Dreamer's Sanctuary

I’m back! Sorry it’s been more than a month since my last update. November has been a month of highs and lows. The results of the recent election had me wanting to retreat into a cave and hide out there for the next four years… but, instead, I took a trip to Vegas last weekend to see two of my Backstreet besties and two of our beloved Backstreet Boys. I’ve been trying to surround myself with people and things that make me happy, and Nick Carter concerts are definitely one of my happy places (especially when AJ makes a surprise appearance at one of them!). But, then, so is my house. It’s been nice having this weekend to just stay cozy at home and write.

Chapter 64 of The World Will Be Waiting is up, and it’s an absolute beast of a chapter! It took me over a month to finish because it’s over 9,000 words long – easily the length of two or three of my typical chapters. I didn’t want to break it up into multiple chapters because this story is already so long and still has a ways to go. I hope you’ll enjoy reading two or three weeks’ worth of updates all rolled up into one!

Finally, as this will be my last update before Thanksgiving, I just want to say how thankful I am for the readers who follow my fics, the friends I’ve made through the BSB fandom, and the Boys themselves. I’m fortunate to have found a hobby that has brought me so much joy and helped me connect with people around the world whom I never would have met otherwise. Thanks for everything! 🥰

On Thursday, I made it to Day 1000 of my writing streak! 🍾 This streak dates back to January 22, 2022, when I was still writing My Brother’s Keeper.   I have continued writing Kevin’s story every day since and am proud of my consistency.  There were definitely days when it wasn’t easy to maintain, but most days, I’ve enjoyed the process.  It has been slow-going lately due to regular old real life getting in the way, but I’m still plugging along on the sequel.  Chapter 63 of The World Will Be Waiting is up!  This is the last chapter I’ve finished, but the next one is well underway, so you hopefully won’t have to wait too long for it.  Thanks for reading!

But they can’t touch me ’cause I got you. 😊

It was so nice seeing Nick and a few of my Backstreet besties last Saturday!  It was just what my fangirl heart needed after a stressful start to the school year.  And after a fun-but-busy weekend and a long week of work, I’ve been looking forward to doing as little as possible this weekend.  Writing doesn’t count, of course.  I’ve been craving a good, long, productive writing session for the past few weeks, so I enjoyed sleeping in and then spending a few hours writing in bed today.  My favorite way to spend a Saturday morning!

I have to say, it’s interesting going to Nick events now that I’m not writing a Nick story.  For years, whenever I would go to a Nick or BSB concert, I was writing some tragic fanfic wherein Nick went through some sort of trauma or turmoil.  The first time I saw Nick solo was in July 2003, when I was about halfway through Broken.  The second time was in February 2012, a few months after I finished Curtain Call.  I was writing Sick as My Secrets when I went to the Nick & Knight tour in 2014 and the All American tour in 2016.  And I saw two DNA shows in the midst of writing the most disturbing section of A Heart That Isn’t Mine.

As much as I try to separate the fictional versions of the Boys in my stories from the real life versions, there are times when my mind can’t help but connect the two.  Music makes it harder because I’ve come to associate certain songs with stories.  When Nick sang “I Got You” as the music video played on the big screen in the background, I thought of Broken because I watched that video so many times during the writing of that story.  “It’s funny how life can take new meaning… You came and changed what I believe in.”  When he sang his cover of “Lovesong” by The Cure at soundcheck, I thought of By My Side because that was one of the songs on the Nick and Claire playlist I made and listened to for inspiration while I was writing that story.  “Whenever I’m alone with you… you make me feel like I am whole again.”  When he sang “Just Want You to Know,” I thought of Curtain Call and how I used Cary’s performance of that song in the first and last chapter to bookend everything that came in between.  “I just want you to know… that I’ve been fighting to let you go.  Some days I make it through… and then there’s nights that never end.  I wish that I could believe… that there’s a day you’ll come back to me.  But still I have to say… I would do it all again… Just want you to know.”   And when he sang “Quit Playing Games With My Heart,” I thought of A Heart That Isn’t Mine because of how that song is referenced in that story.  “Even in my heart… I see that you’re not being true to me.”  (If you know, you know.)

