A Bit About My Thirst Submissions

By the time this posts, the results for the Thirst Contest will have been posted, though as I write this, it is still several days away. I am writing this completely unaware as to if I will get lucky and win a prize or if that will be another day of bad luck - which, given the way the voting was set up, I suspect the latter.

For the record, had I known going into the contest that the only thing the readers would be able to vote for were the specialty awards and not the traditional top three, I wouldn't have even entered. 

Here's a bit about why.

Anyone who reads my stories can pretty much safely say that I tend to write outside the norm. I'm not afraid to make people hate me and I don't write a story for a contest just to go the standard route. For the record, if you don't know what the standard is, it's an E/B HEA romance... typically with minimal to no angst. That's not me. Over the years I've had people call me the queen of angst, and though I will write E/B, they have to earn that HEA if I decide to give it to them. More often than not, I don't even bother. 

Once in a rare while one of my contest entries will actually get a popularity award, even though my stories aren't the standard. And when that happens it makes me certain I did something right. I actually impressed people enough that they voted for my Lauren story (Lost But Not Forgotten) or my Julie story (For the Dogs) or my Victoria story (Tenetur Per Sanguine). For me, awards like this are extremely satisfying. And unfortunately, with the way this contest is set up, there's almost no award the readers can vote on that works with either of my two stories. 

The two stories I entered into the Thirst Contest were Take It Back and Imprint of Yore, two very opposite stories. 

So, let's talk about Take It Back:

A lot of the people that reviewed this story during the contest have asked for me to continue it. I want people to understand, that I wrote a complete story, and I have no intention of continuing it. I gave the E/B lovers a glimpse of potential hope, but in my mind I don't see a continued story ending in anything other than tragedy. 

Bella has lost everything. She's been through literal, spiritual, and mental hell. And there's one of two ways to look at it. Either everything she's been through is her fault or it's all Edward's fault. You can pick which way you see it. Either way, there's no potential for an HEA, not in this storyline.

With that being said, maybe if I'm ever feeling especially bitter, I might continue it, but understand the ending I see in my mind is not a pretty one. 

In the mean time, I've never been opposed to people taking my fanfics and using them as a starting point for their own - as long as they give me credit for my part in it. So, if somebody wanted to write a continuation ending in an HEA, they could, but it wouldn't be me. 

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Then, there's Imprint of Yore:

Of the two, this is the clear underdog, none of the reviews so far have asked for a continuation, and the review count on the contest is disproportionately low. It having the second lowest count of eighteen stories. 

And yet, I'm drawn to continue this, I want to see the next section. I want Edward and Jacob to find some sort of happy union. I see rocks and bumps and hills and mountains to climb in my mind. And I want it on paper. I want people to be able to read this story. 

So I do intend to continue this. In fact, I see this as at least a trilogy, with rough paralleling to the original Twilight saga. I don't know if it will be a success amongst my readers, but I intend to go with it, anyway. 

Thirst Contest Submissions and Winner

 As is fairly standard for me when a contest is made available (that I'm not judging or validating) I did submit the max amount allowed. In this case, that was two entries, one of which surprised me and actually won an award... mostly because I thought if either got an award it would not be the slash story.

It's making me consider updating my pre-set post that's scheduled to release in about ten hours, but I don't think I will as that was my unadulterated opinion at the time I wrote it about eight days ago. 

So, without further ado, my two entries were Take It Back and Imprint of Yore. 

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Unlike most of my contest entries, which I tend to write as complete one-shots with no intention of ever extending them, I do intend to continue this fic. For more details on that, stay tuned for the post later today. 

As always, my contest entries are posted on both FFN and ADifferentForest. 

TwiTricksandTreats6 Submission

 The TwiTricksandTreats6 Contest just concluded and I did manage to submit a story for it, though it was an extremely tough write for me.

The story I submitted was Frat Party for One

It is now available on my ffn account and on ADifferentForest. 

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Halloween Edition Submissions and Winner

 As usual, I did submit the max of two allowed entries for the most recent A Picture contest. One of my two stories did win a special award while the other didn't win anything. 

My first submission was A Regular Salem Witch Trial and while it didn't win anything, I was quite happy with how it turned out.

My second submission was The Soldier and the Fairy, which won the Invisible Man award for a non ExB story. 

These stories are now available on my account on ffn and on ADifferentForest 

Rebirth and Affliction Sneak Peek

A brief teaser of Chapter 20 - Compromise:

We ran side by side for several minutes before Edythe spoke, “Can I ask you something and get a completely honest answer?”

Her words caught me off guard, but I answered immediately, “Of course.”

“Why did you back out after asking me to marry you?”

The question caught me off guard, and I pulled my hand from hers. “I didn't really back out.”

“Oh? You could have fooled me.”

“You do realize I was only seventeen when I d... was turned, right? Maybe in the teens of the nineteen hundreds getting married at seventeen was commonplace, but it's pretty much unheard of in today's age.” I took a deep breath. “When I sort of asked you –” I honestly still didn't think I'd truly asked her. “– it was with this assumption that we'd do it someday. We live forever, after all, but suddenly it was being pushed on me by Archie and you. Before I met you, I'd never thought of being with someone for a lifetime – never even really thought about sex, at least not any more than in an obscure health class sort of way. And I didn't have anyone to talk to about anything; no father to tell me I was making the right choice or give me a pep talk, no best friends to ask about past experiences, and no clue what I was doing. The truth is, if I hadn't met you, I doubt I ever would have married. So with the pushing, I simply... wasn't ready.”

