Thanks to bea_tricks  for suggesting a master fic list - I don't actually have all that many fics to master, but organization is always a good thing, right?

( BLOODWRITES MASTER FIC LIST )

Title: The Killer in the Classroom
Author: Bloodwrites
Word Count: 207,000 freakin' words
Pairing: Hodgela, B/B (established relationship)
Rating: M (sex/ some violence/ adult themes)
Disclaimer: I don't own Bones - that honor belongs to Hart Hanson, FOX, and Kathy Reichs. Some of these characters are mine, as is the plot and all those 207,000 freakin' words. No copyright infringement intended, no profits made from this ginormous beast. It's all about the love.
Spoilers: Some vague spoilers for mid-season four, nothing too huge, however.
Plot: Sequel to The War in the Woods. Brennan takes a sabbatical from the Jeffersonian to lure a serial killer out of hiding.

Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two, Part 1; Part 2
Chapter Three
Chapter Four, Part 1; Part 2
Chapter Five, Part 1; Part 2, Part 3
Chapter Six, Part 1; Part 2
Chapter Seven, Part 1; Part 2; Part 3
Chapter Eight, Part 1; Part 2
Chapter Nine, Part 1; Part 2; Part 3
Chapter Ten, Part 1; Part 2
Chapter Eleven, Part 1; Part 2
Chapter Twelve,Part 1; Part 2
Chapter Thirteen, Part 1; Part 2
Chapter Fourteen, Part 1; Part 2

Title: The War in the Woods
Author: Bloodwrites
Rating: PG-13/T with exception of Day Five (M for sexual situations)
SPOILER ALERT: Spoilers up to Season 4, The Conman in the Meth Lab
Pairings: Booth/Brennan, Hodgins/Angela
Plot: Sweets decides the team needs to re-bond, so he signs everyone up for an Outward Bound course. Booth without a gun, Cam without clean underthings, and Bones without... well, bones.
Disclaimer: Oh, the things I'd do if I owned any of the fine folk at Bones. But, alas, I do not. No ownership implied, copyright infringement intended, nor profit made from this fictional work.

Day One: Sweets
Day Two: Cam
Day Three: Brennan
Day Four: Hodgins
Day Five: Angela
Day Six: Booth - Part 1, Part 2
Day Seven:
Sweets, 5 - 11a.m.
Cam, 11a.m. - 4p.m.
Brennan, 4 - 11p.m.
Day Eight:
Hodgins, 5 - 11a.m.
Angela, 11a.m. - 4p.m.
Booth, 4 - 11p.m.

Okay, so I've spent the whoooooole day (except for a couple hours snowshoeing through the wilds) on Photoshop Elements, and I am completely hooked. How fun is this? And now I of course want to make my own B/B banner, and I wondered if y'all have any place you can direct me to, where you figured out: (a) What size the banners should be, and (b) how to upload once it's done. I actually may know the whole uploading process, but I am a little clueless about the size. So, if there's any handy step-by-step out there that I haven't found yet, I'd love the link.  THANKS!

Hey y'all - God, I've been gone so long I hardly even know where to start... Except that right now the writing is going like gangbusters, which means there's kind of been no time to breathe at all, let alone time to update lj or work on my slow-as-molasses Murder in the Marriage (which, I swear, I will be updating again soon). Lots of exciting things happening, though: My hoarding article for BARK comes out in June, which I'm kind of ecstatic about. My Down East article on Maine Search and Rescue Dogs comes out the following month, and last but not least... It looks like I may have a publisher for my YA book/series. MAY being the operative word. My agent is all, "Don't get excited 'til papers are signed and money's changed hands," but I'm all... DUDE.

( More babbling about my life, plus Bones and Questions for Banner Building Geniuses )

Hey all, I'm sure you guys already have the link to this, but a friend sent it to me and I thought it was hilarious. And just another example of how Emily Deschanel rocks my world - this time, by being felt up by Alyson Hannigan to raise money for cancer research. The woman's a phenom.

