Camp NaNoWriMo

All of the essays have been graded and returned for the 2014-2015 school year, and all final course grades have been submitted. So, I AM DONE!!!! YAY!! :)

I will be teaching an online Fan Fiction class with Brave Writer during the month of July, but the class is a piece of cake compared to the other classes I taught during the school year; my last class topped 1100 posts in four weeks, nearly all of which I responded to point by point.

But July also marks the return of Camp NaNoWriMo--a more relaxed version of November's National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Instead of the 50,000 words-or-bust scenario of writing a new novel as we do each November for NaNoWriMo, in Camp NaNoWriMo we set our own goals and write in different genres, if desired.

Cover by Chantelleexx at Wattpad

I plan to work on two novels alternately during Camp NaNoWriMo with an overall goal of 30,000 words--one thousand words per day, skipping the July 4th holiday. One novel will be a sequel to my first novel Evening Star, a Twilight fan fiction which has been titled In the Night Watches (for which the lovely Chantelleexx at Wattpad has created a beautiful cover!!), and the second will be a Jane Austen Fan Fiction (JAFF), a continuation of Pride and Prejudice (currently untitled), starting with Bingley and Darcy's return to Netherfield after the Lydia/Wickham fiasco near the end of the novel.

Austen Variations Blog Header

I have spent nearly a year absorbing JAFF (as can be easily seen by the list of books I've read this year as posted in the sidebar of this blog), especially from the wonderful site Austen Variations which features the work of some incredibly-talented writers of variations and continuations of Austen's novels. I've become a devoted fan of their work, especially that of Abigail Reynolds, Monica Fairview, Mary Lydon Simonsen, Kara Louise, Jack Caldwell, Jane Odiwe, and many others. I've been able to borrow many of their novels through the state-wide California public library system called "LINK +," with the vast majority of the books coming from San Francisco and other Northern California public libraries. I've also invested in a few Kindle books by these authors when their books are not available through the library, plus I've been reading additional JAFF on FanFiction.net, especially by Astonishment, AnotherSentimentalFool, SophieTurner1805, Shaelelina, and DarcyFan1. So I am really excited about starting to write my own JAFF!

If anyone else is doing Camp NaNoWriMo, please feel free to "friend" me under the user name Cassandra Lowery, and we can encourage each other along the way. The beginning of my Jane Austen Fan Fiction novel can be read from the Writing Project Info page.



Happy Writing!

~Cassandra xxxooo

A Significant Switch...

Yes, it's been months and months since I've posted here, and that's for a significant reason. I've put Only by Moonlight on hiatus and have stopped reading all but a few ongoing Twilight fan fics, namely Nolebucgrl's "Getting Blitzed" and HopeSparkles' "He Came Along." (Oh, and one ballet one that I thought was called "Balancoire" but can't find under that title.) And I'll always read the work of ladylibre and Tardis19. But that's about it. 

The reason for this major change? 

I've kind of switched fandoms. 

Last May I wrote a Twilight/Regency (Jane Austen's time period) fic called "An Enchanted Evening" that bridged the two fandoms, and since then, I've been wrapped up in the world of Jane Austen. 

Especially since the school year began in mid-August, I've escaped from a tremendously-stressful teaching load through reading Jane Austen Fan Fiction (JAFF), mostly those based on Pride and Prejudice. I have become addicted to the novels written by the incredible writers at Austen Variations and have been reading their ongoing stories as well as tracking down their novels through our library system (especially those of Abigail Reynolds!) and reading them voraciously. I've also been reading P&P fan fics through FF.net, and if you're interested, here are a few of my favorite JAFF authors on FF.net:

Sophie Turner (who also blogs at A Lady's Imagination) 

Astonishment

DarcyFan1

Shaelenina

I have started to write a couple of JAFF stories--just an outline and a few pages thus far. I hope to write more over the summer when I'm only teaching one online class, a Fan Fiction course at Brave Writer where I have been teaching since 2002. I've reduced my teaching load a bit for the 2015-2016 school year by asking to teach less-intensive online classes at Brave Writer, and I'll probably be teaching high school writing for my final year at our homeschool co-op next year as well. 

Plus, we're graduating homeschooler #3 in June (I can't call him "a child" at 5'9" and 210 pounds--he's more of a linebacker and works in landscaping/construction three days a week and does his schoolwork for our homeschool and the community college on Tuesdays and Thursdays), so next year I'll only be homeschooling our youngest. But he is learning-challenged and needs lots of my time to keep his workload at grade level. I spend 3-4 hours/day schooling him directly, in addition to teaching my co-op essay-writing class and nine online courses each school year. I also have my own essay grading service, so I'm grading the work of other homeschooled kids across the country via e-mail. 

In other words, I hope to have more time to write after June, but no guarantees; my pain levels from chronic autoimmune diseases have increased significantly due to this unusually high-stress school year, so I'm going to have to rest a good deal over the summer in order to recover. 

