Because I made a promise

I promised everybody I would let them know when I'm working on a new That Which is Greater story. It's not a new story, technically, but I am writing steadily in that universe right now. When I know a posting date, I'll let you know.

Keep an eye on this blog, by the way, for some ebooks and some links to things I've written in the past few weeks. There are a lot of things. I went a little crazy cleaning out my Tumblr prompt box in anticipation of a new year.

Hope everybody's having a wonderful end of the year! Stay sexy!
Frea

Happy Thanksgiving

Hello, Lovelies,

It’s the night before Thanksgiving here in the States (the rest of the planet probably regards this as one of the most annoying days of the year, probably along with the fourth of July, but oh well), and even though I think Thanksgiving is an incredibly problematic holiday for many reasons, I also love the principle behind it. It’s about togetherness and gratitude, and sometimes those things can feel like they’re in short supply. Especially from me. I haven’t been as communicative this year—my LJ and this blog in particular sometimes look like an abandoned wasteland—as I have been in the past, and part of that has been my health-related problems (it turns out I am sensitive to MSG and prone to migraines because of it, so I’m in the middle of a lifestyle adjustment) and part of it has just been general surliness. For all of those of you who stuck around through the days of Grumpy Frea, I have nothing but gratitude.

But I’m grateful for a lot of other things, too, so I thought I’d take a moment to list things.

I’m grateful for every review I receive (well, maybe not the angry ones, if I’m being honest). I’m grateful that somebody took time out of his/her day to leave me a small token that they had read my story, even if it was just “great job! Thanks!”

I'm grateful to the beta readers, to the cheerleaders, to anybody who encourages fanfiction writers and fanartists rather than tearing them down.

I’m grateful for every person who’s ever reached out to me, even if it’s just a simple, “How are you?”

I’m grateful for quistie64, who is such a joy to have in my life. I’m grateful that she finished her massive fic because it means I no longer bear the cross of have the longest story. But I’m grateful to her for all of her advice, her unrelenting humor and her fantastic worldview. I have never walked away from a conversation with her on any platform with less than a smile on my face. She is such an inspiration to me, you guys have no idea.

I’m grateful for Michael and Lindsay, who collectively have to be the nicest, kindest people on the planet. I’m a little glad the greater part of the Midwest separates these two because if they lived closer together, the entire earth might be sucked into a wormhole of niceness.

I’m grateful to my friend Ayefah. I’m sure she’s probably scratching her head in curiosity about why that is, BUT I HAVE MY REASONS (and am going to be super-mean and not share them here). (okay, fine, it’s because she made me realize the joy of all capitals, plus she always brings me spam whenever I get online and she’s a great person to talk to all the time. And she’s just neat. So there)

I’m grateful for Cat, who appears to me to live life with such unabashed and colorful joy. Another person who always makes me smile, and I envy her ability to live out loud like that. Also, I really should watch Friends sometime.

I’m grateful for the wonderful Wepdiggy, who I finally got the chance to meet this year and an entire room of Avengers fangirls didn’t scare him off, which was amazing. I’m grateful that he challenges my worldviews and brings his sense of humor into my life.

I’m grateful for Chris Bosman, and his excellent taste in music, his masterful use of hyperbole, and how crazy my Twitter timeline can sometimes get with him around. He keeps it fascinating.

I’m grateful for Supriya and Jessica and Jordan, who I met because of Downton Abbey and thankfully we outlasted the show together. These women are remarkable and sometimes flooding their DMs on Twitter with messages about Oliver Queen’s abs is the highlight of my week.

I’m grateful for Kris for bringing a lot of snark and Yvonne love to my life, and Kate for bringing a lot of snark and some truly amazing fanfiction. I’m not even saying that because she referenced Fates in her latest chapter (which you should go read)!

I’m grateful for the Joels: British Science Joel and Science Joel. From them, I’m guaranteed to learn something (or make BSJ facepalm by not remembering the actors for Artoo and Threepio), and I always relish that opportunity.

I’m grateful for SharpAsAMarble for the cheesiest of puns. I mean that literally.

I’m grateful for Grace for her talent and encouragement and the fact that she’s always there for a good fannish squeeing session.

I’m grateful for Don for always sending me such great questions on Tumblr and really, for reblogging every single piece of fanfiction I write. It always makes me smile.

I’m grateful for Crumby for being a troll.

…oh, I should probably say more about Crumby, huh. Oh, fine. She’s a troll, and I love it. And yes, getting to meet her in Prague this year is one of the highlights of my life. I don’t think it gets cooler than walking around Prague with a woman in a Ron Swanson T-shirt. I’m grateful I got the chance to meet Crumby and that she’s still willing to talk to me after that. And soon I shall watch Friday Night Lights, I promise!

I’m grateful to Dennis for being one of the nicest people on the planet. Even when we don’t see eye to eye, I’m amazed at the depths of kindness and the willingness to understand things that may not be familiar to him. Plus, I just admire his dedication to writing. Rock on, Dennis!

I’m grateful to Peter O for being such a positive light in my life, and for sharing his fantastic tunes with me. Dude has a song for everything, and I dig that.

I’m grateful to Karen for…I have no idea, I just adore her. She’s so fantastic and quirky and she’s got kickass Sarah Walker hair and the ability to love something in all capital letters. If I’m chatting with her online, I’m usually on the floor laughing. Granted, sometimes that’s because I’m messing with her and trying to get her to finish Curtain Call for me.

I’m grateful to Lucky. We only met in person in the airport in Chicago on our trip (which was fun to explain to random strangers), but it was like I’d known her for decades. I’ve never met anybody more accident prone but cheerful about it, and I find that utterly inspiring. Getting to spend two weeks gallivanting across Europe together was a fantastic experience I wouldn’t trade for anything. If you ever need sarcasm and positivity in the same sentence, Lucky’s your gal.

And finally, I’m grateful to Max. I don’t feel like giving a reason because that’s being too nice and I try not to do that because then he starts thinking he can get fresh with me and—oh, fiiiiine, if I must. Guys, Max is one of the greatest people I know. He’s one of my best friends. Meeting him a couple of years ago has helped me out in so many, incalculable ways. He was there for all of Fates and he’s been there for every big story since, always cheerleading me on and willing to read the crappiest of prose that I send his way (and trust me, I have sent some real stinkers his way; my taste for puns means you are NEVER SAFE). I’m so grateful every day that he considers me a friend and I get to share that honor.

