I'm...back?
I thought that I'd be able to handle grad school and still check in on LJ from time to time. I was flat out wrong. Before getting to anything else, I wanted to let everyone know why I dropped off the face of the internet for so long.
Last spring, I was working on my thesis. I had my schedule so micro-managed that I had to schedule thirty minutes of free time every few days. What I expected was that I'd get my final summer vacation after that ended, then take the grad school plunge in August. This was my first mistake. Instead, I decided to take a special education endorsement, which meant that I was working sixty hours a week in July.
After this, I segued directly into working eighty hours a week from August through September, and then ninety hours a week from October through January. At that point, my health collapsed. My scoliosis made it impossible to stand up in the mornings; I got sick with something new every week; I could barely sit up and spent most of my time in varying states of agony. I was forced to drop my student teaching placement and do my classwork online. With that and other creative projects (which I'll get to in a minute), I was still working about thirty hours a week--the absolute most I could manage with my health condition as it was. At this time, I and my family ran out of money to pay the mortgage on our houses; we're in the middle of short-selling both my home and theirs.
Basically, my life has been an absolute mess. Fortunately, I'm finally well enough to get up and move around again, and this means that I'm starting a new project, which I'll describe below. If you want to ignore it, skip to the next ~~~ symbol to see what this means for this blog.
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A scientist mad with grief; a mother trying to escape guilt; a little girl's worst nightmare; a mistake with unforeseen consequences.
What if your life-your world-your memories-were a lie?
Find out the details on KickStarter.
Pledge Rewards
If 5,000 people donate $5 each, each and every one of them will get the first four-book arc in both ebook and audiobook format. Everyone will also get an ebook full of character information and illustrations. The books will all have maps of Qol and ten pages of illustrations.
Since these are digital, you don't have to worry about shipping. I'll get you the books in whatever format you need, and they'll be completely DRM-free.
Sample
Here is a sample with the first 44 pages of the first book.
If you like what you see, $5 will definitely get you the first ebook (if the campaign pans out, of course) and might net you everything above if enough stretch goals are met.
What if I pledge more than $5?
Then you get something I will never again offer: you get to choose your favorite character and ask for any given moment in their backstory, and I will give that to you. ($15+; lengths vary by pledge) Even if two people request the same character's backstory, each person will get their own, unique story, since they can ask for different times in the character's life, different focuses, etc.
Some examples: "I want to read about when Character X first met Character Y," "Tell me about when Character A discovered [spoiler]," "Write about when Character B's relationships with her family," "What was the best day in Character Z's life and why?" (Of course, you're not limited to this format, either!)
Every character in Untold Memories has a story, down to the least visible background character. (I do reserve the right to keep spoilers secret, however--it'd be no fun if you found out that your tidbit was revealed in the very next book, right?)
If you want to contribute $10, you can ask for information about Character X's quirks, Character Y's history, or Character Z's relationships--I'll give you five facts on any of those (or a number of other areas; see Kickstarter for details).
Can I get these after the campaign ends?
The $10+ prizes are KickStarter exclusive. The ebooks and audiobooks, although not exclusive to KickStarter, are much cheaper than they will be when they hit the stores.
When can I pledge?
This campaign will run from May 1 through May 31 (ending at 11:59pm PST). You can pledge at any time during that window.
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Okay, so what does this mean? It means that I may actually get a chance to FINALLY post that fanfiction I've been meaning to write for so long. It means that I'll actually be online. It means that you can send me a comment, and I'll actually be able to respond. If the KickStarter doesn't pan out... Well, that'd be really unfortunate for me, and I'd probably just leave LJ altogether if that happened. (Since I'd then need to seek at least part-time work. Or anything that I can find, really.)
Since I think that most of you liked my writing style in my fanfics, I thought you might be interested in my original work. (Also, it gives you the option to request stories by the author of the series that focus on your favorite characters--and, since I think that's something a lot of fans might appreciate, I wanted to mention it to all of you.) I'll be blogging here during the campaign, although I'll also be checking LJ.
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If you have ANY questions, please let me know. I'll do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.