It’s crazy how much things can change in just one week! I didn’t even mention COVID-19/Coronavirus in previous blogs because, even as of last Wednesday, it was still just a story in the news, not something that had personally affected my life in any way. That all changed Friday afternoon when I found out all the schools in my state were closing for the rest of this month. As if that wasn’t enough to make things hit home, the first case of the virus in my area was announced on Saturday, and it happened to be a man who attended the church my family went to when I was a kid. Thankfully, none of us go there anymore, but wow… things have gotten real!
I’m working from home for the next two weeks at least, possibly a lot longer. In theory, this should give me much more time to write, but so far, that has not been the case, as my time has been spent helping my students, their parents, and my colleagues navigate “remote learning,” which is new to all of us, and using TV to distract myself from worrying about what I can’t control. That being said, my goal is to wrap up the rest of these Wayback Wednesday blogs leading up to the site’s twentieth anniversary in April, finish The Year Without a Pandaskunk, and eventually start a new novel. I’m sure you guys could use some new reading material to keep you entertained while you’re quarantined, and I could use some new writing material!
I hope all of you are staying safe, staying home as much as you can, and taking precautions to prevent contracting or spreading the virus. Nick Plague has taught us BSB fans the importance of washing our hands; I believe my own immune system has been strengthened by repeated exposure to that particular virus through close encounters with Nick Carter, but I am still washing my hands more often and thoroughly than usual (while singing the chorus of “I Want It That Way,” of course!). It sounds like Lauren is encouraging Nick to do the same. Yay, Lauren! I’m happy that the Boys made it through the rest of their South American tour, only cancelling one show, and relieved that they’re now home safe. I pray the extreme measures taken to stop this pandemic work to the point that the current restrictions will be lifted by the next legs of the tour in Australia and North America.
In the meantime, it’s business as usual here at Dreamer’s Sanctuary. For this week’s Wayback Wednesday, we’re going back to 2013. 2013 was a big year for Dreamer’s Sanctuary! It’s the year I finally bit the bullet and figured out how to recreate the entire site on WordPress instead of using Microsoft Word, which had served me well for twelve years, but was very outdated. After many weeks of work, the new Dreamer’s Sanctuary officially debuted on January 1, 2013. Later that same year, I also moved the site from its original host, Yahoo! Geocities, to a new host, Bluehost, which I’ve been using ever since. I took a huge risk in making these big changes. Being mostly self-taught in web design, my knowledge of HTML is basic at best, and I was terrified I was going to screw up the whole site beyond repair. I made plenty of mistakes along the way, but I learned from them and managed to fix what I messed up. The risk paid off, and the reward has been a site that is much more user-friendly and a lot easier to update. No regrets!
In terms of fanfic, 2013 was kind of a weird year for me. I had finished my long-term side project Secrets of the Heart the year before and started what was to take its place as my new side project, a crossover story called Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Backstreet Boy. My two big collaborations, 00Carter and Song for the Undead, were both still in progress, and I was trying to get back into Guilty Roads, which I did manage to update a few times that year. But what I mostly wrote that year were short stories. I’ve never been much of a short story writer, preferring novels with characters and storylines that I can really flesh out and develop over time. But perhaps because I was struggling to stay inspired with my novels, I wrote twelve short stories in 2013! First there was Behind the Curtain, a companion piece to Curtain Call that I wrote for my April Fool’s prank that year. Then there was “Blood Diamond” and the “Kitt Fit Kill” trilogy for Revenge of the Slaughtered, as well as “Windows,” “Bygones,” and “Yellow Roses” for Footprints, and “This is Nuts!” for 1000 Ways to Kill Nick Carter. That summer, I wrote Unsuspecting Sunday, which led to a novel, Sick as My Secrets – much more on that one in a few weeks. I also wrote two stories for a challenge on Absolute Chaos, Shorty and the Deceased and Beauty and the Backstreet Boy.
Of all of those, Shorty and the Deceased is my favorite, so that’s the one I’ve chosen to blog about this week.
Read“Wayback Wednesday #14: 2013”