But you want to know what I’m most grateful for, out of everything?

Mashed Potatoes. AW YISS. I’m gonna go home now and get me some.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Frea O’Scanlin

PS – there are a bunch of ebook downloads for you if you’re traveling this weekend and need something to read. All of ersk4’s Chuck stories are now up, and I’ve compiled my Badass Altitude Universe, and my Hyperfocal Distance Avengers Journalism AU onto the page, as well. Happy reading!

Admin Note

A head's up: if you would like a copy of Romeo & Juliet But Without Teenagers or Death...Well, Okay, Some Death, please download that before October 27. I will be removing all entries of that story from my archives and from my download site.

Trick or Treat

Doing this a little bit earlier this year...

In honor of All Hallow’s Eve, I’m inviting trick-or-treaters to my ‘door.’ Comment “trick-or-treat” to this post and…well, you know the drill. Treats can be anything that strikes my fancy (pics of fave actors or pairings, one sentence fics, graphics, a few words why I’m glad to have you on my flist, etc. etc.). The more “houses” to visit the more fun it’ll be, so go ahead, open your journal and help spread the fun!

I've enabled anonymous commenting. If you could let me know who you are, I can tailor your treat—or your trick!—just for you (aka sign your comments if you can! Or just tell me what you like if you don't feel comfortable leaving your name).

All the Mondays

Greetings, Amusing People!

Sorry it’s been radio silent on the blog. I had a really strange week last week where other things ate my life and I’m still trying to recover from everything.

Announcements:

Chapter Sixteen of My Girl Sarah has dropped. It’s named The Final Showdown and it’s the chapter where stuff blows up and things happen and there’s the noir-appropriate final showdown in an alley and Carina does my absolute favorite thing in the story. You can read that here.

I submitted a story to Avengersfest. I’ll link to that on November 17th, when the authors are revealed. I can’t say what it’s about yet.

Most importantly, the ebook for quistie64’s awesome (COMPLETE) Sound of Music II story has been put up online on her blog for you to download. I’ve added it to my archives, too, for completeness’s sake, but you should go over to her blog and tell her how awesome she is.

I have recently decided, given what’s been happening on Downton Abbey in this current season, that I want to cut all of my ties to that fandom. As such, I will be finishing Guide Us Home in three chapters and running far and fast away from that fandom because I don’t like Matthew Crawley anymore, and I hate Fellowes worse. I will be fair and considerate to all characters, but I will not devote hundreds of hours to a show I no longer like.

Might be something big going on this week, depending on how today goes. I’ll keep you in the loop, if I get a little less vague.

Anyway, stay sexy!
Frea

New Stories By Me and Stuff

I have now posted something new every day this week! I don't think I've done that since Happiest Place on Earth. Anyway, here they are:

• September 30: My Girl Sarah chapter 11
• October 1: Hyperfocal Distance, a Clint/Natasha Jouranlism AU
• October 2: Sending in the Cavalry, that fic where Peggy Carter is Melinda May's mentor. Everybody run for your lives
• October 2: My Girl Sarah chapter 12
• October 3: What a Pear, a really silly "you had to be there to get it" sequel to Hyperfocal Distance
• October 4: Arts and Crafts and Homicide, where Natasha learns to knit and Clint worries he's going to get a sweater.

I think I'll go take a holiday in Chicago now.

Also, I've updated some of these stories on the All My Fic page of my journal, but at the moment, it's incomplete. As far as my Works in Progress list goes, I have 14 entries and four of them are scratched off. Granted, two of those entries are Hyperfocal Distance, which clocked in at 24k, and My Girl Sarah, which clocked in at 60k. So I just have to keep that in mind. Come Monday or Tuesday, I'll have an announcement, hopefully. Provided this weekend doesn't kill me.

Stay sexy!

Frea

PS - if any of my Chicago friends want to meet up with me, I'll be at Quartino's tomorrow night at 5:30 PM. To those I'm meeting there already, SEE YOU IN A FEW HOURS.

Monday Gazette

Hello, lovelies!

I’m a little more recovered than I was last week. I love jetlag. Some important announcements! We’re up to chapter 9 of My Girl Sarah, and that chapter’s a pretty important one, as it kicks off the second half of the story and things are only going to get twistier from here on out. You can read that on my ff-net account. Please keep in mind that though we’re posting it under my name, mxpw is my co-writer on this, and not just in name either. He did half the writing and half the plotting but only one third of the whining. Trying to guess who wrote which chapter is a useless task because our co-writing doesn’t usually work like that, though you have been amusing the two of us greatly with your guesses, so thank you for that!).

Other announcements: I’ve gone through and updated my FAQ page, which you can read here. It has more answers about That Which is Greater stories in progress, and even more importantly, a new page I’ve added to my blog: My Transformative Works Policy.

Yes, I have one of those now (for the record: it’s a statement saying it’s okay to make stuff based on stuff I make). This was not something I ever thought I needed, as I’ve stated before that I would love to see sequels/prequels/meta of my work, as long as it’s credited. But I got approached by somebody wanted to podfic one of my stories, and I realized that I probably needed one of those. You know, officially. So I’ve posted that here, on my LJ, and on my Dreamwidth that I don’t really use. I hope you find it amusing, at the very least.

There are some more tiny fics. Good old Steampunk.Chuckster (who will not be writing the rest of Curtain Call—that was a joke) was having a bad day the other day so for every anonymous message she received, I wrote a new snippet of Chuckfic. And then I opened up my inbox for prompts for the night. So here’s a list:

• Incoming (Greater)
• Medaling in Pop Culture (Set, Spike, Dive!)
• Trailer of Tetris (Curtain Call)
• Y: The Last Graphic Novel (Fates)
• Sarah adopts a dog (Orphan Black)
• John Casey is asked to be a Godfather (Chuck)
• How to Piss Off Frea O’Scanlin (Chuck, canon compliant)
• The Rocketeerman (Avengers/The Rocketeer)
• Girls’ Night (Avengers/Chuck)
• The Magic of Tumblr (Avengers)
• The Horrible Hawkeye Essay (Hawkguy)

They haven’t been added to my archive yet, but they will be soon. In addition, I’ve gone through and added summaries to all of the fics on my archive. You just need to hover your mouse over the title.

