Update Link: Invisible Strings – Part 6

Hope everyone had a good weekend! I finished Act 2 of Counting Stars, so only seven more chapters to go! I also set the release date — November 7. I’ll be releasing four chapters all at once for seven weeks. I think that works better than the way I’ve been posting Mad World — you can check out all the chapters for that week at once and read at your own leisure.

I finished the Jul-Dec 2022 posting schedule. I’ll be updating the Production Schedule page soon, but you can check out the update here.

See you tomorrow for Mad World!

Patreon Updates 

• Added Counting Stars, Alpha Draft Chapters 13-20 for Stalker
• Added Crimson Discovery #22
• Added Crimson Check #26
• Added Mad World, Early Access Chapters for Love (Chapters 102-104)

Update Link: Mad World, Book 4 – Chapter 101

I sat down to figure out the schedule for Flash Fiction for the rest of the summer, including plotting out the rest of Scars, which I hadn’t done since it was on hiatus.  With two updates a week, Scars will complete in early September. I’m working on actual calendar for you guys to look at with the schedule as we move out of the summer and into the fall.

ETA:  Jul – Sep 2022 Calendar

Counting Stars is going great. The chapters are shorter than my norm, at least in the alpha draft, so it’s been easier to write two chapters a day. I’ve completed 17 and have 10 more to go. When it’s done, it’ll be the size of a typical romance novel, which makes sense since it’s a straightforward romance. We haven’t had one of those in…I don’t think I’ve ever done a project where the entire conflict is the Liason romance, so that will be really fun. I have 9 days left to write 10 chapters, so finishing on schedule by July 31 looks great.

The last bit for this week is that with the new recording setup organized, I’m going to do weekly research streams. This is basically me throwing up clip compilations to watch to get the idea of a story and ideas for characters and what not. This week, I’m doing a deep dive for Kismet (set in 1997), so I’m watching Jason Morgan from fall of 1997. Next week, we’re jumping forward to These Small Hours, so it’s Liason in summer and fall 2008. If you’re a Patreon subscriber at the Obsessed and above level, you know I’ve been working on deep dive discovery for several projects to have a range of options ready.

We’re going to be going live at 6 PM EST tonight, but the stream will stay public if you want to check it out later.

Update Links: Signs of Life – Epilogue | Not Knowing When – Part 6

It feels so bittersweet (ha) to be finishing up Signs of Life. I added it to an already overloaded writing schedule in September 2020 because I wanted to do something to mark the 18th anniversary of the site. It’s taken me two years and a few breaks to bring it to completion. I’m so proud of this story — it’s definitely my best flash fiction — and I’ve been overwhelmed by the support you guys have given this one. If you’re one of my wonderful readers who aren’t into replying, please give me a thumbs up if you’re happy with how the story ended. The little icons are at the end of the chapter.

It’s also the last day for (re)posting Not Knowing When. I hope you’ve enjoyed revisiting this flash fiction. I’ll be cleaning up Signs of Life and getting it ready to repost and distribute to the other archives.

And in the last bit of news, we’re juggling the flash fiction schedule a bit. For the #Becky25 project,  I was organizing clips from Jake’s kidnapping and got sucked into the summer of 2007 with my clips which is something I should have done before writing Watch Me Burn. I think this was probably the wrong story to put into a slot where I only write 20-40 minutes — it should definitely be a 60 minute story. It wasn’t until I wrote yesterday’s Jason/Elizabeth scene (Part 5) that I think I really found the voice for Elizabeth and the path I want to take for Liason. Plus, I have some of my timeline wrong for the summer. So the first few parts honestly don’t work for me. I hurried some scenes, and it’s going to drive me insane, which usually ends in tears for me, lol.

So, starting next week — here’s the schedule:

• Monday – Invisible Strings 
• Tuesday – Scars (returns!) Skipping this week, though because I have an interview for a history job (yay), but after this week
• Wednesday – Right Where You Left Me – rewrite of Metro court hostage crisis, picking up from the elevator. Part of the original Patreon vote and nearly won until Watch Me Burn slid in from behind.
• Thursday – If it’s ready, Watch Me Burn (relaunched and rewritten)
• Friday – Scars (returns!)
• Sunday – Watch Me Burn

Mad World continuing to be posted on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays.

When Scars ends, Watch Me Burn will slide into that slot. I’ll be updating on Tuesdays starting August, and Scars will be updated twice a week. I’d like to finish that before I go back to school.  Right now, I think I’ll be bringing back Flash Fiction Weekend — one story updated on Fridays & Sundays, and a second one on Saturdays. The new story is already planned down to the ending beats. Watch Me Burn is more like Scars and Signs of Life — I don’t know how long until we get into the story and develop the situations.

I hope that makes sense to everyone. Apologies for the switch up, but it’s an important part of my process to do what feels right in the long run, and I think this is the best decision. I’m making up for it by adding more updates.

Update Links

Flash Fiction: Watch Me Burn – Part 5

Mad World: Chapter 100

Not Knowing When: Part 5

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I know it’s been a busy posting week here at CG, and thanks for your patience! Let me know if you guys enjoy these double/triple postings or if you’d rather I posted Not Knowing When all at once. With Signs of Life coming to an end tomorrow (sniff), I’m already working on editing and revising it to distribute on Fanfiction.net and Archive of Our Own. I can split it in parts there and toss it up whole here.

