Cue the Waterworks

Again, not a Friday, but gotta post this one now!

Okay, so remember this post? Well, let's just add some icing on the cake, okay?

So I joined the OFFICIAL BSB DNA World Tour Facebook Group. The Boys themselves are "admins." (Okay, their social media person/team, but whatever!) Anyway, someone posted this video:

I watched it. Loved it. And cried like a little freaking baby!!!!!!! Why? Well, see the post linked above.

But Baylee was only like 4 when I saw Brian. (It was actually 2007.) I remember seeing him hanging off the side of the stage with his mama watching Dad.

So this is kinda like a really weird full circle moment for me. Gosh, dang it, Kid. You and your dad are KILLING me! I guess I'd better make sure I have tissues with me if he sings it on tour. I can't listen to that song without bawling. And hearing HIM sing it makes me bawl harder because I remember his DAD singing it! Okay, Bay, QUIT GROWING UP!

WIPWednesday Character Intro

I know this is a week late. I totally forgot about it last week. There may be another post a little later today.

I don't remember what my initial introduction was for this story. But I know I like this introduction of my MC. It took me a bit to think of it.

Phineas Mulligan sat alone at the high stakes blackjack table at the Mandalay Bay. She had split her hand a

while ago and yet continued to play two hands. The five thousand dollars in chips that sat before her stayed put and only varied slightly as she played a hundred on each hand. It was her night off and payday was in about four days. She had been to a concert earlier and because she was a night owl by habit and because she worked the graveyard shift, she didn’t feel like going home. Instead, she felt the need to sit at the table and play cards just to kill time before she left. Her long dark hair was up in a ponytail and the tee shirt she wore was from the concert. As she sat there, her eyes on the cards, she felt a tap on her shoulder. Tipping her head slightly towards the person who had tapped her, she mumbled, “Hm?”

“Mind if he plays next to you?”

Phineas lifted her eyes to the dealer slowly and then turned them towards the man off her left shoulder. He was slightly taller than six feet, dark skin, a tee shirt stretched taught against his muscles. His hair was cropped short against his scalp. “Free country,” she commented dropping her eyes back to her cards.

The muscular man leaned down and said closer to her ear, “You clean?”

The phrase caught her off guard. Phineas lifted her eyes back to the man beside her. She caught a glimpse of the man standing behind him; auburn hair, head slightly tipped forward and down. She recognized him instantly as Brian Littrell from the group Backstreet Boys. They had played earlier; she had been at their concert. They obviously didn’t have anywhere to be anytime soon if they were staying over in Vegas. Things now made sense to her. Of course, his personal bodyguard would ask questions and be hanging around too. “I work for the Las Vegas crime lab,” she replied carefully. “He’s probably safer with me than he is with you.” This statement must have placated the man because he nodded curtly and took a step back. He said something to Brian and then stepped away.

“Name’s Phi,” she said as a way of introduction and then folded on the hand she had off to her right. Brian sat down beside her and she ignored him as she finished her one hand in front of her and looked at the dealer. “Tanya, you think he’s ready to play with the high rollers here?”

The dealer, Tanya, in her dress shirt and vest looked at Phi as she slid over her winnings. “Are you going to quit playing games at my table?”

Phi glanced at Brian and saw him chuckle. “Oh, it’s on, honey.” Tanya had obviously caught on to Phi’s strategy of keeping her money close.

Mega FanGirl Friday Post

There is so much fangirling going on in this post, it's not even gonna be funny! So, let's start back on Tuesday, April 2. Baylee Littrell, Brian's son, and aspiring country artist posts on his Instagram that he's gonna announce his "Summer Travel Plans" the next day. Of course the next morning, his fam is all over social media before it happens. Then the Backstreet Boys jump on it and say that Baylee is opening for them on the North American dates of the DNA World Tour. Oh, and "come chat with us on Baylee's Insta account."

Well, of course, I'm already following Baylee. I've been following him for a while now. So on HIS account, I post that "I think I may just buy my ticket now!" I'm not thinking anything of it. But then I get this:

Um, WHAT????? The BOYS just liked my comment?!?!?!?!?! Yeah, totally made my day. Then it became me trying to talk myself out of buying a ticket. The excuses were slim to stupid. I mean, yeah, I missed out on the $25 just on sale rush because of the fire. (Hey, I didn't even know if I was gonna have a job!) But, tickets were still REASONABLE, even for nosebleed seats that I KNEW I would be getting.