Hope everybody else’s weekend was productive or relaxing, whatever you needed it to be!

Stay sexy,
Frea

I'm Baaaaaack!

I’ve somehow managed to return from my trip with a head cold and jetlag, but I’m happy to be back, and I’m thrilled to report that although there were some setbacks on the trip, we all had a lovely time traveling together. Specifically, Lucky and I did not at any point want to kill each other (if Lucky is telling the truth, that is; she could be lying), which was a good thing because we were pretty much living in each other’s pockets for two weeks, having only officially met at the airport. Boy, was that a fun story to relate to the many Canadians, Americans, and South Africans we ventured across on this jaunt of ours.

There’s loads to tell, but if I start from the beginning, we’ll be here for ages, so here are some highlights:

• Prague – gorgeous
• Vienna – gorgeous
• Zagreb – Really fun!
• Dubrovnik – Second most gorgeous place I have ever been.
• Split – covered in graffiti but surprisingly fun.
• I am not in a Hungarian prison, though we came closer to that possibility than I would have liked. We were taking a train from Vienna to Zagreb, with a three-hour stop in Budapest to explore, and apparently if you buy your tickets online, you need to get them stamped at the station. And given that we used roughly four different types of currency on this trip, we liked to not travel with too much of it. Luckily, there was an angel named Gabriela in our train compartment, who lent us money to buy tickets on the train, but to that conductor who probably took advantage of the fact that we didn’t know the language: there’s a strong possibility you are a dick, sir.
• Yes, if you saw the pictures of Lucky’s leg, we were not exaggerating: she hurt her knee and her ankle (same leg) and we got really good at navigating pharmacies in other languages.
• Crumby is delightful and stylish and insanely fun to be around. Best part, I don’t think we came across as too weird, though she might disagree. She brought us delicious French candy and I definitely failed on my side of the bargain by giving her Red Vines in return, which all French people agree is a “weird candy.” She was also there on the day that we did the most walking on the trip, I think.
• I may be in love with opera now, though I really, really need to go look up the plot to Carmen, guys. They had little translation boxes, but seeing as they were giving us two lines for twenty minutes of song, I think we missed….80% of the play. Which is in French. And is about Spain. I…don’t even know. But doing the standing room only tickets was an amazing experience that I would repeat in a heartbeat…perhaps not on the same day that I walked all over the Hofburg palace, though.
• The Museum of Broken Relationships in Zagreb is even more delightful than promised, and I am so glad I worked that into a fanfic. Also, we were trying to navigate to it and a random woman on the street named Snow White (Snjeguljica in Croatian) walked with us until we found the museum. She was pretty awesome. I’m sad I never got a picture of her hat, which was amazing.
• Our view off of the terrace in Dubrovnik was of the Adriatic and some sailboats. You really couldn’t beat that with a stick.
• For some reason, I got upgraded to business class for our trip back. That was nice. Lucky, however, was stuck back in Coach, so you should all send her candy or something.

Anyway, there’s dozens more stories to tell, and I will no doubt tell some of them over time. I hope everybody enjoyed their postcards and I’m sorry if I missed anything amazing. Have I missed anything amazing? Let me know in the comments!

Stay sexy!
Frea

FINALLY! The Second Announcement I Promised!

Hey, all!

 I promised two announcements and I intend to keep that promise. Going live today is the first of five short stories – two standalones and one three-parter that I think you will all like (4 of the 5 are Chuck). It’ll be posting on my blog at 10:30 a.m. CST, and every story is tagged “while frea’s away,” which means you can view them all by going to this link.*

I hope you enjoy these little pieces of fun. I meant to add more, but I’ve been busy getting ready to leave the country. Even as you read this, I should be on a train to Chicago.

Anyway, I’ve set up an awesome Tumblr queue with stories and all of my fandoms, mxpw will handle posting My Girl Sarah while I’m away, and I’ve got all of the addresses for postcards. I hope you all have a wonderful couple weeks and I’ll see you when I return!

Stay sexy!
Frea

*Warning: will not work before 10:30 a.m. CST today!

ANNOUNCEMENT: MY GIRL SARAH HAS LANDED

Okay, after leaving you guys on a cliff for a couple of weeks, I can finally announce the thing I’ve been so excited about sharing for nearly a month now. Ready? Really, ready?

MXPW AND I HAVE CREATED FICTION.

It’s called My Girl Sarah, it takes place in 1949, it’s very, very AU, and best part: it’s complete. It’s a Chuck/Sarah story, though I warn you, we’re not going to throw them right together or anything. So if you’re looking for already!married Chuck and Sarah, you should probably go elsewhere. But if you’re looking for any of the following:

• Sassy Carina
• Even sassier Sarah
• Casey the 1940s hardened police detective
• Chuck who fought in WWII and has conviction
• Ellie destroying the glass ceiling
• Gangsters (though I don’t think we ever use the word in the story), mobsters, and pretty much every Chuck villain under the sun sporting fedoras and machine guns
• Bad puns, worse comebacks, and a masked vigilante…

THIS IS TOTALLY THE STORY FOR YOU.

Now, I know you have some questions, and I’ve anticipated a few of them, so I’m going to answer them here.

Fixing An Error

Hey all,

Just a quick post to say that I goofed last week. I said something big was supposed to happen today, when I got my dates wrong and really, it's happening on Monday.

So...you know. Monday. Big stuff. Big...things. Awesome stuff.

This has been an announcement. You may continue about your day.

Stay sexy!
Frea

In Which I Announce That There Will Be Announcements

Hey all,

I know last time I was like, “STAY TUNED FOR ANNOUNCEMENTS” and I promise you, both of those announcements are forthcoming (I don’t want to spoil the first and for the second, I don’t want to announce it until I am 100% sure it’s going to happen). In the meantime, I want you to know that I’ve done a little more administrative work and have updated my entire list of fic, which you can find here.

Previously, I think the list simply listed where you could find various fics, but now it includes word count, the year I started writing a fic (as you will see from Bank Job, it is not necessarily the same year I finished!), and a link to the ebook. I’ve also added to the “LJ” category by expanding that to “LJ/T” (Livejournal/Tumblr), which means that I’ve archived several of the tiny Tumblr prompts I’ve written over the years.

