Dreamer's Sanctuary

Well, it’s been another tough week in the fandom.  I’m getting tired of writing these posts, but once again, I’m reminded of how strong the BSB Army and the Backstreet Boys themselves are.  Rose wrote a great post about this on her site The Dark Side yesterday that reminded me of one of my all-time favorite BSB lyrics:  “We’ve been through days of thunder.  Some people say we don’t belong.  They try to pull us under, but here we stand together, and we’re millions strong.”  The media can try to cancel them based on an opportunistic and completely unsubstantiated claim by one person who’s been manipulated by another, but the Boys will keep going, and we the fans will continue to band together to support them.  As far as Nick goes, I don’t have time to write all that I want to say right now, but if you’ve read my stories and my recent tweets, you already know how I feel about him and this situation.  The short version is:  I support Nick and don’t believe he or the group deserve to be “cancelled” over an alleged incident that may or may not have happened over twenty years ago when there is absolutely no proof or evidence that he did what he’s been accused of.

Nick has a small part in Chapter 10 of The World Will Be Waiting, which is now online.  You know things are bad when one of my chapters is happier and more light-hearted than reality, LOL.  While my stories are fictional, I try to infuse them with as much reality as I can, and I genuinely believe that Nick has a good heart, would do anything for his brothers, and would never take advantage or abuse someone with disabilities.  I sincerely hope that the companies who were so quick to cancel him without digging deeper into this claim will do some investigating and reconsider their decisions, but even if they don’t and we’re left disappointed by the lack of appearances we’ve been looking forward to, we – and the group – will survive.  This, too, shall pass, and we’ll all be even stronger at the end of it.  Sending lots of love to Nick, Kevin, Brian, Howie, AJ, and all my friends in the fandom.  Hang in there, BSB fam. 🖤💙

Well, I’m not, but Kevin and the Boys are in Chapter 9 of The World Will Be Waiting, which is now online for your reading pleasure.  I wish I was going somewhere to see one of their Christmas performances in person, but I will have to settle for watching them on TV/YouTube.  The JCPenney Holiday Spectacular on Thursday was so much fun!  If you missed it, you can watch it here.  Enjoy!

I hope my friends in the U.S. had a happy Thanksgiving and are enjoying the holiday weekend!  Also, happy birthday to Baylee Littrell today and Elliott (Ava) McLean tomorrow!

Chapter 8 of The World Will Be Waiting is up!  This is probably my favorite of the chapters I’ve posted up to this point because it’s just a feel-good chapter featuring the five guys and no other characters.  I hope you enjoy it, too!

We got our first real snowfall this week, so it finally feels appropriate to be listening to the Christmas album.  Don’t think I haven’t been listening to it for the past month anyway, but it was funny driving around during spooky season, singing “Winter Wonderland” while looking at the colorful leaves, pumpkins, and Halloween decorations.  The snow here has melted, but I’m sending warm thoughts to my friends in Buffalo who are dealing with six feet of it!

I’m back to my regular Saturday updates, so Chapter 7 of The World Will Be Waiting is up!  This is a happy little group-centered chapter.  Hope you enjoy the fluff!

If you saw this update on Twitter and did not also receive an email notification, you may want to subscribe to site updates.  You can do that on the sidebar, which shows up at the bottom of the layout if you’re on a mobile device.  I don’t currently use any other social media besides Twitter for fandom/fanfic stuff, but if Twitter goes down in the midst of all this Elon Musk drama, I will create new accounts to stay connected and share those here.  In the meantime, subscribing to my mailing list means you’ll get an email whenever I update.  Thank you to everyone who has already subscribed!

It’s weeks like this past one that remind me just how much of a family the BSB fandom is.  While I hate the circumstances it happened under, I love to see the Boys, their families, and my fellow fans come together to support each other.  I’m happy for my friends in the UK and Belgium that the last few shows of the European leg of the DNA World Tour went on as planned and was glad to see how the fans who attended lifted Nick up with love and support.  I’m also happy he and the other guys are headed home for a few weeks off with their families before the Christmas shows begin.

