“Time & Tied” PARTS 94-96

1. Original Date Of Completion: SEPTEMBER 12, 2009

2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa

3. Changes of note: -Chartreuse’s time car talk had been more cryptic (stone skipping) -Convention of “young Carrie as Buffy, adolescent as Betty, adult as Liz, old as… Eliza?” (totally dropped) -Laurie and Tim briefly flickered out of existence too -Carrie thought of gassing the control room, not Glen -Elizabeth was going to give up sooner, and send the others back -Buffy’s second appearance with the apple (was recall only) -Carrie somehow blew up the Miami time car by thought alone -Buffy’s final battle had her as “Betty” (adolescent) -Carrie made a case for inevitable victory, being part of her own past -Elizabeth/Buffy forgiving Glen and Carrie (simply knocked them out) -Timeline branching! (was cutting the time loop, restoring in present) -Elder Carrie being temporally frozen (had been in imploding building) -Chartreuse having a battery (had merely grabbed gun from Tim) -Lee knocking out guy with dictionary (had been fly bar inside bldg) -Julie and Corry were at library, Corry getting stabbed -Chartreuse now in hospital with Carrie (had been Corry) -Hank Waterson had asked Carrie about his wife/her mom (she initiates now) -Chartreuse’s work with Beth and “vision plus” (had been all Carrie) -Carrie’s quip she could appear with a new gun, apple-style (gone) -Laurie as valedictorian (hadn’t been specified)

4. Additions of note: -Elizabeth now interacting (briefly) with future resistance people -Tim and Laurie got middle names! -All talk of Theresa/Mindy’s fate and her role in things -All talk of resistance forces (including lockdown references) -Brief physical fight was added (before Carrie flinging time energy) -Foreshadowed timeline branching, using wall circuits -All scenes with middle name people during battle (including Glen knockout) -New inner dialogue of Elizabeth’s powers pushing back at her -Chartreuse explaining to Luci & Lee before firing the gun -Carrie/Chartreuse girlfriend banter was new -Talk of the alien artifact as being a fixed point

MAY DAYS

[caption id=“attachment_1932” align=“aligncenter” width=“620”] Begins May 4th, 2 views. (Comments includes Pingbacks.)[/caption]

The first, a review written by Tartra for Web Fiction Guide on May 6, 2017. That led to a new max page view count (143 on May 7th) as someone from Hungary binged through the entire archive. Her review also prompted something else - a massive revision on my part. Some of the feedback I get, I can only nod and shrug at (“Carrie’s a bitterly unlikeable protagonist”). Other feedback makes me realize changes are necessary (using ‘mama’ makes Carrie sound like “a Southern Belle from Texas”).

Along with the ‘mama’ issue was fact that there is “no reason why they all sound like they’ve been academically peer-reviewed”. Huh. Yeah, I am bad at synonyms. There truly IS no reason for Laurie to be using a word like “transcript” or Clarke suggesting they “circumvent” things; it doesn’t fit their personalities. Blindingly obvious in retrospect, but it flew under my radar. And once I knew, I couldn’t just let that sit… if it was disrupting Tartra’s reading experience, it was surely doing the same for others.

Starting May 13th, I went back to do a massive overhaul from the beginning. My energy started to peter out late in Book 2, but even so, ALL parts up to 47 have now been revamped, a number of them for the first time since their initial posting. It doesn’t fix everything. Frank gets a free language pass, as he’s supposed to be socially awkward, and so did Julie, trying to be a CEO. Corry and Luci (as their foils) also got latitude, to keep it manageable. Everyone else? Smacked with a thesaurus… in their dialogue, not in narration. Is it any better? We may never know.

The second reason for the viewing spike last month was a Guest Post at Drew Hayes’ site. His “Super Powereds” story is in the top 10 at “Top Web Fiction” with over 150 votes. He posted in the WFG forums about being away in late May, two months in advance, giving me plenty of time to think about what to write. (And I thank him for accepting me, despite how I knew my serial would be winding down.) I considered doing another story prior to “Book 3”, like I’d done with Jim, as well as something after the Epilogue, in the summer. That likely would have involved Carrie doubling up an artifact to prevent some sort of fireworks explosion, and at once point was even tentatively titled “Minute Waltz”.

It never quite gelled. Then, in late April, I had the thought of building to the main characters through some secondary characters. I felt they’d need to still be in high school for that. Azure was the natural choice, and with that, everything else came together within a few days. Using a bank robbery was a bit cliche (Jim did one in his guest post too), but I didn’t want to go with a mugging. Hence, a part in between the hospital scene and the graduation. There was the thought process behind that writing.

The day after my post on Drew’s site, my maximum page views leapt from 143 to 458. The Thursday also saw a count over 250, before things settled down to about 100 in a day (still way above normal). It’s usually trivial to see when one or two people are going through the archive (like it was last December). Now, for the first time, with a number of people in different places, I honestly wasn’t sure how many there were. There were 131 referrals in within a week, and I think at least a half dozen people made it to “Book 2”.

It’s a nice note to go out on. Another thing I now recognize is that my writing is pretty clinical and structured, and likely needs more emotional resonance. Something I’ll need to work on, assuming I’m able to fix it. (I really am very structured in my thinking.) So yeah, I’m still a bit in the “I suck” phase, hopefully the new “Epsilon” shows promise. One last shoutout now, to Rev Fitz, who reviewed the site on May 21; there was a slight bump before Drew’s post, which I’ll credit to him.

And a few final notes before we get into the last of the T&T Analysis: -I have six 2017 coins, quarters and nickels, and have had them for over a month now. I think part of the reason is it’s Canada’s 150th “birthday”, prompting the earlier rollout, but I’m still sure there was a year I got two current pennies back in February. Anyway, it can happen before summer. -A few interesting related news articles that I found but never linked to: The idea that the Future Can Affect The Past (related to observational states), how Befriending Your Future Self is good for your health (literally what Carrie does), and Physicists With a Model for a Time Machine (it needs exotic matter). -“The innumerable possibilities…” line, spoken by Frank to start what is now “Respite II”, is in fact a call back to the SHUFFLE! game OP, which you may recall was music I’d decided might fit in with my “Season One” opening sequence. It all comes full circle. (The next “Shuffle!” theme to use might be “Really? Really!”. “There is one more possibility…”) Carrie’s response to Frank is a much vaguer callback to Steins;Gate.

SPOILER SECTION

As far as pacing goes, if we’re talking “3 act structure” (meet in act 1, tear up life in act 2, resolve in act 3), I like to think Book 4 works… except, of course, Carrie isn’t even THERE for most of the “tearing up” part; Chartreuse and the rest have to deal with Theresa being Mindy. (Also, a number of characters entered into act 1 already “broken”.)

Does it work, having the main character GONE for such a large part? And with call-backs to earlier books? I hope so? Certainly the plot as a whole feels like it works for me, temporally. It may help if you envision Future Carrie as being the present, what with Mindylenopia going back sparking the entire rewritten history, and hence why “our Carrie” became “Elizabeth”. Related, I suspect Tim’s new middle name subconsciously came from the “Piers Anthony” books on my shelf, while Amelia is from “Doctor Who” (Amelia “Amy” Pond).

Speaking of characters, let’s switch over to them. To make it interesting, I’ll list the twelve mains in my personal preference from least to greatest. Feel free to speak up in the comments, about my order, or any differences you have on my personal takes.

TIM: He never fully gelled for me. I never even settled on a medical condition. Very underused in Books 1 and 2, because there wasn’t much linguistic going on (the lawyer connection helped keep him involved). His arc in Book 4 basically involves him fitting in without being taken advantage of, knocking out Glen being the cap on that, but that was a late addition.

GLEN: Kind of a slave to the plot, plus has this unhealthy obsession with Carrie, who is all but a confirmed lesbian (something he’d know in the future). I didn’t want him to be an overt villain, but despite sticking to his internal morals, I feel that’s what he was reduced to in the end.

CORRY: The antagonist for Julie, meant to be a decent guy deep down, but we never saw a lot of that. Which itself is fine (and he is a self aware jerk) but when the school plot finished, basically, his plot did too. He became a catalyst for Laurie. We got some insight into his past with Book 4, but that was only because the original writing for him there didn’t work.

CLARKE: The conscience to Julie, and in a way, he suffers the same fate as Corry. We don’t get much of him unless Julie’s involved. His Julie fixating was handled (I hope), in the conversation before their work on the car, but while I felt like the relationship angle did tie up decently? There’s not much more to him, aside from being a nice guy.

MINDY: Another jerk-style character, but with a better conscience than Glen or Corry. Her time as Theresa helped with that, but even Future Mindy displayed some perspective on her role. Possibly the first character I’m truly satisfied with (which holds for the ones below too).

LEE: The satellite member of the group, his arc peaked early, when he willingly became involved to help with the chip. Which Carrie messed with. Still, his immunity kept him relevant, his family is interesting, and despite his penchant for nicknames, he cares for the others and follows through on that with actions.

LUCI: I’m a bit surprised she’s not higher, but the adoption and ties to Frank ended up defining a lot of her character (we never even see her parents). I wish I hadn’t given her the extra sexual trauma, but didn’t know what else to use as I did edits. Still, over the span of the story, she came to terms with her emotions, with failure, and it felt plausible that her Future version managed to keep her life together.

JULIE: She wants to do the right thing. In Book 1, she thinks the right thing is winning her parents at any cost. In Book 2, she thinks vanishing completely is the necessity. In Book 3, she tries to help her friends, the only way she knows how. Now in Book 4, I feel Julie’s finally grappling with her own fate. With not being manipulated, overtly or otherwise, and admitting to Phil about their relationship. And while Future Julie was mean, her actions did come from a place of caring; I put her through a wringer. She makes it into the Top 5.

LAURIE: Laurie, sweetie, you managed to surprise me at every turn. A naive and sobbing counterpoint to everyone in the early drafts, you started to take control with every revision, and ended up literally kicking ass in a new addition. Your babbling became passionate speeches, and somehow, despite the insanity around you, you never compromised your principles. You are truly a Veniti (as well as a valedictorian). I foresee a different, brighter future for you in the new timeline.

FRANK: The only male character to rank highly, I will admit he is a bit of a self insert. So maybe the blinders are on. While most of his arc towards getting along with people was back in the first Books, the biggest setbacks he faced were in Book 4. One could argue he was forced into the hard situations, like mediating between Future Luci and Future Julie, or telling Mindy about her inevitable death, but even if his options were limited, he stepped up to the plate. In some sense, he ended up as the glue holding everyone else together.

[caption id=“attachment_1933” align=“alignright” width=“203”] Carrie Commission (2014)
By Kai-Shii[/caption]

CARRIE: For all her flaws and inconsistencies (including apparently being a tsundere), I do like her. In Book 1, she was out for herself, lashing out physically. In Book 2, she accepted she wasn’t the centre of the world - even as events showed she was. In Book 3, she was beaten down, and pushed into a journey of personal (and sexual) discovery. In Book 4, she tried a Julie-style sacrifice, and when her friends wouldn’t let her, she found a better way. Her speech at the end, about coming to terms with mistakes she made and will make, to me, that’s key, and is what this whole story is about.

CHARTREUSE: Like, ohmigawd. She got herself a girlfriend, the hard way, via the hospital. Grappling with temporal theory on the way. So many of the new scenes involved Chartreuse somehow, and even in edits she stepped up to fix plot holes, left, right and centre. All my guest posting incorporated her, and heck, there’s probably a reason I put her into Epsilon even before all of this went online. She’s also the mystic and fantasy entry into a mostly sci-fi world. And she makes me smile. Well done, Chartreuse, you came far from very humble beginnings.

Do you agree with my choices/reasoning?

The plan for “Time Untied” is to keep those last two together, but have Carrie at the University of Ottawa and Chartreuse at Carleton University, in the same city. Because I wanted Chartreuse, but didn’t want her and Carrie too close; their interests are different, plus being forced apart will allow their relationship to grow (or falter) as needed. Also, the only other city with two universities I know well, Waterloo, is more tech-oriented… Frank’s liable to be there, and I do want to pull away from him.

Speaking of the sequel, I mused through a few other titles before settling on “Time Untied”, including “Time Release” and the related “Time Re:Leased”. If you read the bonus post from last Friday, you’ve seen that it will involve the existence of at least one OTHER person who has powers like Carrie. (Hey, it’s a second timeline, after all.) That’s why the whole story needs to be pre-written, later elements are SURE to impact earlier parts (much like Book 1), and it needs to be internally consistent.

At the same time, if you squint, there’s other details that were never really explained. The pocket watch Elaine had, which somehow seemed to synch up with time travel. The relevance of Mr. Veniti doing genetics research in the past. Why Frank only gradually faded from existence in that Timeline Three. All threads that have vague explanations in my mind, which may or may not be pulled on in the sequel as needed. (You’re welcome to hypothesize by commenting here, in advance.)

Anything else? Well, quick shout-out to the guy in the future control room being called “Walter”, a reference to “Stargate SG-1”. Also a shout-out to Mez, since my first revision of Part 96 removed all references to Carrie’s mom, and it was his comment on the earlier part which prompted me to put some of that back in. And a final thanks to Scott Delahunt, John Golden, and Chris Burke, for their support over the years (giving us Principal Dell Hunt, Julie’s psychologist Doc Golden, and the teacher Mr. Burke).

Maybe this universe will be back. Time will tell.

Parts 94/95/96 were originally “Endgame” which became the title of 95a. Remember you can still VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction”, any time, so that others might find the story. Thank you for reading.

Coming This Sunday: “Epsilon Project” continues. The vote in Part 1 is still open!

“Time & Tied” PARTS 88-90 1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 27, 2009 2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa 3. Changes of note: -Originally went to Carrie’s 45th birthday, specified as 2029 -Constant attempts to upgrade Clarke’s “phone” with every edit -Future Luci is now in medicine, was teaching -Luci waited in the cafe and at first spoke only with Frank -Luci used to have tech-tech glasses (Julie gets them later) -Now in “Timeline Three” (was a technobabble “spiral time loop”) -Luci gave alien probe backstory in the cafe (not later) -Laurie only protested helping Mindy after they met future her -Luci gave Frank and Tim disguises to meet with Mindy

4. Additions of note: -Laurie’s perspective, with her backup plan in Miami -Inserted Chartreuse communicating to Carrie via crystal -All “Frank being dead” reactions (it hadn’t been “Timeline Three”) -All “prototype temporal gun” references (they’d brought the gun) -New flashback with Tim, where Chartreuse said she had the gun -Luci’s explanation of ways Carrie can temporally mess with them -Luci connecting that explanation to prejudice towards redheads

“Time & Tied” PARTS 91-93

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 30, 2009

2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa

3. Changes of note: -They’d met Julie in a limo outside a pizza place, with Luci -Julie had argued Mindy would die whether she helped or not -Laurie asked about Corry, prompting Julie’s revelation -Julie left; Frank never stopped her -Mindy claimed it was Glen’s idea to create Carrie -Carrie/Chartreuse scene had been Carrie/Glen & much shorter -Had been no fireworks to draw attention to Laurie as Mindy -Frank fired the temporal gun once, to help Mindy -Activation of Mindy’s time jump was different

4. Additions of note: -New discussion of predestination among time travel group -Julie’s remarks about Luci doing genetics work -Entire Julie/Luci reconciliation scene -Frank’s talk with Mindy about her destiny -All Lee scenes (including Megan, Tim & Glinephanis refs) -All Laurie/Chartreuse talk (including Linford’s son) -All of the “Redux” bleedthrough, up to Carrie in Miami

FIGHT THE FUTURE

Back in Commentary 24, I’d mentioned this story existed online with my old “Sympatico” website (in 2006). That index was updated in late August 2009 to list all 44 episodes (45 with the Pilot), along with a link to information about “Seasons 3 to 5” which I’d decided weren’t going to happen. After TEN years, the story was complete. It was then shelved indefinitely. I decided it had no future.

What first fought that future was “Harper Voyager” looking for new book submissions three years later. No agent needed. This story was the closest thing I had to a publishable work.

