Dreamer's Sanctuary

Today marks Dreamer’s Sanctuary’s 25th anniversary!  A quarter of a century ago, I created a simple webpage for my growing collection of fanfics.  I did it using Microsoft Word on my mom’s desktop computer and uploaded it to Geocities with dial-up internet, as one did in the year 2000.  I was 15 years old then and had only been writing fanfic for a few months.  I never imagined that I would still be writing BSB fic twenty-five years later, nor that the simple website I dubbed “Dreamer’s Sanctuary” would still be around and active.  But here we are!  I just turned 40 a couple weeks ago, and writing fanfic is still my favorite hobby.  Contrary to what I believed back then, I’ve learned in my old age that you never truly outgrow the things you love.

In honor of this milestone, I’ve given the site a makeover!  I was obviously inspired by the Boys’ amazing Millennium 2.0 photoshoot.  Considering that I started this site during the original Millennium era, it seemed like the perfect theme for a twenty-fifth anniversary layout.  This layout pays homage to Dreamer’s Sanctuary’s first couple of looks:  the original blue cloud background and the subsequent rainbow layout, which featured this black and blue splash page.  (This is the earliest version of Dreamer’s Sanctuary preserved by the Wayback Machine, although my 2015 April Fool’s throwback layout gives you an idea of what it looked like before that.)

The banner I created for this layout also brings to life an idea I had a long time ago for a stained glass layout that featured the five “element” photos from the original Millennium album shoot.  For as many different looks as DS has had over the years, there are almost as many reject layouts that I started making and never ended up using.  Because I save everything and never let go, I still have them all, including this stained glass graphic I made at some point in the early 2000s.

I’m thrilled that I was finally able to use this idea all these years later!  The rainbow of colors represented by the element photos reminded me of colorful stained glass windows, which I have always loved.  Stained glass makes me think of old churches, which fits with the “sanctuary” part of my site’s name, so it works on multiple levels.  I hope you like the new look!  I dearly loved my last layout, but I decided it was finally time to leave the DNA era behind and move on to Millennium 2.0!

Meanwhile, it’s still the In a World Like This era in my current work in progress.  Chapter 71 of The World Will Be Waiting is up!  I got carried away with writing this chapter, which is why it’s so long and took me so long to finish.  I got really into researching the unique location of Bombay Beach, CA and wanted to incorporate many of the details I discovered.  I also had to include some drama, of course!  Chapter 72 is not done yet, but it’s well underway and shouldn’t take me as long to write as the last two chapters did.

Thanks, from the bottom of my heart, for sticking with me over the years.  Here’s to twenty-five more! 🥂

There’s a lot to celebrate this April 20th.  Happy Easter to Christians!  Happy 420 to cannabis users!  And, of course, happy 32nd anniversary to the Backstreet Boys!  How blessed are we to be fans of a band that’s still going strong after more than three decades in the music business?  As a fandom, we may complain about a lot of things – the price of concert tickets and meet-and-greets, the places that get left out of tours, and the time it takes the Boys to put out a new album, just to name a few – but every anniversary serves as a reminder of how grateful we should be to have these things to complain about.  Remember, it could always be worse, as *NSYNC  fans know.  At least our group is still together, still making music, and still performing live shows.  Let’s enjoy it while it lasts!

My readers have one more reason to celebrate today:  Chapter 70 of The World Will Be Waiting is FINALLY up!  I’m sorry it took me so long.  This chapter centers around the In a World Like This album photo shoot, which is well-documented on YouTube.

This “behind the scenes” video the Boys posted was both a blessing and a curse to me.  It was a blessing because it gave me so much material to work with when writing this part of the story.  I did a lot of research about the shooting location, which led me down quite the rabbit hole, let me tell you!  It was also a curse because it inspired me to include way too much detail.  Believe it or not, I started this chapter on January first and, despite adding to it every day, only finished it a few weeks ago.  It was originally like 16,000 words long (which is the length of about four average-sized chapters), but I ended up splitting it into two chapters, which means Chapter 71 is also done and will be posted later this month.  I’m glad to be done with these chapters, but since they do feature all five guys, I figured today would be a good day to post the first part.  I will probably post the second part either this weekend or next Tuesday, which is my site’s anniversary!  Thanks for your patience, as always.  I appreciate you!