Now, I know I do a lot of three-sentence fics and I didn’t want to go through the process of providing all of those with names and links. Instead, I’ve archived them under their own tag on my blog. So if you go to the “3 Sentence Fics” tag on my Tumblr, you will see an archive of every single 3 sentence fic I have written.

Including the ones that are four sentences.

So there might be some new Frea writing you haven’t seen on my Fic page. Have you, for example, read this tiny continuation of Walker’s Eleven that involves panini? How about this one where Sarah leaves Carina in charge of two-year-old Hunter Bartowski…unsupervised?*

Also, I’m not saying anything definitively but MONDAY MONDAY GUYS MONDAY YOU’RE GOING TO WANT TO MAKE SURE TO CHECK MY FF-NET NAME OR SOMETHING there are announcements coming.

Until then, as ever, stay sexy!

- Frea

*This may or may not have happened to me with my nephew, who will be two in a little over two weeks and OH MY GOODNESS HE’S GETTING SO BIG.

New Stories, New eBook, New Vague Announcements, I ROCK.

I don’t think we’ve ever had one in the Chuck fandom, but this week, I posted my first-ever Big Bang story. Big Bangs are story writing festivals where a writer signs up to write a story of at least 10-25k, depending on the event (they vary a lot). About three quarters of the way through the allotted time, the writer will turn in a rough draft and it will be claimed by an artist, who creates fanart for it. I signed up for the Heroine Big Bang challenge over on Livejournal, either as an Avengers fic or as a Chuck fic (ideally, I would have done the Last Story for Greater, if I’d gone in that direction) and ended up writing Counterfeit and Counterpart, which had to be 15k and turned out 30k.

Apparently I have a problem with being overly prolific.

Anyway, the remarkable Tielan signed up to do art for mine, and this is what she made me. Is it not gorgeous? I’ve posted the story on AO3, but I have also created an ebook for you to download, if you would like to read it on your tablet or ebook reader. It’s a story about Maria Hill and Natasha Romanoff becoming friends (which seems to involve injuring Maria a lot). The story spans six years and starts with Clint Barton bringing Natasha in to SHIELD, and it has a cast of wacky SHIELD characters you don’t see in the movies much. It’s one of the stories I’m proudest of, though I have no idea why.

In other Avengers news, if you’re looking to getting into comics and would like to read:

• A heroine that looks like Sarah Walker
• Who is also kickass like Sarah Walker (SHE PUNCHES DINOSAURS)
• And was a NASA scientist, Air Force pilot, and can fly
• Like her equally kickass and snarky best friend sorta can
• And has a cat
• And is written by a marvelous author...

You should look no farther than the current Captain Marvel series written by Kelly Sue DeConnick. Seriously, it is an amazing series, and I’ve never liked comics that much. DeConnick has an ear for dialogue that will blow your mind. The series involves time travel, punching dinosaurs, attacks of Kree Sentinels, and random Avengers cameos like Bruce and Steve. It’s exciting and well-written, and you can pick up the first trade paperback.

Have I shilled enough for this series yet? I hope so, because I wrote fanfic for it. My friend Kari joked around on Tumblr about Carol’s cat being mad at her for something spoilery that I can’t reveal to you if you’re going to read this series. Either way, it is called Cats Are Weird, I wrote it, you can read it here, and I personally think it’s pretty funny, but then I’m biased and will basically read pet ownership fic all day long. Happily.

You didn’t hear it here, but something big is going to happen on August 31st...

And watch this space for an announcement between now and September 5th. Gee, Frea, can you get any more vague? Sure I can! It’s a cool announcement. You’ll like it.

Anyway, that’s all I have for now. How’s everybody else doing? Any cool stories to tell? Are you reading The Steampunk Chronicles by steampunk.chuckster? You should be. (SPOILER) Sarah just showed up and I’m in love already.

Anyway, stay sexy, you devils.

Love,
Frea

Not Dead, Just Busy

Hello, wonderful people!

I don't want to take up too much of your time, but I thought I would update you on some things. First off, I'm still going through and updating links on my ebooks page because I want to divorce myself from MediaFire in general. I've updated the coding for malamoo's Chuck vs. the Second Chance and the Authors Intersect's Chuck vs. the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Really Bad Day*. And best of all, I've added the wonderful Chuck Versus The Con Game by the even wonderfuller Steampunk.Chuckster to the downloads page. You can get that here and don't forget to leave a comment and tell her she's wonderful and she should get crackin' on taking over Curtain Call for Max and me.

Anyway, now that I've made Karen flee the country, other news. I haven't worked on the Greater!Carina story, so sorry about that. Other projects, including life, have taken priority. I will have a new fic out on August 20^th called Counterfeit and Counterpart, which will include the ebook for your downloading pleasure. Hopefully I will have a fic out at the very beginning of September, and next week or so, I will try to remember to post a link that you're going to want to watch.

I have updated my FAQ page to answer a question about Guide Us Home and to update my answers about Greater and some other things, so if it's been awhile, head over that way and take a peek. If you have any other questions, you can leave them here as comments, or hit me up on my Tumblr Ask Box, as I'll usually get those right away. I will be out of touch for half of next month, just so you know, as I'll be traveling. More to come about that, actually, later on.

Anyway, that's the news. Hope you're having a wonderful day!
Frea

*SERIOUSLY, IF YOU'RE GOING TO BASE A FIC TITLE ON ONE OF MY FAVORITE CHILDREN'S BOOKS, GET THE TITLE RIGHT.

eBooks, Updates, and Greater Sneak Preview

Great news first!

I’ve updated the That Which is Greater ebook on the Downloads page so that it’s now complete, with all 13 chapters, and the updated cover (which I think was on the last version of the ebook, too. I’ve got this stripey motif through all of the Greater stories and I’m still deciding on a color for Carina).

In addition, I have started to port all of my hosted ebooks from mediafire to sugarsync, which I just like and trust more. In doing this, I’ve realized how wonky some of the formatting on my first files is. Basically, I learned as I went by making these ebook files, which was an evolving process. Anyway, the point is: I’ve updated some books. Not all of the books, but some. They are:

• Chuck vs. the Simple Twist of Fate
• Chuck vs. the Fight
• Chuck vs. the Fight: New Year’s Eve Edition
• Sarah vs. Covers, Lies, and Ticking Time Bombs
• Sarah vs. the Ugly Truth
• And more to come…!

