Merry Christmas! I want to wish everyone a happy holiday, full of flying pandaskunks, rocket ships, and random fun.
In continuing with my weekly series of retrospective posts leading up to the site’s twentieth anniversary in April, Part 2 takes us back to 2001, to a light-hearted, fluffy little romance I wrote called Beside the Ocean. Just kidding about the “light-hearted, fluffy” part. In true Julie fashion, this is a love story about death.
Merry Christmas Eve!
As promised, I have been working on a third story in The Pandaskunk Saga, which I started back in 2012 with a short story called The Gift of the Pandaskunk. I was inspired by the strange acid trip that is the “It’s Christmas Time Again” music video. I have adored the song since day one, but the video has always made me wonder, WTF??? So one day, when I was home sick with the flu and doped up on drugs, I decided to write a story that would attempt to explain certain seemingly random aspects of the video, such as the flying panda with the fluffy skunk tail, the rocket ship, etc. It started as a simple parody of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, my favorite of the Rankin-Bass stop-frame animation Christmas specials, and became so much more. To this day, I’m not sure how I managed to churn the whole thing out in two days while I was sick enough to miss work, which I rarely do, but I think the combination of medication and a high fever must have worked to my advantage because it’s actually one of my favorite things I’ve ever written. I don’t write comedy very often, so it’s always fun when I can venture outside of my sadness cave and be creative in a different way.
In 2014, I got the idea for a sequel, which I started before Christmas and didn’t finish until February. Return of the Pandaskunk is significantly longer than its predecessor, in terms of word count, and even more random. It parodies so many different books, movies, and more, yet somehow it all works together in a weird way that sort of makes sense if you can accept the inherent silliness of it all.
I’ve always wanted to turn this pair of stories into a trilogy, but I knew I needed to wait for the right idea to come along so the third story could live up to the other two. Finally, a few weeks ago, inspiration struck! The first two stories were inspired by what was happening in the fandom at the time, as well as current events and pop culture, and this one was the same way. Shoutout to Aaron Carter and Melissa Schuman, whose recent shenanigans gave me the spark of an idea I needed to come up with a storyline. Without spoiling anything, I can tell you that they will both play a part in this latest piece of satire I’ve started writing. Though some may find it inappropriate for me to make light of the serious issues Aaron is currently struggling with, I wish him no ill will and hope he gets the help he so desperately needs, not just for his own sake, but for the sake of his family as well.
With all that being said, my Christmas gift to you is the Prologue and Part I of my new story, The Year Without a Pandaskunk. I’m far from finishing it, and, like the last one, it’s likely I’ll be writing it into February because I have a lot more planned for it. But I wanted to at least get the beginning posted before Christmas. Hopefully I’ll be able to keep updating it at least weekly, but it’s too soon to make any promises.
I hope everyone has a happy holiday!
Hello everyone! I’ve missed being able to update these last few weeks. Since finishing A Heart That Isn’t Mine, I have started the new pandaskunk story I mentioned back in November, but it’s not very far along yet. I’m still hoping to be able to post at least a part or two before Christmas, but the reality is that I’ll still be writing this thing after the holidays. I hope you won’t mind reading it then. I would just wait until next December to post it in its entirety, but it incorporates recent events in the fandom, so it won’t be as timely next year. Thanks for bearing with me.
As we approach the new year, we are also nearing a significant milestone… besides the youngest Backstreet Boy turning forty, I mean. April 29, 2020 will mark Dreamer’s Sanctuary’s twentieth anniversary! Off the top of my head, I can’t name another BSB fanfic site that is twenty years old and still actively being updated. My site has never been the biggest or the best, but it may be the longest-lasting – and hey, I’ll take pride in that!
To commemorate this milestone, I’m going to start a weekly series of “Wayback Wednesday” posts that will span the twenty-year history of the site and my fanfic writing “career,” spotlighting one of the stories I wrote each year. Newer readers may be interested in seeing where I started (and how far I’ve come since), while longtime readers may enjoy the nostalgia. And for those who don’t care at all, that’s okay too – I just thought this would help fill the gap in updates until I’m ready to start posting a new story.
We begin way back in the year 2000. I started writing fanfic right around this time of year, twenty years ago, when I was fourteen. My first attempt at a fanfic was just a few scenes written in a notebook. I ended up abandoning that story and starting another, which I will get to in a moment, but I later went back to that original idea and rewrote it as Years of Grace, which was published online in 2001.
The second story I started was also the first fanfic I finished and the first one I shared with the world online. It was called Heartache, and it’s the story I’m spotlighting in this first post because it’s really where this all began!
There are few things in life I get more pleasure out of than changing the status of a story from “incomplete” to “complete,” and today I got to do it for A Heart That Isn’t Mine. Chapter 50 is up, and with that, the story is officially finished!
Today is Thanksgiving here in the U.S., and though I know many of you reading this are from other countries, I want to let you know how thankful I am for every one of you. Writing fanfic has been my favorite hobby for almost twenty years, yet few people in my real life know that about me. While I prefer it that way, it’s nice to be able to share my stories with a group of people who understand and appreciate them. Thank you to everyone who has visited my site, read my stories, and taken time to give feedback. Your support and encouragement is a big part of why I enjoy writing and will always come back to it, even when life gets in the way.
Last year, 2018, was the hardest year of my life. I lost two beloved members of my family, and I didn’t do much writing at all until I finally got going on A Heart That Isn’t Mine about a year ago. Strange as it may seem, this dark, depressing, delightfully twisted little story became a beacon of light, leading me out of the darkness and helping me through my grief. I’m always happiest when I’m writing, and this year has been much better, in part because of it. I was more nervous to post this story than any other one I’ve written, but the positive reactions and kind words I’ve gotten from readers have reaffirmed that there are other people out there who like to read the kind of stories I like to write and enjoy reading myself. Thank you for that! There will be more stories where this one came from.
I’ve been all over the place when it comes to updating this week – sorry about that! I was out of town yesterday and didn’t have time to update, but never fear, Chapter 49 is here! This is the second to last chapter of A Heart That Isn’t Mine, so next time I update, the story will officially be finished!
So what is next for me? Well, I’ve been working so hard on this one for the past few months, I originally thought I would want to take a break from writing for at least a few weeks before starting a new project. But I’ve become so accustomed to waking up and writing, coming home from work and writing, staying up late and writing, etc., that it seems a shame to stop the momentum. So without missing a beat, I started plotting out a new story last week. Recent events have sparked some ideas for a brand new pandaskunk story, which would be the third in The Pandaskunk Saga. I’ve been wanting to make this series a trilogy since I finished the second one, but I had to wait for the right idea, which apparently took five years. I’ve got a solid idea now, and I started writing the story this morning. After the darkness and intensity of A Heart That Isn’t Mine, I needed something light and silly to write as a little palate cleanser before I delve back into another heavy drama. I’m hoping to have it finished or at least far enough to start posting before Christmas.
I’ll be back later this week with the last chapter of A Heart That Isn’t Mine!