So, I spent the start of October 2012 pulling together the first 12 entries of then “Time Trippers” into an 80,000 word novel, “Awareness”. In the process of pulling it together, I edited to remove all mention of hard dates (1999, 2029, and so forth), also FINALLY changing the first sentence from “At the back of a rather nondescript two story house, a window rose.” to “A time machine. That would solve everything.” Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Here was my submitted synopsis:

“The mysterious arrival of a time machine into a small town acts as a catalyst for a group of high school students. It brings to the forefront a number of issues, chief among them how Carrie (the girl who discovered it) was affected by the disappearance of her mother, the numerous difficulties involved in the taking of time trips as raised by her unlikely companion Frank, and the disturbingly obsessive actions of her best friend Julie. As the story progresses, centered almost entirely upon a set of teenagers at the school, friends and enemies begin to turn up in the unlikeliest of places, which results in new allegiances and more questions than there are answers.”

[caption id=“attachment_1734” align=“alignright” width=“210”] Old picture of an older Luci. From “Escalation”, Part 29. No idea why the drastic height change.[/caption]

Nothing came of that (obviously; I heard back Jan 23, 2013). But it did pull the story back into my conscious mind. In March 2013, I re-sketched all the characters. By February of 2014, I had completed similar edits through the rest of Season One, with a second novel, “Escalation”. (That effort was modified more, in that it started with the characters in Grade 9 before blending in the “Luci Pilot” and chopping it’s size down for use as Chapter 2; see Commentary 13 for more.) Then I started into Season Two edits.

At “Anime North” (May 2014), I commissioned art of many characters (Carrie, Frank, Luci, Chartreuse). In July 2014, I posted Chapter 7 (the “Back to the Future” tribute) to my personal blog. By July 10th, I had completed edits on Book 3, “Destruction”, and by Sept 2nd, on Book 4, “Resolution”. (Which did not have the above edits yet.) In fact, before finishing the Book 4 edits, in the summer of 2014, I’d started work on the sequel, “Season 3” - in part because I’d just given up on my personified math serial (after 3 years of seemingly little interest), and yet I wanted to keep writing.

The epiphany hit a few months after starting this very blog. Time & Tied’s “Season 3”, with Carrie at University, was going to be SO much better than what had come before. And it would make no sense to put that story out FIRST and then these four “prequel” books AFTER. Rather, I needed to build towards “Season 3” aka “Book 5”. Even better, any feedback I got on the old stuff could only help me move forwards.

I began running “Time & Tied” here in April 2015.

It flopped. HARD.

Needless to say, the “Season 3” sequel hasn’t been touched since July 20, 2015.

FINAL STATISTICS

No one wanted to read the story, even with a decent review. And the few who were already reading couldn’t seem to pull anyone else in.

As I said in Commentary 15, “thank goodness I restarted personified math (as a webcomic) in August [2015] … it keeps me going”. (Personified math isn’t working? Try “T&T Season 3”. T&T isn’t working? Guess it’s back to reinventing personified math.) One of these days, I thought… one of these days, I’ll write something that others will enjoy reading and sharing. I stopped T&T here entirely after Book 2, and went back to “Epsilon” for an arc. Seeing voting helped morale.

For current statistics, we’re now well over two years in, and I still have a “zero view” day on my blog - March 12th, 2017. Amusingly enough, that was the same day my “best ever” view day was restored to 113 views from 108. (It’s a WordPress daylight savings time glitch. June 28, 2016 had been knocked down by 5 views, as WP seems to simply slide their timing forward and back, meaning hits between 12am to 1am slide between days.) But we shouldn’t be so granular! Right?

Above, you can see what things look like monthly (April 2017 is highlighted, as it ends today). Note November 2016, two years in, and two months after I started publishing twice a week instead, was all the sadness. So many more posts. So little interest.

But, contrast in December, when Mez and Tartra started reading, giving a massive boost… so if we average those, we do seem to have levelled off at 400 or so views in any one month. Which STILL represents no growth over a full year, despite the increase in volume (implying a decrease in readers) with me never missing a post. (For reference, this is post #225.)

And yet, despite the generally dismal reception, there are occasional bright spots.

The fact that YOU’RE reading this, for one. Heck, the story now has three decent reviews at WFG, and at least some people here I’d call regular commenters. That’s a change. My reposting at RRL has a regular commenter too. (We shall not speak of Wattpad.) And just this past week, I suddenly had two consecutive days with over 40 views, as one person went through the archive. (That hadn’t happened yet in 2017. Meaning I reached 10k views before my birthday, unexpected.)

Perhaps it’s little things like this which explain why, back in Summer 2016, I kept going. Stubbornly editing into Book 4. The new Chartreuse parts at the start (referenced in Commentary 23) were done in August 2016. I even set Personified Math aside to better focus, and completed all of the new work you’re reading now in October 2016. (Right before that month of sadness, AGH. Is fate trying to tell me something?)

In conclusion? Aside from some sketching for this final run, and minor edits for RRL posts, I haven’t done any work on T&T since last year. It’s all reposts. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I know I’m just one more cis white guy in a sea out there, and there’s many other individuals and stories which should probably get more attention than this not-very-diverse tale does… and yet. I keep getting pulled back into this story. Am I the only one that deeply into it?

I did at least reread “Season 3” this year. With it’s 12,000+ words, plot info, and character sketch. In it’s 2015 archive. Does that T&T world have a future worth fighting for? I used to think so. Maybe I’ll think so again. If it materializes a year from now, would anyone here still be around? Would anyone new even care to read it? I honestly don’t know. Which I guess is better than being sure the answer is “no”.

SPOILER SECTION

I’ve now included “Additions” to my tallies above, because there’s so many things that weren’t mere “Changes”. The original two-parter from 2009 had been four entries, or 8 halves (#42 and #43, roughly 13,000 words). It’s now SIX entries, or 12 halves (roughly 24,000 words) of which we’ve seen five to this point. (I know we’re not at Episode 93 yet, I’ll avoid talking spoilers for that.) There were two reasons for the massive expansion.

The first reason was the “Timeline Three”/“Timeline Four” talk that was placed into earlier parts (in Book 3), which was extended here. I think it works better than random “clouded time loop” technobabble. The second reason is something Frank literally said in Part 91a, to Laurie: “I admit, to this point, I was looking at this whole situation as being a broken timeline for us to fix. But Luci’s made it feel… real. With real people.”

The original 2009 writing was “broken timeline”. This time, I reasoned that Julie should be more than a simple cameo, her dispute with Luci should be more real - and be resolved. And then Chartreuse elbowed me, saying “I must exist here too”, and having her there led to Lee, and even a reference to Glinephanis being in Australia. In a sense, I fell down the rabbit hole. (It’s like I ended up in the Season Four “Agents of SHIELD” Framework, wanting to save the world, even though it wasn’t real.)

One thing that happened in all the newness was Glen getting edited OUT. Carrie had originally been talking to him before her party (not Chartreuse), but it was very unclear as to whether this was the Glen she’d left town with, or a young Glen, from before she sent him back in the first place. And how did that then fit in with the Glen from Miami? So I edited him out of the future completely. When that felt like a plot hole, I tossed him “down under” with Future Tim.

Meanwhile, the addition of Chartreuse to the future let me fix a dangling thread that had always bothered me - that neighbour “Linford” who had tormented Luci, and gotten away. Reincorporating him hadn’t fit with the present timeline. Now? Future timeline. I could have Laurie save Chartreuse from the guy, finally giving that jerk some divine justice, and Laurie a broader character arc. I wrote the scene, read it back over, and thought that Laurie beating up a 70 year old man was kind of pathetic. Subsequently altered to be his SON, who references the fact that Linford got put behind bars. Much better.

Speaking of character arcs, Frank’s come a long way since the Luci/Carrie arguments of old in Book 1 too, managing to be the one to broker a peace between Future Luci/Julie. That felt right. And Tim’s also gaining confidence - he will gain one last little hurrah in the final parts. All new. The Temporal redheads thing, by the way, WAS there in the original writing, though it wasn’t explained to the same extent. (And kudos to Mez for his thoughts on the genetics back in Part 85. Hopefully everything’s held together.) Incidentally, here’s a website noting not all redheads are in Ireland and Scotland.

A couple final things about the original writing. At one point, I’d entertained the thought of Glen being an actual alien, and the group ending up on a spaceship - changed to just having an “alien probe”, both in the original writing and here. Frank had also wondered if he was married to Luci (with him not being dead and all), following her idly referencing “The Time Traveler’s Wife” movie (from 2009, referenced in prior commentaries). And everything since Commentary 26 had been designed as the only two parter since that “Back to the Future” tribute – meaning a “Coming in PART II” clip! For your entertainment, it was:

Coming in Part II: [in back of a limousine] “By all means,” Julie stated, “let’s have her die right now in her present attempt instead.” [outside, in the dark] “I’m not about to ditch you,” Mindy said. “But before we reach the building, there is one other thing to discuss.” [driving a car] “Here,” Carrie hissed, her golden eyes flashing, “Here is a real challenge at last…”

None of those quotes survived. (It ends where we left off with 92b. Granted, it won’t actually ever be made clear now whether Carrie in super-speed mode also includes driving a car or not.) Onwards!

Parts 88/89/90 were originally called “Fight the Future” which became the title of 89a; the previous parts were still revealing that future. The following titles (“Insight the Future”, “Reunite the Future” and “Rewrite the Future”) were riffs on that. Parts 91/92/93 were originally “Fight the Future, Part II”, so I just came up with new things. I’m rather proud of “Veni Vidi Veniti”.

Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis, and with us nearly being done, this may be the last chance for anyone to lay eyes on this thing. I hold no hope of anyone voting while reading the archive years later. ^_^

Coming This Tuesday: Carrie versus Carrie, but likely not how you think.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 84-85

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 20, 2009 2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa 3. Changes of note: -Now a bigger speech by Laurie, also teaching Beth cheerleading -Scene with Mr. Waterson was new (previously offscreen) -Beth spoke with a random student, not Chartreuse -Scene with Clarke and Theresa was new (going to Julie’s) -Beth had approached Megan, not the other way around -Megan’s motivations (women’s lib used to be Claude’s birthday)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 86-87

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 25, 2009
2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Frank’s mental flashback with Tim moved a bit earlier -CSI:Miami reference had included talk of “upcoming spinoff show” (NY) -Glen originally escaped before they arrived at the airport -Tracking device on Glen was new (had followed sound of a scream) -Carrie had dressed like a stewardess rather than her mother -Question for Question format now tried to make exposition interesting -Had cut away for truth of Carrie’s mother; audience learned later with Frank -Now a longer scene with the Elder Carrie -Frank had lamented leaving the temporal gun behind

“Time & Tied” PARTS 88-90, completed by AUGUST 27, 2009 Information to follow in next Commentary.

CHARGING TO THE FINISH

More on that future next time. For now, a quick look back at the parts involving Beth. I’d made a habit of starting into the next serial entry (“episode”), whenever I’d finished the last one. That way, I’d have a sense of where to go next, in case it was months before I got back to the story. So Part 84 (half an “episode”) was basically completed by March 21, 2008. It was dusted off over a year later, and finished through Part 85 (“after commercial break”).

The note I’d left myself in 2008 was that I wanted to include Beth’s point of view, and somehow wrap up the Megan angle, which had gotten away from me prior to the talent show. So it made sense to have them talk. The content was different with that first effort, as I referenced above. I prefer the new rewrite (see spoilers below for why).

Continuing on, I’d never been to the Miami International Airport (MIA) as of 2009, but WAS there in December 2014 (hence the photo in part 86). They lost the bags for our family as we went to a connecting flight (all but one bag, actually). This despite my in-laws upgrading us to first class. Not impressed. Yet the first hand experience didn’t cause any real change to the content of those parts in edits. I suppose I did pull up maps for reference, to avoid blatant mistakes.

As far as a car being left at an airport for three days, I didn’t do any research at the time, but (once again) stumbled on something later. Namely this article a couple years back: “Edmonton International Airport parking lots, home to 100 plus ditched cars”. So there is precedent. Alternately, here’s a hilarious tale of a BMW, lost in a UK parking garage for six months.

Even if later experience didn’t change the framework, you might have noticed the “changes of note” list is getting longer. That’s because lots of new elements are being draped onto that older skeleton. In fact, there are only two and a half episodes remaining in the 2009 material, which would mean five episodes - except there are, in fact, EIGHT upcoming (meaning 16 updates). Before discussing the repercussions of that in spoilers (below), an aside to talk about temporal inspirations.

TIME TRAVEL TV

Needless to say, “Quantum Leap” (1989-1993) was a huge influence on me, growing up. (Luci’s remark from Part 84, “Is that ethical? That can’t be ethical.” is another homage. The response in QL was “No, it’s television.” See also Clarke’s tow truck, “Sam & Al’s Garage”.) But there was another show influencing me back then too. “The Girl From Tomorrow” (1991-1993), an Australian television series that was shown in Canada.

That show has a teenager from the year 3000 (Alana) becoming stranded in the 1990s. She’s taken in by a family (which includes another teenage girl, Jenny), and the two work to retrieve her “time capsule” from the villain. The second season has them trying to fix a time error in the year 2500, introducing Nik (a teenager from that year) and the “time gate”.

Teenagers and time machines. Was my “Time & Tied” story all but inevitable? (And hey, speaking of inevitability, I wrote a guest post at the Time2TimeTravel site in March called “Models of Time and Fate” you can check out.)

Another show worthy of mention: “Seven Days” (1998-2001). In that show, they can go back in time and change things, but the trip is always seven days. I don’t think I ever caught this show as regularly (being at University), but you’ll see it took place as “Time & Tied” was first coming together. A sign there was a market. And I did use it’s theme music to make this Anime Music Video. (The anime was an OVA, “Natsuiro no Sunadokei”, or “Sandglass of Summer Colours”, about a boy living his summer out of order. Based on a video game.)

And another show: “Being Erica” (2009-2011). A Jewish woman in her thirties undergoes therapy, which allows her to literally revisit (even change) past experiences, by walking through doorways. This Canadian show actually began in January of 2009, meaning it was an additional kick towards getting the T&T story done in that year. I actually wrote the initial TV Tropes page for this show, after seeing that it didn’t exist yet. Further, an episode of my math serial (“Being Parabola”) was influenced by seeing it.

I suppose “Doctor Who” should also get a mention. I started watching it in the late 1990s, in reruns, while at University. (Third and Fourth doctors, if memory serves.) I caught the return in 2005, and have been following it since. Curiously, despite it being a serial itself, I don’t think it’s been as big an influence on me. There are also individual episodes of other shows that tackle time travel - in fact I created my own “TIME LOOPS” TV Roundup Page, which I maintain to this day. Let me know if you have a new entry.

In 2017, during this republishing, I’ve been watching the new “Timeless” show (shady organization tries to preserve their control of history). In fact, there’s a LOT of time travel TV out there now. “Frequency” (based on the movie of the same name). “Time After Time” (also based on the movie of the same name). “Making History” (a comedy on Fox). Plus “12 Monkeys” is in season 3, while “Legends of Tomorrow” and “The Flash” are established superhero shows doing time travel. Seen any of those? (I only caught “Time After Time”, until it was cancelled by ABC without airing filmed episodes. Not impressed, ABC Network!) Are there any other time travel shows that you have enjoyed, or which have influenced you in some way? Let people know in the comments!

SPOILER SECTION

As I mentioned, we’re heading into this storyline’s future. So, with the majority of the remaining action taking place there, it meant the present had to be wrapped up (mostly) with the conclusion of Part 85. I don’t want to say too much yet (there are flashbacks and the coda to come), but if something sticks out as a “loose end”, now would be the time to warn me. It’s why I had the new scene of Julie inviting Clarke to help out (via Mindy), for their relationship.

Regarding the school… I realized at the start of March (2017) that I had never drawn Megan Falls before. Ever. So that image of her is completely new. Did you see something different in your mind’s eye? (For any of the characters?) Megan’s feminist point of view (in conversation with Beth) was also new, but made a lot of sense, in my opinion. It harkens back to Julie’s parental issues, and certainly felt like a better reason for her hesitation on hooking up with Claude than in the original writing (concern over a birthday gift). It’s also in line with her hate on Corry. In general, I’m satisfied with how her character, and the school plots in general, closed out. Are you?

In terms of who would go after Carrie, the only primary characters who hadn’t time travelled yet were Tim, Laurie and Lee. (Chartreuse only had the single round trip, knocking her out, but it counts.) Laurie was a given here, Tim needed a chance to shine, and Lee, well, he was always the “satellite” member. Too bad for him. I didn’t want to overload the group, so “understanding Temporal” was selected as being more important than “being immune to Temporal powers”. Thoughts?

