Chapter Fourteen – “Is it all over?”
At that point, I didn’t have much left but the cleanup. Still, more often than not, that work’s even harder than the actual sleuthing, because you’re trying to make people whole again who you know are never going to be fully right. You know that far better than they do. They’re still hoping that at some point in the near future, they’ll have...
2025-02-25 10:58:45 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Thirteen – “That Kind Of Story”
Dueling is terrible business.
It’s not a skill you can spend that much time polishing. Sure, if you wanted to, you could spend day in and out focusing on combat, but the problem with duels is that they’re custom tailored to the combatants, so if you spend all your time, say...
2025-02-25 09:03:14 +0000 UTC View PostSo I'm not immune to writer's block, as much as I wish that I was. It's just a pitfall you learn to deal with as a professional creator, but there's no easy way out of it, not even for those of us who've dealt with it on and off for decades. Typically, when that happens, I go clean, and I cleaned up the mess that is my desk area over the last few days while trying to hen peck at getting chapters into a state that I liked. That said, I felt like every bit of cleaning I did was pulling away at ...
2025-02-20 10:52:32 +0000 UTC View Post(Author's Note: We're well over halfway through Book 2, but I realized I haven't posted a Cast of Characters for a good long while, and that's on me. So, if you needed a refresher, here's the current Cast of Characters for Quaranteam. As always, don't read this if you're not caught up, as inadvertent spoilers will abound. But many of you who are caught up have been asking for a refresher, so here it is, in both post/PDF format. My apologies for not having it up around the halfway mark.) 2025-02-17 22:55:27 +0000 UTC View Post
Chapter Thirty-Six
June 24th, 2021
Maya panted heavily, reaching up to wipe sweat off her forehead, her legs still shaking as Andy squeezed his arms around her while she giggled. “I know I’m supposed to be getting used to that, but even almost a year later, you still totally take my fucking breath away each and every time, Mr. Rook,” she said to him...
2025-02-17 05:26:46 +0000 UTC View PostAs my way of saying thank you for everyone's patience while I've been getting better, I'm going to do a poll for about the next day or so, on what I should write for Friday, 2/14/22! You have three options to choose from, as pointed out in the newspost from today - the next QT2 chapter, the next Neon Stonehenge chapter or a new Silversmith one-off.
You have until noon PST on 2/13 to cast your votes, so no sleeping in! And...
2025-02-13 02:01:16 +0000 UTC View PostHere comes the rain again, falling on my head like a memory, falling on my head like a new emotion...
I'm feeling myself again, which is good, and I'm starting to make progress on getting caught up. I lost a good portion of today editing and proofreading other people's copy, but, on the plus side, I can tell you there's another great QT story coming from another new writer in the very near future. That said, for a while I think we're going to ask that nobody submit...
2025-02-13 01:55:27 +0000 UTC View PostIntermission Seven – Pete/Alex/Louise/Onyx
June 17th, 2021 – Los Angeles, California
“Put some pants on, Louise,” Pete said as he glanced out the window. “They’re here a few minutes early, and the last thing I want is us talking to the government without pants on.”
...
2025-02-10 20:40:43 +0000 UTC View PostWell, it isn't Walking Pneumonia, thank the heavens.
Friday morning of last week, I woke up with a hacking cough and a sense of complete exhaustion. It wasn't a complete surprise to me - I'd bailed on poker night a few days earlier, and had been trying to get as much sleep as I could to make myself feel better, but that wasn't happening. So I went and saw the doctor, who x-rayed me just to be sure, because Walking Pneumonia is apparently going around right now, and there ...
2025-02-06 02:47:04 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Five
The next on Tommy’s list to get prepped was Eduardo Sanchez, or as he was more commonly known, Reckless Eddie. And as chaotic as he was, Reckless Eddie was never that hard to track down. If he wasn’t somewhere else, he was usually in Rio De Janeiro.
Reckless Eddie had a legend a couple miles long and was the sort of character known for his wild unpredictability and devil-may-care attitude that he brought with him into any job that he took on. He w...
