Happy Mini-Vacation to me

Well, I'll be leaving Tuesday night for my trek down to South Carolina. I'm so ready for a vacation. I haven't gotten any further on Chapter 14 but perhaps by the grace of heaven I might find a couple hours to finish her up. Maybe I'll just stay up late tonight, go to work exhausted, and sleep the whole trip to S. Carolina. We'll be leaving at 8pm anyhow so sounds like a nap to me. So I won't be around til Monday the 9th, so everyone have a great week!

Hoping to finish before I go away

Well I didn't get chapter 14 done like I thought. Instead I helped my husband with a small vegetable garden we planted. Work has been pretty busy and I've been late coming home so still no luck on getting chapter 14 done.

I have a very busy next couple of days including painting the exterior of my house and then prepping for a 2-day drive down to South Carolina and back. My brother is graduating from the Marines bootcamp on the 6th of July and we are going to see him graduate. I am excited.

I will be leaving Tuesday night and won't be back til Saturday so I'm hoping to find some time to finish chapter 14 and then I can write chapter 15 and perhaps 16 in the car during the trip.

All Hail the Superman!

Yesterday I went to Six Flags New England and went on one of the best rollercoasters ever, the Superman! Here's a pic: I love rollercoasters and I had come to the point where they made me laugh. But this one made me scream. The first drop was about 220 ft. It was so much fun, it was worth the hour plus wait in line. I also went on the Batman which was fun and I laughed along the whole time. Now New England also has the Cyclone, named after the one at Coney Island but I don't know if it's the same model. It's an old wooden coaster and my friend and I thought, "Oh, this will be a breeze," as we watched the wooden structure wave and buckle under the weight of the train. Well, for an old coaster with shorter drops, it still made me scream. The drops were fast and steep and banged you around. It was awesome. Oh, on my 2 hour drive down to Siz Flags, I thought out Chapter 14. I already knew of 2 of the surprises, one of them I've been building up to since Chapter 7. It is the ultimate twist of the story. The other is an added surpirse that will help lead into that ultimate surprise. I'm excited. I pretty much have it written out so I'm hoping to play it out today and have it uploaded tonight!

Hey, What's up?

I have to say I am obsessed with making clothing for that H&M contest. So my story might be delayed some more. Don't worry when stories get delayed it allows for even better ideas.

If anyone is interested in saying "Hi" and checking out my submissions on the Official Sims Website my screenname is erinpietrak. Yeah, it's a long story.

Chapter 13 - Writer's Comments

I'm thinking that none of my next chapters are ever going to compare to chapter 13. This one was just so great. I'll admit I started the chapter not sure where to go so I started doing research. I searched through all the headstones and was really surprised to see Lyla Grunt there.

I also studied and made sense of Olive's memories. I went online and researched ghost colors and what they meant. I wanted to really include those fun elements that Maxis has created for us players. As I sent my characters through the cemetery I was so lucky to have those three ghosts pop up and scare them. And it really did happen one after another. It was great!

I had to have Ophelia raise Bella because Cassandra's character did not technically know her. And it made more sense because Ophelia is a little more ditzy so it would make sense for her to mess it up.

As for Lazlo, Olive and Audrey, I thought of that at the last minute. And General Grunt was always going to fight Olive but it wasn't till I discovered Lyla's grave did he really have a good reason to do so.

Story Update & Preview

I uploaded chapter 13 today. I hope it is published tomorrow. I think it's really good - made me laugh out loud and actually made me sad too.

FYI - I am working on chapter 14 now. It is called "The Surprise". I plan on getting the rest of story out as quick as possible so I can uninstall Seasons and reinstall so I can install H&M. I really want to recolor a lot of the clothing.

Chapter 14: The Surprise
Chapter 15: The Truth
Chapter 16: The Return

There will be a few other chapters after 16 and of course titles are subject to change or there could be added chapters as I write.