So I had everybody trying to talk me out of it. No one could. Everyone said I deserved this. So today I did this:

Yeah, I'm gonna go see my Boys for the first time in 8 years! Yes, it is a nosebleed seat. Yes, my anxiety is probably gonna be through the roof because I will be going BY MYSELF for the first time EVER! But you know what, they're worth it. I'll probably bawl like a baby during "Chances" because well, that was the song that came out around the fire. Or during "I'll Never Break Your Heart" because that's my fav song EVER. But at least I know they will quiet my anxiety. They always do.

Oh, and the other cute/cool little fangirl thing that happened was last night. I had had an awesome day at work! We were two staff short, but the day ran SO SMOOTH and we ran SIX programs with three staff! It was incredible! Then I get home and all hell breaks loose. Well, just as I'm about to take the dogs outside, I get a ping on my phone that Brian is doing a live Instagram video. So I step outside with my phone and jump in to watch. It was adorable! He was essentially helping Baylee get his stage cred. They were "attempting" sing "I Want it that Way" but apparently everyone but Brian forgot the words! And Brian just played along. It was just so adorable to watch that moment.

I have another couple but I'll post them later. Today is just all about there being 118 days until I see the Backstreet Boys!

My Revise And Revive Novel

This month I am taking on a challenge put on by Keri over at Grey Matter Margarita. Not only that it is also WriYe's Resurrection April and it's CampNaNo!

Here's a little backstory:

In case you forgot or don't know, I lost everything in the Camp Fire. (See this post, in which I mention it briefly.) And when I say everything, I mean everything. Fortunately for me and my writing, most of it was either cloud-based or backed up in my email. In going through my old WIPs on the WriYe boards, I found a fic I REALLY wanted to work on. Problem: it was lost in the ashes. So I've been digging through my email and found that I actually submitted some of my writing for "verification" on the WriYe boards. Most of it I didn't encrypt so I just snagged it straight away. I've got a few "Phoenix Fics" I'm working on now and a few that I've completely redone and finished. See, I call them "Phoneix Fics" because they are truly rising from the ashes to become new again.

Anyway, I found this CSI/BSB fic idea in the WIPs list that I totally adored. Unfortunately, it was gone! So I started digging around in the boards and an old blog I used to keep to see if I had written on it at any time during my WriYe ventures. I found that I did in 2010. So I dug around in my verification files and found it! But it was encrypted! So I started the decryption process, hoping I had done simple letter-to-letter encryption and I had! The problem was that when I decrypted it, it was pretty difficult to read in places due to the find-replace feature. That and because I had obviously started this fic at some point, the whole beginning made ZERO sense. Remember, I got this from a verification file, so I only had the words I had written during that verification period in the file. So, yes, I was missing HUGE chunks. Another thing about this verification file that I found was that there was also an outline to this story I used in the verification as well. Granted it's only ten scenes, but it's a starting point. I think it will wind up being about two to three chapters worth.

So this is my Resurrection April fic and it happens to be the one I'm working on for CampNaNo. The reason I chose this as my revise and revive novel is that I'm going back and watching CSI again from the beginning and I know there is some major revision needed in the scenes I have written. But otherwise, I'm looking to write about 30,000 words this story, so that's 1,000 words a day for 30 days. I'm not sure I can do it, especially since for March I've only written like half of that and have been averaging about 100 words a day. But hopefully, with a "new" story, I'll be able to actually get some words in.

Here's my official description:

Phi Mulligan has a rare night off from the crime lab. She uses her time to go see her favorite group, the Backstreet Boys. While deciding to blow her forthcoming paycheck at the high stakes tables, Brian Littrell sits down next to her. After about an hour of playing, both their phones go off at the same time. Phi is called to the very hotel/casino she is standing in. Only then does she realize that Brian's wife Leighanne is the vic and they are there to find the killer. With Grissom and Greg's help, Phi sets off on an investigation that will challenge her beliefs in the band and her place at the Las Vegas Crime Lab. This takes place in 2005, between seasons 5 and 6 of CSI.

Memory Trigger Train

Yes, I know it's Monday. Consider this a special edition!

So last night, I was scrolling Facebook and Brian Littrell shared a video someone had of him doing "You Alone." (His Instagram and Facebook are linked, so I didn't get to actually listen until I saw his Instagram a few minutes later.) This gave me all the feels.