2025-02-06 02:13:09 +0000 UTC View PostThings were actually going well up until yesterday. I'd made progress in some stuff I was working on, I knocked out the QT:Phil's Tale chapter in almost record time for me, and I felt like just maybe I could get caught up. Then this morning I woke up with a super scratchy voice and a throat full of phlegm, so that put a kibosh on the energy. That said, I'm still going to keep pushing forward as best I can, although I'm definitely going to be sleeping a lot. I was in bed ...
2025-01-30 04:47:51 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Seventeen
Less than two days later, Will was at the Crossroads Diner, the cold winter weather keeping all but the most determined of students out and away for the night, but it was good, because it had let Will spend the time healing up from his duel at the gathering. He hadn’t had any damage to his human form, but he felt like the damage to his werewolf form being repaired exhaus...
2025-01-28 20:32:46 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Sixteen
“Oh what the actual fuck,” Will grumbled beneath his breath, as he glanced over at Silversmith. “Is this guy for real?”
“Capparelli! Do you accept or are you just as much of a coward as your father was?” Nathan snarled, clearly trying to get Will’s temper up.
...
2025-01-28 20:25:38 +0000 UTC View PostChapter 23
November 18th, 2020
One of the things Phil had learned was completely inescapable in his life was that if Linda had something he needed to do, he’d better get used to the plan that he was just going to have to do it, and the less questions he asked in advance, the better off he’d probably be, because she rarely gave him tasks to do, and whenever she did, they were impor...
2025-01-27 00:34:34 +0000 UTC View PostPart Seventeen
Harry
“I’m starting to get worried,” Harry said to Stella. “Like, maybe they fell into a time hole level of worried. We should’ve heard back from Rin and Mick by now.”
“If they did, they’ll find their way back,” Stella told him as she stroked his chest in bed, the cool light from the neon outside a contrast to the sniping pitter-pater of the rain fall. They were sleeping together naked because the heat was far more brutal than either...
2025-01-25 02:04:45 +0000 UTC View PostIt's not been a great week, so for those of you who just want to know what's happening (and get angry when I talk my personal life and/or politics), there'll be a Breakpoint chapter up as soon as I can get it finished, and Quaranteam: Phil's Tale for probably Saturday or maybe even Sunday, as I'm going to need a little bit of help in proofing it (especially since it's going to set the tone for some upcoming stuff). The What Am I Writing poll for thi...
2025-01-23 00:40:03 +0000 UTC View PostYou know, when I talked in Quaranteam about the US invading Canada, it was sort of done as a tongue-in-cheek joke between writers, but the longer both the real world goes and the QT-verse goes, it seems like the joke gets less funny as the potential for it actually happening goes up. If it happens, I'm sorry. That said, I dropped QT2:35 last night before I went to bed. We were doing some tinkering with it up to the last minute. I'd hoped to have it ...
2025-01-16 02:17:07 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Thirty-Five
May 14th, 2021
As happy as he was to have his two daughters delivered safely into the world, Andy wanted nothing so much at that moment as to go home and take a shower. It was late afternoon, and Andy was planning on heading back to the house in a few hours, but he was exhausted. Aisling’s la...
2025-01-15 08:38:02 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Seven
July 18th, 2020
Joe had wanted to complain when the text message had sprung to his phone saying that their usual 9 AM morning meeting had been postponed to 3 PM instead, but his frustration quickly dissipated once he realized that meant he could sleep in instead, and so he, Liv, Tori and Clara decided to spend the morning in bed relaxing, enjoying the extra rest time. They would let the problems for later be the problems of later, and instea...
2025-01-11 06:57:56 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Six
July 17th, 2020
“Good to see you Tims, Tom,” the General said, looking between the various windows of the conference call. He was a man in his early fifties who’d spent much of his career in Pararescue, the special ops division of the Air Force. His hair had gone from red to silver over the last several years, but it was still thick and lustrous, with a sharp, angular face and a nose that had been broken a couple of times over a career o...
