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: