Category: Notes

Note: What Now?

The Marina Chronicle has a lot of influences. It’s basically me taking anything that I’ve ever been obsessed with and tossing them in a blender and making something new.

As I worked through the ending of the main storyline however, I had a but of a reckoning with certain things that really were impossible to pull out from it’s DNA.

Team Jacob

Brooke Davis

The song “On My Own” from Les Miserables

My ongoing love of A Song of Ice and Fire and it’s adaptations, but especially Game of Thrones

And, perhaps less obviously, Stephen King’s Magnum opus The Dark Tower.

And it is in thinking about The Dark Tower that I decided to make my next step, and my 2023 obsession with the novels of Beverly Jenkins.

Guys, I wanted to write a western. And I couldn’t think of a better western hero than our own beloved Colonel Prior Chastain. All moral and handsome and kind but also totally deadly and sexy, right?

Plus, playing around in Westran, our desert land, I get to do lots of stuff with the Averrans, and I love Nika and Brea so much.

And joining them is a love interest for Prior, ever the romantic. Danna Finn has been lurking in the background of Cammadan for almost as long as it’s existed, trying to find a place. A shipmate of Lefty and Eric’s, where she never quite fit, a friend of Kat’s, but no, not there either. And then I realized her particular brand of survivor and take no shit attitude really suited the story I wanted to tell here perfectly. I can’t wait for you all to know her and fall in love. Prior’s a damn goner for her, because our boy is a hopeless simp, and we all know this, right?

And given what we saw when the wheel broke…just remember moving forward…

Here be dragons…

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Note: Year 4 Ending

So, that’s year Oddly this is the first time the posting took longer than a year! Wild.

It was wild to exhale after posting this, a moment that I outlined and wrote and rewrote so many times over the past twenty years. It was always going to happen. It always had to, arranging the dominos took longer than I ever thought, (and Rana and Cornan save me, these kids are stubborn) but they’re falling now. The pieces are in place to speed towards the ending.

What’s coming in Year 5, what I already have written and outlined is pretty heavy and I need to catch my breath before fully diving in.

But don’t worry, there’s lots of good stuff coming with all of the bad but…well…I mean, look, it’s a low moment OK? Yes, Eric and Annalise are going to see each other again. Yes, there’s still another Pantona kid on the way. And no, Karina and Kat are not going anywhere, I like them way too much.

But there are going to be large stretches where we don’t see people. The full rotating perspectives of Year Four really took a lot out of me, so we’re not doing that again, especially, because the first half of Year 5 (mostly written) is dark. So I got through it the only way I could, with laser focus.

But next week we pick up, and see, what Marina’s sacrifice means, how everyone is going to react and most of all, how they’ll save her.

In the meantime, there are interludes. I started writing them regularly because of what’s coming and the few in the next few months are feather light and super fluffy. I hope you like them.

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Author’s Note: 4 Years Later

Well, that’s a wrap on Year 3! Thanks so much for coming along for the ride. I’ve had a blast writing it.

I put a lot of thought into what Year 4 was going to look like, and all I could think about was I wanted everyone to be very sad and in a very different place in their lives.

And there’s just only one way to do that. TIME JUMP! Remember in Season 5 of One Tree Hill? Or the Dawson’s Creek finale? Or Lost season 3? Sure you do! (Well, maybe not OTH) It’s like that. Here’s where we’re at:

5 years after Athena and Tristan arrived in Pantona, 4 years after a decision was made to meet destiny head on, a lot has changed.

Annalise and Eric remain apart, why? Well, Phania and Cammadan are in something of a cold war, which is straining the royal family. Especially Marina. She’s doing her best but it’s stretching her.

Has her father’s prophecy of unhappiness for Tristan and Carolina come true and is Annalise’s continued singleness a factor in that? It probably has more to do with him founding a new order in the guard, Rangers, who ride into the remote places in Westran and the eastern neighbor Failan to search for signs of the gods, and being gone for months at a time

Aaron and Athena are parents! The three year old Viscountess Calla is everyone’s favorite person, or at least they say so if they don’t want Athena’s spear in their face. As a Countess, Athena is an excellent soldier. She has a lot of trouble dealing with Tristan’s absence, especially because he’s having adventures without her. Aaron couldn’t be more content, having settled in to life the life he’s always wanted. He does however, still yell at Annalise a lot.

Raymond is THIS CLOSE to becoming a Mastero. Nika and Brea float in and out, helping find the Great Wheel, and Brayton remains at large.

Anyway! That’s our status quo! I’m excited to bring you all further details and move forward.

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5th Birthday Taylor Swift Playlist!

Hello Everyone! It’s been 5 years of The Marina Chronicle! (Can you believe it? I cannot. At all.)

To celebrate, I’m doing a bunch of stuff, but here’s the first thing. I made a playlist of Taylor Swift songs. Just Taylor Swift, all of which have vibes for certain characters and moments.

Some are repeated from the main playlist, most aren’t.

 

  1. “Mine” – This is Aaron and Athena’s song. 
  2. “Sparks Fly” – This is a Raymond and Evan song. I heart those boys and I’m so happy to finally get to tell their story
  3. “Haunted” – Brayton, OBVIOUSLY
  4. “Long Live” – For my three chosen ladies. May they slay dragons forever
  5. “Blank Space” – William Santino’s opportunistic fuckboy anthem
  6. “All You Had To Do Was Stay” – Marina for Tristan
  7. “mad woman” – Really everyone, but especially Nika
  8. “This Love” – Lefty and Marina, eternally bound and in love
  9. “willow” – Eric and Annalise (Eric has a lot of Taylor feelings)
  10. “Wildest Dreams” – Annalise and Harran, all sex and yearning, none of it real.
  11. “White Horse” – Brea and Harran
  12. “The Way I Loved You” – Annalise for Tristan, toxicity wrapped in first love
  13. “Forever And Always” – Annalise for Eric, mostly Annalise, thinking of him in year four
  14. “Endgame” – From the original playlist, this is all Eric. No interest in being just another ex Annalise doesn’t want to see
  15. “Delicate” – Nika and Marina, not sure where they’re at yet.
  16. “Getaway Car” – Tom & Trey, heavy love with no shot at longevity for previous feelings reasons
  17. “New Year’s Day” – More Athena and Aaron, committed to building their lives together.
  18. “The Man” – Need I explain?
  19. “Paper Rings” – Tristan and Carolina, all sweetness and optimism
  20. “I Knew You Were Trouble” – Also Carolina and Tristan…for their other stuff
  21. “Stay Stay Stay” – Caleb and Olivia
  22. “The Last Time” – Tristan and Marina
  23. “Mastermind” – It’s Prior, you guys! 
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Note: A Big Anniversary

From Reenie

You guys, in two months, I will have been posting this story for all of you for five years.

It’s pretty crazy. I’ve been living with these characters for most of my life and been sharing them with all of you for a good chunk of it.

Some things, to celebrate this milestone are already planned. But others, I’m curious, what you readers might like?

I’m open to almost anything, unless it winds up spoiling the plans I have for the next few months. (I’ve learned my lesson to never plan too far ahead, these kids have wills of their own and rarely want to do what I have planned for them)

Please comment with what you’d like to see. There will most certainly be a Raymond and Tom & Trey interlude for Pride, I have them outlined, though not yet written. Also possibly one for Nika…though her story will be coming out more naturally through Marina’s, so I haven’t decided yet. I’m putting some work in on the Playlist. And again…one big and exciting planned surprise.

July 20, that’s the 5th anniversary, I kind of can’t believe it.

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Author’s Note: OMG, we did it!

Oh, hi, I didn’t see you there. *Giggles Approachably and flips hair casually*

So we finished year 2. I’ve got some plans for what’s coming next, and I’m going to start editing together the past 3 years of content into something resembling a manuscript. I will then have to make decisions, but I’ll think about that when I have that to think about.

For now! We move on.

First of all, see the below embedded Twitter Thread that in a bit of mania last night. I put together the way I see the cast in my head. I hit just about everyone except Anselm and a few of the Dumanis, but that’s because I have trouble getting a hold of Anselm in my head. (Sometimes he’s a very traditional kindly old Wizard type, other times he’s more of a strict but loving grandpa type. He’s slippery.) It was fun!

It’s a lot of people who were on The CW or played Superheroes, I am who I am. Also, Rana is Audra McDonald. I do not apologize for the most powerful deity in my cosmology being played by the most talented person in show business.

So as we move into year three what are we going to look like. Rather than write through each girl’s perspective and loop back to another’s, I’m going to jump around, sometimes seeing Marina’s view, sometimes Lisette’s and sometime’s Athena’s. We’re jumping forward a few months, to the court visiting Brightcoast. And I’m so excited that we ALSO be following a new POV character. (I’m like George RR Martin over here) So that we don’t totally lose track of a few characters I’ve grown very fond of, we’re also going to check in with Carolina DuKarras, the girl who The Dumanis want Tristan to marry. I think you’ll like Carolina. I do.

BUT FIRST. For June, and for Pride (Happy Pride! I’m bisexual, I don’t know if you knew that. But I am!) I’ve decide to do a little investment in my queer characters. Part of the difficulty with this story living in my head for so long is that it’s much more hetero than something that I’d come up with now, but there’s the queer characters in there, and I want to tell their stories.

SO!

First! A two part story that traces key moments in Tom’s relationships with both Olivia and Trey. It’s mostly finished and really lovely.

Then! How did a badass soldier with a tragic backstory and a prissy mean girl realize they were meant for each other? The answer may delight you, it does me. We’re talking about Elodie and Mercy.

And finally! Chosen by a goddess, socially uncomfortable, and just trying to figure it out. It’s time to go deeper into Raymond.

I’m really excited. And thanks everyone for reading, following an indulging me these past few years. I set out to do something and the fact that I’ve done it.

Rest in the peace of The Goddess, y’all.

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