Ringing in the Year of Baby Bear

That's right, Penna and I decided that 2024 will be the Writing Year of Baby Bear. You may remember that Baby Bear was the nickname Irene Caffrey gave her grandson Neal when he was an infant. In honor of Penna's 10th Anniversary of Caffrey Conversation (October 2023), what better choice could there be? It's a year when we hope to have so many plot ideas, we'll need two names for them—berries for fluffy ideas and cubbies for the angsty ones.

2023: The Year of White Collar finale stories

Eeek! I've neglected this blog terribly! I've been posting a lot on Tumblr, so you can check out what I'm up to there. 

Something that surprised me in my writing this year is that not only did I finally write a story about the White Collar finale, but I wrote three stories related to the finale! The latest one was posted today in honor of the anniversary of the finale airing. 

** Warning for major finale spoilers. **

Straddling Two Worlds: The Woman in Violet

Two of my series—Arkham Files and Tales from the Library—feature librarians and portals to other worlds. So you probably aren't surprised to hear that I've often daydreamed about the characters having joint adventures. I'd already tested the waters by having the Arkham Files crew visit their counterparts in Caffrey Conversation. There they learned about the dangers of crossworld contamination. The resulting chaos that can ensue is a concept that Irene is very familiar with. The possibilities for collaboration finally became so enticing that I couldn't resist giving it a whirl.

The Iron Brotherhood

The Iron Brotherhood marks my return to Tales from the Library, a series based on The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. The first six stories featured the mysterious Count Lecerf. The Fae had somehow managed to create magical illustrations in novels that acted as portals to other worlds. The sixth story, Merlin's Cave brought the collection to a resting spot. At that point, I took a break from writing the tales. But recently, Irene and Kai visited my writing cave, insisting that the adventures were just getting started. How could I ignore those enticing dangling threads in Merlin's Cave?

Six-Crossed Knot: Harm's Repair

By the start of Harm's Repair, Jack has reunited with Diana and Matthew in the present time. A few weeks earlier, Diana had given birth to twins. The newly enlarged family is now gathering at Sept-Tours for the christening. But simmering underneath the happy events are unresolved issues. Baldwin has yet to get his blessing to the proposed Bishop-Clairmont scion. As for Benjamin, nothing has been heard from him since he attacked Phoebe. And you just know that won't last for long.

Six-Crossed Knot: Tangled Knots

With Tangled Knots, I've reached a milestone in this series based on the All Souls Trilogy. In Deborah Harkness's second novel, Jack Blackfriars is an eight-year-old child in Elizabethan England. He reappears in the third novel as a young adult who's been a vampire for over 400 years. The author sketched in a few details of his life, but left most of it a mystery for us to speculate about. And that's what I've been doing for the past 18 stories. It's now time to merge the timelines!

Caffrey Conversation: Vermeer Interrupted

Neal isn't the only one who holds conversations with paintings. I've been chatting with the works of Johannes Vermeer ever since I began writing Caffrey Conversation stories. Recently the artist dropped into the writing cave to argue that he should be listed in the cast. He makes a compelling case.

Caffrey Conversation: Mousetrap

Peter has long been fascinated by the secrets and skeletons Neal keeps locked in his closet. After working together for nearly four years, he feels good about the ones he's managed to extract with minimal damage. The Leopard is no longer caged inside. Neal revealed his early history with Keller. Much of Neal's life, both when he was on the road with Henry and when he was on Klaus's crew has been disclosed.

Celebration Time for Caffrey Conversation!

On October 10, 2013, Penna posted Caffrey Conversation. Happy Tenth Anniversary, Caffrey Conversation, and thank you, Penna, for ten years of storytelling magic!

Caffrey Conversation: Scotch on the Rocks

One of my favorite fanfic writing prompts is to fill in a blank left by a canon episode. In the case of White Collar, the writers gifted us with a number of tantalizing questions. I've already written about some of them. The origin of Neal's interest in origami and the backstory for his fencing ability were both in An Evening with Genji. I explored Peter's interest in astronomy in The Woman in Blue. In my latest Caffrey Conversation story, Scotch on the Rocks, I picked another canon element—the McNally Solitaire.

Writing Retreat 2023: Beam Us Up!

Penna and I are just resurfacing after our annual writing retreat. Like last year, this was a virtual retreat. We both use Teams at work, and we decided to take advantage of its interactive features for this year's event. One of the many highlights was Penna's use of virtual backgrounds to set the mood. She saved the best for last—a view of the transporter room on the USS Enterprise. I loved the analogy that we were beaming ourselves into the worlds of our stories.

Six-Crossed Knot: Virtue's Cloak

For this latest installment in my Six-Crossed Knot series, the principal launching points are two canon incidents. The first one is in The Book of Life, when Matthew discovers that Philippe gave Jack Matthew's cello. In the novel, Matthew doesn't discuss it with Jack. All we know is that it disappeared around the time when Napoleon was emperor. When I first read those lines, I demanded answers. What were the circumstances? How did Philippe find out about Jack? I answered the second question earlier in Masque. In Virtue's Cloak, I imagined what could have led Philippe to give Jack the cello.