It’s going to be a long process and I don’t want to devote too much time to it. Next up on my list are malamoo’s works and ne71’s. I’ll also leave the original copy of Chuck vs. Fulcrum on the blog even though he’s updating for the sequel (and I’ll convert that copy over as well). Also, if there’s an ebook you want, let me know and, provided the author is okay with it, I’ll host it here on the blog.

Awesome news!

I’m almost done with the second chapter of That Which is Greater: Carina’s Story (working title). The first chapter is complete and it has some of the cutest Violet/Sarah in the entire ’verse, mostly because Violet’s not going to be in 60% of the story (please don’t give me trouble for that—Chuck and Sarah need some adult time without the four-year-old underfoot. It’s a family story, but it’s also a romance). I was toying with the idea of beginning to post on Monday, but I’ve got two other projects calling my name, plus I have to impress some people at my day job if I want to keep it. (speaking of which: if anybody knows of someplace that’s hiring somebody with excellent writing, graphic design, and web development skills, let me know!). Anyway, I’m not going to post stories until they’re complete from now on. It cuts down on some of the fun interaction with the fans along the way because I have to keep what I’m writing under wraps, but it’s a sacrifice I have to make.

Luckily, you’ll see a big story from me in August and another one in September. I can’t blab about the latter one, but the former is a work of love.

BEST NEWS

Want a preview of the Carina story?

I hope you said yes because HERE IT IS:

A Little Friday Fun - Greater!

A/N: This takes place between New Year's Eve and Happiest Place on Earth. Enjoy!

Chuck heard them when they came back, mostly because his weighs-less-than-one-hundred-pounds daughter somehow managed to sound like an elephant all of the time. Also, she didn’t believe in quiet chatter. She must have been in a good mood, for he could hear her all the way from his office/bedroom. Since he was at a good place to stop—his computer needed to render anyway—he picked up his empty soda glass and headed downstairs to greet the newly returned.

He found them in the kitchen, where Sarah was helping Violet out of her winter coat. “Hey, strangers,” he said.

“Daddy!” Violet rocketed at him as though it had been weeks instead of hours since she’d seen him last, leaving Sarah holding her coat. “You’re here!”

“Where else would I be? How was the movie?”

“Even better this time. Giselle was so pretty and I wasn’t even scared of the evil witch, not even when she turned into a dragon.” Violet let him go to bounce away, twirling around as she did so. Chuck raised an eyebrow at Sarah. “Though it’s silly.”

“What’s silly?”

“Dragons should have wings so they can fly.”

Sneak Peek: Greater #12!

Chapter 12, Title TBA, will be dropping tomorrow whenever I get around to, you know, remembering I am supposed to be putting a chapter up (seriously, guys, I am flaky). The good news is that it IS completed, but not beta’d at the time of writing this post. And even better news, I wrote 1500 words of Violet chattering to Carina last night. And if you think that all of Sarah’s biggest secrets (that Violet knows) aren’t getting babbled at 500 words a minute, you clearly don’t know me well. Hit the link to read more!

Greater Eve

News! So tomorrow I’m posting the next chapter of That Which is Greater, which I’m pleased to announce is called Riding in Cars with Villains (the last chapter was Riding in Cars with Boys). If you’ll remember, we’re in the middle of the Zarnow arc, which is a fitting place to end the story, given that the original Greater is thematically about Sarah and Chuck coming to terms that he’s the Intersect. Some things will be different, others the same. I’m sure those of you who read Fates are shocked that I borrow from canon and then sometimes twisted canon. SHOCKED.

I can’t give you a time that the chapter will drop other than “when I remember I’m posting a chapter today,” sorry. Sometimes I am flaky.

Other Greater news! I’ve figured out the next story somewhat, though I don’t want to give too much away. I will say a couple of things about it, though: one, I had to change a date in Greater: Pumpkin Carving to give myself a little room to play for the story. Two, we won’t see Peyman Alahi or the Nadan-I-Noor in Greater, so it’s not going to be the plot of Wookie. I’ll explain why not in-story, I promise. It’s one of my favorite episodes, so I don’t want to write it (you’ll notice in Fates, I skirted around the edges of it, too, only writing the aftermath in Not in the Stars).

Ebook News! I’ll be updating Nervert’s wonderful Revenge of the Bartowski ebook this week to reflect the latest chapters. When I’m done with That Which is Greater Original Story, I’ll of course offer that full ebook, as well as an ebook that has all of the little stories mixed with the bigger Greater stories. That ebook will get updated every time I finish one of the next three stories, too.

Story News! The Clintasha Promptathon is going on in the Avengers fandom (that’s Clint/Natasha fiction, by the way), and I wrote a couple of stories for it. They’re both short and fluffy, but fun. The Memory of Rain is on my LJ, but Domestic…Bliss? is on AO3 if you want to go there (and leave me shiny, delicious kudos!).

Miscellaneous But Awesome News! So you may not have been aware, but I had two bets going about finishing Greater. I bet mpxw I could finish the entire Greater story before he finished something that I’m not revealing here. He lost, so his avatar is my choice for two weeks….which is Joseph Gordon Levitt in garters. These are going to be an awesome two weeks, guys.

Also, Nervert and I had a bet going about who could finish his or her story first. Loser had to buy a goat. Baaaaaah.

Stay sexy!
Frea

GREAT NEWS

Greetings!

I know, I know, I’ve used this blog more in the past week than I have in the past year. Sorry about that. I’ve been playing in the Avengers fandom. You understand, don’t you? Natasha Romanoff is just so shiny. She’s damaged and stoic and can kill you with her pinky. I appear to have a type.

I also have News. Not just news, but News.

That’s right, I have finished That Which is Greater. The original story that kicked off, to date, eleven other stories involving one Violet E. Bartowski and her crazy adventures with her father and her father’s fake-or-maybe-not-so-fake girlfriend. And there are still three stories to come, two unwritten and one partially written.

But the original is done. I finished the first draft of the last chapter a little over half an hour ago and I’m still sitting here in shock that soon I’m going to be able to take that “WIP” status off of my blog. One more story to mark “Complete” on ff-net, to reach its 13/13 chapter status on AO3. To finish up on the ebook.