( Cut for Bones 503 spoilers and Reichs ramble )

So, it's been three weeks - three weeks - since I posted the last chapter of Murder in the Marriage, and I've been tormenting myself and slowly writing a few pages at a time in between working about sixty hours a week at the new job and tending the hounds and dealing with HR nightmares, and then I got attacked by bees and the next day Killian (one of my dawgs) killed a freakin' beaver - a beaver. Who kills a freakin' beaver? They're all cute and furry and buck-toothed. I was more than a little mortified, I'll tell you that much. Then, yesterday I ran over my brother's front steps and ripped my fender clean off... Mercury has been in retrograde, yeah, but this is getting ridiculous. Remember when I wrote about how important it is to finish what one starts in a timely manner and be a reliable writer and stick to what you're doing and all that other malarkey? 

It turns out, I'm completely full of crap, because here's the thing: I think I have to hang up my MitM hat, at least for the moment. I've been wrestling with it and agonizing and all the rest for weeks now - I mean, yeah, I know: It's fanfic, Jen. Get over it. Yes, it's important and life affirming and all the rest, but it's also a non-paying writing gig. But, I really like the story. And I stand by the theory that regardless of whether you're getting paid or not, it's a good idea to stick with a story from start to finish. Plus - well, it's fanfic, dude. I freakin' love fanfic. BUT... I have no time. I have no mental energy. I will finish the story - just not in regular weekly installments right now.

Grr. What do you guys say? I think I set these standards for myself - weekly updates of 10,000 words or more, excel at the job, yoga every morning, cook for the dogs and be nice to the nieces and don't eat chocolate (I'm failing miserably at that last one, FYI) - and then ultimately I just get burnt out by the whole thing. I just wanna... be. Work the job, write the occasional one-shot fic, research the next book while I try to sell the one I have, finish painting my living room. Obsess and squee over the new Bones season...

So, I'm a horrible person, right? I lack commitment to my craft, and will ultimately end up dying alone in my crappy car surrounded by a pile of unfinished manuscripts. And before people think I'm having some kind of psychotic break or something, I'll just point out that by my nature I do tend to be somewhat dramatic with my prose - I really am fine. Just slightly over-stretched, which leads to over-stressing. And I am bummed about the fic. But I'm gonna let it go, for now. Which I apologize sincerely for, but... Well, I have to shelf something, and if it's not the fic, it's gonna be my sanity. Or my job - which pays well, and really isn't a bad gig. So... The fic it is. At least for now.

And I don't think I've mentioned it lately, but I did want to say that I think it's bizarre how much I love the lj-world. I see posts from jillianfishor lizook12or bea_tricks, tempertemper, amilyn, labsquint, and so many others, and I get downright tickled - whether I'm hearing about your days or reading an inconsequential meme, or - blessed be - reading a new fic. It's an odd dynamic, this lj-thing. I can geek out, obsess about my job, write things I'd never dream of writing anywhere else, and send them into the ether... And find out that, more often than not, there really are fabulous folk out there who may not actually be experiencing the exact same thing I am, but at least share enough of my quirks and fangirl tendencies to sympathize about the rest.

So... I love y'all. Seriously. And, the announcement has been made: MitM is on hold for the moment. Life goes on. I'm really sorry for being a douche who's added another WIP without an ending to the world of fandom - god knows, we definitely didn't need that. But I'll come back to it in time. For now, I'm gonna squee with the rest of you, start tackling a few of those prompts that have been taunting me at kinkinthebones, finish up the dog stew (made for dogs, not from them) and try desperately to finish painting my goddamn living room before the day is completely gone. Have I mentioned y'all rock? Because you do. And that, my friends, is all I have for the moment.

Okay, so I've been madly writing MitM today, after having spent the past two weeks at this whole new salaried grown up lifestyle. Ugh. Setting policies, writing employee handbooks, running HR seminars, developing marketing plans... I am a workin' fiend, friends. Plus, in another mad-genius move on my part, I decided to completely redecorate my house just seconds before starting said new salaried, grown up life. Good news: studio is DONE (eventually, I will post pics as proof). Bad news: living room is only half-done, everything tarped off and my world complete madness. Urgh. Grr.

In other news, however... Got cable, which I don't think I've had maybe in all of my adult years. At least, never while I've been living alone. And I'm working on the fic, which I started out writing way ahead of the game, but now thanks to rl am woefully behind on. BUT, I have a question for all you fellow fic-Bones-writers out there. Okay, here's the question:

( Season five spoilers under the cut, kids.  )

Read Chapter 2, Part 1/2 here

 

( The next morning,  )

Title: Murder in the Marriage
Author: Bloodwrites
Rating: M
Spoilers: Potentially some for mid-season four, none for season five
Plot:  Sequel to Killer in the Classroom. When KitC's TJ Wright begins having questions about his father's murder, he comes to DC to ask for Brennan's help. Meanwhile, the bodies of several abducted children are found in state parks around Virginia; in order to catch the killer, B/B must pose as a married couple in a wealthy Virginia suburb.

You can read the Prologue and all pertinent disclaimers here.

 

( Temperance Brennan was in the shower, )

TItle: The Murder in the Marriage, Prologue
Author: Bloodwrites
Rating: M
Pairings: B/B (established relationship)/ Hodgela
Spoilers: Goes pretty much canon to mid-season 4, then all hell breaks loose. No spoilers for season 5.
Plot: Sequel to Killer in the Classroom. When KitC's TJ Wright begins having questions about his father's murder, he comes to DC to ask for Brennan's help. Meanwhile, the bodies of several abducted children are found in state parks around Virginia; in order to catch the killer, B/B must pose as a married couple in a wealthy Virginia suburb.
Disclaimer: I don't own the Bones folk. That particular honor belongs to Hart, Kathy Reichs, Fox, and probably a few other people with a lot more money than I. I just play with them when the notion strikes, but - of course - never for profit.

 

( Thomas Jefferson sits in front of the TV in his Spiderman pajamas,  )

Okay, so last week I started full-tilt on that whole, grown up Responsible Adult Job thing... Holy crap. Not the responsible adult, full-time job thing, because I have actually done that before - I mean, I haven't always been a professional starving writer. The Holy Crap comes in because I'm working for my brother, and because a good portion of the rest of my family also works for my brother, and because the majority of my family is completely fucking nuts. One employee ended up in rehab, the other on suicide watch at the hospital (both are cousins of mine).  Plus, my dad recently moved back to town and my dad is pretty much the skeeziest guy on the planet, and now - since half our employees are temporarily indisposed - my brother went and hired a non-family member (finally, the kid smartens up) who just happens to be a very attractive twenty-something.

Did I mention my dad's the skeeziest man on the planet? Who also happens to rent the office space next to ours, and because no one's entirely clear on what he does for a living (including him), he mostly just wanders around our office making inappropriate comments about how much he needs a girlfriend.

Yeah.

I love my family, don't get me wrong, but man... Sometimes, I just long for the days when I lived three-thousand miles away from all of them. And now, because the business has grown so quickly over the past year or so, I'm responsible for putting policies in place and making sure that issues like sexual harassment and OSHA regs and not dying of swine flu, are all addressed.

It's madness, I tell you. Complete and utter madness.

On the bright side, I'm writing a new Bones fic, which I'll probably start posting on lj this evening. It's on ff.net here, if you feel the yen to wander that way for a little Bonesy goodness. Plus, it's like a week and a half 'til season five starts!! I've been busily painting the trim in my living room before I paint the walls this weekend, and then cable will be installed on Monday and hopefully, between a new soothing studio and a new soothing living room AND a new season of Bones, Fringe, Dollhouse, and NCIS... Well, I might just retain my sanity on through the long winter months.

Which puts me ahead of the game when compared to the rest of my family.

All right, this concludes Jen's Little Rant. Is everyone's family this nuts? Because I know people say their family is crazy, but then when it comes down to comparing stories, it really seems like theirs pale in comparison. What say you, f-list? And am I pushing my own sanity to the limits by staying in this one-horse, coastal town? And also - Dude, how do I convince my creepy father that if he doesn't stop being creepy around the employees, we're gonna get sued for sexual harassment?

Okay, that is all. Now, I'm gonna walk the dogs and do a little painting before sinking into a mini-coma in preparation for another day of madness to come. Damn, I miss Oregon.

Okay, we start with the question at hand, so that if people in the know have the answer but don't feel like wading through all my aimless rambling, they can read and run with no hard feelings.

The question: Okay, so I'm writing this scene and one of the sentences (it's already a fragmented sentence, which is why it doesn't really make sense the way it begins) "Built by her and Booth and Parker..." Which doesn't sound right at all, but this is one of those things I always get wrong. The her in the sentence, of course, is Brennan, but should it be she and Booth and Parker? Or Booth and Parker and her? Or Booth, Parker, and she? Damn, I'm lost on this one. And if any of you gram-tastic f-listers out there know the rule on how this is typically supposed to be written and/or said, I'd love to hear it - it comes up all the time for me, and it's one of those things I just haven't figured out yet.

( Read on for more aimless rambling.  )

So - Writerly Wednesday is upon us once more, and I thought I'd just post a quick vid to get me in the mood. Nothing to do with Bones, NCIS, Buffy, or any of my other TV obsessions, this is from a band called Solyoni, formerly fronted by one of my favorite exes of all time, Dominic the Great. It was one of those relationships that was heart-wrenching when it ended, but we're still friends and in general he's just a lovely guy. And his writing chops are seriously unparalleled. He wrote this song while we were together. The phrase "Zartan blue eyes" was spawned from a conversation we had in which he told me my eyes were the exact color that resulted when he melted his GI Joe Zartan action figure as a child. I know - romantic, right? Anyway, he still does a bit of stuff with Solyoni, and they're fabulous. I can't even begin to describe their sound myself, so I'll just rip their description straight from the website:

"A blend of raw acoustics, overcooked electrics, and lo-fi recording, this cacophony of sparse folk pop is like a drunken waltz that will leave you fingerpainting things you would never hang on your mother's refrigerator." You can check out more of their stuff at www.solyoni.com.

And now... The video:

Okay, so I know it's been a bizillion years since I last updated, and I haven't been 'round a smidge, but... well, yeah, I've been writing. Writing and writing and writing and writing. And watching tons of NCIS, and reading a lot. And listening to audio books. And working, of course. Damn, man, I've been busy! I have about seventy-five pages left to go on Apollo, the original novel I'm penning in the hopes that some misguided fool will publish my sorry arse and I can finally quit my day job. Seventy-five pages of bedlam and angst and moles and underground tunnels. It's dreadful fun!

And in the meantime, I've been stealing little moments here and there to work on the next fic in my little Bones quintology (is that a word? Because if it isn't, it really should be). Yup. The Murder in the Marriage. The bad news, though, is that I can't actually commit to writing any of it with any regularity until September... I posted the prologue on ff.net, mostly because I miss fandom so damn bad and I didn't want anyone to forget about me. It may be a selfish move, but I couldn't help myself. This writing of original fiction is for the birds, man! It takes far too long, and I miss having tawdry pics of Booth in my head all the time. Of course, now I have tawdry pics of my own characters in my head, but it's really not the same.

ANYWAY... This is basically just one long ramble to say that I miss you guys! Don't forget about me, I swear I'm coming back again soon. And if you want to check out the prologue to Murder in the Marriage, you can find it here. Talk to you again soon, my friendly fic folk!