to write the unwriteable wrong

BTW I have an amazon kindle link for my book now: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CEIFARE

You may go about your day!

It is... finished. (collapses)

Baby-sitters Club: The Next Generation Super Special #1: What Happens in Sea City... (61054 words) by zelempa
Chapters: 24/24
Fandom: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Relationships: Byron Pike/Jeff Schafer
Characters: Byron Pike, Jeff Schafer, Shea Rodowsky, Jordan Pike, Becca Ramsey, Adam Pike, Mallory Pike, Jessi Ramsey, Nicky Pike, Cecelia Parker
Series: Part 2 of Baby-sitters Club: The Next Generation
Summary:

Just over a day at the beach, and already his hair was even lighter than usual—practically white—and his skin was darkening to its usual California tan. His eyes were just slits of sea blue, and he was smiling at me. I could feel myself smiling back, broad and goofy. This is what it would be like every morning. Someday.

I edged my hand out into the sand between us, and his came to meet mine. I am the luckiest guy in the history of the universe.

“Ah-ah-ahhh!” Vanessa called out.

I squeezed Jeff’s hand, dropped it, and raised my hand to flip Vanessa the bird.

“Forget it,” said Jeff, sitting up and brushing the sand off his shoulders. “We’re under a microscope.”

Oh wait, I promised you something else today! Hold tight for my next post.

I'm in Boston, but I don't know more than anyone at this point. All my loved ones are accounted for, fortunately. Right now, parts of the city are still crime scene, but we're supposed to "go about our lives and remain vigilant." My partner was supposed to start a new job today, but the building and subway stop are closed. I work from home for an out-of-state company, so it's business as usual for me.

And if I don't post more Baby-sitters Club fic, the terrorists win!

Chapters 19-21 are up. Things are getting resolved, but! There is still one more day of posting! AND don't forget tomorrow's Special Wednesday Reveal.

Oh, man. I haven't watched or thought much about Due South in months, but this morning I woke up at the tail end of a dreamed alternate first RayK episode in which Fraser meets Kowalski in a hardware store in Yellowknife. It's an electric connection at first sight, although the show just-barely dresses it in terms of friendship. The symbolism is obvious, though. For reasons that I don't remember or perhaps the dream never made clear, when he first see him, Ray is holding a Valentine.

Fraser has what is in many ways a dream post in remote Yukon town, low crime and lots of good earnest people who honestly disagree about worthwhile goals (such as the issue of whether to integrate the mer-people into mainstream society or keep them segregated from land people in the name of helping them preserve their unique culture; Fraser acts chiefly as a translator in this conflict, having spent some time among the mer-people in his youth). But Fraser is frustrated by the machinations of local politics and has felt for some time that he could do more good elsewhere. Meeting Ray also makes him realize with a jolt how lonely he's been here. He's on good terms with everyone in town, but except for Dief, he has no special friendship, no partner. Ray and his stories of Chicago seem like fate, and during their epic day-long conversation (including a stop at a craft fair where Ray complains the insufficient punk rock value of a Valentine with a picture of Robert Smith that is there for some reason), Fraser all but promises to go back with him. He agrees to meet Ray the next morning at his hotel.

Overnight, he's reminded of his local obligations and realizes how crazy it is to run away with some guy he just met. The next morning, he's practicing what he'll say to Ray, a scrupulously polite and gushingly complimentary speech that ultimately offers his regrets. He gets in his truck to find Ray freezing there; he ran out of money and decided to camp out, but it was more than he bargained for. Fraser climbs into Ray's sleeping bag with him and as Ray warms up, he launches into the middle of a conversation, arguing with Fraser's anticipated "no." (Again, Ray's monologue focuses on Friendship, Companionship, Partnership, etc., in ways that don't really make sense if you're not mentally translating them to "love.") Fraser interrupts him to make plans to leave on the next plane.

Confusing and derivative, maybe, but not bad for a dream!

Here are the first lines from my 21 most recent stories. Since I'm on the slow side, this amounts to over 75% of my entire body of work, covering a period of over five years. It's interesting to look at your stories this way; I usually end up cutting so much "prewriting" and tinkering with the beginning point until so late in the game that I don't end up spending a lot of time crafting the perfect first line, so I didn't remember most of them. I was pleasantly surprised with some of them, while others work better in context.

( First Lines Meme )

Chapters 7-9 are up: the first and only chapter narrated by Aunt Cecelia; an actual Byron chapter; and you can finally find out how I'm going to handle that whole "Mallory has a system for roulette" business.

Remember, on Wednesday (the final day of posting) there will be a SPECIAL SURPRISE!

Baby-sitters Club: The Next Generation Super Special #1: What Happens in Sea City... (9975 words) by zelempa
Chapters: 3/24
Fandom: Baby-Sitters Club - Ann M. Martin
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Relationships: Byron Pike/Jeff Schafer
Characters: Byron Pike, Jeff Schafer, Shea Rodowsky, Jordan Pike, Becca Ramsey, Adam Pike, Mallory Pike, Jessi Ramsey, Nicky Pike, Cecelia Parker
Series: Part 2 of Baby-sitters Club: The Next Generation


This is a very exciting week for me!

Today, I began posting the long-awaited (well, by me: I've been working on it forever) sequel to my most popular fic of all time, the Baby-sitters Club fic Byron and the God of California.

I want to thank Mizz Marvel for beta and encouraging excitement! I also want to thank all of the 200+ (!) people who left kudos or comments on the original fic.

It's a long fic, so I'll post three chapters a day for the next eight days.

One week from today, when I post the last three chapters, I will also reveal a SPECIAL SURPRISE!

So stay tuned!

I know I've been gone for, like, a year, and I know I have said this before, BUT I promise I am still plugging away at something for y'all which should be ready in a month or so. In the meantime, I would like to hold another

ROUGHLY ANNUAL CHARITY STUFF GIVEAWAY!

If you want anything in this list, leave a comment to claim it! PM or email me (zelempa at gmail) your mailing address. I will mail your item(s). I will then discard your address. I'll pay for shipping. All I ask in return is that you donate a small amount - say $5 per item - to one of my charities:

charity:water
Medecins sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders)
Oxfam
Organization for Transformative Works

Please donate a bit more if you are outside the U.S. as shipping will cost more.

Feel free to claim as many items as you want, and feel free to send your friends this link! Act soon, because I will start donating things to Goodwill around the end of February.

( DVDs )

( Books )

( Action Figures )

Head on over to laurie_ky's journal to bid on her Moonridge offer, a Due South story with art by me!

For anyone who has interest in either my art or Dungeons & Dragons (Big Bang Theory fic fans?), Paul of BlogofHolding.com is doing a kickstarter to create and distribute a cool poster which encapsulated the rules of random dungeons as a dungeon itself, and one of the bonuses is dreamy elf stickers by me!