My Sincerest Apologies...

A new year is almost upon us! It's hard to believe that 2011 has come and gone so quickly. This was both the best and worst year I've had, but I'll leave the personal shit at the door for the time being and get down to business.

I currently have three works in progress in the fan fiction world: Endless Night, Hot Commodity, and If You Only Knew (four if you count the outtake series I'm writing for Hot Commodity). I'm not sure what I was thinking when I decided to start so many writing projects at one time, but it's catching up with me now and biting me in the ass. An explanation of sorts is most definitely in order, and so here goes:

My original intent was to publish one chapter from each fic every two to three weeks, but I just haven't been able to keep up with the writing and so that schedule fell apart. I'm not the type of writer who can rush things, I'm a perfectionist to an extreme, and if something doesn't feel right, I won't post it. I've been known to erase large portions of chapters because I wasn't satisfied with where I took the story (thank god my beta - Chloe Masen - is so amazing because she's been able to provide me with a back up copy when I regretted that), sit on things for days while overanalyzing everything I've written, and occasionally write two or three different versions of something before I'm happy with how it turns out. My neuroses and OCD tendencies act as both a blessing and a curse, and in the case of my writing, usually a curse. LOL! *shakes head and does an elegant facepalm* This coupled with a chaotic schedule has led to one big clusterfuck of excitement here in my universe....

 I'm not even sure how many people read this blog since it's so new, and of those who do read I'm not sure how many follow me on Twitter, but in addition to working full-time as a case manager at a social services agency, I am also a full-time graduate student. As you can imagine, between work and school I don't get too much time for myself, so my writing is usually carefully planned out and timed out. Unfortunately things just haven't been synching up lately and that's also been contributing to my sporadic updates. Add the holidays in there and other unplanned events in the family and social circles and ... Well, I'm sure many of you can relate and you get my drift. Hectic is a mild term to describe what the last month has been like for me.

The holidays are always an insane time for me, so I'm hoping that once this coming weekend passes, things will settle down and I'll have more opportunities to further develop the stories and keep chapters coming out for everyone. My spring semester classes are online, so that will free up the time that I'd normally spend in the classroom and commuting and whatnot, and everything else usually slows down during the winter/spring months.

I wanted to let all my readers know how much I appreciate you sticking around and waiting out and being patient with me while I get the chapters ready. I've contemplated shelving two of the stories to focus on finishing one, but in the end I just can't bear to part with my characters for any extended periods of time, and I don't want to disappoint any readers by dangling a portion of a story in front of you and then snatching it away for who knows how long. I know I would hate it if an author did that to something I was actively reading. :)

To give everyone an idea of exactly what's to come in the near future in terms of my work...
- Chapter 9 of Hot Commodity is approximately half written, and my hope (let me emphasize the word hope) is to finish the remaining half tomorrow night, send it off for some beta action, and get it posted either Friday or Saturday sometime. I'd love for it to be my last official fic update of 2011. :)

- Chapter 11 of Endless Night isn't started yet, but I have notes and a rough outline of how I'd like the chapter to play out, so my hope is to get started on that this weekend. If all goes as planned, I will have it posted on fanfiction.net and TWCS by the end of next week.

- Chapter 3 of If You Only Knew probably won't be up until mid-January at the earliest. There's lots to do in that department and I haven't even started thinking about it quite yet.

- The second Hot Commodity outtake, Edward's first journal, will be posted next week. The outtake is already written, but it was a part of the Fandom 4 Texas compilation, and therefore I am not able to post it until after January 1. I plan on releasing one Hot Commodity outtake per month, and there will be six more posted after Edward's first one goes up in January. :)

Perhaps a blog entry wasn't entirely necessary, at least not with this much information in it, but in addition to being entirely neurotic and freakishly OCD-like in my ways, I'm also a detail-oriented nut and this is my way of keeping the chaos organized at least a little bit. ;)

I hope those that celebrate had a wonderful Christmas and that everyone has a safe and Happy New Year! Here's to 2012 being filled with laughter, smiles, love, friends, family, happiness, and lots of Robporn! ;)

xoxo
- N.

TEASER - If You Only Knew, Chapter 2

I should have been in bed hours ago, but I can never resist my writing (or Twitter, LOL), so here I am!

The second chapter of If You Only Knew is going up tomorrow night (a bit later as I need to polish it off after I get home from work), but I wanted to give everyone a Christmas treat in the form of a teaser from the chapter ...

“Who is that?” Rosalie whispered as Edward walked by. Her expression was a mixture of disgust and surprise, and Jasper suddenly felt bad for his brother. He knew without having to ask that Edward had just been cast into the group of students Rosalie put her “mean girl” attitude on for.