She came to a stop, so I did as well.

“Are you saying that, what? You were worried you wouldn't know how to have sex with me?”

I was sort of surprised she'd actually understood what I was getting at with my rambling, but I scowled and looked away. “I know there's a hell of a lot more to it than the insert tab a into slot b that is taught in health class. Who was I supposed to talk to about my concerns? Certainly not Royal, and completely forget about Archie – even imagining the conversation if I went to Archie is terrifying. That leaves Earnest, and I simply... can't”

“There is Carine.” Edythe pointed out.

“You're right, she is a doctor so I suppose for a very clinical explanation I could have gone to her, but that wasn't really what I wanted.”

A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words: Summer Blowout (Mini) Edition Submissions and Winner

Back in mid February the Summer Blowout (Mini) Edition of A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words was announced, and I wrote my two submissions way back then. 

The first story I submitted was Dance of the Flames, sort of an inspired elf based story that happened to be the judge's 2Brown-eyes pick for her favorite.

And my other submission was a Life and Death Alternate Universe inspired fic, Summer Blue Moon.

PerfectDateContest Submissions and Winner

I've been struggling to write lately, in fact I only just barely managed to get these two stories done. They, unfortunately, proved to be extremely difficult for me to write. 

Frankly, writing at all, has been difficult. I hope that will change soon, but I'm not certain, because I'm not even sure why I'm having such a hard time writing at the moment. 

But with all that being said, I did manage to submit two stories to the PerfectDateContest, one of which won an award.

My first story that I submitted was A Date of a Strange Variety. No one knew this, but it is a spin-off one-shot for my story Necromancy in the Fifth. 

The second one I submitted was Lost My Mind. It won the Bumble Award for best non-canon.

As always, you can click the banner images to be taken to the stories on ffn. The stories are also available on ADF. 

The News

Unless you're living under a rock by now you've heard the news. For the one or two that haven't, at approximately nine ante meridian eastern time, Stephenie Meyer officially announce Midnight Sun will be released on August 4, 2020.

Cheers, yippee, yahoo, and all of that.

You may notice the sarcasm that manages to express itself, even in that short seven word sentence. I want to be excited for this book. But, the truth is, I'm not... not even a little bit.

The longer I think about it. The less enthused I am by the fact that it's finally coming out. And before anyone asks the magic three letter word, the truth is,  I don't know. I want to be excited. But perhaps it's about the fact that it's been almost twelve years since the release of the partial draft and somewhere along the line, I've just stopped caring.

Or perhaps it's because of the numerous, very well written, Midnight Sun continuations that are on FFN. Part of me truly believes that several of those authors are better than Meyer herself. 

Or perhaps it's that I was hoping, maybe foolishly, for something else Twilight related. Meyer always said that there was a possibility of a future story featuring Jake and Renesmee... and part of me hoped. Also, after writing Life and Death, she did say she was considering writing other retellings, so I thought this release might be an "insert new characters" Bella/Jake story. Or, as was implied with The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, there were characters, plural, that stuck out to her, so maybe it was going to be another character's novella.

Maybe, I was secretly hoping for the sequel to The Host...

Instead, we get the long awaited Midnight Sun.

And I should be excited.

But, as I read the summary, I feel like it's setting me up for a let down. It promises darkness, and though I have seen Meyer write really good fantasy, really good romance, really sci-fi... I have never seen her write dark. In fact, one could say, her previous works suggest she deliberately avoids it. And unless she's gotten a lot more brazen since she wrote Life and Death The Chemist, I'm just not seeing it.

And that's the problem.

I think if the summary was marketing it as the young adult romance I'm almost a hundred percent certain it's going to end up being, I might be more exited

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Quarantine Edition Submissions

I submitted two different stories to A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words: Quarantine Edition. Neither of them were winners of anything, but one I am planning to turn into a full length story in the future. 

I submitted Life in a Bubble, which is a completed one-shot. It is available on both ffn and adf. 

And I submitted Letters and Barkeeps, which will be turned into a full length story in the future, but currently the one-shot is available on both ffn and adf. 

Life and Death Characters - Casting Call

For the most part, I have avoided trying to put face to names. In large part, this because many of the characters from Life and Death. A few days ago though, I got into a conversation with a which led to us talking about some of the Cullen household and what they might look like. Since then I've worked to put faces to names. I'd already matched faces for Beau, Edythe, and Julie, but the rest of the Cullens I hadn't.

I sort of doubt I'll do it for other characters, below are Beau, Julie, and the whole Cullen Clan

Beau was described when he was human as being tall, broad-shouldered, and blue-eyed. After too many hours looking through far too many actors to mention, I finally found Luke Bilyk. I admit, he's a little too old, but I do believe he is a good match.

We never got an official description of Julie after she because a shifter, but my assumption is the females are similar to the males from the original saga, both shooting up in height, and losing they're baby fat, etc. As such, Devery Jacobs felt like a very good fit. 

Edythe was described with the same copper hair as Edward had. And no matter who the movies selected, to me 'copper hair' is more red than brown. Also, based on her general description, I belie Katherine McNamara is the best match

It was harder for me to find genderswapped characters for the rest of the Cullens. But I finally decided on Brooklyn Decker for Carine and Armie Hammer for Earnest.

Kenton Duty as Royal and Kalia Prescott as Eleanor

Cameron Ocasio as Archie and McKenna Knipe as Jessamine