See you tomorrow!

Update Link: Not Knowing When, Part 4

Hey! I had an MRA this morning on my head. I don’t know if anyone has ever had one of these (or an MRI which I’m told is similar) but I basically spent 15 minutes in a white tube that felt like an isolation tank from Stranger Things. I made the mistake of scheduling it at 7:40 thinking it would be good to get it out of the way, but now I’m tired and worn out and a little off. So I’m moving Flash Fiction to tomorrow.  I still have to get an MRA of my neck and MRI of my spine (yay…) so I’ll know better to schedule them later in the afternoon. I think there’s just something about starting my day off with it that messes me up.

In the meantime, enjoy the next part of Not Knowing When, and I’ll link all the recent updates again.

• Mad World: Chapter 99
• Not Knowing When: Part 2 | Part 3
• Invisible Strings: Part 5

Today’s Update Links & Round-Up

• Mad World: Chapter 99 (NEW)
• Not Knowing When: Part 2 (Yesterday) | Part 3 (NEW)
• Invisible Strings: Part 5 (New)

Yesterday was such an annoying day, honestly. Back and neck flared up, so I woke up late, and then I got stuck on hold with my doctor’s office and insurance companies — ugh. By 3 PM, I had just about given up on it being a writing day. Then, I did some videos for Patreon, and got my energy back (adding videos has REALLY helped creatively), and I ended up writing a chapter of Counting Stars, so I stayed on track which is great news.  Most of the videos are for the Discovery blog, but I’ve been putting up Random Writing Chats for all tiers.

This Saturday and next, I’ll be doing some research streams for future projects. I’ve put together 1997 clips for Kismet and 2008 for These Small Hours.  Subscribe to the YouTube channel if you want to hang out and watch some classic GH.

See you tomorrow!

 

Update Link: Not Knowing When – Story Page | Part 1

In late summer of 2020, I started a flash fiction, rewriting the Jason/Brenda marriage storyline because I realized I hadn’t really tackled the Alcazar storyline since it originally aired (twenty years ago!). I finished it that spring, and always meant to edit it and put it up as a story here and other places. Not Knowing When was the first flash fiction I’d written that I didn’t think needed a lot of work and felt like a really good version of a story.

Starting today, you can revisit this flash fiction in six parts, each one posted daily. I tried to split them into mostly equal parts, but also places where it made sense to split them.

Recent Updates (July 11-16)

• Mad World Chapter 96 | Chapter 97 | Chapter 98
• Invisible String Part 4
• Watch Me Burn Part 4
• Signs of Life Part 40

Update Link: Mad World, Book 4 – Chapter 98

Adding Saturdays to the updates, so for the rest of the summer, you’ll be getting CG updates Monday-Saturday!

Update Link: Signs of Life – Part 40

I spent about two hours last night scheduling chapters and posts through the end of July. Mad World, Chapters 98-104 are scheduled to go live on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays by 7 AM. Then, starting Sunday, the revised Not Knowing When goes live. One part a day. Next week is going to be super busy! You’ll have something from me every day until next Saturday, July 23. Hopefully I’ll remember to post the update posts, but if not, I’ll make sure to relink things on Flash Fiction days.

July 15 – Signs of Life, Part 40
July 16 – Mad World, Chapter 98 (Saturday updates start!)
July 17 – Not Knowing When, Part 1
July 18 – Invisible Strings, Part 5 | Not Knowing When, Part 2
July 19 – Mad World, Chapter 99 | Not Knowing When, Part 3
July 20 – Watch Me Burn, Part 5 | Not Knowing When, Part 4
July 21 – Mad World, Chapter 100 | Not Knowing When, Part 5
July 22 – Signs of Life, Part 41 | Not Knowing When, Part 6
July 23 – Mad World 101

I’ve been doing some cleanup behind the scenes with some light cosmetic updates to Alternate History, Series & Flash Fiction. The Alternate Universe page was relaunched (I might have forgotten to mention that). I was also cleaning up the code to make it easier to update. I also cleaned up the sidebar and deleted some sections that I don’t think anyone really utilized.

I’m planning to wrap up Signs of Life next week, which means Scars returns on July 29.  I’m going to miss this story, but I’m still working in the 2000 era for Counting Stars which I hope will be out sometime this fall.

Update Link: Mad World, Book 4 – Chapter 97

I feel like I didn’t explain myself well yesterday when I posted about the thumbs up addition and Mad World reviews because it sounded like I was complaining, and I definitely didn’t mean it  that way. I love reading what people think (or even just seeing loved it!), but I also understand people who don’t reply.

My stats plugin for WordPress used to be really reliable — I tend to average between 40-50 hits on individual chapters in previous books, but lately the stats are all over the place — between 20-100. One chapter will get 25, then the next will have 115. I think it’s just search engine bots. I’ve been looking for ways for you guys to just note your support, and finally found a simple plugin that just lets you do a thumbs up. I’m hoping that’ll give me a more accurate idea of who’s reading what so that I can better plan future content.