Dreamer's Sanctuary

Congratulations to the Backstreet Boys on the culmination of their wonderful DNA World Tour!  I feel blessed to have been able to see the show seven times in five different cities over the course of the two legs they did in North America.  I’ve been to at least one concert on every tour since Into the Millennium, and DNA had the best setlist.  (Bonus points for including my favorite song, “Don’t Wanna Lose You Now.”)  Even after four years, I’m sad to see it end but excited for what’s coming next – hopefully new music!  As long as there’ll be music, they’ll be coming back again… and the world will be waiting!

And, hey, speaking of The World Will Be Waiting, Chapter 32 is up!  If you rely on Twitter to be notified of updates, you should know that the plugin I use to automatically tweet a link to my posts no longer works with Twitter (thanks, Elon 🙄).  I will try to get in the habit of tweeting it myself, but if you’re not subscribed to my email list, you may want to do that.  Sign up on the sidebar if you’re on the desktop version of the site or scroll down to the bottom of the page if you’re on the mobile version.

Summer’s almost here, and this tired teacher is beyond ready!  See ya next Saturday with the next chapter!

Chapter 31 of The World Will Be Waiting is up!  I wrote a lot this week, which was much-needed because I’m only three chapters ahead of what I’m posting.  The past month has been busy and stressful, but fortunately, there are only two more weeks until my summer break starts!

In other news, Google Docs is testing out a new AI-assisted writing tool, and I got access to try it out.  While I would never use it to help me write fanfic for real – and, quite frankly, don’t need to – I was curious and wanted to see what it was capable of, having not played with ChatGPT yet.  So I asked it to help me write a Backstreet Boys fan fiction.  I wanted to share what it came up with because it cracked me up!

Read“An AI BSB fanfic?”

May 6, 2023 has been quite a day so far!  A coronation, a Backstreet baby’s birthday, and I hit Day 470 on my writing streak. LOL  Congratulations to King Charles III, happy birthday to James, and Chapter 30 of The World Will Be Waiting is up for your reading pleasure!  Quite fitting that it takes place in London!

Twenty-three years ago, on a Saturday just like this, I signed up for an account on Geocities and created a website to post the handful of fanfics I had written.  Bored and frustrated by the lack of timely updates on the other fanfic sites that hosted my first few stories, I did it on a whim.  I never imagined I would still be updating it twenty-three years later, with over eighty stories and four million words written under my name.  But here we are!  You can click on the About page to see screenshots of how the site has evolved over the years.

The world – and the World Wide Web – has changed a lot since 2000.  Geocities no longer exists.  Most fanfiction is posted on big archive sites such as Archive of Our Own, FanFiction.Net, and Wattpad, not individual sites like Dreamer’s Sanctuary.  Most of the individual sites from the golden era of BSB fanfic have been taken down or abandoned.  That makes me sad, but I’m also proud that my site has outlasted so many of its contemporaries.  BSB fanfic isn’t as popular as it used to be, but I still love writing it and appreciate those of you who still love reading it.  Thank you for visiting my site, reading my stories, and supporting me through all these years!  I’ve learned to write for myself, but I post my work for you.  Your clicks, kudos, and kind words mean the world to me. 💜

With that being said, Chapter 29 of The World Will Be Waiting is up!  I hope you enjoy it!

The Backstreet Boys have officially made it to thirty years together and counting!  Happy anniversary, Boys!  I first became a fan in 1998, and this group has had such a big influence on my life in the last 25 years, providing the soundtrack for so much of my life along with some pretty amazing experiences!  Through BSB, I’ve met people from all around the world whom I never would have had an opportunity to meet otherwise, some of whom have become great friends in real life as well as online.  I’ve traveled to places I’d never been.  And I’ve discovered a hobby that I never imagined I would still be enjoying all these years later.  But here we are!  Dreamer’s Sanctuary’s 23rd anniversary is next Saturday, and I have the Boys to thank for continuing to inspire me and everyone who comes here in search of fanfic about them.  So thank you, Brian, Nick, Kevin, Howie, and AJ for three decades of entertainment and so much more! ❤️

I’ve posted Chapter 28 of The World Will Be Waiting, in which I finally get a chance to use the song that inspired this series in a scene.  Bring some chips and enjoy the cheese!