I used to have all his solo stuff. I had it all digitally and most of the physical albums they were on. This post of his made me cry. Because I remembered literally the day before the fire picking up his Welcome Home album, holding it in my hand, and then putting it back on the nightstand. I was debating putting it in my car. I opted not to. Oh, how I should have! The next day, it was gone! I have been trying and trying to find this album, new in package for months now. It's not in my price point. I don't want to drop mad cash for someone's used. I want it new. Amazon is just not my friend right now. Neither is eBay.

Anyway, this morning, I see a second post from him where he seems to be indicating someone was post-jacking or making his post more than what it was. It was simply him saying he got what he needed at that moment from his own song. Yeah, got that. Well, that brought back another memory. Yet another one that makes me cry.

This is back in 2007. I saw Brian solo when he was the main act with ONE album out. Yeah, record execs are funny like that, but I didn't care. I also got to see Brandon Heath. The show seriously wasn't that long. But no one cared. I was in the THIRD ROW! He was literally close enough for me to throw something at. (I didn't.) It was so moving that night. There's one moment that sticks in my mind. He sang a cover. (Yeah, rare, I know.) But more so than that, was the fact that he was overcome during that song. So much so he couldn't get the words out. Now if you've been following this man as long as I have, you know that just DOES NOT HAPPEN. Even in 2013 when he was struggling with his voice, he still got the words out, even if it wasn't the way he wanted. This was a moment. One of those moments that happen because there's a tug at your heart. So what was the song: Tim McGraw's "Don't Take the Girl." Go Google the lyrics if you don't know the song and I think you can figure out the moment he lost it.

I can't listen to that song now. Not because of that. But because I BECAME that moment that Brian lost it in that song, almost six years ago. Six years ago on Thursday, my daughter was born at 28 weeks. Six years ago on Thursday, I had lost half my blood volume. Six years ago on Thursday, had we waited another ten minutes, we both probably wouldn't be here.

So why this memory trigger train? I don't know. All I know is that God obviously knew I needed that. And He KNEW, as he always has.

For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

-- Jeremiah 29:11

WriYe Blog Circle: Editing

Theme: Editing

It's March. That means in the writing circles I run, it's usually NaNoEdMo or Editing Month! For me, it usually doesn't mean anything. Except for this year, I guess.

Describe your editing process. What is your biggest challenge in editing?

My editing process doesn't usually exist. I don't edit. I don't ever really intend to publish, so what's the point? For the most part, I'm a pretty good speller and spell check does reasonably well. The biggest thing I have been doing lately is revising. I've either been digging up old ideas and either completely redoing them or pulling the "good stuff" out and filling in the rest.

But, there is one thing I have been doing just this past week. I found a story I really wanted to work on. It is a BSB/CSI crossover I did back oh something like eight or nine years ago. I found it in my email as a verification file. The only problem was that I had scrambled it. Thankfully it was a very simple letter-to-letter code to crack. I took things like the letter "e" and turned them into "x" and the letter "t" and turned them into "z" and such. There was only one problem with unscrambling it: sometimes there really was a letter x or z or whatever other letters I used that needed to be there. So it made things a little strange. On top of that, when I spell checked the whole thing, it missed some words. Thankfully where I stopped decoding and decided to call it a day, I am pretty much able to figure out what was being said. Also on the first page, I have like three huge holes of where I have partial scenes written. Like they were literally just pieces. So what I decided to do was print out all 14 pages and just go line by line. I'm about 2 pages in, so that's not bad for the first day! And I've still got some time to figure out the timeline, the outline and more. I've actually got to refigure who the killer is and the whole plot as I basically just have the first act figured out for ONE of the stories. Usually, these CSI things have two or three stories running through them.

So that is basically my editing/revision process. It usually doesn't exist, except when it has to. This BSB/CSI crossover I am hoping to use for CampNaNo in April.

Fans

So this FanGirl Friday is about the latest video that the Backstreet Boys dropped. They are doing these minute long videos. They've done each of the guys and this week, they did one about the fans.

At about :38, Brian starts talking. He mentions how when a fan waves a certain way, he does it back so that they know he sees them. I about cried when I heard that. He did that to me on the Black and Blue tour. In fact, it'll be 18 years ago this weekend. I saw that tour three times. For the third night, I knew exactly where I wanted my seats to be: the first-row balcony. I managed to secure I think third-row balcony. During the three songs they did on the mini-stage at the back, literally right in front of me it seemed, I got tired of what I was doing and started applauding in sign language. And low and behold, Brian did it back! It was the best moment of my life, up to that point. It's about as close as I've gotten to meet him. I've seen him up close: the third row at a solo show. I've seen him on the floor of the casino. But him "seeing" me was incredible. It's something I'll never forget.