It’s me again after a long but justified absense. Last you all heard, I was drowning under the unending weight of university assignments but as the title of this post says—I’m free! I finished my last exam about two weeks ago and it has taken this long for the fact that I’ve finished my degree to really sink in. My plans now consist of moving out, saving money for my trip overseas, writing and working on TDM. I’m looking forward to having all this free time to focus on having some fun really… I’ve been at school non stop since the age of five… a girl needs a break.

The first point of discussion is of course my writing… you’ll have noticed the horrific lack of updates in the last few months. I’ve just posted chapter 4 of Prey on The Dark Mark archive, if you’ve read the full story elsewhere, you might be interested in reading the re-write anyway as it is slightly different. I’ve also posted the much asked for sequel to Ensnared which is called Entangled. I’ve already got requests for a last one-shot to finish that saga and am deeply considering succumbing. I’ve also got updates for Eavan’s Wrath, Disturbance, Her Penance and When Mother’s Know Best right around the corner. As for new stories, I have 6 new one-shots pending. So as you can see, whilst nothing has been posted in a long while there were a lot of stories in progress.

Also on the story front is the fact that TDM is now in the middle of the very exciting NaNoShip09: Rock the Boat! It’s probably our favourite event on the TDM calender. For those not in the know, NaNoShip09 is the TDM creation made to coincide with the very famous and fabulous National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Basically we use their premise and twist it to suit HP fanficcers Kate and I provided the list of ships available for this year, and those participating have to write at least 50,000 words by December 1^st in order to qualify for prizes. It’s a really exciting time and there are some amazing stories that are coming out of it. To check them out (and please do! our authors need all the support they can get) simply visit the archive and under series you’ll see NaNoShip09 which is where they’re all grouped.

Now I’m quite tentative about saying I’m available for graphics because you would honestly not believe the never-ending computer saga I’ve experienced of late. Every conceivable problem that can occur has already… twice. Anyway if you are interested in getting me to complete a graphic request for you the best thing to do is shoot me a message and check what my status is.

That covers most things for the moment. Please let me know if you have any story ideas for me, by the way, because I’m on a writing mission at the moment.

xox Kylie

In separate news, I have officially got 7 more weeks of University to go before I’m finished! My excitement levels are at borederline hysteria at the moment because I feel like I have been a perpetual student. For those who don’t know my grand plan, I’ll be moving overseas for 6 months to focus on my writing and then I’m going to pursue a publishing job in London. Keep your fingers crossed for me that it goes well… I’m not above stalking the heads of various publishing houses to achieve said dream.

On the topic of writing, I now have 29 stories posted on The Dark Mark’s archive which is pretty exciting. I have about 8 new oneshots almost ready for posting, a lot have been some time in the making. These include the sequels to Confrontations, Ensnared and Tete-a-Tete (and Rendezvous) as well as some unusual ships I haven’t tried before but am pretty excited about. In terms of newly posted stories, well it’s been so long since my last post that I can’t remember exactly, but off the top of my head they are:

• When Mothers Know Best—Oliver/Katie short story
• Third Time Is The Charm—Ron/Hermione one-shot
• Hormones—Ron/Hermione one-shot
• Her Penance—Tom/Minerva short story
• Oddities—Neville/Luna one-shot

I also have updates pending on all of my WIPs which I hope to post when I get a chance, I’m just finding it difficult to focus on writing with uni and TDM commitments at the moment. It doesn’t feel right to indulge in those things whilst so much is to be done! In terms of graphics I’ve been in a bit of a lull but I don’t mind so much. I think I get complacent if I don’t have a break for a while. Let’s hope I come back with loads of inspiration soon.

Now for the random realm of Kylie! Honestly my life is moving so quickly around me I feel like I’m struggling to stay on top of it. I had several friends’ birthdays to attend this weekend, both were turning 22 which only served to remind me I’m getting old. So I promptly did what any 21 year old on the verge of a quarter-life crises would do. I got drunk, splendidly so! They could write a screenplay about our antics in the city of Melbourne on Friday night. In any case I think letting loose was exactly what I needed to rev up my energy for the coming weeks. I just want to get through it and celebrate all summer long. In fact such was my enthusiastic and festive mood today that I told my mum I’d make dinner. For those of you who know the remotest thing about me, you’re now looking quite horrified. I do to a kitchen what water does to your mobile phone.*Cues photo reel of the time when she blew up a coffee-maker, melted a plastic container in the oven and the many times she simply forgot to turn the various appliances on*. Even Kate’s parents were a bit alarmed at my apparent lack of culinary skills… as evidenced by my mushroom peeling technique. So I chose to make pasta… simple, some might think. I tried to cook that bloody pasta for half an hour and no matter how much water I added, or how I tried to make it boil, it was crunchy. But there was a strange and unidentifiable smell lingering in the kitchen after that which I don’t like to think about too much. Suffice to say, it didn’t go well at all so I had to resort to vegemite on toast for everyone. The family were typically bemused by my effort, but I figure they should have learnt to accept my lack of domestic skills many years before now.

