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