Category: Author’s Note

Status: Writing

Yup. You read that right. I’m writing. The next few chapters have been sent to the betas,  so you’ll get an update on publication dates soo.

My Muse is back and ready to rock and roll.

The West Coast has been good for us….. As has the break. Thank you for the love and support. We’re ready to power home now.

 

Victoria

Author’s Note to Chapter 106

Happy New Year! Unfortunately, this is where I announce that I’m taking a short break. I have to.

My Muse and I are fighting.

I’ve been publishing weekly, sometimes daily, since Valentine’s Day 2013. I’m not tapped out but I’m tired.

As a writer, especially a first time writer, one of the hardest things to do is ask people to trust your vision. I know, have known for months, where I was driving to at each point and I know that everyone is frustrated right now. I find that both scary and thrilling. Scary because I see how deeply I’m affecting peoples’ emotions and thrilling because everyone’s invested. They’re rooting for Steph. They’re rooting for a Babe HEA. They’re rooting for true love to win.

Me too! I’m rooting for true love to win too!

Lately I’ve tried to avoid the reviews, mostly because they’re draining me. My muse has been confused by the level of . . . not vitriol but something I’m picking up. It’s almost as if no one trusts me right now. That because RMSA is the scariest part of the story, you don’t trust me to treat all the characters equally.

I am treating them equally. I like Steph. I really do and I’ve found the Steph in me lately, which has made it much easier to write from her perspective.

Ironic.

I’m hurt most often by the label ‘Steph-bashing’. I don’t try to bash Steph. If anything, I’m a JE Basher and that’s a large part of my character exploration in A Long Time Coming—Steph version (not posted yet. I intended to post it after RMSA). JE took a character we all know and love and abandoned her. No growth, no change, no improvement. What she did to Lula and Edna? Criminal. Joe and Ranger? I don’t even want to go there. Not right now.

However, I try to write honestly from the perspective of other characters and, honestly, no one is an unending source of encouragement and support. Not even Hector and Ranger. It’s hard to write from the perspective of others now because it’s almost as if I dread the reviews to it. I can’t be honest sometimes. I can’t take the character where I want to (which means having to make adjustments later) because I know everyone will scream.

I don’t like lying to anyone. I don’t like dishonesty. So I have to stop and regroup. Reassess. I know where I was going. I know how I intended to get there but getting through RMSA has taken a toll on me. I have to stop before my Muse runs away for good.

So, what does this mean for you? I’m finishing out RMSA over the next few days. I’m working on some one-shots to tide you over. Not completely abandoning you. Also, within the story universe, Thanksgiving is coming up, as is Christmas and I don’t plan to spend forever getting through the holidays. So, I’m asking for your vote. I’ve completed two of the four Thanksgiving stories I had planned. I’ll let you vote on the stars of the final two. Also, I planned four stories for Christmas. Your vote will determine who I write those stories for also. Oddly enough, those requests get the juices going. The One-Shot list keeps my head churning out new ideas.

I’m also going to start working on my original fic. Just sketching out ideas and thinking.

I’m not abandoning this story. I made a vow to myself when I started that this story would finish. But I’m emotionally bruised right now, like Steph. I need time to regroup and reassess. Rediscover my faith in me and where I was going. I’ll be back, hopefully as good as new, in February. Keep an eye on the ‘Upcoming Chapters’ page on my site. That’ll let you know when I’m ready to pick up again.

Thank you for all the encouragement and support.

Victoria

Author’s Note to Chapter 103

I saw a lot of comments on FanFiction about Lula’s position in the last chapter. Lula’s position is similar to Vinnie or David. She’s a ‘special’/’contract’ employee, not a RangeMan. Just as Vinnie and David do not have to undergo RangeMan training, neither does Lula because she gets paid for each project she handles. The same for the contract workers who man the monitors at each location. They don’t have to be trained to RM standards because they’re paid per job.

Lula’s in an awkward position. She’s the only wife/fiancée of RangeMan leadership living in the building. She doesn’t have a job and she doesn’t have kids. Aside from school and wedding planning, she doesn’t have anything else to do and, as we’ve seen, bored characters get into trouble. Also, RMSA is Lula’s home, since she and Tank can’t agree on a house. She’s interested in the running of the place and trying to help out as much as possible because that’s her home. Lula working at RMSA started off as a volunteer thing, something for Lula to do while visiting Tank, but when Les saw how good she was at it, they formalized her role.

Essentially, she’s just filling in at the moment, something for her to do while she takes her college classes because she’s not taking a full load. When she starts taking a full load, then she won’t have time to help. If she ever became a full or part time employee then yes, she’d have to get the training and that’s something she’s contemplating already, on her own. An earlier example is Mariela Cortes. When she worked as RangeMan’s exclusive seller’s agent in Miami, she did not have to be a RangeWoman to do that. She worked on a commission basis, piece by piece, project by project.

As Tank said, it’s his job is to hire and Candy’s job is to do employee admin and we’ve seen that when Candy thinks there should be a change made, she doesn’t mind standing up to whoever is in charge. That’s vital for HR people. They have to be willing to hold the line. Now that Candy is on-site to see what Lula’s doing, she can assess whether or not a change needs to be made and she is the correct person to bring that up with Tank, not Steph. Tank and Candy can handle that.

I am stating now, as the author, there’s no hypocrisy in how Lula is being treated. It’s in line with how certain employees, historically, have been treated. It simply feels and looks awkward because RMSA is Lula’s home and the lines are blurry.

Veiland

Response to Chapter 98 Reviews

A few things I want to address:

1. Not to belabor the mall point, but one of the big stories in the NY/NJ area right now is the death of a man after a vicious and senseless carjacking at a mall in NJ. He was ambushed loading gifts into his car, which means, obviously, that he wasn’t paying attention to his surroundings and neither was his wife. and an FBI Task force was created to capture the four perpetrators. Continue reading →