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

New Story: Only by Moonlight

Today I posted the Prologue to my new fan fiction story, Only by Moonlight. I'll add the links to the sidebar later today for Wattpad and FanFiction.net.

This story has been wandering around in my brain for over a year. I plan to edit it later into an original story that I may try to publish...if it ends up being good enough. 

I posted this Prologue exactly two months to the day after I posted the Epilogue for Pinned but Fluttering. It's been weird being away for two months, but after more than two years of posting weekly chapters (and sometimes more often!), I needed the break. Besides, my work schedule has been crazy between the co-op high school writing class I teach and the three online classes I taught over two months (in addition to homeschooling our three teenaged sons). So taking a break from writing only made sense. 

But I really missed it. I missed the freedom of letting ideas flow, of following my characters as they speak and act and think and ponder and wonder. And I missed the sense of accomplishment that came with posting a completed chapter each week. But mostly I missed hearing from my regular readers on both Wattpad and FFN. I've made some wonderful friends, and not posting my writing to them made me feel off-kilter over the past two months.

And for the first time, I have a pre-reader!! The lovely and immensely-talented ladylibre has agreed to pre-read for me and keep me from committing grave errors (and she already caught two major ones in the first chapter alone!). So don't miss reading her superb stories Black Ice and Serenity's Prayer; they're both top-notch!! 

We both knocked our heads together for several days, trying to come up with a title. My dear ladylibre suggested using "Moonlight" in the title, and as I was flipping through images to make the book cover, I saw a book cover for Sometimes by Moonlight which I tweaked to the more appropriate Only by Moonlight. 

Finally. That lack of title has been driving me crazy. I designed the simple book cover although I'm hoping that someone vastly more talented will come along and offer to make me a really nice one. But I do like this one well enough for now and will be content even if no one steps forward to design a proper cover for Only by Moonlight.

My plan is to write on Friday evenings and Saturdays, then get the chapter to my delightful pre-reader, then edit it during the next week and post it the following weekend. I have Chapter One almost ready to post since my pre-reader already went through it,so it will be up this coming weekend (March 9th-10th). 

I'm glad to be back to writing, and perhaps you'll hear more from me now that I'm back among the living...I mean, the writing. ;)

Warmly,
~Cassandra :)
xxxooo

Making the Top Ten...and the New Story

I am thrilled to announce that Pinned but Fluttering was voted into the Top Ten Completed Fics for January at TwiFanFictionRecs!! Thank you to all of you who voted; I was ecstatic to find out that Pinned but Fluttering came in at #8!!

In addition, TwiFanFictionRecs featured Pinned but Fluttering earlier this week with its own post right here! 

And in further good news, Pinned but Fluttering passed the 1.5 million reads (hits) mark on Wattpad this week! It's also received more than 10,000 votes. The total number of hits on all of my Twilight fan fiction stories at both Wattpad and FanFiction.net combined surpasses 2.6 million. 

That number simply boggles my mind.   


I also found out this week that I am to be published in an arts journal called Ruminate under my real name. Thanks to a dear poet friend, I have a subscription to this wonderful journal, and in one of their e-mails, they asked for reader notes (125 words max) on the topic of "glimpses." I scribbled something out and e-mailed it in, and this week they contacted me to say that mine is among those they've chosen to publish in the spring issue coming out later this month. 


What a way to celebrate my birthday this week!! 

In addition, I drafted the first chapter of my new story (still debating the name) last weekend, and then sent it to the lovely and immensely-talented ladylibre for pre-reading. She gave me some excellent advice, and the chapter is ready to post. However, I still need to:

• name the story (we've been tossing around titles, but I'm still undecided)
• create a Wattpad/FFN book cover
• decide whether to write/post a prologue

But I feel really good about where the story is going. I may slow down my posting schedule to once every two weeks rather than weekly, but we'll see. This year has been so incredibly busy so far that my head is still spinning. However, I missed writing these past months, and it feels wonderful to be writing for you all again. 

And thank you for the lovely birthday messages, both on Facebook and on Wattpad. You all are simply delightful, and I wouldn't be writing without your kind support of my work. 

So off to work on the new story...and I think I'll probably write the prologue after all. ;)

Thanks for everything!! xxxooo

~Cassandra :)

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