Perhaps I'll return to finish Only by Moonlight. Or perhaps I'll return to pursue the sequel (for which I've written a few chapters) to Evening Star (which for some strange reason is evoking a ton of reads and comments on Wattpad where it's approaching a million reads and Pinned but Fluttering is nearly at two million reads). 

Or I may pursue writing some real JAFF. We'll see.... 

Anyway, this is my life right now, and I just wanted to let you all know. 

Take care, my friends!

Warmly,
Cassandra xxxooo 

New On-Shot: "Weeping May Endure for a Night..."

Back in April during the first Camp NaNoWriMo 2014, I was scribbling a couple of stories in a notebook while also typing away on Only by Moonlight. While one of these stories was the beginning of the sequel to Evening Star (still unnamed as yet), the other was written for a TwiFic Doctorward Contest. But I didn't have time to finish the story before the June 4 deadline, so I shelved it for a while, allowing it to simmer on my mind's back burner as I worked my (rather generous) behind off teaching both online and in the classroom in addition to homeschooling two teenaged boybarians. 

When this month's Camp NaNoWriMo came around, I dusted off Doctorward and typed him up, adding a bit here and there. This past week gave him real substance, and by the time I sent him to the brilliant ladylibre, he was nearly ready for posting. She adored the story, giving me some great revisions where I got too wordy (naaah, never happens! <grin>), and stating that this one-shot was among the best stories I had ever written. Even my husband, who rarely reads my fiction, read it and really liked it, too. 

So here is the beginning of this Doctorward tale entitled "Weeping May Endure for a Night...":

Weeping May Endure for a Night…

by Cassandra Lowery

            It was nearly midnight when I finally got home. Only the darkness greeted me as I entered and locked the door of our flat behind me. By force of habit, I dropped my keys into the ceramic dish on the small entryway table. Loosening my tie, I peered into the mirror hanging over the table, barely able to see myself in the glow of the city lights shining through the open windows.

            I looked like crap. Dark shadows encircled beneath my eyes, and my face was paler than usual, bordering on haggard.

            That’s the kind of word she would have used if she were here…”haggard.”

            I turned away from the mirror and paused in the kitchen doorway. Although I had managed to skip both lunch and dinner, I knew that there was no way that I could eat tonight; the knot of pain and grief in my stomach made the mere thought of food seem repulsive. Trying to ignore the slight dizziness that accompanied my lack of sustenance, I dropped onto the sofa—our sofa. Bella had loved it at first sight, choosing it for its comfort and for its rather shabby, “homey” appearance.

            She was so wise in such things.

            Most of my colleagues’ wives were focused on spending their physician husbands’ pay as quickly as it was earned, frittering away huge sums on designer clothing and spa treatments, decorating and redecorating their expensive homes as their main occupation, and sporting the latest model BMW, Audi, or Mercedes-Benz.

            Not my Bella.

            God, I missed her.    

            I rubbed at the persistent ache in my chest.
           She had decorated our home with estate sale finds, getting up at ungodly hours nearly every Saturday morning to comb through the eclectic neighborhoods of Chicago, dragging home a bureau, a bookcase, an end table, an armchair, or some other “amazing find”—along with stacks and stacks of ancient books that she “just couldn’t resist.”

            When I objected to the number of books she trundled home, she’d grin unrepentantly and declare that it was the price I had to pay for marrying a writer.

            How I adored that mischievous grin….

           

I hope that you'll enjoy reading "Weeping May Endure for a Night..." on both Wattpad.com and on FanFiction.net. 

I also updated Only by Moonlight last night as well, adding Chapter 14. I'm currently working on a draft of Chapter 15, and I hope to finish drafting Chapter 15 and Chapter 16 before the close of Camp NaNoWriMo. I know that I won't reach my goal of 30,000 words being written this month, but I have written, revised, editing, and polished two pieces of writing which add up to nearly 9,000 words, revising and polishing them at least four times each. 

During August, I'll be preparing for Year #18 of home education in which I'll be teaching our high schoolers in grades 9 and 12, plus preparing for three online Brave Writer courses (two of which are new Literary Analysis classes), and two courses for our home school group's co-op Class Days, one of which is a new Shakespeare class that will require a lot of preparation. But I'm still hoping to tuck more raw writing into the corners of my days (and nights) so that when fall arrives, I am hoping not to leave you hanging for two months again! :) 

Happily writing,
~Cassandra :)  

Carlisle and Bella...and Ghosts!

As much as I adore Edward, I must admit to having a thing for a good Carlisle and Bella pairing in fan fiction stories. My two favorite B/C fics have Carlisle as a university professor and Bella as a college student. 

