hello friends!

I'm so sorry this blog has gone quiet. I absolutely do intend to continue playing Sims (OMG, I miss it so much!!!), and I hope to continue my Sim-storytelling in some capacity as well. Nothing as intense or frequent as what I once did here with Lakeside Heights, but there will be something. I have a lot of exciting Simming projects planned for the coming months, once I get my head to stop spinning, lol!

But first, I'd like to talk about what's been keeping me so busy. I've been hard at work this past spring and summer, and I've gone and decided to make myself the beginnings of what I hope will be a long and fulfilling career, which is what I always intended to do someday. I know I've mentioned here before that I went to college to study fiction writing, and I guess you might say I just got sidetracked with this wonderful distraction that is Lakeside Heights and Sim-storytelling. It taught me just as much (or more!) about writing and storytelling as I ever learned in uni. It taught me about my own personal style and voice, and it led me to some really amazing people, all over the world, who I never knew would become some of my very best friends.

I did it for fun in the beginning, but I had no idea it would become one of the most important and enriching experiences of my life. Writing a Sim story - yes, I'm totally serious, lol!

But anyway, I'd like to show you what's been keeping me so busy! :)

Exactly Where They'd Fall

This is the novel that was inspired by Jodie and Amelia's story, which you may have read first here on this blog many years ago. (Wow, yes, it has been years now, hasn't it?)

But before you dig in, there's one thing I want us to talk about - a note on alternate dimensions. This is not the same story you first read here. In some ways, it's quite different. I'd like to say this is inspired by the story once posted here, rather than a direct retelling of it. If you could take the soul out of a story, and instill it in another body, that would be what I've done here.

You'll likely recognize a few scenes. You'll certainly recognize the main characters, though some characters have changed.  Some are entirely new. Some characters (like Piper) have kept their names and personalities as a nod to their inspirations, but are really living an entirely different life in this book and the spin-off novels that will follow it.

When a writer publishes first draft stories (like the ones you read here on Lakeside Heights), a lot of times, what I see in my head isn't necessarily what gets translated onto the page. That's both the beauty and the frustration of the creative writing process. And that's what critique partners and editors are for, and I have to say, I've had a very talented team helping me shape this little book-baby.

So while it's not the same story you first read here, it is infinitely better and truer to what I had in mind. It's like the skeleton with all the meat on its bones. And some makeup. And a super cute outfit with the perfect pair of shoes. It's matured and filled out and I hope will yeild you a much richer experience.


A synopsis:

Jodie and Amelia were almost sisters once, before college degrees, careers, and grown-up love entered their lives. Before Jodie’s brother broke up with Amelia.

After so many disappointments, Amelia is finally happy. Or something like it. She’s given her love and trust to her best friend, Drew, who is sweet, sensitive, loyal, and everything she’s always wanted. She’s calculated the perfect path to inner peace and healing by surrounding herself with people who would never break her heart.

Jodie hates that all her friends are pairing up to begin their futures. She hates dating, hates romance in general. She hates that she can’t forget one night, a year ago, which Drew doesn’t seem to remember the same way. Everyone is moving on without her, but that’s fine, because she never needed anyone in her life anyway.

Never has a way of proving itself wrong.

With vivid characters, generous doses of humor, and palpable emotion, Exactly Where They’d Fall is a story about three friends forced to explore the complicated and fragile bonds of friendship and love. Fans of heartfelt, witty literary fiction, and smart women’s fiction will enjoy this charming and honest debut.

See? On the surface, it's pretty close to the first draft, but in the details, I think you'll find it's quite new.


If you're interested in checking it out, it's currently available at Amazon, the Nook store, Smashwords, as well as a million more places you can find linked on my website. You can add it to your Goodreads page now too!

*** warning: this is about to be the sappiest thing you've ever read...***

But most of all, I'm posting this because I wanted to say thank you. Thank you to all of you who have been so patient while I went off to explore being a novelist, and this blog basically came to a screeching halt. And even thank you to those of you who haven't been around here in a while. I know many of us have since moved on to do different things - some of us aren't reading Sim stories anymore, or even playing Sims at all anymore. But I remember everyone who ever stopped by this blog to read, or hang out, or chat in the comments, and I want you all to know how much that meant to me.

Thank you for loving Jodie first - you guys loved her even before I did myself, and it's because of that appreciation that she's grown up to be sent out into the big, wide literary world. Thank you for all the support and encouragement over the years, without which I would never have had the confidence to do this in the first place. Thank you for being my very first readers; you will always hold that special place in my heart. And in a lot of ways, I'd venture to say that you all taught me how to be an author. So thank you, thank you, thank you!

Much love to you all, and I hope I've done the story justice! :)

(Also, because I know some of you must be wondering, I can promise you that Lakeside Heights - the story - is not over. However, writing and blogging these Sim-illustrated stories in addition to my other full-time writing work is a big load, especially as publishing these days requires so much of authors in the way of promotion and marketing and so many other things. It's something I'll be thinking about a lot in the coming weeks as I gain some of my free time back. But the story itself, outside the game, Dallas and Lucy, and Summer and Tyler, and the aliens, and the war, and the future - that all lives inside my head. It's huge and sprawling, and it's a story very dear to my heart. It's more complicated than just being busy, and I'll likely post about it again in a few weeks. But I can promise you it will be finished some day, one way or another.)