*waves*

Life is short and fickle, you know?

I got some terrible news yesterday, the kind of news that puts everything in perspective. The kind that rocks your little world for a few violent,  torrid moments, like you're the island and fate is the towering tidal wave. The kind that makes you spend a lot of time afterward grateful that you were only vicariously traumatized.

That you aren't the one having to live through that reality, right in the very thick of it.

What am I saying?

I'm saying that despite it all, despite the love or hate or whatever else, everything is so inconsequential when it comes to the world you create around yourself, for whatever time you have. And I let myself get so upset about these words I have collected here, just full of flailing and tears and anger, that at first I wanted to feel bad about that. How small and stupid and selfish of me . . . but then . . . the things that bring you joy, no matter how small or stupid or selfish they might be, are the only things that might make your time here worthwhile. The little things that you love are the things that define you and I'm perfectly content to let my existence be defined by my words.

The ones here, the ones still stuck inside me, the ones I haven't even thought of yet.

So, yesterday was a complete loss. I was worthless. I spent the time reposting chapters, getting frustrated with formatting issues, fighting against time and energy and real life and readers, who plow through words faster than I can put them up.

---> The Other Way is fully posted and I'm putting the final touches on the PDF, just in time for Christmas. (Because I'm mf'ing SANTA, ok?)

---> Chalk, Mind The Gap and all of the outtakes are up as well, PDF in the works.

In the meantime - My head is being eaten up with original work. I only say this because I'm at a bit of a loss when it comes to Double Struck. Floundering is what I'd like to call it, but it's really more that the spark was snatched away in all the dirty din and dizzy mess that sprung up around me like a goddamn swarm of locusts and I just have not been able to locate it again. Like searching down a long dark hallway with your arms outstretched because you know there's a light switch somewhere, you're just not entirely sure where.

I'm still fumbling.

Thank God for Hadley Hemingway.

And let's talk about her for a minute, shall we? Because after I got that terrible news yesterday, you know who I called? Her. Not my mother. Not my sister or my friends. Her. How did this happen? This random, fandom friendship we created on a fluke that has now become so important to me that I reach out to her in times like that? I'll tell you how:

Because we're soul mates, I shit you not.

How do I know this? I know this because I picked her name out of hundreds for a reason. I know this because we can talk on the phone for HOURS, but a lot of that time is spent in comfortable silence as we work, just like an old married couple. I know this because we think things at the exact same moment. I know this because I don't make friends easily and she slipped on just like that old favorite pair of gloves. I know this because we call to check up on each other and I start to feel funny if I haven't talked to her in a couple of days. Her family puts up with me, both from afar and in close proximity, and my husband always knows who I'm talking about even though I jump from her Hadley moniker to her real name and back again without even blinking.

She has my manuscript.

She also has my heart.

XXOO

HBM

Okokok,

*takes a big, big breath*

I'm trying to remember to do that. Breathe. 

First, I can't even begin to describe the amount of support that I've gotten in the last few days. Not only from readers, the ones I knew about and the ones I've never heard from until now, but from other writer's here as well. Inboxes flooded. A tsunami of love that I damn near got crushed under and I can't even begin to answer everyone separately. All I can do is say thank you. From the bottom on my mushy, fragile heart and from the very depths of my indignant anger.

I think we can all agree that as soon as you've decided something, you'll be shown the light. 

I decided (based on some sufficient fucking evidence, mind you) that the fandom didn't want me. Turns out the haters really are few and far between. Like crumbly little bits of mortar holding up a giant wall of bricks that all say something like "you can do this." 

"Please don't leave." "We need you here." "I need you here." "Don't ever stop writing."

When brick walls fail, it's not the bricks. 

It's the mortar. 

I've been Hadley Hemingway's neediest child this week, and even got her RL boy-child on the phone ON HIS BIRTHDAY because he's more of a tech genius than the both of us combined. That's love right there, I can't even explain. But she's helped me to come up with a plan, one that not only honors my fanfiction for what it is, an exploration and a minor side journey along the way to a much larger adventure, but also allows me to move forward. 


There are a lot of things I wish I knew about this fanfiction thing before I started. A LOT of things. I wish I knew about the love and the hate. About the veiled backstabbing and the downloading. I wish I knew that my words would be taken so lightly, so heavily, because I might have done it different. I might have been much more careful with them. But I did it how I did it and now I'm going to do it my way again. 

A little bit better informed this time:

I will be reposting my stories here, but they will remain here and nowhere else. 

I guess if you're intrepid enough to go about downloading each and every chapter separately as they post, then by all means, be my guest. Once the story is complete, a PDF will be made available here and you only have a very limited number of minutes in your lifetime. And when your minutes are up, that's it. No more. If you're ok spending a bunch of those precious minutes doing that sort of thing, that's your call. The same goes for the other stories, because as of now, the plans for those are the same. A PDF option and chapters to read online. I'm no tech-genius and I can't suit myself and my words up in armor, all I can do is offer you the versions I would like you to have and hope that you'll play along.

The bricks will.

The mortar won't.

But bricks are heavier and mortar is really just fine-grain sand if you think about it. 


So to you, dear readers: Be the brick. The bricks are what make this community what it is. The bricks make walls that hold up roofs. Hold down floors. Frame out windows and let the light in. You make a sheltered spot for us to keep our stories, away from the rain and the wind. Warm and dry and well fed. Without you, it would be a cold and lonely world for us writers. We love you and we need you to be strong for us. We need you to hold yourselves up high and support us because no matter what, no matter who we are or what we are writing, we are trying our best. And sometimes, our best is so hard come by, so hard to reach and we need a pile of bricks to climb on top of to give us a little boost beyond the self doubt and the endless shuffling of words. 

Seven in the morning, and I'm rambling about bricks.

The important stuff to know:

- I'm still here. I'm not leaving.

- I'm still writing. I'm never gonna stop.

- I'm posting Chapter one of Double Struck here today. I'll do what I can to post one chapter a day until I'm caught up, and then I'll try to step back to my once-a-week (or so) schedule. This story has been a rocky road to start with, but through thick and thin, it was just meant to be twific. It was meant to be here. I have got to finish writing it or I'll always feel like I failed it somehow. Once the story is complete, I will offer the PDF here, so again, decide what you want to do about your hourglass of minutes, ok?

- I'm gonna do the same for the rest of it. Pretty PDF and the entire story posted here. It's not gonna come all at once, I have a real life to deal with, but it will come. Be patient with me, and I'll be patient with you. I'll give you my downloads if you give me your thoughts. I need it, the outside perspective. Tell me how I'm doing, what moved you and what didn't, because it's so fucking hard sometimes when I'm thirty chapters deep and wondering if what I just wrote is even going to make sense to another person, much less make them feel something. I need to know from you if this is working. If the words are working. Please. Because otherwise I'm just in this for myself and even though that's some of the truth, the last week has shown me that it isn't ALL of the truth. 

Because you're here too.

If I could give the fandom a hug right now, I would, but y'all gotta hop in the shower first and wash off the mortar. 

xxxxoooo

HBM