2025-01-11 06:55:44 +0000 UTC View PostWhat a goddamn week. I spent the back half of last week fighting off a head cold that I'm still working on, and on Monday, I started a new diet/exercise regiment, because frankly, I haven't cared for the way I've looked in mirrors and photos for a while now. Nothing too extreme - I know how to ramp my body slowly back into shape, and going too hard too fast is an easy way to make me quit, but I'm on day three of that, and I'm definitely feeling more energy, which is good, even if I'm hungry l...
2025-01-08 21:59:10 +0000 UTC View PostNew Year, New You
(a Jonas Silversmith story)
By Devin McTaggart
December 29th, 2024
I often tell you that many of the tales I’m having you commit to this journal for me have a moral baked into them, but this one might seem especially blunt in its message. Still, nevertheless, a tale has been requested of me, and so a tale I shall tell. This one begins with a warning I feel should need no repeating or even speaking aloud in t...
2025-01-06 10:17:03 +0000 UTC View PostI didn't die in the Midwest. Let's start there.
For the most part, the Christmas holiday was actually generally nice, barring the asshole in the airport who decided he had to be smug to my t-shirt. (I flew back to the Mid wearing a shirt that says 'Make Orwell Fiction Again' and a guy said, 'we won, dipshit! Get over it!' Which... I mean, how do you even respond to that level of idiocy? I chose to just ignore him.) My nieces continue to remain adorable and are getting old enough now tha...
2025-01-02 00:47:47 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Four
It had mostly been a quiet month or so since he’d brought Kaya to see the Antiquarian, and he’d done his best to make sure nobody knew that he was snooping around, preparing for whenever the next Captain’s Day was, but also making sure he was doing his job, and that he was taking care of Kaya’s needs as well.
&nbs...
2024-12-31 22:32:17 +0000 UTC View PostIt's beginning to look a lot like Christmas, everywhere you go.
This, of course, means I'm gearing up for my yearly voyage into the Arctic Circle, aka 'the Midwest.' I spent 5-6 days every year going back to The Old Country, where I will see my remaining living family, celebrate Christmas with them, see my last couple of friends who remained behind in my hometown and then return back to California, where nobody's pissing on my head and telling me it's sunshine.
I'm midway into a n...
2024-12-18 23:47:01 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Thirteen – “That Kind Of Story”
Dueling is terrible business.
It’s not a skill you can spend that much time polishing. Sure, if you wanted to, you could spend day in and out focusing on combat, but the problem with duels is that they’re custom tailored to the combatants, so if you spend all your time, say...
2024-12-16 05:20:16 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Twelve – “Some of the Pieces”
The amount of security we brought around the Dark Docks within the next few hours was, let’s be honest, borderline insane, but it was absolutely necessary, considering what we were dealing with. Charlotte had brought in several of her hunters to run extra defense, and I made sure she only invited the people she trusted the most. Of course, Charl...
2024-12-16 05:17:39 +0000 UTC View PostMan, I had such a head of steam on me, and then a DayJob problem sprung up and knocked most of a day out of me. No matter. Ever tried, ever failed. Try again, fail again, fail better. I've just about got next month's Pack off to the commissioner (will do that before I leave tonight) and then we'll see what moods I'm in when I get up tomorrow and start in on writing.
I'm off to see a band I've been listening to for a few years but never seen live called Dance With ...
2024-12-12 00:56:13 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Sixteen
“Oh what the actual fuck,” Will grumbled beneath his breath, as he glanced over at Silversmith. “Is this guy for real?”
“Capparelli! Do you accept or are you just as much of a coward as your father was?” Nathan snarled, clearly trying to get Will’s temper up.
...
2024-12-09 22:22:22 +0000 UTC View PostChapter Fifteen
‘What the hell am I doing here?’ Will asked himself, not for the first time since the Spring Gala started, and most likely not the last time before the night would be through. He wasn’t entirely surprised to see most of the people sitting at tables in tribal lines, although it wasn’t as widespread as he thought it might have been. It seemed like many of the tribes highly enjoyed comingling, and the groups seemed to almost f...
2024-12-09 22:19:18 +0000 UTC View Post