Today I finished the wonderful "Original Sin" by BookwormBaby2580 as recommended on FicSisters. Seriously, I read this fic in two days; it was THAT good! We meet a free-spirited Bella who loves wholeheartedly and a broken, guilt-ridden, and intensely private Carlisle who meet--where else?--at the library. Because Carlisle isn't her professor, their relationship is allowed under USC's fraternization policy. "Original Sin" also features Jacob as a fellow college student at USC and Bella's best friend with few boundaries, Rosalie and Esme as minor-major characters, Alice and Emmett as quick appearances, and later on, Edward. I highly recommend "Original Sin"--it was well-worth my time.  

Until I read "Original Sin," my favorite B/C pairing was "Clementines" by Nachos4Children. An unlucky-in-love Bella literally runs into Dr. Cullen in the library where she works. In this case, Carlisle has Bella help him with a project which technically makes her his student, and their relationship comes under university scrutiny.

Does anyone have any other great Carlisle-Bella stories to recommend? As I have mentioned here often, Carlisle is my second-favorite character right after Edward, and I've always had a thing for doctors...ever since Dr. Brackett in Emergency! when I was a little girl.<grin> (Yes, I know--I just totally dated myself by citing a TV show from the early 1970's....sigh.) 

Carlisle has not yet entered "Only by Moonlight," but I do have plans for him to play a major role in this story. I also just realized that my first anniversary since starting to write "Only by Moonlight" passed earlier this month, March 5 to be precise. I hope to have time to work on Chapter 13 this weekend; it's about half-drafted right now. But of course, I have a week's worth of poetry lessons to prepare for my Brave Writer Playing with Poetry Workshop this weekend along with a stack of essays to grade for my Expository Essay I and II courses that I teach for our home school group's bi-monthly co-op classes. At least I already caught up on all the posts for my online poetry workshop and revised and e-mailed the handouts for starting research papers to my Expository Essay students already. If I work hard tonight, I might have some time to write tomorrow. 

But then Ghost Adventures is on TV tonight, and I consider that show to be "research" for "Only by Moonlight." Right? <wink> I am endlessly fascinated with the concept of ghosts--I have been since I was a small child and heard my first ghost story. It's just the way that God's power is so much stronger than the Enemy's that really interests me. My best friend from high school had to deal with demonic influences when she first moved to Australia, at one point waking up at 3:00 AM with a demon choking her; she managed to gasp out the Name "Jesus Christ," and the demon disappeared into the ceiling immediately. It's the epic battle between good and evil that I find endlessly fascinating. Plus, my sister-in-law can see the dead and wants to train her abilities into that of a full-fledged medium. 

So, I'd better get back to work instead of spending this Saturday writing blog posts. I wish you all the best, and thank you for reading!!

Warmly,
Cassandra :) 
xxxooo    

Wishing and Hoping and Thinking....

Well, this fall has been absolutely, mind-bogglingly crazy. With teaching an online Literary Analysis class in American Poetry (and having to grade 200+ essays over three weeks) which overlapped with the online MLA Research Essay class (first drafts are due tomorrow), plus teaching the high school Expository Essay I and II classes at our homeschool group's co-op Class Days (we are part of the largest private homeschool group in the state of California), and homeschooling our two younger boys in grades 8 and 11, I've been buried.

So why in the world am I wanting to try National Novel Writing Month again?

Because it really works. It's an amazing rush to freewrite a 50,000 word novel in a mere thirty days, and I'd love to pick up Only by Moonlight and push through, accompanying the characters on their journey.

But the cold, hard reality is that I have another online Literary Analysis class starting November 4 on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. And Literary Analysis classes are super-duper labor-intensive. We'll be discussing the novel for three weeks, each student submitting responses to three discussion questions per week plus detailed comments on two responses by other students in the class. So that's a total of 27 short essays written per student over three weeks. Then in the final week, the students will be watching a film version of the novel (either the new Leonardo DiCaprio movie or the 1974 Robert Redford one) and then submitting a Final Writing Project: a formal essay written from four choices: a letter from one character to another, a formal movie review, a five-paragraph essay comparing or contrasting two characters, or a less formal exploratory essay focusing on one of the themes of the book. I'll have to track all of the points for the nine discussion question essays, the eighteen comments on other students' discussion essays, and the grade for the Final Writing Project--all within one month.

And I'll still be teaching and grading essays for the Expository Essay I and II courses at Class Day plus teaching my 8th and 11th graders at home.    

So I don't know how much (or how little) I will be able to write for NaNoWriMo, but I will try. Since I offer extra credit points for each 1,000 words logged for NaNoWriMo for my Expository Essay class, I need to be writing at least something myself. And I guess writing anything for NaNoWriMo is better than writing nothing at all, right?

We also do NaNoWriMo in our town's little writing workshop which meets on a monthly basis, so I'll need to at least try for them as well.    