Since I write so much angst and whump, these moments usually make me feel guilty.  But watching Nick shine on stage this past Saturday, I just felt grateful.  Grateful because my stories are fictional.  Grateful because Nick is happy, healthy, and whole.  Grateful because he continues to fight and triumph over the demons he’s faced in the past and the trolls who are still trying to take him down.  Grateful because he’s still making music, touring, and performing.  Grateful because he and the Boys are still such a big part of my life over a quarter of a century after I became a BSB fan.  Many musicians are not so successful, and many fans are not so lucky.  We are truly blessed!

Seeing BSB live usually makes it harder to write about them because of the whole guilt complex I mentioned in the previous paragraph, but since I’m not currently writing a Nick story, that was not the case this week.  Chapter 62 of The World Will Be Waiting is up!  I enjoyed writing this chapter because it has some good hurt/comfort content, which you know I can never get enough of.  I was even able to work in another one of the songs from my old Nick and Claire playlist.  I hope you’ll enjoy reading it!

And, finally, I want to wish Kevin a happy belated birthday!  I’m beyond grateful for you, too! 💙

It’s been a busy few weeks, but I’m finally back with an update on The World Will Be Waiting!  Chapter 61 is up.  I’ll be at Nick’s show next Saturday (yay!), so don’t expect an update then, but I’ll have more where one came from soon enough.  Hope you enjoy!

Nothing like waiting until the last day of the month to update again! 🙃  I apologize again for the delay.  August is always a busy month for me, and besides the usual back-to-school shenanigans, I’ve been hanging on to the next chapter of The World Will Be Waiting, waiting until I got a little further into the next arc of the story and felt comfortable with it to start posting it.  My drama-loving writer brain has a tendency to plan plot elements early on, get excited about them, and then take so long to actually get to the point of writing them that by the time I do, I’ve lost some of my enthusiasm for the ideas and start second-guessing myself.  Some writers write scenes out of order to eliminate this problem, but I’ve never been able to do that.  So I’ve been sitting on Chapter 60 for almost two months, making sure I felt committed to this particular arc before I put it out into the world.  But in the meantime, I’ve still been writing every day, keeping my streak alive.  953 days as of today!

Anyway, thanks, as always, for being patient with me!  Chapter 60 of The World Will Be Waiting is up!

Yikes, I can’t believe it’s already been a month since my last update!  Sorry my updates have been so spread out this summer.  I got back from a family vacation a week ago and have spent the past week trying to get back on track with my writing, which has been very successful! In fact, the reason I’m updating at midnight is because I couldn’t stop writing long enough to do it earlier. I hit Day 900 of my streak earlier this month and have written over a thousand words almost every day this week.  I’m three chapters ahead of the one I’m posting today, which will give me a bit of a buffer to get through back-to-school season.

The Olympic Games may have captured the world’s attention in real life, but it’s Super Bowl Sunday in Chapter 59 of The World Will Be Waiting!  Kevin’s heading to Georgia to spend it with Brian in this chapter, which is meant to bridge the gap between the previous two chapters and the next few.  I know there haven’t been nearly enough Backstreet Boys in the story lately, so hopefully this will help with that, too.  I’ll get back to the other Boys soon, but I must admit, I’ve been having fun with my original characters in the meantime.  I hope you don’t mind.  This story’s about to turn into BMS 2.0 with how long it’s becoming.  I haven’t decided if that’s a good thing or a bad thing… I guess it depends on how much you guys like it!  I’m still enjoying writing it, and that’s what really matters most to me.  It’s no fun trying to finish a story you’ve lost interest in.  Your comments help keep that interest alive at times when real life gets in the way, so thanks to those of you who take the time to let me know you’re still reading!  I really appreciate it!

If you’re reading this on the site, then that means my efforts have paid off, and Dreamer’s Sanctuary has successfully been migrated to its new server!  That has been my project for the past week, transferring everything to a new web host.  I’d been with my old host for twelve years, but since they kept jacking up their prices, it was time to make the switch to a new one.  I’d only switched hosts once before and never with a WordPress site, so it was pretty scary at first, but I figured it out.  As with any change, there may be glitches I haven’t discovered yet, so if you find any broken links, images that don’t load, or other issues while you’re browsing the site, please let me know so I can fix them!  I’ve clicked around a little, and things seem to be working so far, but I haven’t checked every page.