Crowley: A Blended Soul

I based the name of my Crossed Lines series on the intersections of the lives of Neal Caffrey and Peter Burke with Sam and Dean Winchester. But another character already had crossed the lines between White Collar and Supernatural, and that's Crowley. Mark Sheppard portrayed both the crossroads demon Crowley in Supernatural and art forger Curtis Hagen in White Collar. From the beginning, Crowley has campaigned for a larger role. In my latest story, Bad Omens, his moment has finally come.

The Forlith Option

I'm thrilled to publish The Forlith Option, the third novel in the Sedlow Chronicles series, during Pride Month. Diversity and inclusiveness are major themes in these fantasy works where straight and queer romances blossom as the characters uncover their potential. The first novel in the series is Watling's Marsh. I entered it last week in Wattpad's Pride Awards 2023 contest.

Arkham Files: Chaos Conundrum

Something strange is going on in Arkham. If you've already visited the New England college town, you're not surprised. After all, this is a place where an extraterrestrial is the head librarian, traveling via wormholes is routine, and a talking armillary sphere guides the team. But hang on, even Neal and his friends are perplexed. That can't be good.

Winner Takes All

Olivia is one frustrated vampire. The mystery witch who has been plaguing her and her friends with magical creatures issued a "Winner takes all" challenge months ago. Why hasn't she struck? Olivia, the grad student with an attitude, has a theory. Only half in jest, she laments the witch will spring something to wreck her finals. She doesn't realize how close she is.

Jagged Shoals

Jagged Shoals is the 17th work in the Six-Crossed Knot series. I was inspired to write the story by two canon references in Time's Convert, the fourth All Souls novel. Much of that work is devoted to the early history of Marcus Whitmore. Marcus was a young medic during the American Revolution. Matthew Clairmont met him while serving as an aide to the Marquis de Lafayette. Matthew was impressed by his skill. After observing Marcus heal the marquis, Matthew often sought Marcus out to treat injured soldiers. Toward the end of the war, Marcus caught a fever in Yorktown. Matthew happened upon him when he lay dying in a makeshift ward. Matthew explained he was a vampire and offered to make Marcus one. When he said he'd send Marcus to a university to be trained as a doctor, Marcus agreed.

Skating on Thin Ice

In this latest installment to the Caffrey Conversation series, the story opens, as is often the case, with Neal and Peter at work. But this year, their offices are at Winston-Winslow instead of the Federal Building. Neal joined Henry's company a little over three months ago. For Peter, it's only his second week at his new job. The year is 2007, four years after Neal accepted Peter's offer to work at the FBI. Will the year ahead bring as many changes as last year did?

Candy Hearts 2023: 5 new stories!

For several years I've written stories for the annual Chocolate Box exchange. The exchange moderators needed to skip this year, and instead a new Candy Hearts exchange took its place. The prompts were excellent, inspiring me to write five stories. In previous years I posted descriptions that included how the stories measured up in terms of diversity, and I'm continuing that tradition again this year.

Here we go, five new stories!

Sucker for Love

In this Writing Year of the Giraffe, Penna and I continue to be tempted by the low-hanging fruit of our various series. But we also hope to stretch our necks to grasp unfamiliar fare. The writing exchanges are a great way to explore different fandoms and themes that we wouldn't normally pick. My assignment in the recently concluded Candy Hearts Exchange is a case in point.

Valentine Treats

In Caffrey Conversation, Mozzie celebrates Valentine's Day by issuing a special blend of his honey wine. I like to issue stories instead. I posted my latest valentine today: Puzzle in Pink in the Ghostnet series. Love is in the air for the residents of Drexford. Or is it? Readers of the previous Ghostnet story, Grinch in the Night, know that a mysterious entity identified by their gaming avatar of Morgana le Fay has taken perverse delight in teasing Tess and her friends. Are magical forces at work once more?

Tower of Koth

Today I posted my first story of 2023, the Writing Year of the Giraffe. This is a year when Penna and I will stretch our writing necks to capture "raffies," our term for the plot ideas of the year. Tower of Koth is the 14th installment in Arkham Files, a meta series currently written by Mozzie. It's set in the summer of 1976. Ten months have elapsed since Neal met Peter and Elizabeth. He's gone from being a stranger to an honorary member of the family. As this story opens, he and Peter are attempting to assemble a crib. Elizabeth's due date is about two months off. But developments overseas rapidly overtake domestic activities.

On the Outside

I was delighted to receive a request for a story in The Invisible Library fandom for the recent Yuletide gift exchange. The requestor asked for a story featuring Lord Silver. In the world of The Invisible Library, Lord Silver is a Fae. He appears human but isn't and has supernatural abilities such as the power to charm others and to travel between worlds.

Dead Planet

Happy Yuletide! 2022 was my first year participating in this fabulous AO3 exchange, and I wrote Dead Planet.