I’m heading off again, I really will try to be more frequent with my updates, but please nudge me via comment if I seem lax—I respond wonderfully to bullying and peer pressure

Night all!!

Ok so i’m finally starting to emerge from the insane mountain of university related work I’ve had towering over me for the last two months (i’m not completely finished yet but i’m on the downward slope). And I’m going up north to stay with Kate for a long weekend at the end of June, which is going to be a blast as always. Beware all bovines!!

In RL things are going ok, at work we’re having to hire an admin assistant to help keep up the flow of work and that means reading through loads of horrifying resumes. Maybe I’m a horrible person, but everytime we do this I pick out a few ‘favourites’. This time the best of the lot (I use the term best quite loosely here, i.e. most entertaining as opposed to ‘most likely to be employed’) and the person said that the reason they wanted to be an admin assistant in a Financial Planning office (and hence doing things like filing, mail merges, reception etc) is because they want to “fulfil a Passion and Imagination, and pursue a life of Boundless Curiosity”. That my friends is a direct quote…. am I the only one concerned by the repeated capitalised letters? Or indeed the suggestion that the meaning of life is to be found by the photocopier… Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good job and so on, but a passion for filing is worrisome.

Moving on from all inane tangents, I want to start by saying that I hope you’ve all checked out TDM’s Beedle The Bard annual awards for this year. As you are all aware, at TDM we have a featured story as nominated and voted by our members. Every June we will be holding a major round to determine the story of the year based on all that years monthly winners. So please if you haven’t read these stories or voted, get on it! I’m privileged enough to have two of my one-shots up for the vote: No Words and In This Kiss?, thanks to all of the fabulous members at TDM who voted for me. *squishes*

In other news, I have a new story up called Eavan’s Wrath, which is my baby at present. I’ve got two chapters posted and another on the way. It’s a Rose/Scorpius novel but something a little different, which I hope everyone likes. I also have a quirky little Fred/Angelina one-shot up courtesy of a fab prompt from Kate as part of a new venture we have going on. More about that later! And hopefully with this free time on my hands (around the corner) I’ll be able to get some other updates on my stories posted soon.

A shout out to Kate for surprising me with my fab new layout! She hijacked a blend I had made and converted it into the header for the site and re-organised the whole thing for me because she’s just special like that

Now I’m off again because I keep getting sidetracked by this freaky Richard Gere movie about foxes in Serbia…. at least that’s what it sounds like it’s about but I have the attention span of a gnat right now so I could be wrong

xox Kylie

I’m well into the semester and even though I’m supposed to have less hours at uni at the moment, the work has been piling up. The single worst task without question was having to slug through Wuthering Heights for the 6^th or 7^th time for one of my advanced literature classes. I’ve studied it several times before and yet they seem to think that it’s worthy of inflicting on my again. Don’t get me wrong, I love the classics… I just truly cannot fathom what it is that so many female readers find attractive about Heahtcliff as the Byronic hero. And don’t get me started on Catherine…

So aside from Uni there has been a lot going on at TDM. At the moment we’re part way through our very popular Gaming Month so please if you aren’t signed up there or haven’t joined in the fun, do!

On the story front, I haven’t been doing a whole lot of writing in the last couple of weeks due to the aforementioned work load, but I have posted a couple of new stories which have been around for a while. The first is In His Kiss?, a Hermione/Viktor fun and fluffy little one shot; the second is Lysandra, only the prologue is up at the moment but it’s going to be a lengthy novel and I’ll be putting a lot of attention into that one so keep your eyes peeled. Oh and there’s also a new Blaise/Hermione one shot up called Ensnared , I hope you guys find it funny because I really enjoyed writing that one—it’s also a long one at over 7000 words. Updates for Disturbance, Prey and We Are But Strangers are all ready to go (and have been for a while, forgive me!) and when I get a spare minute I will be posting those too.

So you’re all updated at the moment and I promise, now that I have fanupdate courtesy of the super amazing hostess of mine, Kate it’s so much easier for me to post updates. As she knows, I’m completely tragic when it comes to anything coding related. So expect to hear from me with increased frequency!!

xox Kylie