Wow, I offer this story in a lot of places. Huh.

Okay, I imagine there are some questions, so I’ll answer what I can.

That Which is Greater Sneak Peek and Updated eBook

Hank reminded me that I haven’t added the last scene of Romeo and Juliet But Without Teenagers or Death…Well Okay Some Death (what? I like short titles) to the ebook, which is sad since I abandoned the story for reasons. So last night, I went into the file and updated it so that it now includes Chuck creepily talking his way into Sarah’s hotel room by pretending to be her husband. You can get that now on the Downloads page.

Um, the Kindle and ePub files may be mixed up. Just to warn you. If you hit the Kindle link and get an ePub, just hit the ePub to get your Kindle link. And let me know. I’m not somewhere where I can troubleshoot it.

I am 90% of the way through chapter 12 of Greater (or 98% depending on if I decide to put a specific scene in this chapter or the next) so hopefully I should be able to post that soon. I’m sending 11 to mxpw to beta later today, provided he can actually read through his happy tears of getting to meet Yvonne a week from today. And I thought I’d include a tiny snippet of what’s coming, so you can stop worrying that I’m not writing shippery stuff. (I try not to, but somehow I never succeed)

Because I Promised

When I last posted a Greater story on ff-net (which was over six months ago; it feels weird not to have touched that account in six months), I promised that I would keep everybody up to date when I started to work on any of my WIP projects again (they are, for the record, Spies and Nerds, Curtain Call, That Which is Greater, Guide Us Home, and Greater: Winter Break. I am no longer going to finish R&J, or, more accurately, I am not going to finish R&J in the way you think I am). I’ve finished one chapter of That Which is Greater, am about halfway through the next, and have one more to write. Yes, That Which is Greater Original Flavor will only have 13 chapters.

There are probably a few things that stand out about this:
That’s not much time for the story to end!

Well, no. But if you look at the Greaterverse on AO3, which has the complete archive of Greater stories in chronological order (except for one or two prompts I’ve written on Tumblr), right now we’re at the end of September and the next story takes place in mid-October. So we’re not really skipping much time. Which actually brings us to our second point.

Wait a second, Frea, you dropped hints about Carina in the New Year’s story and we haven’t seen her in any of the stories yet, and if you’ve only got three chapters, that’s not enough time, either!

Again, you’ve got a point. Which is why I’m actually going to write another, stand-alone Greater story. The holiday it’ll revolve around will be Violet’s birthday, and a certain redhead may or may not be at her birthday party.

I’m choosing to write the Carina arc separately from the main story because thematically and tonally, it’s different, and blending it cohesively with the story would have caused about ten or eleven chapters extra, which I’m frankly not willing to write for the story at this point. So it’s three more chapters for the original story, and one stand-alone that revolves around the women in Chuck’s life—Sarah, Carina, Violet, Sophie, Ellie—and then I’ll move on to finishing Winter Break and will likely, at that point, close the book on this universe. I can think of one plot point I can’t tie up, but I’m not too fussed, truthfully.

Does this mean you’re going to return to your other projects?

I am not sure. Currently, I have to focus on what’s in front of me and can’t think of those other stories without my work flagging on this story. Either way, keep checking the FAQs, and I appreciate the patience. When I have the final chapter of Greater finished, I’ll start posting again.

Frea

New ebook, new colors, new stories, new chapter

You probably saw the new layout changes last week, but I wanted to let you know that there’s still some construction going on*. I went out and gathered a bunch of intel on different stories (guys, I’m not going to lie: this was not easy. It’s come to my attention that I write a lot) and put them on the fic page, which means that the most comprehensive list** of my stories you’re going to find on the internet is on this blog. I’ve sorted it by fandom, for the most part, first the series and then the alphabetical order.

I also went ahead and tossed Nobody Puts Dummy in the Corner onto the downloads page.*** I haven’t put anything new on that page for a while, so it felt strange.

In writing news, Camp Nano is going on and I’ve been sort of half-heartedly following along, which means writing a bit. I wrote a bunch of prompts on Tumblr this weekend from a myriad of different fandoms, including Arrow, The Avengers, Captain Marvel, Community and Fringe, Dresden Files, Middleman and New Girl, and Orphan Black. Actually, there were a lot of New Girl stories in there. Huh. My friend may have a fixation. I’ve got one more prompt sitting in my inbox that needs to be penned, and it’s fantastic (think classic comic book character + Sarah Walker).

Oh, also, I finished the eleventh chapter of That Which is Greater last night, so. Yeah. Not sure where I’m going to end that story, but it’s one step closer to removing one “WIP” status from my fic page.

Frea

* I still need to update the colors on the Fates Guide.
** but not exhaustive.
*** Links to the Fates Guide, the Downloads page, etc., are now in the sidebar on the right. Cheerio!

Pardon the Dust Yet Again!

As you probably noticed right when you arrived, Fauxlivia is gone and now we have a bright new header with 100% more clones (and still the same amount of doubles). I was feeling a little blue/green last time I designed the blog and now it’s time for an infusion of pastels, apparently.

In other news, some stuff is underway and whatnot, and I’m working on things that might make people happy, which is possibly the vaguest way I could think of to say that. I have a fic definitely coming out in August that’s about 30,000 words long. Yesterday I posted a fanfiction about the books in Maria Hill’s apartment called For a Rainy Day. Also, if you’re a fan of Arrow and The Avengers, you might like Bad Altitude, which I posted last week for the Into A Bar challenge over on Livejournal.

Oh! And I quasi-wrote Chuck fic again! It’s Pitch Perfect, but as a Chuck AU. The link to that is here.

Under the read more, I’ve put two Bingo cards that I’m working on. The first is my Trope Bingo card and the second is my Ladies Bingo card, so if you have any ideas for things I could write for the different squares, please let me know! Any fandom except Downton Abbey and no finale fics because those are the worst.

Kindle Worlds and My Take On It

You may not have heard, but Amazon released something that's shaking up the world of fanfiction a little this morning. It's called Kindle Worlds and it means you can download fanfiction in certain genres straight to your Kindle...by paying for them. The low-down is that WB has given up some of the creative licenses to things like Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars, which means that writers can professionally publish fic based on those shows. It will be content controlled, it looks like, but there haven't been any guidelines released yet (no pornography is one of the guidelines, but this is also the publisher of 50 Shades of Grey, so take that with whatever boulder of salt you find necessary).

And on the surface, it looks great, right? Getting to pay your favorite writers for fic that they write! The chance that other fandoms may follow in suit! WB has rights to Chuck and Fringe, after all, so some fandoms close to our hearts might be involved very soon!

Except...well, John Scalzi puts it way better than I can about why this might not be such a good idea for writers. Plus, when I wrote Fates, W11, W&T, SSD!, and my other fandomly works, I didn't write those for pay but for love of the characters/show/writing itself. Providing these for free wasn't taking any money from anybody else (except for lucky47, who used to buy internet on a cruise ship to read Fates), which is the way I ethically justify playing with characters that are not my own.

So, in the future I might change my mind, but currently, I won't be doing this with any new Chuckfic or other genre, should the opportunity arise. But I appreciate everybody that has pointed me to it! It warms me all the way down to my soul that you're looking out for me like that.

Sincerely,
Frea

PS - It's been a crazy couple of weeks, so there hasn't been much fic from me, but I did manage to write a really short piece about Steve Rogers acclimating to the future over on my Tumblr. You should check that out. And get ready for a long fic from me soon!

Thursday Digest

I realize that I’m actively involved in a lot of social media platforms and I use them all for different things. My Livejournal, for example, is usually all Avengers things, my Tumblr is such a random mess of different fandoms that I’m surprised anybody follows me at all, and my Twitter seems to be random observations that form together with absolutely no coherency at all.

So, here’s a brief round-up of the highlights from the last couple of weeks.

What I’m Up To:

My sister is getting married in two weeks, so preparations are ramping up for that. That includes things like deep-cleaning my apartment in case relatives want to visit, helping sister with wedding-related things, and doing a lot of photography. Writing-wise, I’m in the middle of Counterfeit and Counterpart, a deep look at the relationship between Maria Hill and Natasha Romanoff. I’ve got three scenes left to write and 2k to hit the 15k minimum for the Big Bang in which I’m participating with the project.

I also have two separate bets going with mxpw and Nervert about That Which is Greater (the original story) vs. Revenge of the Bartowski and Chuck versus the Double Agent. I have not forgotten about those bets. A goat’s honor is at stake.

Some Fun and Interesting Statistics Because I'm Too Lazy to Write a Real Blog Post

So I saw this on a friend’s livejournal and I was curious, so I decided to try it out, and a lot of people don’t read my LJ, so I'm bringing it over here. Oh, speaking of which, you do know I am on Livejournal, right? You can find me here and I have anonymous commenting turned on, so as long as you "sign" your post, you can leave me stuff there, too. Also, I post a lot of short fic there. Sometimes it’s even Chuck related.

Without further ado, the FFN/AO3 meme!

Happy Birthday, Peter O!

Happy birthday, Peter!!! This is just a short snippet of something I’m working on (I don’t want to give away too much, so that’s all I’ll say). :) Hope your day is as marvelous as you are (which is pretty darn marvelous).

Most of the family was still sleeping when Sarah let herself into the Bartowski house to drop off Sir after her morning run, but she still wasn’t surprised to find Chuck in the kitchen. Sure, he almost had his nose buried in a cup of coffee and there were bags under his eyes, but he was there. It had become a habit of his.

“You don’t actually have to get up just to see me,” she said as she knelt to unclip Sir. The elephantine puppy flopped onto his back and offered his belly up for a rub.

“Nah, I needed to be up. S-stuff to do, codes to…code. Mmph.” He yawned, put his head on his crossed arms, and made snoring noises.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

quistie and I got you a box of chocolates.



(hint: click the chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get)

Speaking Up About Written In the Stars

Congratulate me, I’m some kind of fandom boogey-monster. About eighteen months ago, a story was posted with a similar storyline to mine (different climate, though), which was fine until they outright took whole paragraphs from my story, To Resist Both Wind and Tide). I asked for either attribution or removal of those paragraphs. Instead, the author pulled the entire story down without an explanation to her fans. She told me that she didn't think it was such a big deal because it's just fanfiction.

Later, she returned: the story had been updated, the paragraphs removed, but…the plot was just too familiar for me. After messaging the author privately, I said something publicly along the lines of “I hope the plot is changing soon because I’m uncomfortable with this. You said that you were planning to change the direction of your plot, so I hope that’s soon.” Given that this person had already outright plagiarized my work, I feel like this was understandable. In reply, the person told me again, “It’s just fanfiction!” and yanked the story down, again without an explanation.

I didn’t ask the story to be removed. I didn’t report the story. I asked readers not to get involved because I didn’t want a war. People on the message boards blasted me, others boycotted my stories, so on and so forth. I got a couple of angry messages, one from somebody named missupertigz who went on to start writing in the fandom with messages along the lines of “if my writing sparked an idea, then go ahead and write it because to the people who think chuck belongs to only a small group of people – your wrong (sic).”

Well, turns out that story is still going on behind closed doors. You can PM MsRomanceWriter’s ff-net name and get access to it, if you like. Have at it. I chose not to speak up in my own defense when the story was pulled and I wonder if that was the wrong decision. Maybe it was, but I didn’t want to sling mud at MRW. Mostly, I want people to know that I didn’t have anything to do with the story being pulled. I know it’s my word against hers, but it was the author’s choice to pull it both times. I didn’t make any threats or demands.

And that’s all I really have to say about it.

Frea

Chuck vs. the Recruits ebook!

Good news! I have completed the ninjaVanish collection of ebooks here on the blog! That’s right, you can download Chuck vs. the Recruits now for your ebooking pleasure. It’s available, along with the rest of his works, here on the downloads page. Happy reading!

In other news, I reorganized the ebooks page. I’ll have the graphics back up eventually, but for right now, it’s all ebooks.

Thanks,
Frea

I'm Dreaming Of A Portable Christmas

It was Christmas Eve. Chuck sat deftly in the dale, sipping pernicious eggnog.

He looked at the opalescent dragon hanging on the Christmas Tree and sighed. Last year, Sarah had hung it there, just before they looked at each other terribly and then fell into each other's arms and transcended each other's earlobe.