Back to our regularly scheduled updates…  After postponing this one, I decided to post Chapter 6 of The World Will Be Waiting a day early, since I had the day off work due to Veterans Day.  (Thank you to all the veterans who have served their country!)  As I mentioned in my post last Saturday, this chapter does include a scene about Nick dealing with Leslie’s death, which may be triggering given Aaron’s recent passing, but that’s not what the majority of the chapter is about.

I’m working on Chapter 20 now, and the story is over 200 pages long and nearing the 100,000 word mark, so writing is still going well, and you can expect regular updates to continue.  I have a feeling this is going to be a long story, probably quite a bit longer than My Brother’s Keeper, considering it’s already almost half as long and nowhere near the middle of the plot I’ve planned… and so far, I am really only plantsing (half planning, half flying by the seat of my pants) this one.  I don’t see it becoming By My Side long, but I now remember how and why BMS got to be as long as it did, LOL.  So hey, hope you like long stories!  But I guess you probably wouldn’t be here if you didn’t, since that’s kind of my thing.  Thanks for reading!

Well, this is not the post I wanted to write today.  For anyone who hasn’t heard, Aaron Carter was found dead earlier this afternoon.  You can read more details here.  While I can’t say this is a shocking turn of events for anyone who has even somewhat followed Aaron’s very public downward spiral over the past few years, it is tragic, and my heart breaks for the people who loved him and wanted the best for him, especially Nick and Angel.  My thoughts are with them and their families.  I’m glad that Nick is with his Backstreet brothers right now and has at least today off to begin to process this, although I’m sure it’s hard for him to be so far away from the rest of his family.

In light of this tragedy, I’ve decided to postpone my planned update for today.  Coincidentally, the next chapter of The World Will Be Waiting touches on Leslie’s death, and I don’t feel right posting it today, knowing Nick is going through this again with another sibling.  I much prefer fictional drama to the real life kind, and this just hits too close to home right now.  My apologies to anyone who was looking forward to reading it today, but I’m sure you will understand.  I’ll post it next Saturday, if not before.  I just wanted to let you know why I’m choosing to delay the update.  Please keep the Carter family in your thoughts and prayers.

Yes, yes it is!  It’s also the twentieth anniversary of Nick’s first solo album, Now or Never!  There’s a part of me that can’t believe it’s been twenty years since that album came out.  I don’t want to accept it because it came out my senior year of high school, which means I’ve been out of high school almost twenty years.  How can that be?  But then I remember using my boombox to dub my Now or Never CD onto a cassette tape to play in my first car because it didn’t have a CD player and am forced to admit that, yes, it really has been that long, and I am, in fact, old.

The Now or Never era is an important part of my personal fandom history because it’s when I fell in love with Nick.  I had been a BSB fan for almost five years by that point, but Nick used to be my least favorite member of the group.  I know – shocking, right?  Teenage Nick never really appealed to me; I found him annoying in interviews, and his yellow curtain hair was not attractive to me at all.  But by the time Now or Never came out, he had grown up a bit and cut his hair, and gradually, I began to realize how hot he was.  I think it helped that I also started reading more Nick-centered fanfics around this time because most of my fanfic friends were Nick girls, so that’s what they wrote.  I know I became obsessed with the Swollen Issues series around this time because that inspired me to write Broken, which turned me into more of a Nick writer.  Now or Never certainly influenced Broken, too.  I remember watching the “I Got You” music video frequently for “inspiration” (okay, eye candy) and wrote a lot about Nick walking on the beach and taking his boat out on the water because of it.  And, of course, there’s the scene of him singing “Who Needs the World” to Claire in her hospital room.  Those two tracks, along with “Blow Your Mind,” are still some of my all-time favorite Nick solo songs.  I’m listening to the album as I write this post and, overall, it still holds up well.  (Though, ironically, the one song I still hate is the title of this post, “Is It Saturday Yet?”  Sorry, Nick, but that song belonged on your brother’s album.)  Happy anniversary, Now or Never!