As to what happened in Miami, Laurie’s insecurities were a lot worse in the original writing, particularly when her father turned up in the airport. (A touch I couldn’t resist. I like how Mez picked up on the genetics.) Laurie’s mannerisms got tightened up here; her week of being in charge of the cheerleaders was apparently good for her. The bit with Carrie’s mother being pregnant, that had been the plan for a while, though I can’t give a specific date for the idea (probably by Book 2, given how it ended). “Anne” at the Miami hostel was a VERY subtle reference to Buffy (Season 3).

The other thing that deserves some mention - it’s Future Carrie! I’d always envisioned Carrie vs. Carrie, and it seems the elder version wins Round One. She numbed herself, and would have managed to strand the time group in the past, if not for Mindy’s efforts. In fact, with the “April Fools” update (you read that entry, right?) by Michael Fitzgerald, he portrayed her very well: More experienced, with better control, and a darker personality. How do you fight that? Well, first we’ve got to get a clearer picture of the future itself. Stay tuned through April, and thank you for all the recent comments!

Parts 84/85 were originally “Powering Up” which became the title of 84a, since we don’t even see the powered up time car until that part. In fact, “Powering Up” was meant to be the entire theme of Season Two, the same way “Coming Together” was meant to be the theme of Season One. Parts 86/87 were originally “The Plain Truth”, which became the title of 87a, because that’s where we learned about Elaine’s pregnancy. It’s a deliberate riff on “The Plane Truth”, the title of Parts 3/4, when we first met Carrie’s mother - get it? Parts 88/89/90 were originally called “Fight the Future”, and we’ll get to that in due course.

Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis. I’ve added a “science fiction” tag there for more visibility. I’m also now publishing from the start on Royal Road Legends (slightly re-edited, currently nearing the end of Book 1), feel free to give me a ranking there if you’re able. Phew, this was a longer Commentary than usual, thanks for reading!

Coming TOMORROW: It sinks in where the time travellers truly are.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 80-81

[caption id=“attachment_1584” align=“alignright” width=“232”] Old sketch of Chartreuse & Lee[/caption]

1. Original Date Of Completion: OCTOBER 30, 2006
2. What I Was Doing: Part-Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Almost everything with Chartreuse was new -Working out where Carrie was going, bumped back into this part

“Time & Tied” PARTS 82-83

1. Original Date Of Completion: MARCH 18, 2008
2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -More Chartreuse; her timeline work was new -Some of Mindy’s backstory with Linquist was tweaked -Added Lee preventing further physical acts by Glen -Inserted explanation of time travel by Temporals -The language, now “Temporal”, used to be called “Sectoral” -Added Julie/Clarke scene, to handle their relationship

EIGHT YEARS LATER

“TimelineUsed” was the last such text file I left behind, dated Dec 10, 2006. It got a lot more in depth than previous versions, by flagging more obscure names like Tracy Irving (Corry’s contact in England who knew Julie), by inserting Carrie’s departure from the present (then “Late May 2002”) and by pinning down Mindy’s identity (more on that in spoilers below, in case you didn’t catch that key part).

Despite the detail, eight years later, I was still trying to decide where to take things. And the writing was slowing down. Initially, I’d envisioned a five season (10 book) epic. By 2008, I wasn’t even sure if I’d get season two finished. Except I couldn’t set it aside completely, because I wanted people to read it, and I asked myself, who would read an unfinished story? That’s where I was at, mentally.

Then, in August of 2009, I saw “The Time Traveler’s Wife” when it first came out in theatres. (Which is rare, normally I give movies a few weeks.) That energized me enough to work through the remaining five episodes from this point forwards (which, after edits, will become 13 parts, not the usual 10). Ergo, before we continue into those final two arcs, let’s look at stats, and wrap up the Mindylenopia connection.

RANDOM STATISTICS

[caption id=“attachment_1585” align=“alignright” width=“188”] Old sketch of Theresa & Tim[/caption]

Individually, only 7 people have seen Part 80 (“Vanishing Act”), posted back at the end of January. As Lightdefender has reminded me, by following the RSS feed, no page view would register… but I think it’s clear this story is gaining zero traction. The last time anyone looked at the start of Book 2 (“Missing Piece”) was back on Feb 4th, and a view for the start of Book 3 (“Talking to Herself”) requires tracking back even further.

The frustrating thing is that I know there’s interest in time travel out there. The TV show “Timeless” wrapped up it’s first season last Monday, and I was live tweeting along with tons of other people. There’s a new comedy time travel show, “Making History”, coming out in March. The movie “Arrival”, which has time travel as a theme, was nominated for Best Picture at the Oscars. Why can’t I tap into this?! I’ve given two interviews in two months (a local author’s site, and a serial page on Facebook) and it hasn’t seemed to help at all. Is my story that bad?

Now the good news. In the past week, Paul Wandason has approached me about writing a guest post on his time travel blog. (“Time2TimeTravel”, find it there.) It could help, and has added a “like” to my Facebook page, bringing us to 15. I also have eleven blog followers, up two from 2016 - hello to sweetmotivational and cuteanimallove. John Golden commented this month. And I am still getting mentions out there: k-fish of Redwood Crossing offered an unsolicited plug back in December (that I only recently saw, oops) and Scott Delahunt posts me regularly to Facebook.

I have also, as of Feb 23rd, started posting Time & Tied on the site Royal Road Legends. (The turnaround for approval was surprisingly quick, a little over 24 hours.) I’ve reformatted Book 1 to split all parts in two, the way I’m posting now. I fixed my possessives (I hope), cut back on my overuse of exclamation points, and made a few other minor changes. The plan is to post there daily for the next half a year. (Yes, this tale is over 183 half-parts.) We’ll see how that goes. If you have any pull over there, maybe give a ranking? If not, it’s cool, thank you for simply sticking with me.

Incidentally, it’s worth noting that some of the early parts, previously published on this very site, have been edited as of the week of February 5th, 2017. (The Facebook banner was also updated then.) Notably Chapter 1, streamlined to have some better grammar, and Chapter 11, to include a brief appearance by Theresa. Honestly, I’d thought she was already there, alongside the first cafe reference. Somehow, I’d made a mental edit in my head. It doesn’t really make a difference, although Theresa has become a relevant character in the midst of Book 4. Speaking of…

SPOILER SECTION

At what point did the Mindylenopia/Theresa plot point come together? From the point of her banishment, I had it in mind that Mindy went back less than 20 years, and that she would be mixed up with Linquist, driving his alien vendetta (first seen in the abduction of Luci). The subsequent “Timeline” file, from before the start of Book 4, further postulated that Theresa was Mindy’s mother, while making it clear that Mindy was behind Julie’s reconstruction efforts. The “TimelineUsed” file (mentioned above) finally melded Theresa and Mindy - they were the same person.

As to foreshadowing? The cafe fire to start Book 3 was a happy accident (I forget why I’d decided not to have Theresa there), the couple lines of dialogue to Clarke post-Banishment were done in recent edits, and there’s one other much older Theresa item you may have forgotten about, which will help steer the narrative later. This is also why I know these random sketches I’ve been including in recent Commentary were done after 2005, given the presence of Theresa (above, with Tim).

Regarding the overall time travel plot elements, lots of the rest was originally there, but got shifted around. Carrie’s blowout with Glen was originally in Part 80 (day of the talent show). It was moved back to Part 78, which made space for the new Chartreuse romance (the classroom scene). Carrie’s letter to her father appears earlier now; it wasn’t revealed in the original until Luci read it aloud during the group discussion. Even then, they didn’t realize Carrie’s destination (her mom) until Laurie helped Frank connect the dots in the second discussion (the one after Glen and Mindy bickered).

The group also didn’t discuss Frank’s death until that second meeting. They couldn’t do it any earlier, because in that first draft, only Glen knew the truth. By picking up the dropped ball of the Carrie-Chartreuse romance in edits, I’d realized Chartreuse could be the vehicle to tell the group about Carrie’s Timelines, which made a lot more sense than Glen doing it. The tradeoff for Chartreuse’s torment was that she also got a surprise make out scene with Carrie.

I’m serious there - their kissing scene was new, yet felt necessary, and I thought that was everything. So I was just as surprised as Glen when Chartreuse blurted out Carrie’s love admission, then had her cry-fest extra-love confession with Laurie. Um, you go girl?

Back on the topic of changes, another shift was the talk of Future Carrie. Originally placed during Mindy’s technical talk, now bumped back to the day before (in that second talk, after the Glen/Mindy bickering). And all of the temporal theory talk (about burning dinner) was new. To be clear, the “one timeline” temporal thread in that talk was always the intention for this universe, but there was never any actual discussion of it in-story… and Frank’s question of Shady/Glen/Mindy affecting the timeline in different ways WAS valid. Wasn’t it? So we finally got an in-story explanation of time travel in Part 83. I hope it made sense.

Was anything else baked into original plans? Yup. The Venitis being in Miami, which is where Elaine disappeared. Planned since Book 2 or before. Hence why I twisted Corry’s ankle earlier - he’d taken Laurie’s place last time (saving Julie), but I wanted his sister on this trip. And Beth’s return from the 1950s was always planned in some way too. I mean, I gave her a hairband with a tracking device, for goodness sakes! Though I hadn’t known then that this was where I would use her.

So, at this point we HAVE been in Timeline Four since Book 1, Chapter 1 (as Chartreuse deduced). Even though the cause for it was in Book 3 (Mindylenopia). And if Carrie seemed a bit abrasive in Book 1, she has this whole dual protagonist/antagonist thing going for her. Antagonist of Timeline Three, Protagonist of Timeline Four. And yes, Future Carrie of Timeline Three IS a legit threat, as I had always intended for her to face off against herself somehow. Oh yes, we’re going there.

But first, we’ll see more Beth, who I had always intended to make more religious, due to Carrie’s “angels” assertion. Beth now has to deal with school - and someone else, who became religious while I did my edits. Know who I’m talking about? We are now halfway through Book 4, and heading back into a bit more character work. I hope you continue to enjoy.

Parts 80/81 were originally “Vanishing Act”, so that was Part 80a. Parts 82/83 were originally “History Lesson”, but uh-oh, I used that for the second part of “Flashback” way back at Part 28. So I went with “Remaking History” as Part 82a instead. (Weird that both parts use ‘8’ and ‘2’.) Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis to help spread the word. It helps.

Coming This Tuesday: Laurie’s out, Beth’s in.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 76-77

[caption id=“attachment_1509” align=“alignright” width=“163”] Old sketch of Clarke & Julie[/caption]

1. Original Date Of Completion: OCTOBER 1, 2005
2. What I Was Doing: Extended Occasional Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Luci/Tim scene near start was revamped -Some added explanations in Julie/Tim scene -“Mr Francis” became “Mr Piquaud”

“Time & Tied” PARTS 78-79

1. Original Date Of Completion: SEPTEMBER 4, 2006
2. What I Was Doing: Part-Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -EVERYTHING. Well, Corry’s blackmail plan survived. -Some later information also retroactively inserted here.

BACKGROUND FILES

“Timeline”, a file from Oct 23, 2004, was the file where I stored key events that had occurred - or would occur - in the story. This file was an update from the “TimelineA” file (referenced in Commentary 21). That new file adds in when Luci moved to town, elements of Mindylenopia in the present, and a bunch of future stuff is clarified - the file no longer ends with Glen going back in “Mid 2013”, that event is now “Mid 2027” (despite main events still occurring in 2001). There’s more, like 2025 being the construction of the first time machines, but that starts to tread on spoiler territory; we’ll revisit this at the next file update.

“TimeCha5”, my character file (also referenced in Commentary 21) is a version from Aug 25, 2006. Bizarrely enough, the only update I can see from TimeCha4 (in 2003) involves the insertion of Luci’s middle name (Isabella) - it doesn’t even mention Megan. That’s the last update I would make to this set of files until 2014, effectively present-day. Sidebar though, last time I mentioned my inability to give characters last names… Megan’s name was originally “Megan Fallows”. (Megan Follows, anyone?) That was shortened to “Falls” in edits for the blog.

[caption id=“attachment_1510” align=“alignright” width=“150”] Jan 22, 2005[/caption]

A few other files of note: An HTML file from October 30, 2006, linking to all the episodes thus far. It also included the titles for the next three episodes, implying I knew where I was going, mostly. Coupled with that was the image of a crystal swan I got off the internet (dated Jan 22, 2005). These were linked to off my personal Sympatico website at the time, so maybe old versions of “Time Trippers” still exist in web archives (the site was www3.sympatico.ca/gbtaylor1…). And then there’s the last of my Comments Files, which are dated Sep 24, 2006 and Oct 10, 2006 respectively.

Scott Delahunt and I have a history that dates back to before this story. Back in the late 1990s, we would comment back and forth on our fan fictions and other works - eventually including “TT”. Starting in 2000, I kept many of those emails, for his thoughts on Episodes 2-5, 9-13, 15, 16, and 18. (Recall each “episode” is two parts, so those cover through to the middle of Book 2.) I obviously wasn’t careful about archiving, hence, gaps. In that same directory are these two 2006 files, which are not emails, but IRC (Internet Relay Chat) logs, about Episode 37 (Parts 78-79) and Pre-38 thoughts.

CHANGING EPISODE 37

[caption id=“attachment_1511” align=“alignright” width=“204”] Old sketch of Corry & Laurie[/caption]

I started Part 78 thinking it would be an insert, doing a bit more with the Chartreuse-Carrie dynamic. Then I realized to properly address that, Carrie needed a scene with Glen too. So chunks of their talk from Episode 38 (coming up next) were transplanted, with the specific timeline references being new. The Chartreuse/Megan talent show vision issue, merely informed in the old 37, was then shown “on screen” instead. After which Chartreuse completely took over.

Episode 37 USED to be a Corry-Megan episode. In brief, Corry got Kim to knock Megan out, then they brought her out to the woods. They reset her watch (adding a fake time travel element, so she thinks it’s after the talent show), and then Corry leads Megan on a false chase after Laurie, culminating in the blackmail plot, at the train station. Two problems. First, the fake temporal element creates unnecessary complications (Megan doesn’t buy it), and second, Corry is portrayed as being the “good guy” - in a story where he scares the wits out of a girl, for blackmail purposes. Uhm, yeah, hard sell there.

So, Chartreuse became our new “good guy”, as she endeavoured to understand Megan, rather than deceive her. I went along with it, because: (1) It allowed me to explore Corry’s initial reasons for controlling the school. The whole story with Laurie and Josh smoking was new. (2) It forced ME to understand Megan. Every single religious element was new, and fortunately these rewrites were in time for me to retroactively insert Megan’s cross necklace into Book 3, at her first appearance.

Was ANYTHING kept? Well, Kim still made an appearance. Linquist’s cabin in the woods is in both versions. Ditto Frank’s sonic grenade, Corry dressing up like his sister, and his twisted ankle. Also Chartreuse doing the recording… except in this version, she turns it off, then chases Corry away. As a result, Megan is mollified instead of justifiably LIVID. Oh, Frank also appeared in both, though this time it was for the new scene with Julie, which helps to explain why they’re back on speaking terms in the next entry. Originally, he showed up mainly to collect his grenade, having helped Corry as a favour to Kim.

With all of that in mind, some thoughts from that IRC file on Ep 37: At the time, I’d mused on it being a “filler/setup ep, but it felt needed”. Scott agreed that Megan was a loose end. At that time, I wasn’t certain about revisiting Megan afterwards, barring Season 3 (FYI, she will return). And Scott also correctly pegged why I’d put Corry out of action with his ankle - do you see why? Talk later shifted to Scott’s story of the time, and whether Corry and Rita would get along, so instead of getting into that, let’s now look at how everything threads together.

SPOILER SECTION

The school plot is mostly wrapped up now. The school politics (between Carrie, Julie and Corry) were largely what carried us through Book 1, back when time travel was experimental. It led to Julie’s school story interweaving with the time travel in Book 2, ultimately taking her out of the picture. But I couldn’t leave Corry in charge for senior year - he would get too much of a swelled head.

In Book 3, as the time travel came more to the forefront, Megan was devised as a rival to both of them. Now, in Book 4, Megan is in charge - but letting the student body do their own thing (more or less). We even got a look at Corry’s school domination origins, to balance Julie’s earlier story. So while there is a bit more Megan to come, hopefully you feel like the overall high school aspect of the story has reached a satisfactory conclusion. Let me know if aspects remain unsatisfying.