So we'll see. I am hoping to send Chapter 10 of Only by Moonlight to my amazing pre-reader, ladylibre, later today and then post it by Sunday (despite having first drafts of the MLA research essays to comment on and the first five-paragraph essays for my Expository Essay class to grade this weekend).

And then...NaNoWriMo!!

Onward!!

~Cassandra
xxxooo

Buried in Work (Again)

It's that time of year again.

Yep, I'm back to work after a busy and exhausting summer. This is what I'm up to now...

I'm three weeks into homeschooling our younger two kids in grades 8 and 11. I need to grade their quizzes, tests, and essays for this week and schedule their assignments for next week...today.

I'm two weeks (and about five days behind) in teaching an online class in analyzing American poetry. Not only do I have to respond to about 100 posts, but I also have to write and post their next five assignments...all today.

I have another online class on the MLA research essay starting tomorrow, and have to post their first week's assignments...today.

I have a literary curriculum on Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan to write...today.

So, needless to say, I have only written about 800 words of Chapter 10 for Only by Moonlight...which I should be posting...today. It obviously isn't happening.

(But I can tell you that I've written right up to the beginning of the Halloween party....)

In addition to all the work pressures, three of our four kids are struggling with some kind of chronic health issue, one quite serious (as in seizure-serious). And all the stress about their health has affected mine so that I'm in much more pain than usual from rheumatoid athritis and much more exhausted than usual from chronic fatigue syndrome. I've been up working until 2:00-4:00 AM almost every night for the past two weeks.

I hope to get back to writing as soon as humanly possible--not only for you my readers, but also for my own sanity. I need to write in order to remain mentally healthy, and I hate being unable to express myself creatively. I need that.  

Thanks for listening to me whine a bit--and thanks for understanding my schedule. I'll write as soon as I can--for my own sake as well as for you all.

Take care, my friends, and be good to each other.

Warmly,
~Cassandra
xxxooo 

Summer (Almost) Past

Sigh.

I had such major plans for writing this summer. I had hoped to produce 30,000 words in July via Camp NaNoWriMo and to post weekly chapters of Only by Moonlight.

But then a fire scare right after July 4 put us in an uproar. Our small town (pop.1200) is surrounded on all sides by national forest and is located in a valley at 4,000 feet elevation at the base of Mount Laguna--about an hour's drive east of San Diego, California. A raging fire started in the desert, climbed the backside of the mountain range, and then threatened Mount Laguna which is a tiny town of fewer than 100 full-time residents but boasts many campgrounds and hundreds of part-time residences (i.e., cabins that can't be lived in as a primary residence as they're on forestry lands).

My parents bought such a cabin in 1997, and we cram as many as 25 people into the 600-square-foot cabin for Christmas Dinner every year. Major holidays are usually celebrated at the cabin--in fact, there have been several "White Easters" in which we were tempted to NOT dye the eggs and make it really fun to find them in the snow.

The Chariot Fire endangered all of Mount Laguna which was evacuated, including my parents' cabin. When the fire jumped Sunrise Highway, we knew we were in for trouble.

Eventually the evacuation zone came within a mile of our home and the fire burned up to the mouth of a canyon that ends at the north side of our town. Fortunately, the winds shifted suddenly, and the fire started burning back on itself rather than barreling down the canyon. Still, with the fire burning six miles away, it was scary.

We were warned to prepare to evacuate, so the kids and I gathered photo albums, important papers, and packed suitcases with clothing for a few days.

And did I mention that my husband wasn't home during this time? I was left at home with four kids and a '91 Toyota Corolla which wouldn't hold much should we be evacuated. He did make it home briefly to switch cars with me and leave me the minivan. Whew--that was one blessing.

Another blessing (besides the winds shifting--yay!!!) was Facebook. I stumbled across a Facebook group for fires in our area, and they posted links to the CalFire audio feeds, constantly updating maps of the burn area, eyewitness reports via Facebook and blogs of what was happening on the mountain, etc.

Over 7,000 acres burned and 150 structures were destroyed, most of them cabins on forestry lands which then cannot be replaced. Five firefighters were injured, none seriously. And at the end of the week, rains came and soaked the ground, helping firefighters to gain the upper hand and douse the monster that had just seemed invincible before.

So with packing, days of tense watching and waiting, and then unpacking again, my autoimmune issues reacted to my stress and flared up painfully. Plus three of our four kids are not healthy. Our daughter has a gene mutation that causes chronic fatigue and depression. Our eldest son has been having pain and swelling in his joints and muscles, culminating in a seizure last week (we're waiting for a call from the hospital to schedule an EEG), and our youngest son may have a congenital hernia which is messing with his digestive system and needs imaging done.

Did I mention that my husband is self-employed and we have no health insurance?

