Chuck vs. the Sound of Music

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

The Holiday Armadillo

This was a little something I wrote for my friend catrogue posted over on Tumblr. Now it's here!

Sarah followed Chuck up the stairs from the basement, both of them loaded down with the Christmas presents they’d been wrapping for the past hour. The second they walked into the family room, they were serenaded with ominous sounds of thumps coming from upstairs, a crash and then a serious amount of yelling. Chuck yelped, “I got it!” sprinted to the sofa, offloaded his burden and bounded up the steps, his long legs taking them two at a time. When Sarah heard a door open and Chuck say sternly, “What’s going on up here? You need to keep it down. The baby’s taking a nap,” she knew he had it covered. Setting to work, she played Santa’s helper and placed the presents under the Christmas tree.

As she worked, she heard what sounded like a laugh track coming from the TV room. She scowled at that since it wasn’t exactly what she was expecting. Carina had been charged with keeping an eye on Martie and Megan while Sarah and Chuck were busy downstairs. It wasn’t Sarah’s first choice, but when Carina had put on her most solemn face and promised that she and the girls would only watch holiday DVDs, Sarah’d agreed. As a result, she expected to hear the man with the wonderfully deep voice sing, “You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch,” for the four millionth time that week. Of course she knew she shouldn’t have any expectations of anything ever being close to normal when it came to Carina, so really it was her own fault for not being specific enough about what was acceptable holiday viewing material.

Missing SOM2?

My wonderful friend Steampunk.Chuckster/@victorianoir/Karen made this for MEEEEE and I want to share it with you. I love it. It captures Paris, the family's time at the Eiffel Tower and Casey's essence all at the same time. And it's a bumper sticker! Get it?

This makes me so happy.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

My Way

I mentioned in my author's note for chapter 54 that I was having a bit of a crisis in the middle of writing Chuck vs. the Sound of Music II. How much I still had to write was definitely a huge part of it. At the same time, though, I noticed readers were dropping away from the story. The chapters were long. The story was already long and only going to get a lot longer. This wasn't just my usual paranoia, however. I read on one fan fiction board, "I'm not reading SOM2 anymore. Nothing happens."

Ouch.

Needless to say, that shook my confidence a bit, even though I knew there were lots of people who were still enjoying the story. You know how it is. It's easy to focus on the negative.

After a therapy session with my fan fiction shrink, Frea, who wisely told me, "You can't please everyone," I decided to write for the people who did like the story and not worry about those who didn't. I chose to embrace the fact that it was going to be a behemoth of a story rather than be concerned about it. It was going to be the story I wanted to tell no matter what and if only a handful of people were there at the end, so be it.

In the end, I wrote it "My Way."

(Note: The following song has a couple of spoilers in it, so if you haven't read to the final chapter yet, continue at your own risk.)

What Might Have Been

Because we are ghouls, AgentInWaiting and I traded a few alternate opening paragraphs to chapter 52. If you do not want to be trolled, these are not for you. Otherwise, enjoy after the jump.