Now for the update!  Chapter 5 of The World Will Be Waiting is up!  This story also makes me nostalgic for Broken and its sequel, By My Side, because it reminds me of them – especially BMS.  My writing style has evolved since then, but otherwise, this story has a similar feel in a lot of ways.  I don’t think I’ll ever be as obsessed with a story as I was with Broken/BMS, but I’m absolutely loving writing this one so far, maybe even more than My Brother’s Keeper?  I always felt that the fun of Broken/BMS was knocking Nick down so I could build him back up again (and then knock him down again… and build him back up again… and again…), and that’s how I feel about Kevin in this story.  It’s like he finally made it to the light at the end of a long, dark tunnel, and I’m enjoying letting him bask in its warm glow, while occasionally still looking back at the darkness.  Like I said in my last update, it’s been refreshing to write something relatively light and fluffy for a change.  That being said, this chapter is a little angstier than the previous ones.  I hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 4 of The World Will Be Waiting is up, in which we see an old familiar face.  I’m really enjoying writing this story!  My writing streak is up to 274 days now, and I just finished Chapter 16, so I’m still well ahead of what I’m posting.  I’m a little surprised by how well it’s going so far, considering how fluffy it is.  I’m not used to writing fluffy, happy stories, but maybe the novelty of it is what’s making this one so fun for me.  It still has enough angsty undertones to make it interesting to me, but otherwise, it’s a nice departure from my usual heavy drama.  I hope you’re enjoying it, too!  Your feedback is always appreciated, so thank you to those who have taken time to comment on the story.

Backstreet Time is so strange.  They make us wait an extra year for an already long-awaited Christmas album, then release it a whole month earlier than necessary.  But hey, I can’t complain about new music, even when it comes in the wrong season.  I’m a big fan of spooky season, but you bet I’m listening to the new album on repeat as I write this post.

Quick review before I get to today’s update:  I absolutely love it!  Their covers of classic Christmas songs are beautifully arranged, the new songs are fun, their vocals sound incredible, and there’s a perfect balance between all five voices.  I absolutely love hearing more of the low range of their registers, especially Kevin and Nick.  Swoon!  Their rendition of “White Christmas” to open the album was a perfect choice. I’ve never been a big fan of “The Christmas Song,” but of course, they sound great singing it.  I love the a capella arrangement of “Winter Wonderland.”  After writing The Road to Bethlehem, I was really happy to see “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” included on the track listing.  It’s the perfect Christmas song for these troubled times.  “O Holy Night” is one of my very favorite religious Christmas songs, so I was happy they recorded that one, too, but so far, “Silent Night” is my favorite of the classics on the album.  It brought tears to my eyes because it’s just so beautiful!  Speaking of beautiful, my favorite track on the album is “Same Old Lang Syne.”  I just learned yesterday that this is a cover; I had never heard the original before, but I adore it.  I’ve always loved a song that tells a story, and this one is so beautiful!  Can’t wait to see who’s going to write the first fanfic based on it, LOL.  “Last Christmas” is a great cover as well, and I’m enjoying all three of the new songs.  “Together” is particularly bouncy and fun.  “It’s Christmas Time Again” still beats them all, though; I freaking love that song as much now as I did a decade ago!  Also, how has it been almost ten years since the pandaskunk song was released?!

Speaking of ten years ago, Chapter 3 of The World Will Be Waiting is up!  It takes place during AJ and Rochelle’s wedding, which was also almost ten years ago.  They got married in December, so while it’s not quite a Christmas chapter, it’s close enough.  Perfect for A Very Backstreet Christmas in October!

Thank you to everyone who’s been reading, as well as to those of you who voted in the poll I posted last week.  The majority of you preferred Saturday updates, so I’m going back to that.  I’ll be back next weekend with the next chapter!

Thanks so much to everyone who read the first chapter of my new story, The World Will Be Waiting!  I’m especially grateful to those of you who have taken time to leave comments or kudos here or on AO3.  I appreciate every single one!

I’m back with Chapter 2 this week!  I went ahead and waited until today to post it, knowing I would have the day off for Indigenous Peoples’ Day/Columbus Day here in the U.S.  (But also, happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends!)  But I’m still wondering if I should go back to weekends for my regular updates.  It doesn’t really matter to me either way, so I want to know what my readers prefer!  Which day of the week would you like to see me update?  Please vote in the poll below!  I picked days that I can usually count on having some time to update.  Keep in mind, I typically update in the late afternoon or evening, so for my friends overseas, whatever day you pick might actually mean the following morning.

Thanks for reading and voting!