Plus I taught an online fan fiction class for four weeks which took a good deal of my writing time away. I had eight students ages 11-14, with one from Australia and one from Canada; the rest were from the US. It was intriguing that several of the students were not homeschooled; they were taking the class for fun because they were devotees of writing fan fiction stories. It was a great class.

Here is the class description from the transcript forms I send out at the end of class:

Course description: The Fan Fiction course focuses on the writing of three fan fiction stories over four weeks: one flash fiction story of fewer than 1,000 words, a second fan fiction story or chapter of 1,500 words minimum, and a third story or continuing chapter of a multi-chapter work of fan fiction with a 2,000 word minimum. After receiving written feedback in detail from classmates as well as from the instructor, students revise and resubmit their final two stories at the end of the course. In addition, two character-preparation freewrites are assigned early in the course to aid fan fiction writers in developing believable characters. In addition to exploring and defining the genre of fan fiction writing, students also read and offer an informal written analysis of several fan fiction stories from different genres (books, films, television, video games, anime, etc.) in addition to offering written feedback on a minimum of six stories written by classmates. Problem areas of fiction writing are also addressed and discussed, including: learning terms and techniques of literary analysis, analyzing story elements, writing convincing and compelling characters, plotting and mapping strategies for stories, writing believable (and correctly punctuated) dialog, following the steps of the writing process, revising and editing stories, overcoming writer’s block, completing a multi-chapter story/novel, and preparing to publish fan fiction online or in print form.   

I still have to grade the final stories this week, but they should go fairly quickly since the students have revised the two main stories (1,500 and 2,000 word minimum) that they wrote earlier for the class.

 

So Camp NaNoWriMo fell by the wayside pretty darn quickly, but I have posted a few chapters of Only by Moonlight  and am currently working on Chapter 8 which I hope to send to my brilliant and invaluable pre-readers ladylibre and EmmyDana tonight. :)

 

Year # 17 of home schooling begins in just over two weeks with our younger two starting eighth and eleventh grades. I'll also be teaching my new online class Literary Analysis: American Poetry (which I still need to write and plan) starting September 3, and my co-op high school Expository Essay course starting September 12. My Essay Grading Service for homeschoolers is also picking up speed as I just added a family with tenth grade triplets to  my client list, so they'll keep me busy.  

 

I hope to keep up with regular chapter updates for Only by Moonlight, but with these chapters being quite a bit longer than my chapters for my other multi-chapter fics, I may have to post a chapter every other week. My chapters for Evening Star and Pinned but Fluttering were around 2500 words while chapters for Only by Moonlight have been 4000-5000 words. 

 

So with summer ending soon, I just wanted to let you know what I've been up to and what's ahead. And I'm both ecstatic and sad that pattyrose's brilliant The Cullen Legacy completed today with the epilogue. I'd have to rate this story in my Top Fan Fiction stories along with (in no particular order):

• solostintwilight's In Your World (pulled to publish but some outtakes still remain of Amishward)
• solostintwilight's Letters to Corporal Masen
• Sparklingwand's A Different Kind of Pain (also pulled for publication)
• TwiloverSue's A Forbidden Love (also pulled for publication--one chapter remains up)
• TKegl's Beyond Time 
• twilover76's No Ordinary Proposal
• Aleeab4u's Falling Beyond Redemption 

So, I wish you a wonderful final weeks of summer!! Now I'm going to grade final fan fiction stories for my class and work on Chapter 8 of Only by Moonlight for all of you!!

Writing for you,

Cassandra :)

Summertime, Summertime, Sum-Sum-Summertime!

Yes, I graded my final essay for my online classes and e-mailed all the graded essays and transcript forms to the high school students in my Shakespeare Literary Analysis course on Friday, and now I have time to WRITE!!

Since January, my schedule has been crazy. Besides home schooling three teen boys in grades 7, 10, and 12, I've taught two co-op writing classes for high school students with a total of 16 students since September. Meeting on average twice each month for a total of 18 classes, the students basically turn in ten expository essays each plus an MLA style research essay which takes eight weeks from start to finish (not counting my grading time) and also do an informal oral presentation on their research project for the class.

Then since January, I've taught quite a few online classes: a 4-week grammar family workshop, a 4-week intensive literary analysis course on Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest, a 4-week poetry writing family workshop, a 4-week Shakespeare family workshop, and a 4-week intensive literary analysis course on Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. During this same time, I also put together most of a grammar e-book based on the grammar familyworkshop course and helped to proofread/edit a 10-month language arts curriculum textbook on "partnership writing" written by my boss.

But now it's summertime!!! And I'll have more time to write!! I still can't believe that since January I've only written a prologue and three chapters on my new story, Only by Moonlight. The good news is that I'm 2500-words into Chapter 4 and hope to complete the rough draft in the next day or two before sending it off to my two amazing pre-readers, ladylibre on FFn and EmmyDana on Wattpad. I'm really hoping to return to my weekly chapter postings so that I can move this story along. It's been difficult writing it because with so much on my mind and so much time between writing chapters, I'm not keeping it simmering on the backburner of my mind like the rest of my stories.