“That’s Jasper’s brother,” Alice said matter-of-factly. Emmett turned around and looked at Jasper.

“That’s your brother? You two don’t even look related.” Emmett glanced over at Edward. “He’s so-“

“Grungy.” Rosalie said, finishing Emmett’s sentence. Emmett laughed and nodded in agreement.

“We definitely won’t be seeing him in the court after class I’m guessing.”

“What’s the court?” Jasper inquired. He’d heard it mentioned in a few of his other classes, but hadn’t taken the time to ask about it.

“The patio area behind the school,” Rosalie explained. “It’s where everyone eats lunch.”

“Everyone who Rose doesn’t chase away, that is,” Alice quipped. Rosalie reached over to swat Alice again but stopped when she noticed the stern look Mr. Molina was directing at her. She turned around and resumed her lab work, whispering something in Emmett’s ear that made him look over his shoulder at Edward and laugh.

Jasper scrawled a few final notes in the workbook and helped Alice clean up the supplies from their experiment. He glanced at his brother with concern. Bella was sitting at the far side of the lab table, putting as much distance between her and Edward as was possible given the small space. She was trying to maintain the chemical mixture in front of her while furiously writing notes in the workbook. Her expression was one of anger and embarrassment. Edward, in the meantime, was spinning his pen around on his fingers and starring at the oversized poster of the Periodic Table of Elements with boredom.

“Poor Swan. She’s doing all the work and her lab partner is a social leper.” Rosalie shook her head in disgust and clicked her tongue. Emmett got a wicked smile on his face and stood up. He walked over to Bella’s lab table and pulled up a stool, taking a seat right between her and Edward.

If you found any humor in that segment, just wait until everyone heads to the court for lunch. Plenty of angst awaits!

Happy Thursday (in approximately 35 minutes) and I hope you enjoy the full chapter when it's posted tomorrow!

xoxo

UPDATE - Hot Commodity: The Edward & Bella Diaries

Greetings all!

First posts in new blogs always twist my nerves, so let's just dive right into the good stuff - the frequently mentioned series of outtakes I've started penning for Hot Commodity.

I posted the first chapter of Hot Commodity: The Edward & Bella Diaries yesterday. In case you were wondering, the outtakes come in the form of journal entries from Edward and Bella. There are four outtakes for each of them, highlighting their sophomore, junior, and senior years in college, and the time between college graduation and present day in the story.

The first outtake is from Bella's sophomore year at Harvard. Love is in the air, the Queen of Sass has her game face on, and the Harvard ladies are ready to come out and play ...

Seth smiled and kissed my cheek. "Anytime you're in the market for a kidnapping, let me know." His breath tickled my ear and I giggled. 

"Goodnight Seffy!" It probably wasn't a good idea for him to share his childhood nickname with me when I was sauced. 

He shook his head and rolled his eyes. "Goodnight Jelly Bellie." I cringed as he fired my own childhood nickname back at me. 

"Jelly Bellie?" Rose eyed me suspiciously as we walked to Alice's car. "Care to share?" 

I shook my head and fell into the backseat. "There's nothing to share, my dear Rose. We just got caught up, that's all." 

"Caught up?" Alice piped in. "Bella, you were in deep conversation with him for four hours! I don't even think you got up to pee in the time that we were there!" 

I smiled to myself and closed my eyes, resting my head against the seat. I could hear Rose turn around, and I squinted one eye open. 

"You have the hots for Seth!" Rose pointed at me accusingly. Alice clapped her hands in excitement. 

"I don't have the hots for Seth, you're crazy." I closed my eye again and tried to drown out the noise around me. 

"We're your best friends Bell, you can't hide this stuff from us." Alice pulled the car into a parking spot outside our complex and cut the engine. "Besides, there's nothing wrong with liking him. He's a nice guy and you two are totally cute together." 

I stumbled out of Alice's car and lit a cigarette. "There is nothing going on with Seth," I insisted. "We're just good friends." 

"Whatever you say." Rose shrugged and followed Alice inside. I stood on the steps of the building and finished my cigarette in silence. 

My mind was spinning from the Jagermeister and events of the evening. As I butted my cigarette, Alice and Rose's words played over in my head.

I couldn't possibly like Seth … Could I? 

Read the entire entry here! If you haven't had a chance to read Hot Commodity yet, you can do that here!

Edward's first outtake will be coming shortly after the New Year!

Happy Holidays to all -- don't get too tipsy under the Christmas tree! ;)

xoxo