Milestones, Writing, and Reading

Late last month I reached a major milestone: Pinned but Fluttering reached 1 MILLION READS on Wattpad!! It's absolutely crazy and wonderful and stunning and un-fricking-believable. Pinned but Fluttering does well enough on FanFiction.net where it's at 99,000 hits and 997 reviews (almost ready to break some records there as well!!), but over a million reads on Wattpad is just...wow. I am still wrapping my head around it. And the numbers keep on going--in the two weeks since passing the million mark, it's garnered another 80,000+ reads!! Wow. 

I just wish that I could enter Pinned but Fluttering in the Watty Awards, but I started it at the wrong time. All stories must have been written over the past year: between November 1, 2011 and October 31, 2012, and I started it in August 2011. Plus I seriously doubt I could complete it by October 31. Well, I COULD, but it wouldn't be easy. 

I think I'll enter a couple of poems in the Atty Awards contest, judged by Margaret Atwood. Having Atwood involved at Wattpad is a huge feather in their cap; she's one of the premier literary authors and poets of our time, and she's simply marvelous. Somewhat recently I attended a lecture on Atwood's work at University of San Diego (where I earned my Master's in English) and discovered that she had been acquainted with one of my former USD professors while at Harvard; they worked on their doctorates together. But having Atwood associated with Wattpad brings the site a whole new level of authenticity and respectability. Very cool! :) 

And although it's been complete for nearly a year, Evening Star continues to scrape up more reads as well; it's over 720,000 reads but never really caught on at FFN. I am constantly asked for a sequel on Wattpad, so perhaps that may be my next major fic. I have ideas for lots of EPOV one-shots, too. We'll see.

I know I've neglected this blog horribly, but all of my writing time has been devoted to new chapters for Pinned, plus I spent September up to my eyebrows in teaching an online discussion class of Jane Eyre for homeschoolers. I have been teaching online courses for over ten years, and now I'm helping to write curriculum as well, so when I'm not actively teaching, I have quite the to-do list. :) But that's where I disappeared to in September and why I spent two weeks posting each chapter of Pinned.

I've also read some great fics lately; scroll down my sidebar to "Fics I Have Read in 2012" and you'll see quite the list. A current fic I'm reading is "Letters from Corporal Masen" which is set during World War II, specifically the D-Day invasion of Normandy. The author, solostintwilight, is the author of one of my favorite stories of all time, "Our Yellow House" (which I happen to be re-reading on my Kindle right now). Anyway, solostintwilight listed some other war-based stories, and I've been making my way through them. And are they ever heartwrenching!! Last night I finished reading "Finding Home" (and outtakes "Finding Liberty") by jennde, and I don't think I've ever cried so much while reading a fan fic story (unless it was for "Our Yellow House" or SillyBella's "Peonies"). The story starts a couple of days before Pearl Harbor and goes through the war from there. A couple of other amazing war-based stories are "A Soldier's Homecoming" by morsus mihi (set during Vietnam) and  "The Wallflower and the Flyboy" by A Cullen Wannabe. All of these stories are incredible, and I eagerly await each update of solostintwilight's "Letters to Corporal Masen" (which has an incredible Facebook page with WWII photos; plus, her Bella is the lovely Gene Tierney) as we find out how Edward is faring after parachuting into the French countryside in advance of D-Day. 

So what have the rest of you been reading? I love recommendations, even though I have pages and pages of recs written down in my writing notebook. 

Well, I'm off to see Florence + the Machine tonight with my daughter, and I have a sizable pile of work to complete first, so off I go. 

Thanks for reading this blog and my stories!! I appreciate each and every one of you!! :) 

Take care!!

xxxooo,
Cassandra :)