Elsewhere, the time travel plot is close to firing on all cylinders. Are we in “timeline five”? What does that even mean? A lot of the earlier parts were instrumental in setting up where we’re headed, though I suspect (hope?) it wasn’t too obvious at the time. And as much as I might want to mention specifics here, it’s better (and more entertaining?) for you to see those things as they come up. It will be gradual.

Turning from plot to characters, originally, Megan was something of a cipher. She merely served her purpose by turning the tables on Corry (and Julie) for once. As I mentioned above, I didn’t delve deeper until these edits, when Chartreuse confronted her. As a result, Megan has now gained more of a personality, and there’s method to her madness. Religion was not an angle I’d expected.

I suppose you could say I’m Christian, in that I had a religious grandmother who gave me a Bible, I once did Sunday school, and I went to church… on special occasions. Yet my parents themselves didn’t insist on anything religious, so for over twenty years now, “Christianity” has idled in my subconscious. As such, lot of web searches were necessary for Part 79, to pull Megan into focus. Is she plausible?

To be clear, adding religion didn’t feel totally out of place, given how the concept of free will is tied to time travel. Consider: Megan baits people, to see what they’ll do. Well, when Carrie told herself to “talk to Chartreuse” to start Book 3 - was there really a choice there? Or was it predestined? However, religion IS edging out of my comfort zone, so don’t be afraid to call me out on inaccuracies, or to offer up some new religious insights.

As far as other characters go, we’ve been seeing more of Tim. Like Megan, aspects of him are also a cipher to me. I know he needs to take over-the-counter medication, and has an occasional stuttering problem, but I’ve never been sure whether those elements connected to something physical or mental. Only that it meant he kept mostly to himself. There’s no revelation coming there; let me know if you have thoughts.

Regardless, Tim is now part of the group, thanks to his connection with Clarke and Julie - Chartreuse’s old “two degrees of separation” (2DEGS) group has again been fully integrated. And a linguist will be helpful - did anyone see the movie “Arrival”, late last year? It’s not really like that, but there’s your precedent for language being used in time travel fiction. As Mez pointed out in a comment for “Bad Signs”, the language in Linquist’s logbook will now be referenced in dialogue using % markers.

Lee has also come more to the forefront, in helping to create the stalemate between Julie and Corry. He’s always been my satellite member of the group. They help him out, he helps them out, but he stays on the fringes… I’m hoping he comes across as the most “average” out of any of them. The “grounding rod”, if you will, a normal guy dealing with otherwise extraordinary situations. Things happen around him, more than they happen to him. Yes/No? What do you think?

I don’t believe there’s much to say about the other characters at this point. Laurie got some extra backstory in Corry’s story… Julie is coming back into the fold… Carrie is dealing with how she is destined to leave town. It will all play out shortly. In fact, after a bit more character work between Chartreuse and Carrie, plot effectively takes over. Also, temporal explanations. Stick around, won’t you?

Parts 76/77 were originally “Double Blind” which became the title of 77a, since 76 set up the issue of who to trust. Parts 78/79 were originally “Truth and Consequences”, which was the title of 79a, for very similar reasoning. Remember, you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis.

Coming This Tuesday: Carrie leaves. (The story doesn’t need a protagonist any more, right?)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 71-72

[caption id=“attachment_1441” align=“alignright” width=“191”] Old sketch of Carrie & Glen[/caption]

1. Original Date Of Completion: NOVEMBER 5, 2004
2. What I Was Doing: Extended Occasional Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Added Chartreuse talking to Carrie on Phil’s behalf -More done with the Frank/Luci scene

“Time & Tied” PARTS 73-74

1. Original Date Of Completion: SEPTEMBER 11, 2004
2. What I Was Doing: Extended Occasional Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Cassette tape changed to a USB -Altered ending for more Chartreuse, leading to 75

“Time & Tied” PART 75

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 13, 2016
2. What I Was Doing: Full Time Contract Teacher in Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -ALL NEW

HAPPY NEW YEAR

*: An earlier version of this post gave the number as 32. Five more coins were found on a corner of my desk early in 2017 (four quarters and a dime) and the photo was updated.

[caption id=“attachment_1504” align=“alignright” width=“225”] 2016 Coins[/caption]

Serial Highlights of 2016: A guest post at “Legion of Nothing” in June, taking place right near the start of my T&T Book 3: “Power Play”. A guest post at “The Archive of Unusual Events” last week, playing with time travel in his universe: “13th Floor Concerns”. Two WFG reviews for T&T, by Inky Llama (Maddirose) in March, out of the blue, and ChrysKelly in August, after making the most comments of anyone (and that just across the first 27 parts). CrysKelly also gave me a shoutout within “Sanctioned” with MJ’s “Cats, School & Planned Parenting”, and k-fish mentioned this serial in the RRL forums.

Which brings us to December 2016, and what I would call a statistical anomaly. Since July peaked in views, at 942 with 230 visitors (due to the LoN guest post), and every subsequent month declined in both categories. Yet December had over 870 views with 126 visitors, with both Tartra (from WFG) and Mez (from TWF) starting to read and comment. Lightdefender and Scott Delahunt also chimed in with comments that month. I know it helps that more posts exist now TO read, but whoa. Thanks for all that.

For prior year comparisons, 2015 had 776 visitors; 2016 nearly doubled that to 1,450. 2015 had 2,208 views across 101 posts. 2016 had 5,495 views across 190 posts. Top referrers in 2015: 1) Twitter. 2) WebFictionGuide. 3) Facebook. 4) TheChaosBeast (Unruly) & InMyDaydreams (LoN) tied at 51. Top referrers in 2016: 1) Twitter. 2) InMyDaydreams. 3) Facebook. 4) WebFictionGuide. 5) TopWebFiction. (ChaosBeast still holding fast next at 52.) That’s not counting links in from my forum posts.

The most popular post for 2015 was actually the first entry in “Epsilon Project” (181) not the first for “Time & Tied” (149); now the first “Time & Tied” entry is on top (596) followed by the indexes and About Me page before anything else. Incidentally, as of today, my site’s been protected from over 1,000 spam comments. Anyway, that’s far too much on stats. WordPress does a yearly round-up anyway. (Compare yourself to 2015 if you like, links to come.) On to Book 4.

ABOUT THE WRITING

My reasoning for all the unique titles was that I wasn’t sure about inserting new episodes. My initial Book 4 writing back in the 2000s was jagged, and spanned years… so I thought I might need to include “half parts” between old episodes, to deal with narrative gaps. As it turned out, that never really happened, but I decided to keep the separate titles anyway. This is also why I shifted to two-parters for the second part of Book 3, as I knew I’d be doing it when we got to this point.

[caption id=“attachment_1442” align=“alignright” width=“191”] Old sketch of Frank & Luci[/caption]

Part 75 was the first completely new part - and to some extent, became the ONLY new part in the whole Book. Other “new” parts (upcoming) are better described as additions within existing parts, or even complete rewrites of the old material. Whereas dealing with the Chartreuse-Carrie romance came in outside the old framework. I felt there was a LOT to cover, not the least of which was how Carrie felt about everything. All of which I opted to write from Chartreuse’s perspective.

I didn’t want two entries (75a/75b) of only Chartreuse though, so there was the Frank-Luci scene to get some better closure on their relationship (while foreshadowing something that originally had no foreshadowing) as well as the Clarke-Tim scene which let me call back to Julie’s November birthday (while showing what Julie had decided after seeing Mary, instead of merely telling later on).

This worked out fine from an in-story perspective too. After writing the part with Mary Clarke (late 2004) I actually didn’t resume the writing for almost a year (late 2005), and hence I dropped in a short time skip. Part 75 now fills that void of a week or two, while trying to recover the dropped ball of Chartreuse’s feelings. Something that we will see more of later too.

Unrelated to the narrative, we have new pictures in this post for Book 4 Commentary! They’re not commissions, but old sketches I drew - of uncertain origin. Because I don’t remember when I drew them; I stumbled on them some weeks back in an old binder. They must have been after 2005, for reasons I will explain in a later Commentary, yet obviously it’s before the pictures I drew when I started this site, to accompany Book 1. Are they worse than those images? Better? I don’t know?

One last thing. I’m very bad at creating last names. Frank’s last name (Dijora) I created by mashing my hands on the keyboard and rearranging vowels. Tim’s last name (Whitby) is a region just outside Toronto. Glen Oaks was literally the name of some memorial gardens I used to drive past. And Carrie? Carrie Waterson? (Water’s-on?) Her last name was a riff on Carrie Fisher. (Fish/Water.) With the actress’s passing last week, this feels like a time to mention that.

SPOILER SECTION

The main dangling plot from the prior book was Julie, and why she was pulling away. That’s resolved fairly quickly - she’s rebuilding the time machine, in secret, supposedly due to a message from the future. Of course, she might not have told Mary if she’d known about Carrie’s deal with Clarke, involving Glen, but that’s what happens when people don’t talk to each other.

Also trailing in from Book 3 was the Frank-Luci situation. They do split up. I’m curious as to how you feel about that; I can say there’s a couple of reasons why I did it. Granted, I’m hesitant to mention the one that connects to time travel (you’ll see it narratively later), but I also wasn’t sure where else to take that pairing - and the large gaps in my writing at the time didn’t help for continuity. Plus, with Julie and Clarke as my on/off couple, I didn’t want to make Frank-Luci equally wishy-washy.

Relationship-wise, Chartreuse’s feelings for Carrie also trail in from Book 3. We saw that Carrie, while conflicted about it, brings Chartreuse back into her confidence. That’s actually new from the edits. I realized with the new Timelines 1-4, covered in Book 3, that I needed a sounding board for Carrie who was not Glen. Particularly with Mary not staying in the picture. Chartreuse was the natural choice. Carrie has now told two people about Frank’s death.

Plot-wise, outside of time travel, we see a bit of Corry and Megan and the school situation. It’s not going to be a major component like it was in the first couple books, but it is still there, as a thread that needs to be addressed. Plot-wise, more temporally relevant, I dropped that hint about Mindylenopia. She is coming back, and she won’t be the only incidental character who returns from prior Books. (After all, we saw Azure and Mary too.)

Laurie, Tim, Glen and Lee start Book 4 primarily in the background. Even Carrie is kind of in the background, curiously enough. They will get their chance later. I hope you stick around for it. Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis. There were 54 votes in 2016; we waffle between 3 and 4 votes weekly, depending on whether I remember to vote for myself.

A final bonus, here’s what was in the original 2004 “outline” file before I started writing what became the start of Book 4. The “BREAK” denotes the commercial break, where parts split: -TEASER: Clarke tells Mary about the time machine. -Frank explains to Clarke how there is no time machine to show as proof any more. -Clarke speaks with Laurie about convincing Julie to talk to Mary. -Luci speaks with Mary about her surfacing memories of Linford and childhood abuse. -Corry speaks with Julie about talking to Mary. -After BREAK: Carrie speaks with Mary about the death of Frank. -Julie speaks with Mary about how she’s putting the time machine back together. -Glen uses his mind powers to alter Mary’s perception of events, but not before getting her to tell him everything the others spoke to her about.

Parts 71/72 were originally “Shrink Rap”, which became the title of 71a. Parts 73/74 were originally “Four Part Harmony”, the title of 73a. Part 75 was brand new.

Coming This Tuesday: Tim ends up with a larger role.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 67-68

1. Original Date Of Completion: NOVEMBER 24, 2003
2. What I Was Doing: In Ottawa, looking for a teaching job
3. Changes of note: -Removed an allusion to nudity that felt wrong (given the in-narrative author)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 69-70

1. Original Date Of Completion: JULY 30, 2004
2. What I Was Doing: In Ottawa, after an EOT, looking for a teaching job
3. Changes of note: -Altered an element of Luci’s backstory (see below) -Different “split” (commercial break) location for balance with: -Added Carrie’s mental conversations with herself (“Elizabeth”) -Added references to various timelines at the end

[caption id=“attachment_1334” align=“aligncenter” width=“211”] FRANK DIJORA
Commission from krakenface[/caption]

BAD NEWS FIRST

Right before starting T&T, I wrote an “April Fools Swap” entry for Jim Z’s “Legion of Nothing” site. April 2015 saw a surge of views from about 100 per month (for Epsilon) up to 300 per month (for T&T). Except by the end of Book 1 (in Sept 2015) I was at my WORST month EVER - only 91 views. (That’s page views, not viewers.)

Right after starting T&T Book 3, I wrote a “Guest Post” entry for Jim Z’s “Legion of Nothing” site. July 2016 saw a surge of views from about 300 per month (for Epsilon) up to 900 in a month. And now, at the end of Book 3 (in Nov 2016) we are at UNDER 200* page views for the month.

Yet it’s even worse. Not only has the site again plummeted to being less hyped during the climax of an arc than the beginning, Book 3 started running twice-weekly postings in September. (Including a “Previously” to help occasional readers.) So I have LESS hits on DOUBLE the posts! In fact, when Book 1 ended there were only 85 posts garnering those 91 views in a month. Now there are 176 posts garnering 190* views this month (projected). [*Final total: 220 views.]

Here’s how stats have looked on a weekly basis; the week before Sept 12 was when I shifted to TWO posts per week (can you tell??):

Isn’t that worse? I feel like that’s worse. Hell, “Shattered Part 2” (from four weeks ago) has ONLY FOUR VIEWS. Only three days out of the last thirty have over 10 page views (across 170+ posts) and only one of those days is over 15. All this despite getting a 3rd T&T WFG review from ChrysKelly in August (and a shoutout in his serial last month!), which was actually quite good. (Bright spot! Also the blog now has 10 followers. Woo!)

Conclusion: Is the “Time & Tied” story THAT boring? Or that inaccessible? Will no one else tell their friends? I know, I know, I waffle back and forth on making peace with my stats (I’m great but I can’t market) and throwing up posts like this (I fail as a writer). I’m not sure where I am now, but hopefully YOU feel better about yourself. Moving on to story analysis.

JUMBLED ORDER

[caption id=“attachment_1335” align=“alignright” width=“300”] Old animals sketch circa 2003[/caption]

I didn’t remove it entirely, because I thought we needed the mental break before the literal Luci/Frank mental “break”. It also foreshadows Glen’s actions (admittedly right before them, with no Clarke in between). Plus, hey, I wrote it, so why not. “Woodlands” itself was an attempt to recapture the “lightning in a bottle” that was Chartreuse’s story earlier in this Book about Tope Diamond. To that end, I think it fails? But does it still work as a comedy piece? … I hope so? (Does anything work on this site?)

There’s another jumbled order coming up - the start of Book 4 will be better served by swapping the order of the next two episodes, one acting as a better recap of this book’s events. Those will mark the last set of entires completed in 2004. Yes, four years of on-and-off writing, and the T&T storyline was getting away from me. I’d started it in University, then completed a year of private school teaching, a year of getting a formal Education degree at Queens, and a year of looking for high school work in Ottawa (and scoring a semester Feb-June 2004).

Speaking of teaching… yeeeah… as originally written? Luci was abused by a teacher, not a next door neighbour. (The “backstory element” I mention above.) Yikes. When I went back and looked at that on later edits, I had a serious WTF moment. I was not only disparaging my own profession, I was possibly making people wonder about me. (Hopefully NOT, I’m also not a misogynist like Julie’s father, but still, I imagine some cannot separate a writer from their works.) Changed at the first opportunity, and that’s the last I’ll say about it.

Something NOT changed was a sneaky hard date in the Woodlands story: Security Breach 08/22/88. That was the date of Carrie’s mother’s disappearance. And thus the date of the second time travel trip (Frank’s first). I didn’t see any other way to make reference to that in Hank’s story, so I simply left the cryptic numbers there… only if you’re reading this now, will you know it’s a reminder that no, I have not forgotten about Elaine Waterson. Hey, if that’s not incentive for Book 4, I don’t know what else is.

Book 3 is now DONE, as is Timeline 3, in a sense. The picture you see above is a sketch I made during the “Woodlands” writing. Laugh at my inability to draw. Let’s now get more into the rest, with spoilers for Books 1-3 only (not the one that’s incoming).

SPOILER SECTION

Did we have character arcs this time? Carrie was, of course, coming to terms with her temporal abilities - first through interactions with Chartreuse, then everyone, then Glen, and finally on her own. Hence how I labelled the arcs. I’m not sure how much she grew as a character; in some sense, she’s regressed, closing everyone out again. I hope her motivations make sense. Did you see any growth?