If only I hadn't been so charismatic, Chuck thought, pouring a fecund amount of rum into his eggnog. Then Sarah might not have got so never-ending and left me all alone at Christmas time. He wiped away a triumphant tear and held his shin in his hand.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door and then a legendary voice lifted swiftly up in song.

I'm dreaming of a portable Christmas
Just like an inanimate object being lovingly cuddled by two estranged sisters that have found common ground for the first time in 15 years. Chuck ran to the door. It was Sarah, looking dogged all over with snow.

"I missed you idly," Sarah said. "And I wanted to transcend your earlobe again."

Chuck hugged Sarah and started to sob.

"I think you're drunk," Sarah said.

"I think so too," Chuck said and they transcended each other's earlobe until they knocked the Christmas tree over.

On Christmas Day, they ate roasted octopus left knee and lived crookedly until Chuck got drunk again.

LOOK! I MADE YOU A DRABBLE!

...okay, maaaaybe it came from this, but I made it for YOUUUUU. Don't you feel special?

Okay, I'll see myself out now.

The Art of Finishing Up

Fezzywhig asked me something on Tumblr today, and I thought it might make a good writing entry on the blog, so I’m putting it over here, too. As with every piece of writing advice I give, please keep in mind that this may not necessarily apply to every writer. We’re all different, and those differences should be celebrated.

Fezzywhig asked: Apologies if this was asked before. As a prolific writer, have you ever been tempted to go back to a finished work and tweak or change it? Also a sideways question. Has anyone addressed you by one of your nom de plumes’s in person? If so how do you overcome the fanboy awkwardness?

Hey! I think somebody has asked me this before, but not in a public setting. And I definitely don’t mind getting asked a question multiple times, as long as that question isn’t, “IS THERE GOING TO BE A SEQUEL?” (while not commenting on the fic itself) or “WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO UPDATE SO AND SO?” when I’ve already said that that story is on hiatus. Also, a lot of it has to do with the tone of the question being asked. :)

To answer your first question: I’m tempted, a lot, to go back and change my work. Every time I reread it, I see something I could tweak or even rewrite. Just watch me reread That Which is Greater sometime. It will enlighten you as to how hard somebody can grit their teeth. There are entire chapters of that I would cut or rewrite in a heartbeat.

Now here’s where some authors are about to disagree with me because, even though I’m tempted to go back and rewrite things (like the first chapter of Fates, for example), I don’t, and I won’t. My philosophy is that once something is published, it gets minor cosmetic changes and nothing else (like, fixing a grammatical error, or using Angry Birds in 2002 on accident). I don’t believe in going back and rewriting my old fics because to me, those stories have been told. They’re done. Hopefully, I told them the best way I could, but it’s time to move on and to use the things I learned writing those fics to write newer and hopefully better tales.

New Ebooks!

Hello, dear readers!

So I realize it’s been awhile since I released some ebooks, which is my fault. I’ve been making them, but I haven’t been going through the process of uploading them and making them available for public consumption (seriously, though, my Kindle is triiiicked out), and I thought I’d get on that. So I’ve got three new ebooks for you today, one in each of my fandoms. That’s right, you can get The Bank Job, The Woman in the Crosshairs, or The Abbey. Two have complicated scenes inside of banking buildings, the other one makes up for the lack with aliens, I think.

Also, if you subscribe to me on AO3 or fanfiction.net, you may have noticed that I have a new story out. The title is really strange, I know, because it comes from a Disney ride, and the concept is even stranger. The Avengers are pirates in the 18th century. But it’s not like they woke up one day thinking, hey, I want to be a pirate. They’ve all got backstories that explain how they got to where they are, and there’s a long and shared history between them. I don’t want to tell you the plot because that’ll give too much away, but let’s just say you’ll recognize quite a few elements.

Anyway, that’s up on fanfiction.net and AO3, and I’ll be posting a chapter a day. Yes, it’s already finished, so no need to worry about me abandoning this one mid-story.

Oh, speaking of my stories (and abandoning some), I’ve organized my list of stories, where to find them, where you can download the ebooks, by fandom and then by series (Greater and Fates are in order). You can check all of that out here. They’ve all got statuses now that tell you where I’m at with them (Comp.=complete, WIP=work in progress, Hiatus=will come back to it someday, Aban.=orphaned), too. I’ll add to the list as I write more.

Anyway, that’s the news. I’m off to go destroy mxpw so horribly, he begs for mercy in his sleep go do my usual things.

Frea

[TEASER] Chuck vs. the World

Lords, ladies, gentle folk, I am absolutely honored—nay, it is my pleasure, my DELIGHT, my absolute joy to bring you a small gift by way of JoelTotheD, whom you might know around the blog as Joel (it’s confusing, yes: he’s British, but I’ve not been able to detect an extra letter “u” in his name, and trust me, dearest readers, I have tried!). Joel is the writer of such fine work as Moving On and Kill Jill, but he’s quite possibly best known for writing the fic with the Most Amount of Awkward Hugging in the Chuck fandom (we did a sampling; malamoo came close, but a panel of impartial judges thought that the amount of detail given to the extremely awkward hug in chapter 13 meant a clear win for Joel), Chuck vs. the World. And today, we have a special treat: a delicious piece of chapter 18 of that very same story!

 ...okay, I’m done with the flowery language. Joel gave me a thing. I posted that thing under the Read More link. Enjoy. ;)

2012: A Year in Review

I promised greater transparency, so here it is: I’m working on That Which is Greater. I’m not very far, but I have ideas. I’ll keep you posted as to when chapters are finished/will go up. I don’t know if I’m going to finish Greater: Winter Break. I don’t know if I’m going to write anything else in the Greaterverse. I’m not open to suggestions for more stories, either (I wasn’t for Fates or W11, if you’ll remember, and I don’t intend to start). If you want to know about Curtain Call, ask mxpw. If you want another unfinished story finished, please be patient and let me cross one hurdle at a time. Thank you.

Now on to the meat of the post: I didn’t make resolutions for 2013. Resolutions, I feel, should be between you and your conscience, so I was disgusted to have mine from 2011 thrown in my face by a total stranger. I’d love to see some great things happen this year to people I love and people I know, I’d love to watch some awesome movies, read some wonderful stories, and make fantastic memories. But that’s as far as I’ll go with resolutions.

Now, a look at the year 2012 in writing and other stuff, as best my memory goes: