Yesterday, I edited about 35% of Signs of Life for the final posting version. Chapters 1-15 are done! This final edit goes really fast because it’s just typos and checking for internal consistency. I mostly only had the typos and a few minor line adjustments. I think there’s one scene that needs a light rewrite and then two scenes that need to be switched in the order, but other than that, it’s pretty good.

Today, the goal is to get back on track with FMT. I hate that I lost a week, but clearly I needed the break, and I was a bit scattered with the one year anniversary — more than I thought I would be. Grief is a weird, sneaky bitch.

See you guys on Monday!

Update Link: Watch Me Burn – Part 37 | In Case You Missed It: NaNoWriMo Poll

Hope you guys are having a good week! I’m in the final countdown to the end of my summer break, and I got a sneak peek of what my school year looks like. My school district (and so do many others) uses the Remind app — and because I used to work in this district four years ago, I have the same email again. Which means Remind logged me into my classes, lol. It’s the first year of French, so I have only one French I class and one Honors French I class — the other four are a Freshman Seminar which I’m hoping isn’t just study halls, but I guess I’ll find out in a few weeks.  Next year, I should have more French I and some French II classes.

I still haven’t started writing again — I guess I’m not surprised when I think about having written like 59k over just two weeks. I pushed really hard, and the chapters were easy to write, but literally as soon as I got to the end of Act 1, I just hit a wall — hard, and I’m sort of struggling to come back out of it. I wasn’t expecting that, but we’ll just have to work it out.

I’m hoping to get back to wring some today — but I’m not sure what I’ll finish. Today is the one year anniversary of losing my best friend to cancer, and it’s already a bit of a hard day. But my friends and I are getting together to do something we haven’t done in seven years — not since the first of us moved out of state. We’re going to our old Wednesday night pub in Philly and playing pub quiz with our old host. Fado’s (the pub) and Tom had a recurring weekly role in Lauren and mine’s lives since 2011. This is the first time I’m going without Lauren. She and I went alone for almost a year before we started gathering a reliable, steady group every week. But we got older and started careers where it made it harder and harder to travel to Philly for a 9PM pub quiz start — and then Mike moved to Florida, so we just fell out of the habit like you do as you grow up.

It’ll be weird to be there tonight without the other half of the Redheads Do It Better (our team name when it was just the two of us).  We went to pub quizzes in every country we ever visited together and won a lot of money thanks to her insane music knowledge and my ability to remember the most useless of all trivia. Though one time we had a fight briefly over who was the original artist for Say Something back in 2014 — she swore it was Justin Bieber, and I was READY to die on the hill that it was Passenger. She finally agreed and we won. For college students who didn’t have a lot of money to go around, regularly winning $60 was pretty awesome. (And all ties were broken by chugging beer — your girl is UNDEFEATED. I actually beat a Marine once. You haven’t lived until you’ve had a bar full of assholes cheering USA for the guy and the girl kicks hiss ass. HIGHLIGHT OF MY LIFE)

Anyway, I’ll see you on Friday. Take care of yourselves 🙂 Here’s a picture of Lauren and I enjoying some Girl Scout shots purchased with our winnings after one of our solo wins in 2011. Pretty sure this is the night the humidity in the bar fried my Blackberry keyboard (which…is a thing that can happen apparently) and I’m sunburned because I’m a ginger who explodes in the sun.