I hope also to pick up a few of my already-started but unfinished stories, excerpts of a few of which I've posted here on this blog. We'll see; I'd love to have a writing-intensive summer!! However, I am teaching one summer class: Fan Fiction!! I taught it for the first time last summer, but since I was designing and writing the class as I was teaching it, the class was quite time-intensive. But with the class all prepared and ready to go, I shouldn't have to use too much of my time on it this summer.

The Fan Fiction class is designed for students ages 12-18, and we'll define and discuss the genre of fan fiction, study and critique a few fan fiction stories, then write three chapters/stories (not necessarily all from the same fandom): a 500-1000 word flash fan fiction chapter/story, a 1000-2500 word chapter/story, and then a 2500-5000 word chapter/story. We'll also discuss how to deal with writer's block and how to finish one's story. With two completed novel-length stories under my belt plus several shorter stories (one shots), coming up on 3 million reads/hits on my works between FanFiction.net and Wattpad.com, and teaching writing for over 20 years at the elementary, junior high, high school, and university levels, I feel confident in teaching a fun and productive course. Here's the link to the registration page if anyone's interested in signing up; the class is 4 weeks long and begins July 8: Brave Writer Online Fan Fiction Class.   

But I am planning to work on Only by Moonlight as much as possible during this summer, especially before September comes when I'll be teaching two overlapping classes: a 4-week intensive literary analysis class on American poetry and the 6-week MLA research essay course. After I return the final research essays, I'll be teaching another intensive 4-week literary analysis course on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (and hoping the new movie will be out on DVD in time for us to watch and discuss it for our class).  So I will definitely have a busy fall ahead of me, but perhaps I can write ahead enough to keep the chapters coming even while I'm teaching in the fall.

I am planning to join Camp NaNoWriMo and write a lot of chapters during July, perhaps enough to keep me posting well into the fall despite my busy teaching schedule. I guess we;ll have to see. ;) I got a great deal of Pinned but Fluttering done during NaNoWriMo 2012 and I completed Evening Star during NaNoWriMo 2011, so I do plan to keep going with NaNoWriMo in November. There's nothing like writing 50,000 words in one month to keep a writer on her toes. ;)

So these are my summer plans, and I hope that I get a lot accomplished so that you may all enjoy Only by Moonlight; I'm so excited about the plot, and I hope that you'll all like it, too. :)

Writing with you, my friends,

~Cassandra :)
xxxooo

Back to Writing Again...at Last!

This year has not been conducive to writing for me. 

After completing Pinned but Fluttering on January 5, I've been exhausted, overworked, in pain, or sick until now. 

Seriously. I'm not surprised that I only wrote the Prologue and Chapter One of Only by Moonlight so far, considering how terrible I've felt since the holidays. 

After teaching two online classes at once in January (never again!) then another online class in February, plus keeping up with the grading and lessons for my IRL co-op expository writing class for high school home-schooled students which has been overfilled all year, not to mention homeschooling our three teen boys, one of whom is graduating from high school in June, and we have a recipe for severe exhaustion and a flare-up of chronic pain due to autoimmune issues. 

The good news is that I've rested for much of April, and the current online class I'm teaching is very low-maintenance. In addition, my IRL high school class is working on their research papers, so I haven't had much grading to do for the past few weeks. 

In addition, my doctor ran some metabolic tests and discovered some mutations and other issues, so he decided that I should try some modified B-12 shots which seem to be helping in the areas of mental energy and sleep. I haven't seen much physical energy or reduction in pain yet, but I hope that they're coming along. 

So this week I completed the first draft of Chapter Two of Only by Moonlight and sent it to my pre-reader, ladylibre. She gave me excellent advice (as always), and I plan to make a few adjustments and post the chapter either Saturday night or Sunday afternoon, preferably the former. 

I hope now to be back to posting weekly chapters, but I make no promises until school is finished on June 14. May 20 and onward will be rather crazy with a high-maintenance online class to teach plus grading and returning the MLA research essays to my co-op class, so those four weeks may be a little scary. But until mid-May, I hope to be posting regularly, and again over the summer. 

Dealing with autoimmune illnesses is difficult as stress and overwork definitely worsens the pain and both mental and physical exhaustion. But I'm praying that these injections (which I'll be injecting myself...yay) will help to clear the mental fog as well as strengthen me physically. I'm praying, too, that as my sleep lengthens and deepens, my pain levels will fall, too. I'm leaving it in God's hands. 

Thank you so much for bearing with me during my "slump" here this year. I so appreciate the kind and supportive messages so many of you have written to me on Wattpad and FFN as well as on Facebook. You all are the BEST readers ever!! And I hope that you'll really enjoy the second chapter of Only by Moonlight. 

