Another One Bites the Dust

Hey all!

Happy April, 11 days in. Have you seen Captain America 2 yet? I’ve seen it twice and will probably go as many times I can before it’s out of theaters because Natasha. And Sam. And I guess Steve, too. But mostly Natasha and Maria, let’s be real here.

I’m pleased to announce that I’ve knocked another work off the ye olde in progress works list (found here). That’s right, That Which is Greater: Winter Break is complete, leaving us with two stories left to be told in that universe. I’ve updated the FAQ accordingly. You can also download the ebook right here in all of the usual formats.

And here’s a list of current works in progress and where I stand on all of them:

• That Which is Greater Winter Break: Finished as of yesterday
• Badass Altitude III: on hold until I get more of an idea about what kind of villain is holding their missing team member and how often I want Natasha to cockblock Oliver and Felicity
• Curtain Call: still on hiatus. I will tell you when I'm working on it again.
• Mrs. Cupid 03: I have about 800 words written. Will update when I'm actively working on this chapter. I don't really have a plot for this one, so it's slow-going.
• That Which is Greater Carina Story: I cut off a major piece of this plot, so I went from about 20% done to 60% done. Will update when I'm working on it.
• Guide Us Home: Slowly working on hating Matthew less so I can finish this, but prognosis does not look good.
• Publishing an actual novel or two: your guess is as good as mine.

So yeah, there you have it. More news when I get it, enjoy the ebook, and I’ll see you soon!

Frea

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

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!

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

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:

Scary Halloween Statistics

I did something scary for Halloween: I tallied my word counts and put them in a chart, and I even added some stories that weren't on the chart you might have seen last night if you follow me on Twitter. This chart does not include Sarah vs. the Curse or my birthday story for quistie64, for some reason (or the millions of tiny Tumblr fics I've written, like Sarah taking Vi grocery shopping), but I did, you know, add RaJBWToDWOSD.

It hurts my head, guys. Enjoy at your leisure, I suppose. I'm going to sit in the corner and quietly comtemplate my life.

Pardon Our Dust

I got bored with the layout.  We'll be seeing some changes going on over the next little while (the one I've chosen is temporary).  Right now, I've thrown up a Fauxlivia header because it's Friday and that means Fringe.  My plan is to update this blog in tandem with my Dreamwidth blog and my LJ blog (thank bob for clients that cross-post), which means this is definitely moving away from being a primarily Chuck fanblog.  Truth be told, I'm a little amazed that didn't happen sooner, as the proprietor of said blog isn't entirely a Chuck fan anymore.  But this is CI.  We don't let details get in our way!

Upcoming Changes I'm hoping to make:

• A set of regular graphics to denote what type of post each will be (aka, each post will be framed with icons similar to LJ and DW)
• A better, more comprehensive tagging system
• A unified theme throughout my blogs
• More cowbell
• A directory of junk I'm up to, which includes the free short story I will be releasing to celebrate Halloween next month, under my official pen name
• More posts on writing, as that has really fallen to the wayside. Maybe I'll even finish that Vonnegut series.
• An unprecedented show of unholy narcissism, aka more personal "What is Frea doing?" posts, including cross-linking to other stuff I'm doing on the web (*coughNiceGirlsTumblrMyOtherPenNamecough*
• Fan Recs/Vid Fridays/Suggestions

Happy Birthday, mxpw!!!!

So it’s mxpw’s birthday once again.  Usually this means that I post some rambling fic where Sarah gets hurt or hit in the face in some way or other.  But this year...I switched things up.

That’s right. This year: I had a tumblr. And on that tumblr, I did a meme.  The challenge: Pick a pair.  Pick an AU. And I get three sentences to write a fic.

It was a lot of fun.  I know not everybody’ nuts about Tumblr, so I thought I’d archive all 30 (yes, there are 30) snippets over here on the blog to let mxpw know how much we all love and appreciate him.  You’re the BEST, Max!

So without further ado, here’s the story of 30 times Frea created an AU on Max’s birthday.

The Non Downton Abbey Fan's Guide to The Abbey

So I've been writing in the Downton Abbey fandom for a few weeks now and I'm putting out a three chapter short in which all of the characters are spies, kind of in the same tone as Chuck. It's called The Abbey.  I know quite a few people get emails for stories and might be curious about this one, and I'm always willing to help out, so I've put together a guide to Downton Abbey and yet still want to read The Abbey, click the More button and prepare for some very, very pale, pretty people to flood your window. Let's do this thing! Oh, right, spoilers. Duh.