Anyway, that’s the main reason I haven’t updated in the past couple weeks.  Now that that’s taken care of, I can finally post Chapter 58 of The World Will Be Waiting!  I hope you enjoy it!

Yup, still alive and writing!  Sorry I went the whole month of May without updating.  I did write every day in May; I just didn’t write much.  I’m way behind on the word count goal I set for myself this year, but that’s okay because 1) my daily writing streak is still going strong, and 2) I have all summer to catch up!  Just don’t let me download any more Sims expansion packs this year – that’s what killed my productivity over winter break and got me off to such a slow start! 🤦‍♀️

Speaking of The Sims, I know you’re probably sick of seeing me talk about my Sims world, but I have a funny story to share that is fanfic-related.

Read“A little Sim with a big story to tell!”

I know I’ve been MIA for most of the month, but you didn’t think I would forget my website’s twenty-fourth anniversary, did you?  Of course not!  On April 29, 2000, I created the Geocities site that I christened “Dreamer’s Sanctuary.”  I had only been writing fanfic for a few months and never really imagined it would amount to much of anything.  But, twenty-four years later, I’m still writing, and Dreamer’s Sanctuary is still going strong!  Whether you’ve been here since the beginning or have only recently discovered this site, I thank you for sticking with me, for reading my words and sharing your thoughts with me.  I’m truly grateful for all the friends I’ve made as a result of this hobby and our shared love of the Backstreet Boys!

In terms of writing, the month of April was not the most productive for me.  I spent the first half of it getting ready for Cancun and the past week trying to recover from it.  I wasn’t within six feet of Nick Carter yet somehow still managed to contract Nick Plague.  Just my luck! LOL  Exhaustion, sunburn, and sickness aside, I had a great time and would gladly do it all again!  And I did manage to keep my writing streak alive while I was there.  Today’s Day 829!  I still haven’t finished the Frick & Frack one-shot I teased in my April Fool’s update, but I will when time allows.  I did finally manage to finish Chapter 56 of The World Will Be Waiting yesterday, just in time for today’s anniversary update, so that is up!  It’s funny – when I started writing this chapter, I thought it was a shame that I was writing it before I went to Cancun because it takes place at a luxury tropical resort, which I had never experienced before.  I figured I would finish it before I left for my trip and never imagined I would still be writing it afterward.  I wish I could say that Cancun inspired me or at least helped me write the setting more accurately, but I had already done so much research beforehand that I didn’t end up changing anything.  Oh well.  🤷‍♀️  Sorry for the long wait.  Hopefully it won’t be as long for the next one!

And speaking of the next one…  Next April will be the twenty-fifth anniversary of Dreamer’s Sanctuary!  I would like to do some kind of retrospective thing, similar to the blogs I did leading up to my twentieth anniversary in 2020.  Instead of blogging about whole stories like I did then, I thought maybe it could be about the biggest moments or most memorable/favorite chapters from my stories.  Is that something people would be interested in reading?  Or do you have any other ideas for anniversary content you’d enjoy more?  Please comment and share your thoughts!

Thanks again for your continued support!  Here’s to twenty-four more years! 🥂

It’s been a productive start to spring break for me, and I’m already back with a brand new story!

Remember that one-shot I mentioned in my last update post?  Well, it was inspired by my recent struggles to write sex scenes that are actually somewhat sexy and not completely cringe-worthy.  I’ve always enjoyed challenging myself to write in new genres, so I decided to try my hand at writing the kind of PWP (porn without a plot) smut that is popular on AO3.  If you enjoy Brian/Nick as a slash pairing, are not opposed to reading explicit sexual content, and are old enough to read it legally, please check out my new one-shot at the link below and let me know what you think!

Frick & Frack’s Fuck Fiesta!

Synopsis:
When Brian meets up with Nick in Mexico, things get… caliente.

Genre: romance
Starring: Nick, Brian
Status: complete
Published: April 2024

Please note that, for now, this story will be posted exclusively on AO3.  I’m trying to boost my stats there, so I hope you’ll consider commenting, giving kudos, and/or subscribing to my account or the story.  Thanks in advance!  I’ll be back soon with the next chapter of The World Will Be Waiting!