News

OOPS! While writing a good portion of chapter two I was also working on another story; Short, Cute and Sassy. The main characters in SSC are Fred and Jamie. Somehow I managed to rewrite Jackie as Jamie in most of chapter two of F&J-NIS...sorry about that. Hey...I did warn you all it was a draft version.

I've fixed the issue and uploaded new copies to ASSTR and SOL. Unfortunately ASSTR must be caching files, because the changes haven't taken effect yet (though the new versions are on their servers). Hopefully it'll happen soon.

Ok...well I finally posted chapter 2 of Fred & Jackie - NIS at ASSTR and SOL. Sorry about the long delay...

Chapter 3 should be posted within a week or so. After that it might be a month or two before I can get the remaining chapters posted (4,5, 6).

Well this has certainly been an interesting few weeks to say the least. First Katrina, the Rita. They hit on both sides of where I now call home and the season is barely half-way over. For some reason I get a feeling that there's going to be another one...hopefully I'm wrong. All-in-all I came out of the situation pretty much without any problems. A power outage left me with some spoiled food in the fridge and freezer (which I had just restocked to almost no room left), but that's about it. There's quite a few others out there who have had a very bad time recently, so I can't complain at all.


Story Updates:

Fred & Jackie - NIS: Thursday is almost done...just a bit of tweaking and a few more paragraphs to write. Friday and the weekend should come together very quickly. There was a bit of an issue with Thursday, which took a lot of time to figure out and get fixed.

Back to School: Wow...it's coming, but slowly. It'll be a while before this one is released...possibly not until sometime in the spring of 2006.

Other NIS stories: On hold until further notice.

Short Stories: Two new ones are in progress. They're related, but vastly different too. There is also at least two others that are lurking around in my mind...soon to be brought to a computer screen near you. Stay tuned for further details.

I've just completed my move south, so right now I'm really busy with getting things settled. Hopefully I'll get a chance to work on some stories when I'm finished. I'm also still working on getting final versions of the current stories posted...what's there now are just rough drafts with no editing/proofing. The new 'novel' I decided to create will be tentatively called "Back to School". I'm just about done with CH1 of it, thought I really haven't worked on it for a while (since April). When I have, it's been real quick and short sessions where I didn't get much done. I know in my last post I said CH1 was done...well that was before I decided to up the scale. CH1 has now become 6 times it's original size, and it's not complete yet.

Fred & Jackie - NIS is complete through Wednesday, has been since April too. I'm going to try and finish out the last few chapters in it, then have the Krew do their thing before I post it.

The remaining NIS stories I planned are on hold indefinitely as of right now. I'm just not sure anymore if I want to continue writing in that universe. Only time will tell.

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EDIT
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The plagiarism issue was handled...a minor oversight really, nothing more according to the author. I've actually done something similar before on accident without realizing it, so I can't fault him at all with it. I was just lucky enough to have a friend catch it before I published it.
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I guess an update is in order...things are still a bit hectic, though I've managed to find some time to write a little. The problem I've run across is that every time I try to work on F&J-NIS, I draw a complete blank. I dunno what the real issue is...but I just can't come up with anything "good" for it.

That said, I guess I should get to the point. I had promised some readers a quick short story. So, since I was blocked on F&J-NIS I decided to have a go at the short. Well, the damn muse decided for me that this short story isn't so short after-all. In fact, it'll easily be the longest story I've ever wrote. Remind me to tease and please her, would ya?

Before I knew what happened, I had the first chapter of this "short-story" (which was only supposed to have 2 or 3 chapters @ 4 or 5 pages each) done. First chapter is around 10 pages...2nd chapter is 1/2 way done and already 7 pages...oh, and I would wager that not even 1% of the story has been told yet. OOPS!

So, consider this a heads up. A new story...er...novel...is on it's way; staring sometime in the next 3 months. It'll be separated into "books" (which cover the time period of one calendar year), each book containing approximately 50 to 60 chapters (most chapters will cover the events over a period of one week). I'm going to rewrite what I've got already to confirm to the book and chapter format I mentioned above. Everything is going to go through a strict proofing and editing process before release, and releases will be spaced over a certain length of time. Expect multiple chapters at once, but the wait in between will be somewhat sizable.

First release will happen at or about chapter 12, as it stands now. I can't really provide a 'when', as I'm not sure just yet. As soon as I have a better idea, I'll let y'all know.

WARNING: This story is going to be light on sex...especially at the beginning. However, since it's about college-life and college students (ages 17 through 30), you can be guaranteed that it'll be (and get) interesting.

One thing I've been contemplating recently is creating my own 'authoring software'. Right now I can't find anything that I like. I want something that's simple, effective, and efficient. The closest apps I've found are CopyWrite and Ulysses. Another possibility has been Mac-Journal, a journal/blog software app that could easily be used to write stories.

I'm thinking about merging the best of those apps into one that'll be an authors dream. On top of that, it'll be cross-platform enabled (Mac OS X, Mac Classic, Linux, and Windows 98+). The only downside to that is Mac Classic, Linux and Windows seriously lack the built-in features that Mac OS X has, such as spell-checking and text-to-speech. While solutions are available for those platform independently, they're not natively built-into the operating system itself.

Just wanted to let everyone know that. I've received a lot of e-mails asking about Fred & Jackie - NIS and when it'll be done. Honestly, I can't really say right now. Murphy and his damned law(s) have been unusually cruel to me lately. It seems like every time one thing is fixed (or almost fixed) another totally unrelated problem arises. It's starting to seem like a never-ending story (or theme of my life) really. As such, my time and will to write has been markedly decreased.

I reread Mike & Megan - NIS last night and saw some major flaws which I have to address ASAP. Having not read it for a while (well over 6 months) allowed me to 'clear my mind' so to speak and see what I should have all along. Hopefully I'll get to fixing that soon.

I want to send out a big thanks to Byron. He's one of the members of The Krew; the only one actively helping me right now. Part of that is my fault and the other part is everyone has things going on in their lives which are more important than the writing.