Writing for you,
~Cassandra :) 
xxxooo

Slowly Writing and Re-Writing Only by Moonlight

I've been having some pretty serious physical difficulties over the past couple of months. I've been diagnosed with a bevy of autoimmune illnesses, depending on which doctor I've seen: first it was fibromyalgia, then rheumatoid arthritis, then chronic fatigue syndrome. Now I'm being tested for mitochrondrial diseases. 

Despite the variance in diagnoses, the end result is over a decade of chronic pain that is somewhat controlled by eight methadone pills per day and a great deal of sheer exhaustion. I've overworked myself since the first of the year, and life is catching up to me at the moment. 

After completing Pinned but Fluttering, I took January and February off from writing. In early March I picked back up with my new story, Only by Moonlight. The response to the Prologue and first chapter have been amazing, but I've really struggled with the second chapter. 

Then this week it dawned on me: because this story was written in third person limited omniscient point of view, I was feeling too distant from my characters. As I drafted, I felt that I was "telling" more than "showing"--relating the story through a filter of distance rather than capturing the raw emotion and reactions of a first person narrator. 

So I've since rewritten both the first chapter and the half to two-thirds of the second chapter of Only by Moonlight in first person. I'll be switching the new first chapters on Wattpad and FanFiction.net later today and will keep working on Chapter Two.

And I do have an image of Bella's quilt for Chapter Two that I'll be posting when I upload the chapter. :)  

So thank you for your kind understanding of my physical condition, my busy schedule of homeschooling three teen boys (one graduating this year), teaching an overly-full high school class in expository writing, and teaching online courses for homeschooling families at Brave Writer, plus keeping my own essay grading business afloat. 

I took this week off after Easter--no homeschooling, no teaching, no grading, and it's helped some, but I really need an additional week or two (or perhaps a month) off in order to feel a real change in my health. 

But I'm also missing the creative outlet of writing fiction, so I shall continue, albeit more slowly and painfully than I would like. ;) 

BTW, I'm thrilled that Pinned but Fluttering has passed 1.6 million reads on Wattpad (and an overall total of nearly 15,000 votes on all my works combined there) plus over 1500 reviews on FanFiction.net. 

And even the mere seven pages I've posted of Only by Moonlight has garnered over 90 votes and over 100 comments on Wattpad plus 64 reviews on FanFiction.net; the reads/views on each site are comparable at about 1200 each. Thank you for reading, voting, commenting, and reviewing my stories!! You all just overwhelm me with your love and support!! :)

And if you're interested in the fan fiction stories I've been reading, check the sidebar under "Fics I Have Read in 2013" for a complete list of all the completed stories I've been following. :)

Thanks again for your compassion and understanding, and I hope to be posting more chapters for you soon. :)

Warmly,
Cassandra :) 
xxxooo

Fan Fic Recs and the New Story....

Okay, so I'm posting this Valentine a little late, but I do love you all and appreciate your support of my stories!! Thank you sooooooo much!! <3 <3 <3

At the beginning of this month I received a very pleasant surprise: Pinned but Fluttering was selected as one of the selections for the Top Ten Fics Completed in January by TwiFanFictionRecs. It's up against some incredible fics--ones I've read and enjoyed so much--written by the likes of CullensTwiMistress, TheFicChick, Chloe Masen, LyricalKris, PrettyKittyArtist, iambeagle, TallulahBelle, FictionFreak95, pattyrose, and Tardis19. So I doubt that Pinned but Fluttering will make the Top Ten, but it's nice to be nominated for something. 

Here's the direct link for voting, and you may vote every 24 hours through the end of February: Top Ten Completed Fics for January.  I would be sooo grateful for your vote(s)!! 

In other news, I am finally past the worst of my grading frenzy. In January I taught two online courses concurrently, something I will never do again; the stress was incredible!! Especially when one class was a Literary Analysis course which means tons of posts--nine per week per student, and multiply that by 15-20 students.... Yeah, it can get crazy!! Plus, Literary Analysis courses also require a final writing project, so I had to grade all of those essays as well. 

In addition, our home school group's semester grades were due on February 14, so I had to not only gather and grade my own three boys' work for the semester, but I also had to finish grading essays and post semester grades for my co-op high school expository writing class. I actually pulled two "all-nighters" last week, up grading essays until 6:15 AM one morning and 4:30 AM another morning. 

So now that the major stressors are behind me and I'm only teaching a poetry writing workshop online, plus home schooling the three boys (two in high school) and teaching my co-op class, I think I'll be able to start on my next writing project. I hope to start next weekend and be posting the first chapter by March. We'll see how it goes; with my chronic illness, I also need to rest after putting in crazy hours since the beginning of January. 

This will be my first AH (all human) story, and when I polled my readers on Wattpad, asking if I should write it as a fan fic or as an original story (Wattpad has tons of genres available besides fan fiction), the fan fiction readers won handily by a two-to-one margin. But it should also edit quite easily into a non-Twilight story as well. I have a couple of approaches I'm debating in setting up the story, and, as usual, I have a premise but no real plan or outline for how this story will proceed. 

That's the fun part of writing for me: not knowing what's going to happen any more than my readers do, LOL!! :) 

So thanks again for reading, for voting (I hope!!), and for waiting patiently while life settles into a vague semblance of order so that I can start writing again. You all are the BEST readers a writer could ever want!! :) 

Warmly,
~Cassandra :)
xxxooo

Done...and Plans

It's been a few weeks since I completed Pinned but Fluttering. The sense of accomplishment in completing Pinned but Fluttering is incredible; it's nearly twice as long as Evening Star, and it took me nearly a year and a half of posting almost weekly chapters to complete the story. 

Unlike most fan fiction writers, I make no outlines; I don't plan out my plots beyond a vague idea of how it's going to end. It's much more fun to write that way because I don't know what's going to happen, either. But there are also drawbacks to writing off-the-cuff as well: repetition, writing oneself into a corner, etc. Nevertheless, I enjoy writing this way too much to stop now. :) 

Readers on both Wattpad.com and FanFiction.net are requesting sequels to both of my novel-length stories, but I don't think I'm ready to write another epic-type novel at the moment.

The popularity of Pinned but Fluttering continues to astound me. Currently it's received almost 200,000 reads on FanFiction.net (adding the outtakes story to the original PbF) and 1,415,600 on Wattpad.com, for an overall total of over 1.6 million hits all together. Wattpad also shows nearly 9500 votes and 6700 comments while FanFiction.net has over 1500 reviews. I still can't wrap my mind around those numbers....  

Because I am currently teaching three classes in January (two online courses, one a family grammar workshop and the other a high school literary analysis class on Oscar Wilde's play The Importance of Being Earnest, and one IRL expository writing class that lasts all school year) plus homeschooling my three teen boys, I'm taking January off from writing. Between Evening Star and Pinned but Fluttering, not to mention my shorter stories/one shots, I've been posting weekly chapters for just over two years. So once I return my final essays from my online Literary Analysis Class in February, during which I"ll be teaching only one online course (a poetry workshop), plus the IRL writing class and homeschooling my boys, I'll probably work on two or three shorter stories I've started, a couple from which I've posted excerpts on this blog. 

I have an idea for a novel-length story, but I've been debating whether to write it as an original story or as a fan fiction story. I asked my readers on Wattpad which they'd prefer, and currently this is how the polling stands:

Original story: 9 votes
Fan Fiction story: 14 votes
Both/Either (no opinion): 5 votes

I'm still debating. I found myself excited when I received a vote for "Original" and kind of sad when I received one for "Fan Fiction," so my heart it telling me to write an original story which I would publish on Wattpad. But part of me is still drawn to the ease and comfort of writing fan fiction since it's what I know. It would be easy enough to revise the fan fiction story into an original story since this story idea is AH/AU (All Human and Alternate Universe); there won't be vampires or shape shifters/werewolves, but the story will still be a paranormal-type tale. I don't want to say much more, but I'm definitely letting the ideas bubble away on the back burner of my mind this month. 

Teaching two concurrent online classes this month is killing me; I had to take yesterday (Friday) off and just crawl into bed and rest because I am that worn out right now. So please be understanding if I don't get back into writing until March or so. My IRL class will be working on their research essays which means I won't be grading piles of essays as I usually have to do until May when their research projects are due, so I'll have 6-8 weeks of more free time. Plus, as far as I know, I'm not teaching any online classes in March although I have some big projects I need to be working on for my job, mostly revising and editing some of our online classes (those taught only once per year) into e-books that families can do at their own pace. I'm nearly done with the grammar class, so I'm thrilled about that! 

And I am so sorry that I haven't been able to respond to many of the wonderful reviews and comments that readers posted at the end of Pinned but Fluttering. I've saved them all and definitely treasure them, and I will respond when I have the time...which may not be until February. I hate having to postpone commenting until then, but that's just the way it has to be. :(

Oh, and I just found out yesterday that Breaking Dawn Part 2 is being released onto DVD here in the US on my birthday!! At least my kids will know what to get me, LOL! :) 

So that's where I am, writing-wise and life-wise. Thanks for being understanding about my need to take a break. My autoimmune illness has also been in flare-up mode because of my work schedule; when I overwork and don't sleep enough, the pain worsens, which makes it more difficult to sleep, which makes the pain worsen further, etc. It's a vicious circle. So thanks for your understanding and your amazing support; you're all the best readers ever!!

With much love,
Cassandra :)
xxxooo