Frank’s arc went from being unsure how to behave in a relationship with Luci to literally giving up his life for her. Luci’s ran in parallel, as she tried to figure out her own emotional well being, while coming to terms with how demons from her past were a hidden influence on her present. Julie’s arc was largely building her back up to the force she’d been in Book 1, following her psychological crash in Book 2. Clarke didn’t really have an arc; one could argue he needs to find himself, he’s so tied to Julie - and now she’s cut him off.

Secondary characters? Well, Chartreuse’s arc was tied to her increased romantic feelings about Carrie. It was cut off by Carrie (but will keep arcing forwards). Corry’s arc involved his hubris and overconfidence, and now that Megan’s in charge, he may need to admit he can’t handle everything he thinks he can. Laurie and Tim didn’t have much of an arc (they’ll get more later). We saw more of Lee’s family, but again not much to him. Glen hasn’t really grown as a character either, he’s largely tied to plot.

Hey, plot! Hello! Hopefully timelines make sense.

We got our first explanation of Timelines 1-4, and that WILL be helpful knowledge in Book 4 (don’t worry, no memorizing, it will be in context). They’re actually something that came out of the re-edits more than the original writing. We also got expansion on the “Future War” that Shady discussed back in Book 2. Glen (Glinephanis) and Mindy (Mindylenopia) are Temporals, in a conflict with the Mundanes. Carrie remains at the heart of it - she is tied to time.

Related, Temporals have the power to (temporarily) control people’s minds, the way Shady did. (Except Lee’s immune!) The time machine has now been destroyed, but Carrie has demonstrated an ability to time travel without it. Again related, Glen indicated that Carrie has the power to bring others along on the time trips she takes. (Alas, not Chartreuse?) There is a “temporal gun” that Linquist apparently invented for shutting down someone like Carrie.

Plot loose ends? I don’t think there are many, in that a reader potentially has enough information to extrapolate the situation however they like. Does Carrie succeed? Do the relationships come together? Does Linquist return? Well, hey, what do you want to happen? I feel like Julie and that note is the only element really dangling out there as “the author’s up to something”. (Am I wrong?)

With that said, there IS a lot we’ll be revisiting in Book 4: Julie’s note. Mindylenopia’s location. Carrie-Chartreuse as a relationship. Megan running the high school. Linquist’s language. Even Carrie’s mother, from way back in Book 1. ALL of which can be read about without prior knowledge, so PLEASE encourage some other readers to join in, maybe??

Do you think I missed anything in my analysis? Was there something you particularly enjoyed, or hated, about Book 3? Are you EXCITED for what’s to come? (Are you out there?)

Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis. I consistently seem to be hovering at 2 or 3 votes, so thanks for that.

Parts 67/68 were originally “Woodlands Detour” so, uh, “Woodlands Omen”, sure. It was a stand-alone effort, I felt like I needed a similar title. Parts 69/70 were originally “Do You Mind?” so the new title was the topical “Timeline Four”.

Coming This Tuesday: BOOK 4 Begins. Note to self, post the index tomorrow.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 63-64

1. Original Date Of Completion: OCTOBER 16, 2003
2. What I Was Doing: In Ottawa, looking for a teaching job
3. Changes of note: -Tried to fix constantly changing Point-Of-View perspective

“Time & Tied” PARTS 65-66

1. Original Date Of Completion: APRIL 9, 2004
2. What I Was Doing: EOT position, teaching computers at SWL
3. Changes of note: -Venitis were originally leaving for March Break, adjusted to family outing -Fixed conclusion, Carrie had reverted back to being really bitchy

[caption id=“attachment_1280” align=“aligncenter” width=“204”] PHIL CLARKE
Commission, from Storm Cup Creations[/caption]

TEXT FILE TRACKING

As I’ve mentioned, the original T&T writing used hard dates, so the file begins with 1955 (the visit to Beth) and runs through to “Mid 2013” (when Glen was sent back), the majority of the story taking place in 2001. So, yeah, we’ve passed that year. Silly hard dates.

Also, 2013 raises questions of Glen’s age… let’s just say early drafts had more to do with “aliens” and less with the final product you get here. I’m not saying aliens WON’T factor in, but if and when they do, it won’t be as initially envisioned. (One rough plan was to have a time trip land on a space ship.)

The other text file updated at around this same time was “TimeCha”, my Character file. I last referenced this file set way back in Commentary #8, when TimeCha3 first included character birthdays. This file, TimeCha4, last accessed Dec 4, 2003, incorporated a lot of plot elements to this point from “Season 1” (S1) aka Books 1 and 2. For instance, the date of Julie’s first encounter with Phil, reference to Luci’s missing day, the age of the Venitis were when they left Miami, that sort of thing. Carrie’s powers are also itemized in this file for the first time. And Chartreuse? She got promoted.

CHARACTER UPDATES

Then there’s the fact that Glen Oaks also got an entry at the bottom, including his cover story, and there was a section added for “Minor Reoccurring Characters”. That last section included Linquist, Beth Parker, Theresa the waitress, and the teachers to date (Fisk, Willis, etc). Amusingly one remark in Glen’s section is that he “may or may not remember his mission (trigger word?)”. In these rewrites, he remembers.

Not much else to discuss before spoilers; for now, I’ve made peace with my stats. October looks much like September did, with a notable difference - there were actually two different people commenting on a T&T post in the days following publication. (The discussion of banishment with Part 62.) That was a first, and it DID lead to changes, with Glen giving more information to resolve those questions in the subsequent part. Plus me realizing I may need some timeline clarifications.

That sort of pushback is how I’d always envisioned this. Yay! Two years in, and things are sporadically working as anticipated. Even if the month as a whole is down by almost 100 views (441 in Sept to somewhere around 360 this month, if I’m lucky), while daily tallies very rarely manage to claw their way above 15 hits. On a site with 165 published posts. [EDIT: October saw 345, I was massively optimistic with 360.]

Okay, I’m not looking at stats again for a while. Oh, and I don’t know why Phil has glasses in the commission; artist’s prerogative? Either way, nice background there.

SPOILER SECTION

Here’s the thing. Even though a lot of the stuff in the old “Timeline” file doesn’t factor into what happens any more - I still don’t think I can talk much about it. Because TELLING you that ‘such-and-such’ won’t be a thing might squash some reader theories who think it COULD be. (Not that many of you are theorizing out loud, but still.) I mean, maybe aliens were really high up in your theories, and after what I said above, they’re lower?

I will say that the Timeline Entry for “Mid 2002”, which read “Glen gets Carrie’s friends to start the war against the aliens”… would turn out to not be a thing. There was enough causality floating around already, and ultimately I wanted most of the paradoxes to be centred on Carrie. Also, the original writing got even more sporadic going forwards, and that would have been even more to keep track of.

Somewhat related, any thoughts on the future war? Glen was pretty blasé about it in his talking to Clarke. And we only have his word on things, now that Mindy’s gone. Ah, and we saw Mindylenopia make her grand entrance and exit! Was she right, in the note she left for Carrie? You actually won’t have to wait too long for resolution there… we’re really close to finishing Book 3 now. As far as the Temporal/Mundane front goes, please stick around for Book 4. (Which I basically finished edits for today, yaaaay!)

Sidebar, the only people who actually got a decent look at Mindy in the present were: Carrie, Julie, Corry, Laurie, and Hank (yes, she was the “plainclothes officer”, that’s when she left the note). In faded light, add Lee, Frank, and perhaps Luci and Clarke. Not Glen himself. Isn’t that interesting? Well, maybe not.

Now, let’s tackle character. After the temporal action came together, I used Clarke as the vehicle there - much like I did in Book 1. (Does it work?) He’s a bit of an “every man”, in how he gets drawn into events. Where he’s savvy enough to say the right things, but not predict all the consequences in advance. And after he’s seen everyone, I dealt the death blow – Julie’s on her own again. Was the “farewell kiss” too mean? Frank and Luci are also on the rocks. Everything’s fragmenting (“shattered”) due to Mindy!

Guess what? It can (and will!) get worse, as I aim to conclude the book “Destruction” by having it live up to it’s name. But first, in the coming weeks, something more lighthearted… an episode that was actually written BEFORE the Clarke piece. I switched the order, so that the arcs work better, and because the tonal shift is a bit jarring in retrospect. You’ll see.

Final sidebars: Did you like the return of Clarke’s sister? She did feature in his flashbacks, way back in Book 1 (parts 11 & 12). I mentioned that in my remarks at the bottom of posts, but I don’t know if people care about those. Do you have any theories about what Julie was talking about last part? Apparently something to do with Glen, and a letter, but is it temporal? And do you see Linquist and his gun figuring back into things at all?

Parts 63/64 were originally “The Conspiracy Unfolds Part 2”. In my 2014 edits, I called the chapter “Banishment”, hence the lead-up “Blame Game” was new. Parts 65/66 were originally “Making the Rounds” so “Shattered” was the new title. Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis. I do get some referrals in from the “fantasy” subpage, where 3 votes is enough to put us on the board.

Coming This Tuesday: The bizarre chronicles of Hank Waterson.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 59-60

1. Original Date Of Completion: SEPTEMBER 5, 2003
2. What I Was Doing: In Ottawa, looking for a teaching job
3. Changes of note: -Hunt thinking to himself became talking to Melanie Willis -Computer teacher is now Mr. Burke, another shout-out -Added mention of Catholic religion

“Time & Tied” PARTS 61-62

1. Original Date Of Completion: SEPTEMBER 24, 2003
2. What I Was Doing: In Ottawa, looking for a teaching job
3. Changes of note: -Carrie/Glen timeline discussion altered to increase coherency

[caption id=“attachment_1210” align=“aligncenter” width=“193”] JULIE LAMILLE
Commission from Gen Ishihara[/caption]

CLASS SCHEDULES

First, to point out how Book 3 keeps the “Semester Two” schedule, importing it into “September” - I mean, why draw up a new senior year schedule? Second, because this is possibly the last time their courses are relevant to the story. Originally, it helped not merely to know where they were, but for the sort of electives they took. Fringe benefit, I then knew the classes when Mindy rammed the van into the library.

Most were in Physics. Carrie (and Laurie and Glen, identical to Carrie) were in drama. And Corry, well, you’ll see was listed in physics too, but it felt more sensible to have him meet Julie in the hall. (Maybe he was skipping class!) There’s no more focus on the school for the rest of Book 3, and when the school is revisited in Book 4, course schedules are unlikely to be a major issue. So enjoy!

JUNIOR YEAR aka SEMESTER ONE (Books 1 & 2):

STATS AND COINS

As you can see, we’ve been on a downturn since the spike to end June (when I guest posted). Everyone who joined via “Legion of Nothing” seems caught up, and… hm, I was going to say “no one new is really checking the place out” but early this past week there was a LoN hit from someone who made it to Part 17 before stopping.

I have had also some hits in from a post in the RRL forums, where kaleidofish gave me a reference (Thanks!), but those viewers don’t seem to get past Part 1. By the way, mid-September I rewrote the first paragraph of Part 1. Doesn’t seem to have helped. I think I’ll keep the new twice-weekly format though, barring complaints?

On a slightly brighter note, I took a trip to BC in September, and I got five new 2016 coins (four quarters and a dime), proving that you don’t have to live in Ontario to get coins minted in the current year. That brings the total to 21 coins (one of those from Hamilton, and five locally in the last week), now including one of every denomination (the toonie was the last).

[caption id=“attachment_1159” align=“alignright” width=“300”] This really was my school.[/caption]

Speaking of coins - OMG, my childhood. When I was home for the summer, I found the case for an old geometry set. It didn’t hold mathematical implements. It held the coin tallies from coins I’d picked up in the halls while in high school. Yeah, that used to be a thing I did, picking up coins and looking at dates. I’ve tried to refrain, now that I’m still in school as a teacher, to leave them for the next generation.

The record papers mostly occur at the end of the year, so I’m going to assume it started some time near the start of 1991. Here’s the tallies:

I graduated 6 months after that, in June 1995. When found, the geometry case held 14 pennies (one is American), unchronicled. I must have decided to stop after December, but couldn’t quite do it. My childhood, gentle readers! Since that time, Canada began the two dollar coin in 1996, American currency became par with the loonie in 2007 (didn’t last), and our bills became polymer starting in 2011.

One last note before we hit spoilers, the original Computer Science teacher was given a name by me mashing my palms on the keyboard and adjusting vowels. It generated “Mr. Orbison”. Instead, you got “Mr. Burke” because he writes the math comic (x, why?) and is a pretty cool guy on Twitter. (Not saying that just because he let me use his name.)

SPOILER SECTION

Major Plot is finally happening, thanks to Mindylenopia. The original writing didn’t have the emphasis on “Timelines”, with Glen’s idea of preserving “Timeline 3”; Future Carrie had sent Glen back more generically, due to clouded elements in her past. In retrospect, this seems a better way to explain it. My hope is the whole ‘Future Carrie in conflict with Past Carrie’ has been an element since the start of this book - and it will occur again.

The other major change in the narrative was actually Melanie Willis joining Dell Hunt in his musings about the school. As originally written, he was having a dialogue with himself, which, yeah, probably as boring as it sounds. This rewrite gives Mrs. Willis a bit more characterization, introduces Megan later in the scene (not at the start) and ideally made that part more dynamic. Musical pun somewhat unintended.

One other minor insert was due to my August work on Book 4. (I’m 20 parts ahead.) Namely religion, an element I tend to avoid (along with race, which I discussed in Commentary #4) primarily because I don’t know much about it. Yet a character convinced me to at least consider Catholicism, so okay, it’s been foreshadowed. If you were paying attention, you who know I mean. Stay tuned for Book 4.

That’s looking forwards. Looking back, other elements have been falling like dominoes - Julie is back on equal footing with Corry, we know who Glen is, what the deal is with Linquist’s logbook, Lee’s favour was called in, the time machine’s being put to use and everyone’s back in the know… hopefully the buildup was worth it. There’s been less in terms of characterization these past weeks on account of all that, but I still try, like with Carrie’s reactions to Glen. Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis. And comment, also an option (thanks John “Doc” Golden!).

Parts 59/60 were originally “Power Struggle”, so the new second title was “Under Attack”. Parts 61/62 were originally “The Conspiracy Unfolds Part 1” so “Fragmented Plans” was the addition. This means the next part would have been “The Conspiracy Unfolds Part 2” (essentially making for a four-parter), so lots of new titles next commentary. Oh, and that cliffhanger with Frank? Yeah, you’ll be waiting on that for a while. Sorry, not sorry.

Consolation prize, the original part grabbed “NEXT TIME” quotes to use after a “TO BE CONTINUED”. I present those heading out, with a side note that apparently Willowdale Park used to be called Placid Park; I had no idea I renamed it.

Coming In The Following Weeks: [at the LaMille mansion] “What do you mean,” Luci began, “when you say that Frank is now somewhere in the FUTURE?” [in Linquist’s old lab] “In my haste to act, I made a right mess of things,” Julie fired back at Clarke. [in a warehouse] “You’re right,” Glen admitted. “You’re the one person we can’t risk altering directly, Carrie.” [in Willowdale Park] Carrie spun to face Glen, placing her hands on her hips. “You REALLY think I’m ready to face Mindy?!”

“Time & Tied” PARTS 55-56

1. Original Date Of Completion: DECEMBER 28, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Teachers’ College in Kingston
3. Changes of note: -Valentine’s day dance became generic formal dance -Chartreuse falling for Carrie scene has seen adjustments

“Time & Tied” PARTS 57-58

1. Original Date Of Completion: JULY 24, 2003
2. What I Was Doing: Teachers’ College (Kingston) then Ottawa
3. Changes of note: -Azure and Faye now in high school too, not middle school, causing name adjustments -Actually having cell phones, plus a reason not to use them -Lost in the snow became lost in the mud

[caption id=“attachment_1147” align=“aligncenter” width=“189”] LUCILLE PRIMROSE
Commission from Linda Ng[/caption]

BIGGER CHANGES

Also, in theory, it’ll double the view count. Because the negativity is setting back in. Three days after Part 57 went up, it had 5 “ReTweets”, 1 FaceBook share… and 3 actual views. (It now has 7.) More, the only comment on either of my fiction sites in the past 3+ weeks has been “Get off the internet”. How eloquent. Sun August 20th is the last time the site achieved over 30 views & 10+ visitors in one day.

One tries to focus on the positives. Late July’s “Silent Statistics” garnered the most comments ever, ChrysKelly wrote a 4-Star Review at WebFictionGuide on August 12 (yay), Scott Delahunt gave me a shoutout in this post last week, and I got a new subscriber last week too. But having dedicated the majority of August to new T&T writing and edits, I need motivational feedback somehow. Is this change a good idea? Bad idea? Let me know; I’ve got the next 6-week arc cued up this way. That said, there were “Bigger Changes” needed to old 2002 rewrites in the prior published parts too.

Last commentary (#18), I said shifting the storyline from February/March to September/October had necessitated only “minor tweaks”. There was more to adjust now! Some things likely work better, like Corry’s band performance occurring after more than a couple months, and some things perhaps less so, like how Corry’s been able to prevent an act like Sue’s for over half a year. (I did offer a reason.) The dance also couldn’t have a post-Valentine theme, that would be silly, so I took advantage to play around with the theme choice in the writing.

Slightly bigger scale was Azure and Faye now being in Grade 9, instead of Grade 8. While I could have simply widened the age gap between them and their siblings (Chartreuse and Lee) from 3 years to 4, I disliked modifying those character designs without good reason. The fix of Faye leaving school at the bell didn’t feel too out of line, and there was an even younger sister (Soh) to use for confusion purposes.

MOBILE HOLIDAYS

In the original writing, a few parts back, I’d ALSO mashed together Carrie feeling better on Saturday (end arc 3.1) with meeting Julie on Sunday (start arc 3.2). Which wasn’t feasible now that Carrie had an extra time trip to take (to Part 48) in there. Consider September: It’s initial week, then one leading up to Carrie and Glen going out, NOW one leading up to meeting with Julie and the lab, then the last (4th) full week leading up to the dance. The Sept/Oct weekend immediately after would be too soon for the King Affair (Part 57), but could I fit in another weekend before the extended one of Thanksgiving?

In 2016, the Friday dance would be Sep 30th, and no, no I couldn’t. Ditto 2017 (Sep 29th), and looking back at 2015 it’s worse, the “late September dance” would be Oct 2nd. It works for earlier years, 2014 (Sep 26th) and 2013 (Sep 27th) giving a full weekend in September before one more in October prior to the holiday, but that’s because Labour Day was early and Thanksgiving was late.

I decided the best plan was to have the group travelling back to Lee on the Saturday of Thanksgiving, which fit the model of 2016 (this year), and could be written off other years as an extra time skip of a week. Making the alignment different from the 2002 original (when this would have happened the weekend BEFORE March Break, not during).

I guess what I’m saying is, mobile holidays like Thanksgiving and Easter are a pain. But if I did my job right in the story itself, you wouldn’t have had to think about any of that.

OLD TEXT FILE

I do not know exactly what I meant by that last one. My suspicion is that originally, stuff wasn’t going to happen at the middle school itself. I probably shifted things there because otherwise the episode would have run long. Also, the original title in the file for Episode 27 was “Lost and Found”. I prefer the updated “Help Wanted” (from that July), and then of course my late addition “See Kings” (this year). See below for more about the King family name.

What’s particularly curious is I don’t know why I exported things out of WordPerfect 5.1 to that text file at all. It’s the only time I have anything like this. It would have been right around when I was getting my Bachelor of Education degree from Queen’s University (May 29th 2003). Maybe I was moving? I’d done that before, so why nothing before or since? Had I wanted to show it to someone?

I do remember showing part of T&T (then “Time Trippers”) to someone, but I feel it had been a month or so earlier. I had participated in a voluntary creative writing group “Writing From Our Hearts” at the Faculty of Education. (I have a certificate signed by Rebecca Luce-Kapler and Sheila Pinchin, everything warranted certificates back then.) I even remember we had special paper we used to write on. At the end of the group, I showed the instructor a printout of some of my “Time Pilot” (the bit with Luci that now begins Book 2). After looking over a page, she recommended I describe less, and show/demonstrate more.

Had that been my text file motivation? Yet I showed the Pilot only? It’s weird, the things we remember, and the things we forget. Remember to leave a comment if you agree (or don’t?).

SPOILER SECTION

Let’s again start by hitting character. The last month has been devoted more to the people outside of the core time travel group - Lee and Glen, with Tim and Laurie to a lesser extent. They’re all linked to Corry’s band! How convenient!

We should touch on Chartreuse first though - her budding romantic interest in Carrie WAS in the original 2002 version, but it came a bit more out of nowhere, then vanished and returned sporadically, whereas I’ve tried to have a bit more throughput here in terms of her reactions to Carrie post-dance. Hopefully it’s working. I’ve also retroactively added some “Spoiler Warnings” into Epsilon Project’s “Wish Fulfilment” index, which does touch on the destination after Book 4. Even if you HAVE read that, this journey may not be what you expect. (When I first started the “Wish” story, I hadn’t intended to put T&T online at all - oops on foresight.)

Exploring Lee’s family again was fun. Faye’s attitude towards their single mother was referenced back in Part 39, and now we meet Lee’s sister in person. I am curious as to whether you picked up on her line to Azure about their parents “sharing a bizarre sense of humour when it comes to naming their children”. Chartreuse Vermilion and Azure Vermilion are rather obvious. So did you notice…? At the risk of explaining the joke, here’s the only time you’ll see me link Lee’s family name onto their given names: Lee King. Faye King. Sing King. Soh King.

Tim and Laurie were seen more in passing, as reminders they exist, they’ll have larger roles later on. If you’re wondering about the additional focus on Joe and Tommy, part of it was red herrings against Corry, but we will see them again too. As to Glen Oaks, you won’t have to wait very much longer to find out what his deal is. Feel free to keep theorizing in the comments. It’s (unsurprisingly) tied in with plot. Ah, plot.

Slow plot is slow! They have started time travelling again. Carrie’s powers continue to trouble her. She’s progressing on having some mental shields, and being able to project herself along the timeline, astrally or otherwise, but not for great distances, and she tends to need anchors to grab onto. So what’s the deal with her random precognition, and what time did she end up slipping to with that vision at the dance?

We’ve also got Linquist’s cipher, his hidden lab, unrest within Corry’s ranks at school, Lee owing the group a favour, and various stages of romantic relations between main characters. The pieces are coming into alignment. Before the end of this month, the pin WILL be pulled, and all hell will break loose.

To conclude, some random anime references: “Fly Me To The Moon”, played by Corry’s band to start Part 55, was a reference (via Laurie) to the original “Evangelion” ending theme. (Chartreuse had made a similar “Laurie likes anime” reference earlier this book, with her “Card Captor Sakura” mixup.) The joke that followed it, with the “theme song”, would have been funnier with a cut to an actual Season Two theme song (very possibly from the anime visual novel “Shuffle”, if you saw commentary #18). And the art teacher’s name in Part 57, “Readman” comes from “Yomiko Readman”, the substitute teacher in the anime OAV “Read Or Die” from 2001.

Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” on a weekly basis. I actually had 7 votes back at the start of August, and made it onto the main page (#42 of 45). These days, we’re lucky to get about 3. Maybe we can relive those days.

Parts 55/56 were originally “Tune Up”, thus “Tone Down” continued the musical play on words. Parts 57/58 were originally “Help Wanted”, so “See Kings” is a play on words for “seekings” given the charm search, as well as the King family name. I suppose you could also interpret it as “Sea Kings”, the old helicopters of the Royal Canadian Navy, but I’m not sure how you’d link the 30-year-long attempt to replace those into this narrative.

Coming This TUESDAY: Julie resumes asserting herself at school.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 51-52

1. Original Date Of Completion: JULY 14, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Summer before Teachers’ College
3. Changes of note: -Jean Chretien changed to being a communications filter instead of BEING PM. Originally Azure commented on past politics, Chartreuse the future, and Amber the present. -Carrie’s thoughts at the end, including taking the trip back into Part 48.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 53-54

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 24, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Summer before Teachers’ College
3. Changes of note: -Placeholder psychologist name Sara Bellum (Darkwing Duck ref) changed; see below -Producing more coins was a bigger issue, because February instead of September. -Checking for Julie’s tracks in the snow became checking security footage.

[caption id=“attachment_1093” align=“aligncenter” width=“222”] CHARTREUSE VERMILION
SD Commission from Neil Buday[/caption]

MINOR TWEAKS

Part of the reason for having a commentary now is because this is the last of “Season Two” that I was able to complete in the summer of 2002 - as of September, I was in Teachers College, and had to cut back on my writing time for this story yet again. But another thing I completed that summer was a new “Opening Sequence” for “Season Two”… in fact I finished it on July 3, 2002, before the first episode itself had been finalized.

That’s below - first some quick notes about Chartreuse and Julie. I think whenever one creates characters, there’s a piece of them in the writer themselves. For Chartreuse, I feel the link to me is the weird and random thought processes. Which is not that hard to write. For Julie, it’s more the self questioning, and her becoming withdrawn.

While I don’t have first hand knowledge of Julie’s situation in terms of her family (mine is very supportive), I did go through a stage in university when I cut myself and sought psychological counselling. I’m also very hesitant about making friends. That’s what I’m drawing on for her scenes; I hope it’s realistic enough without hitting any triggers or massive implausibilities.

The name of Julie’s psychiatrist, “Doc Golden” is a shoutout to John Golden, once the only person to have commented on the 50+ individual T&T story posts thus far. (To my delight, there have been two others in the last 8 days.) I okayed it with him; he’s also been supportive with my personified math, we did a comic co-venture recently. Originally, I had a placeholder name (Sara Bellum) but I wanted to honour John here in the same way principal “Dell Hunt” comes from Scott Delahunt, my main beta reader.

I suppose the other link we could make between the characters and me is how both Chartreuse and Julie have a desire to please others, going about it in different ways. As does most of the cast, for that matter. Or so I think - feel free to correct my perceptions in the comments.

OPENING SEQUENCE NO. 2

Guess what? There was a spinoff sequel, “Tick! Tack!” in 2005. Guess what? THAT audio and video works surprisingly well with this “Season Two” opening. (“The sequel, but diverged from the destiny.") It’s like someone’s pranking me, given how I wrote these first. Here’s a link, if you want to watch it with/before reading below. Which is again a direct cut-and-paste from 2002, apologies in advance for any typos or terminology. (Realism!)

<OP2: Fade in on a close up of Carrie Waterson’s face. Pull back to reveal she is sitting in the frozen homeroom picture from OP1, with the caption “Homeroom 3; Class of 2001”. As we pull back, we hear Carrie’s voiceover, over music:

“What if you had the power within you to control time? To see all of history laid out before your eyes… to know what’s happening anywhere in the world at this very moment… to foretell future events with alarming accuracy. Well, I have this power. But it has come with a price."

The caption suddenly ticks over to read “Class of 2002”. The image comes to life, with Carrie jumping up and running forward. Screen pauses on a waist-up shot as the caption CARRIE WATERSON flashes across the screen. Screen unpauses, and she moves offscreen to the right, revealing a guy with short brown hair, wearing glasses, who is trailing after her while looking down at a handful of notes. He looks up as the screen pauses, caption: FRANK DIJORA.

Frank continues offscreen to the right as two more people move in behind him, heading left. They are a girl with medium length brown hair and a tall blonde male who appears fairly athletic. He is smiling down at her, her expression is somewhat distant. A pocketwatch drops down between them to split the screen as the scene pauses, caption: JULIE LAMILLE. PHIL CLARKE.

Pocketwatch rises back up and Phil guides Juile off to the left as a boy with shoulder-length red hair runs in after them from the right, shouting at them. He is followed by his fraternal sister who has identically styled hair. Pocketwatch split screen with caption: CORRY VENITI. LAURIE VENITI.

They continue out as a girl with pink hair containing colourful bows enters, also following the others. A male with short red hair comes in too, going in the opposite direction (the same direction as Carrie and Frank did). He attracts the attention of the girl as they pass. She turns to look at him just before the pocketwatch splits the screen with caption: CHARTREUSE VERMILION. GLEN OAKS.

Chartreuse frowns slightly as both of them proceed out of the picture. Camera shot now moves in slightly to show two people still standing where the original homeroom shot was taken, one is a shorter, depressed looking boy, the other a guy who his combing his somewhat unruly hair. Pocketwatch split screen with caption: TIM WHITBY. LEE KING.

Pocketwatch withdraws and camera turns to reveal that someone has actually been holding the pocketwatch. It’s a fairly short oriental girl with dark hair brought back into two small ponytails. She half smiles as she tucks the pocketwatch away in her jeans. Screen pauses with the caption: LUCI PRIMROSE.

Luci turns and walks away as a small square appears in the middle of the screen, flashing a montage of images. The square continuously grows in size as the pictures continue, the sequence including: -A black box with a lever on its side, sitting in a ravine. -Carrie propped back up against the trunk of a tree, looking up at another girl with long, blonde hair. -A 21 year old oriental girl writing in a diary. -Frank peering out of the bushes at Glen, who is walking down the street. -Corry standing at a microphone during a school dance. -An older man with a concerned look watching Carrie, who is lying on a hospital bed. -A waitress in a cafe handing some papers over to Lee. -Julie sitting on a couch with Phil, her head on his shoulder. -Laurie and Carrie next to each other in cheerleading outfits, shaking pompoms. -Luci holding a candle and reaching for a file folder. -Tim and Chartreuse waiting in the sitting room of someone’s house. -Frank in a basement lab, peering down into the black box with the lever.

The last picture fills the screen, it’s Carrie staring out at you with golden eyes, her hair flowing out in waves behind her. She does not look pleased. Final chord for music. >

A number of those pictures were illustrations I drew for previous parts. There was a “commercial bumper” for this series too - you may recall the first (in season one) was Carrie and Frank on a clock. This time: “Carrie and Frank attempt to raft down a swiftly flowing river.” I never tried to draw it.

SPOILER SECTION

Let’s start with character. I don’t think I’ve ever matched the comedy stylings of Chartreuse’s story in my later writing. (I do try later in this very book; you can decide then if I in any way succeed.) In a sense, Chartreuse has presented the most bizarre backstory for a valley girl accent ever.

One of the things I had to be careful of was to not have any “like” or “you know” remarks in Chartreuse’s past dialogue. Did you notice the foreshadowing? The slight paradox is, if she’s telling the story, wouldn’t they be there? Well, it’s kind of through Carrie’s eyes, so if you squint, it works. And we now have an explanation for why Chartreuse speaks that way when her sister doesn’t, not to mention having that inflection in a small Canadian town. Assuming you believe the tale!

In the midst of that, Chartreuse surprised me with her bisexual nature. Theoretically, Tope could have been a guy, and while I admit I seem to have a thing for girl-girl love, that added complication between Chartreuse and Carrie felt somehow realistic. (Perhaps the interest is a fault of anime; in my personified math, ParaB and QT - the parabola and quartic - are in the same romance boat.) I don’t know if it puts a different spin on Chartreuse coming to Carrie’s aid back in Book 1. I do know it will influence things coming up.

On the Julie side of things, the main reason I made her rich way back in character design was so that there wouldn’t be a shortage of coins, what with the “date checking idea” presented in the recent part. Of course, with Julie being the antagonist (somewhat) in the first two books, I also knew that wouldn’t come into play until this point. Side bonus, it was handy having a teenager who could fund research or the like, if that was a route I wanted.

The other main character piece of late was the discussion between Frank and Luci, which I’d been somewhat foreshadowing in prior parts. No relationship is perfect, and there are some personality differences there. Recall also that neither of them are great about talking, between Luci dropping the romance bombshell only after she got aged up, and Frank’s need to wait before responding.

I’m hoping their conversation, sparked by the movie “Carrie”, worked well. (No idea if said movie was the original or the remake.) The dialogue gives me some feels, at the least, and tends to be tweaked less whenever I go back over it now. It also implies conversations between characters (like Luci and Chartreuse) outside of the main narrative, because you might have noticed, I’m doing weekly time skips. Which brings us to plot.

Yes, the time group is back together, but no, they’re not time travelling right away, and the characters will be into October before you know it. As I said in the last commentary, I go for the slow burn. The pieces are still being set up for a larger altercation - pieces including Linquist’s old lab - and all I can say is, I hope you agree that the eventual payoff will be worth it.

Coming up next, we’ll get to see a bit more of Glen, who got shunted to the side this past month, along with the trio who played much larger roles in the prior books: Lee, Tim and Laurie. Remember you can VOTE for T&T at “Top Web Fiction” - and much like the former TV show starring Frank Parker, the votes expire after seven days. (Here, have a link to my 7 Days AMV.)

Parts 51/52 were originally “The Visionaries”, thus the addition of “Tope Springs Eternal”, a play on how Tope’s accent is now “eternally” with Chartreuse. Parts 53/54 were originally “The Mansion”, so “Mental Strain” was the new title to harken at both Julie and Carrie’s mental issues.

Coming This Friday: Things go awry at another School Dance.

The last month has been a little crazy. On Sunday, June 26th, I wrote a “Time & Tied” guest post at Jim’s serial site, “Legion of Nothing”. Then on Saturday, July 9th, my third Epsilon story appeared at the top of “Web Fiction Guide”’s main page (it’s still there, towards the bottom). I’ve also had a few votes giving me pings from the “Top Web Fiction” fantasy page (feel free to vote in the above menu).

Having been curious in advance about any possible effect, I’ve been grabbing daily stats screen captures, in the name of research. At this point, we seem to be back to “normal”: less than 15 views per day here, since Monday. So here’s the month (June 25-July 24) in a nutshell.

[caption id=“attachment_761” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] There, there. It could always be worse.[/caption]

Let’s get the bad news out of the way first. Zero comments. Nothing, nada, zero, zip. Arc 3.1 done, and nothing on the blog in the last 30 days. Unless you count the spam remark that got through, which I deleted. Maybe people need to sign up for a WordPress account, and don’t want to? Though no emails either. No idea why people are staying, or aren’t staying. All I have is my statistics captures.

Okay, there has been some external feedback, which I will get to, but if people aren’t saying anything here, what HAVE they been doing on this site? Let’s get into it.

INTERPRETING THE HITS

This brings up the question of where people are cutting OUT, and not reading any more. Someone cut out around Part 27, implying they read Book 1, peeked into Book 2, and decided this wasn’t for them. (The June 26/28 case above.) Someone who started on June 30th got as far as Part 34 a few days later, and dropped it. I can’t figure that one out, it’s not a natural stopping point, maybe the Julie family thing was a trigger?

Two people dropped the story at Part 10. One person at Part 8, another at Part 7, four people at Part 4, and everybody else gave up after 1 or 2 parts. “Everybody else” being the 77 other hits that Part 1 received since June 26th.

It’s a bit tricky to tell if anyone simply picked up at “Book 3” (Part 48) with no backstory, but “The Visionaries”, Part 51 from over a week ago, has only 9 views. So between the 4 new readers (above), the 4-5 I think I already had, and past experience, I’m going with “no”.

As far as my “Epsilon” interactive fiction is concerned, forget about it. Out of 55 views this month, only ONE person read past Part 1, and they only went to Part 4. Granted, they’re the ones coming from “WebFictionGuide”, who haven’t seen a prior sample of my writing like Jim’s group did. Before I get deep into referrals, here’s an amusing screen capture from late in the afternoon on Sat. July 9th, where you can see exactly who came from where.

INTERPRETING THE REFERRALS

Note I’m talking views there, not visitors. My June visitors was 149, thirty better than my previous record (119 in April). July is at roughly the same number right now. The surge from Jim’s site in late June was likely duplicated by the WFG entry earlier this month. The highest visitor counts were: 21 on Mon June 27, then 20 on Tue June 28, then 18 on July 10th (after I went up on WFG). All other daily visitor counts are below 15.

Jim’s site, “Legion of Nothing”, gave me 47 referrals in just the first week. The second week had 9 referrals, and by July 13th I was starting to see consecutive days with no arrivals from his site. At present, we’re looking at a total of 68 people (possibly double counting any who clicked in twice). At least two of the new readers must be from his site.

“Web Fiction Guide” listings gave me a total of 57 referrals over the month, four of them “Time & Tied”, the rest “Full Scale Invasion” links (that, as said, no one continued with beyond Part 4). So nothing stuck there, nor with the 10 referrals from various “WFG” forum posts.

I also got 9 referrals from “Top Web Fiction: Fantasy” which is kind of exciting. At one point “Time & Tied” had 4 votes there (well, 3 + 1 was mine) which allowed it to be visible (near the bottom). It’s theoretically possible that the complete archive readers July 3rd and July 15th came from TWP and not Jim’s site, but I have no way of knowing.

In the “Miscellaneous” category, I got 3 referrals from Graves’ serial; I hadn’t realized L.E. Erickson had linked me, so go check that serial out. Also 1 referral from RedWood Crossing, and 1 from one of my other blogs. Then 12 from Twitter, 9 from Facebook (T&T has a page with 9 likes), 6 referrals from random Google Searches (most unknown, one was “principal tt2”), 4 from WordPress dashboards/readers, 1 from “mail” (the link is in my .sig) and 1 from “feedreader”.

Here’s a screen capture of views over the last month:

[caption id=“attachment_1074” align=“aligncenter” width=“620”] “All Time” comprises almost 23 months (693 days)[/caption]

INTERPRETING THE FEEDBACK

Of interest, I also discovered at that math camp that Hedge had been reading my interactive fiction, and doing her own personal vote considerations, which blew me away. Also Justin Aion said that my T&T story was interesting, another a pleasant surprise. And I had a conversation with John Golden, who has been with me for a while. He’s fond of Chartreuse, like me, also likes Frank (though noted he wasn’t around as much later), and as to Carrie he’s warming up to her though didn’t like her initially. Which John feels was part of the point, and yes. I’m big on redemption arcs.

Outside of those 3 “in person” talks, ChrysKelly made a comment over on Jim’s site at my guest post. Seemingly another Chartreuse-style fan, she noted the entry was confusing until you really get that it’s a time travel story. Valid. Elsewhere, on the WFG forums in the thread “Clever/Funny Lines?” I posted an excerpt from “The Visionaries” (the Queue & Eh session), to which Walter said “That’s hilarious”. So that’s good. And Scott Delahunt (my beta) has continued to campaign for me, sharing my FB posts and RTing my updates.

That’s it. To date, of 52 entries, the only T&T posts with actual comments (not counting Commentaries like this one) are Part 21, Part 36 and Part 37, all by John Golden last year. Which makes this serial a massive failure as compared to “Full Scale Invasion” where TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE actually commented on ONE post (I know, right?!) within the first month. On the other hand, no one who started “FSI” this month actually continued with it, whereas four who started “T&T” caught up.

A good question that Sonal raised with me on my personal blog is why “feedback” on something already published in a post is of any use. Just to give a sense of that, there’s two relatively major changes I’ve made thanks to two reviews I got at WFG. The first review was by Billy Higgins Peery VERY early on, mentioning the main character was a horrible, selfish person. So, despite me already losing him, going forwards I muted some of Carrie’s edges and bumped her ‘redemption’ arc back from Part 23 (end of Book 1) into Part 21. The other review was by MaddiRose, which indirectly convinced me to put better ‘breaks’ into earlier chapters, so it’s more clear when I’m changing Point Of View.

I… don’t know what else to do. I mean, the majority of this thing is written, so it’s mostly editorial tweaks like that which are at stake, but even Mark Dittmer’s tweet from reading Part 42 stand-alone and wondering about there being a “Carrie” and a “Corry” was illuminating. Are the names too similar? ARE THEY? Or if you’ve read from the start, is it okay? Does any of it matter??

Maybe I just need to stop going to other serial sites where there are occasional comments, it’s depressing.

[caption id=“attachment_389” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] It’s all YOUR fault, alternate Carrie![/caption]

WRAPUP

I guess, all I can think is, if you have been enjoying this thing, maybe tell someone?? I suspect comments beget more comments, but that’s supposition. It’s also possible I’m being too self conscious, or have self esteem issues. I’m still KINDA planning to write a T&T Book 5 with a bunch of new characters, but maybe I should write something else instead? Time travel doesn’t seem to fly. That said, we’re stuck with it for at least the rest of this year, I’m no quitter. Plus I need to keep 9 people entertained.

Thanks for reading! Oh, I now have two 2016 dimes to go with my loonie and quarter, and hey, the fact that such an event still makes me grin means something.

“Time & Tied” PART 48

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUGUST 24, 2015
2. What I Was Doing: Trying to make this serial a thing
3. Changes of note: -Some rephrasing of Elizabeth’s explanation -Added last sentence about time machine use, to lead into 49

“Time & Tied: Power Play” (PART 48.5)

1. Original Date Of Completion: JUNE 20, 2016
2. What I Was Doing: Guest post at “Legion of Nothing”
3. Changes of note: -No time for any; probably should have set the scene better

“Time & Tied” PARTS 49 & 50

1. Original Date Of Completion: JULY 7, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Summer before Teachers’ College
3. Changes of note: -HUGE change to timeframe: See below -More backstory at the start, for first time readers -Changed end, which originally went briefly to Glen’s POV

[caption id=“attachment_1051” align=“aligncenter” width=“199”] CARRIE WATERSON
Commissioned from sabrnyan[/caption]

THE EARLIER REWRITES

When I first wrote this part of the story (“Season Two”), it followed right on the heels of Books 1 and 2 (“Season One”). Both in terms of when it was written (July 2002), and in terms of the plot - it began with Semester Two, in February of 2002. Except not 2002? Any year? Basically, my future story now being a few months the past, I stopped putting the date in the header for all Season Two episodes.

A much bigger change, however, is that for the above parts, we’ve jumped to Carrie’s senior year (Grade 12). In September. There are a LOT of reasons for my making that extra seven months time change, among them: -Finding coins for powering the device in February strained credulity -Julie’s situation wrapping up within a couple months strained credulity -Carrie’s birthday in March turned out to be somewhat inconvenient -Building towards an ending involving high school graduation made more sense

That major temporal revision was edited into place in 2014 (after the majority of 2012 and 2013 was spent reviving Season One of this story). Now, doing so didn’t directly impact on Episode 23 (now Parts 49-50), largely because classes would be resuming either way. A byproduct though, is how it opened up a number of prior months where other events could have taken place.

THE NEW EPISODES

In the original 2002 version, Carrie had revealed the truth to Chartreuse “over the Christmas break”. In the rewrite, she had talked to Chartreuse “over the summer”. Now, I had a chance to show that decision, rather than tell. Yet I also needed to showcase the time machine. The final piece to click in place for Part 48 was something I continually kick myself over about Part 1… it’s all Carrie, no other main characters. Worse, her actions aren’t enough of a draw.

Hence, we now have a better written part which is all Carrie (and Elizabeth, and Buffy), to set up the situation both with her own powers, and with Chartreuse. I even managed to write it with roughly the same number of words as a regular half episode. I am kind of impressed with myself when I do stuff like that. I hoped that part would finally be something of a draw, which is why I labelled it “3.01” rather than “Part 48”. Based on non-response, I fear it’s not?

“Power Play” (Part 48.5), the guest post at “Legion of Nothing” came about last month. Jim Z was headed camping with his family at the end of June 2016, and he offered to showcase some stories from other authors on his site. Once it occurred to me that I could build on the Chartreuse connection, I plotted, wrote, and sent that episode off to him within a span of 24 hours. I hope it holds up. I think it does?

Jim’s audience broke through the ceiling of 100 views in a single day (from 20 visitors), which had seemed impossible prior to June 27th. Things quickly calmed back down starting off July, then started to seesaw a bit; I may do a stats post later.

One final non-spoilery remark! Parts 49-50 I wrote in MS Word, rather than WordPerfect 5.1 - but I hated Word for flow. There was also the fact that every time I said “cafe”, it would correct the “e” to have an accent - which back in text format became caf?. So I stopped using Word. See this prior commentary for more on my use of WP 5.1

SPOILER SECTION

I feel like everything was tied up well to end Book 2 (Part 47) and at least one reader agreed. Of course, that whole “future war” WAS a dangling thread, hence it’s the focus going forwards - as indicated in the new Part 48. The multiple arrows on the chapter image (see the index page) have been reversed to come from the future, rather than from the past.

We have as a returning cast everyone who knows about the time machine. Laurie, Lee and Tim will eventually feature back in, but for the sake of any first time viewers, I didn’t want to throw too much out there at once. Azure got thrown into the mix too, partly as a lead in to Chartreuse talking about her family soon.

Along with them, we have a new character, Glen Oaks. Obviously, he has to be tied into the time travel somehow, but you’re going to have to wait a bit to see that. Back in 2002, I probably should have done more with that thread sooner, but it is what it is. I’ve removed a few excess (pointless at this stage) hints, like at the end of the initial Part 50, and welcome any speculations you might offer.

In terms of Carrie’s temporal powers, the new “Power Play” part (48.5) has her slip through time, possibly speed up her own time, and then in Part 50 we also had her ability to “see” future events in a different way from Chartreuse. She’s surprised me a bit in her scope, but her worry over letting herself go is keeping things from escalating. Which is good since I tend to go for more of a slow burn. Once the pieces are in place, plot will escalate.

Some final remarks: This week, I got my first 2016 coins, the quarter on Friday and the loonie yesterday. It claims to be a “lucky loonie”? I guess we’ll see - does it net me any new readers? Also, the English teacher name of “Mrs. Haye” is unchanged from 2002, and came from Sharron Lahaye. She hired me for my first teaching assignment back in 2001. Like principal “Dell Hunt” though, it’s meant in name only, don’t read into the character.

Parts 49/50 were originally called “New Arrival”, so added “Carrie On” as the follow up entry title. It was meant to play with her powers being “on”, as well as whether she can carry on.

Coming This Friday: More Chartreuse, in some of the most comedic writing I’ve ever done.

What if this serial were being filmed? What would end up in the blooper reel? I imagined some 14 scenes back in 2002, and after slight updates, present them here for your amusement. All “outtakes” come from Part 45, Part 46 and Part 47, so read those first for context! (Also, spoilers ahead!)

BONUS PART 47.5: OUTTAKES OF TIME

**1**

“You do that,” Frank agreed. “I’ll get the time machine and our other supplies stowed away, then go to the hospital to check on Carrie.”

“I’ll head right there,” Corry remarked. He shrugged at the other two as they stared at him. “What? I… have a reason for this other than it’s necessary for the plot… I should probably check my line….”

**2**

**3**

Carrie poked her head out of the doorway. “As you can see, I’m growing stronger by the minute. I can even untie shoes at twenty paces!”

**4**

“Why did you mmmmmmph," Carrie said as her blonde hair blew right in front of her face.

**5**

“There’s also one that says ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one’,” Laurie remarked. “So yeah, let’s kill her! Get the knives!”

**6**

The others exchanged a glance. “You were, you know, going to ask Carrie if she knew more about, like, a building, such as this one, with, you know, a fanatic in it, who’s like, you know, going to kill her, so, like, omigod, I so totally don’t know what I’m saying anymore,” Chartreuse reminded him.

“Oh! Yeah,” Lee said. “It’s so much clearer now.”

**7**

Clarke stared. Then he sat bolt upright. “Of course! We can take Julie back to the evening of November the twelfth, and be somewhere in public when that’s not right, you had more dialogue, didn’t you.”

“Oh, I d-didn’t need that line!” Tim protested.

**8**

She continued into the sitting room, stopping only once she’d reached the couch where both Tim and Julie were sitting.

“Luci?” Julie murmured, looking a bit dazed as she tilted her head up. “Can you believe this is my only line?”

“I can,” Luci admitted. “You got more than enough last episode.”

**9**

And then he sprang back up, his own palm out, and scarcely believing that he was doing it, he slapped it hard against the cheek of the girl who could destroy them all. “DO YOU TAKE ME TO BE YOUR HUSBAND, CARRIE?!”

“I D— WHOA, that was NOT the right line!!”

“I was double dared. Romance stories are more popular,” Frank reasoned.

Carrie rolled her eyes. “I’d expect a ring first.”

**10**

Carrie grimaced. “Catch me.” And the timer clicked down, to three seconds, then two… and then one, and then zero.

“Boom,” Chartreuse remarked. “Nice work, Carrie.”

“Okay, that was supposed to stop,” Carrie observed. “Who’s in charge of the bomb?”

“So we’re dead now?” Lee mused. “Man, that sucks. So much for next season.”

**11**

Carrie grimaced. “Catch me.” And the timer clicked down, to three seconds, then two… where it froze, as Carrie crumpled towards the floor. She landed hard on her ass.

“Ouch! Chartreuse, you were supposed to catch me!!” the blonde exclaimed.

“Sorry, I had my eye on the timer,” Chartreuse apologized.

**12**

Carrie grimaced. “Catch me.” And the timer clicked down, to three seconds, then two… where it froze, as Carrie crumpled towards the floor. Chartreuse let out a gasp, supporting Carrie but misjudging her weight and letting the blonde fall upon her in a tangle of limbs.

“Getting there,” Carrie remarked.

**13**

Carrie grimaced. “Catch me.” And the timer clicked down, to three seconds, then two… where it froze, as Carrie crumpled towards the floor. Chartreuse let out a gasp, supporting Carrie and guiding her carefully down into a prone position.

There was a moment of silence. “Damn it, I have a line here,” Carrie sighed.

“You’re supposed to remove our memories now,” Corry remarked. “Oh, the irony.”

**14**

“Except I’m not taking it lying down this time,” Frank countered, springing up off his own swing, and extending his hands as if to tickle her.

Carrie let out a little yelp of astonishment, attempting a sidestep but Frank anticipated the move. He managed to pull her down on top of him.

“Ooooh, ow, hey, you’re not supposed to get me!” Carrie protested, laughing despite herself.

“I think it’s fitting, we were in this position in episode one,” Frank pointed out.

“I suppose so. But move those hands any higher and you will have trouble doing a second take,” Carrie warned.

THANKS FOR READING!

EPSILON PROJECT: STORY 3 COMES THIS SUNDAY!

(TIME & TIED WILL CONTINUE THIS SUMMER!)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 43 & 44

1. Original Date Of Completion: JUNE 30, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Teaching ESL Math & Science
3. Changes of note: -Kept “phone book” removed “phone booth”. Maybe they’re in a store or something. -Shady again, originally he continued droning on about killing Carrie and forgetting about Julie. Also Lee had summarized the plot in there. -More drama inserted before Corry stopped Julie from shooting at her parents. -Luci’s letter returns, with Julie noticing that Carrie didn’t sign.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 45-47

1. Original Date Of Completion: JULY 2, 2002?
2. What I Was Doing: Teaching ESL Math & Science
3. Changes of note: -All Laurie’s dialogue to Carrie from “it’s hard” was new. -Lee’s arrival moved to later. Bomb revelation moved into Part 46. -The dialogue tying up the Frank/Luci romance subplot was added. -Clarke and Tim had left to find Luci; shifted scene to mansion, because cell phones. -The Frank/Carrie dialogue in the hospital has had so many revisions over the years. See below. -Also tweaks to the Frank/Carrie dialogue in the park, including mention of Luci.

ABOUT THE WRITING

Fun fact: My original completion date above for Episode 22 (Parts 45-47), aka “the end of the beginning"… is an estimate. Logically, it had to come after finishing 21, and before the next part - Episode 23 - that being completed on July 7th, 2002. Yes, almost immediately following. (Season 2 aka Book 3 is currently in edits. Again, look for it after another foray on this blog into “Epsilon Project”.)

At the time, it made sense to keep on writing, since July 2002 was when I’d finished my first year of teaching, and I had the whole summer ahead of me prior to attending Queen’s University. (The private school had accepted me based on co-op terms for first year University Computer classes, but I was debating public school teaching, and that would require a Teaching Degree. Hence, more University.) But precisely when was Episode 22 finished?

Here’s what I DO know: An incomplete TIME22 file was dated June 28th, containing everything up to when Frank enters the hospital. (I know that’s before my “Completion” date for Ep 21, but I would tend to let files sit for 3-4 days, then give them a final pass for edits, having already started the next part.) The final TIME22 file is dated Dec 4, 2003, which is nonsensical (probably another rewrite of the Frank/Carrie dialogue). And as I said above, the final TIME23 file is dated July 7.

Yet I also have re-edited versions of Eps 1-6, dated July 2. Since it makes sense that I would have gone back to re-edit from the start (again!) after finishing, that’s the date I used above… though the final pass may have been later. There is one other hint, my “Outtakes of Time” file (dated July 21), basically a parody bonus of scenes from the last episode, so for sure it was done before then. I’ll post that bonus for you this Friday!

That said, after 47 weeks of less than lukewarm reaction, I need a bit of a T&T break, so I’m shifting back to “Epsilon Project”. To that end, here’s a link to the newest poll where you can vote to affect that plot! Open until this Tuesday!

There’s not much more to say on T&T that wouldn’t be a spoiler.

SPOILER SECTION

Spoilers for Book 1

The Frank-Carrie dialogue in the hospital has been changed more times than I can remember. The key plot points were always there (channeling Shady’s bomb, Carrie’s mother, Carrie choosing life) but it never felt like it clicked. The December 2003 file contains Frank saying “Let’s live, let’s all live!” which is cheesy and sad, and yet it survived right through the initial 2014 edits. I am SO much happier with the latest version, where Frank calls out Carrie on her curiosity, then smacks her in the face.

Note that I’m not advocating hitting girls. But it’s a nice reversal of Episode 1, plus Carrie herself told Frank he could do it at the end of Book 1 (lampshaded in “Respite”). Feel free to disagree… or to say anything, really. (Hello?) But I like it. My only concern is that it’s a bit derivative of Clarke forcing Julie to ‘choose’ only two parts previous. Both deal with the very existence of the character in question. Are they different enough? (Julie was facing flashbacks, while Carrie was more resigned to her fate.) Ultimately - you’re the judge of that!

Character-wise: I think I wrapped up everyone’s arcs. Carrie’s less overbearing, her powers are active, and while her mother is a loose end, it’s tucked under the rug. Frank can stand up to people and admit his feelings. Frank and Luci are going out. Luci’s learned to handle failure, and interpersonal relations. Julie’s no longer the “big bad”, and has therapy to look forward to. Corry is less of a jerk, maybe - he’s at least done his feud with Julie. Laurie is more self-assured.

Clarke, Chartreuse, Tim and Lee didn’t have much for character arcs. They tended to be catalysts, speeding up the reactions of those around them. Ditto for Hank Waterson and “Shady”, the only others to have story tags on parts where they appear. Again, that’s my impression, feel free to teach me something I’m missing?

Plot-wise: Carrie’s temporal powers are active, if vaguely defined. And there is a war in the future, spilling into the present. Yeah, those two sentences is ALL the past 47 episodes in a nutshell. I guess I’m long winded. I hope you’ll come back this summer, to see how the “Temporal Destiny” starts impacting this group of teenagers going forwards. Because Carrie is right with her closing remarks.

Parts 43/44 were originally called “Turning Point”, so added “Desperate Times” as the lead-in (where Lee employs “Desperate Measures”). The last episode was “Out of Time”, which became flanked by “Full Circle” (to circle back to the start of Book 2) and the shorter “Respite” (everyone’s safe - for now).

Coming This Friday: BONUS T&T “Outtakes” reel Coming Next Sunday: The Epsilon Project returns

“Time & Tied” PARTS 37 & 38

1. Original Date Of Completion: DEC 30, 2001
2. What I Was Doing: Teaching ESL Math & Science
3. Changes of note: -Minor retooling of dialogue, including adding precise mathematical terms.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 39 & 40

1. Original Date Of Completion: APR 4, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Teaching ESL Math & Science
3. Changes of note: -The Luci-Clarke conversation in the hospital was a bit different. -Lee’s scene originally ended Part 39; I rebalanced for length on each part, meaning the group conversation was added there too. -Changed seventeen year trip to sixteen. I’m so bad with ages. -See below for a tidbit about “Star Trek”.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 41 & 42

1. Original Date Of Completion: MAY 11, 2002
2. What I Was Doing: Teaching ESL Math & Science
3. Changes of note: -Luci’s letter. Never clued in that I was sending the guys. Once I realized in later edits, I couldn’t go back on the geometry rules. -Tim used to be skipping class to tell the girls about the police; their lunch periods were staggered, like when I was in high school. So going to the library was new. -All of Shady’s bits. His original dialogue wandered more, despite him also being more forthcoming.

ABOUT THE WRITING

Speaking of things going slow, interest in this whole website is abysmal - I did a stats roundup of all my blogs on January 1st. This website (where I posted more than once weekly) is doing WORSE than my personal home pages where I didn’t update at ALL in 2015. Ouch. Incidentally, T&T Part 42 was actually post #100 here. Yay?

The hardest part about serial writing seems to be that, no matter how much your writing improves over time, everyone starts at the beginning, when you sucked, and stops there, because it sucks. Back in September 2015, I thought my only chance for more views was to launch Book 2 right away. But no one wanted to read from “the middle”. What little data I have shows they STILL started at the beginning… and stopped. I’d redo Part One, except this thing has been edited to hell and back - I simply can’t rewrite the start AGAIN.

So I try not to be bitter. It’s hard. If I had to do this story over again (say, for publication), I’d pace it all very differently. How? No clue! (Do you see a way?) However, only NOW do you know how the time machine locates on Earth, only NOW are Lee and the Venitis in a key role, only NOW has Shady finally revealed the majority of the plot (assuming you believe him!)… after over 40 parts. And almost no one gets past Part 3!

Thank goodness I restarted personified math (as a webcomic) in August. I’ve always been slightly more passionate about it, and it keeps me going. Granted, I’ve had a couple comments here from John Golden, and that was nice. Finally, one person seems to be tracking slowly through the archives (real easy to spot with low stats), so okay. Sorry for the ramble, let’s actually look at what’s behind the story now.

WHAT’S IN A NAME II

As to the origin of some other character names - the school principal, Dell Hunt, comes from Scott Delahunt, who read this story back in 2001 and has offered me commentary on it. (And he still reblogs the whole thing for me on Facebook!) “Jeeves” is generic for butlers, and I don’t recall why my chem teacher is “Fisk”, but the music teacher “Mrs. Willis” is a rewrite of Mrs. Wallace, who was my music teacher all through high school. (This is name only, infer no personalities.)

Then there’s Lee’s family, who we finally saw… and their last name is “King”. You think the name Chartreuse Vermilion is bad? Check out Lee’s family again. You won’t see me use first and last names back-to-back, because it spoils the joke - but those poor kids. Hopefully their father leaving isn’t connected to their names. Maybe he was pushing for a normal one.

Regarding episode titles, the one for Part 38, “Coming Together” was meant to be the theme for all of Season One - that is, all episodes from Part 1 going forward to Part 46. Using it as an episode title was deliberate. The planned theme for all of Season Two (the next set) would then be “Powering Up”. Yes, Season Two: Everything you’ve seen so far is, in a small way, a setup of the larger universe. See the spoiler section below for my remarks on Shady’s “war”.

[caption id=“attachment_750” align=“alignright” width=“225”] That sheet is where I roughed out character course schedules.[/caption]

And speaking of their universe, I actually did photocopy an atlas and draw all the lines and everything that Frank and Luci do in part 37 - that scan there was the original. (It’s how I decided where Julie was born, rather than the reverse.) Also, Frank’s chalkboard sketch of the town? I have those town landmarks mapped out. One occasional reader compared my story to “hard” sci-fi, in terms of realism. I’m not sure I’d go that far, my research isn’t so in depth, but I do try to make their world believable.

In line with that, I spent the year 2015 keeping all the current year coins that crossed my path. I posted my last update about that back in November, when I had 20 coins. Here is the final tally for 2015: 2 nickels, 6 dimes, 19 quarters (including a specialty one), 6 loonies, and 9 toonies (including 3 special ‘veteran’ ones and 2 special ‘John A Macdonald’ ones). That’s 42! The ultimate answer. More possible time trips than I thought; granted, many of those coins came to me in December. (So far in 2016 I’ve only had a single 2015 dime.)

One last fun tidbit: Remember in Part 40, when Laurie speaks of Chartreuse predicting “the revival of the Star Trek franchise despite the lacklustre interest in ‘Enterprise’”? The ORIGINAL line when I wrote this back in 2002 referred to the decision to launch ‘Enterprise’ (which ran from 2001-2005) despite the lacklustre interest in ‘Voyager’! Now, of course, since they’re forecasting a new Trek series in 2017, only a minor tweak was necessary. And hey, I’ll take any chance to sneak in a Scott Bakula reference.

SPOILER SECTION

Spoilers for Book 1

Character-wise: We see Lee’s family, as I mentioned above, and get a clearer picture of his role in all this. He had the machine, he’s immune to Shady’s charms, and there’s one other trait we’ll see when he reaches his breaking point. We also saw more of Laurie and Corry Veniti, hopefully in a way that was natural enough. Of note, Laurie is an artist, and she’s gradually becoming more self-assured, even as Corry insists on protecting her.

Tim’s father now has a law firm, because I realized there had to be a time message from somewhen for this to work, and Tim’s family was the least developed. Luci’s “saw it on TV” letter reference at the time is a call back to “Quantum Leap”, season four (and more Scott Bakula). Speaking of Luci, she also got a bit more screen time here, in terms of revealing some insecurities. In her own way, she’s as accustomed to being in control as Corry or Julie, and right now control eludes her.

Amusingly, it’s the two people with the LEAST screen time right now - Carrie and Julie - who are at the centre of everything! Of course, it means they’ll be that much more prominent in the final arc of this book. And then there’s the new/returning character, “Shady”. He seems to be driving the plot…

Plot-wise: So, how much DO you believe Shady? For the moment, let’s grant him his “future war”, which is apparently not against robots. That old adage of “History is written by the victors” takes on an additional possible meaning here, in that the victors could literally be those who rewrite history. Then is it possible that “the victors” is whichever group has Carrie on their side? Or did you prefer Luci’s “guinea pig” version of events?

The two time travel theories from Part 10 are also at war here - parallel time tracks (Shady can change the past?) versus self consistency (Julie was always fated to die?). As you can see, I twisted Julie’s prophecy. SOMEONE was always fated to die… not necessarily Julie. She was never mentioned by name. But if I’ve adopted “twisted” self consistency, what of Shady awakening Carrie’s power early? While it all makes sense in my head, please point out logical flaws or plot holes if you see any. As “Cesium Comics” points out, time travel is confusing.

This last arc of upcoming episodes will be shorter. My original season was 22 episodes, meaning 44 parts, but I split the Books at Episode 12 (Part 24), as that made more narrative sense. Meaning only 10 episodes for Book 2 - but putting “The Pilot” back in gives us 11. So there are only 4 Parts left… possibly five, as Episode 22 (The Finale) is a bit longer than the others, and I’m tempted to split off an “Epilogue” as Part 47. Do you think that’s a good idea?

Parts 37/38 were originally called “Coming Together”, so “Geography and Geometry” was added. Parts 39/40 were originally called “Reparations” (both on the machine and on relationships), so I added “Recovery Mode” (also a play on recovering the machine, and recovering from recent events). And Parts 41/42 were called “Rescue Efforts”, so I added “Tied in Naughts” (what with the “Tied” to destiny thing).

Coming This Friday: FINAL ARC, 2.4 and “Desperate Times”

“Time & Tied” PARTS 31 & 32

1. Original Date Of Completion: JUL 12, 2001
2. What I Was Doing: Looking For Work
3. Changes of note: -Fixed inconsistent timeline about 3 or 4 days -A bit more emphasis on Carrie’s role in paradox

“Time & Tied” PARTS 33 & 34

1. Original Date Of Completion: JUL 18, 2001
2. What I Was Doing: Looking For Work
3. Changes of note: -Retooling of Julie’s conversation with Clarke -Adjusted the shooting to be from Carrie’s perspective

“Time & Tied” PARTS 35 & 36

1. Original Date Of Completion: AUG 7, 2001
2. What I Was Doing: Looking For Work
3. Changes of note: -Actual explanation of where Frank’s parents were for Mr Waterson -Longer stretch of time between the shooting and later events -Complete rewrite of Frank/Shady dialogue; the original meandered, and they both looked incompetent. Switched to three questions only format. -Shady’s Algonquin Park reference placed in this part, rather than later

ABOUT THE WRITING

Content-wise, this past trilogy of episodes (in six parts) represents the last of the writing I did between graduating from University, and getting my first full time teaching job. While I did start Episode 18 (and possibly even made it through the upcoming Part 37) in August of 2001, ultimately I shifted gears and wrote “The Pilot” instead. That’s what appeared here previously as Parts 25 and 26 to lead off Book 2. (See Commentary 13 for more information there.) What this means is, you’re now caught up chronologically… Parts 1-36 were all written from October 2000, through to the end of 2001.

As I mentioned in this prior post, I posted the update for Julie’s birthday literally on that date this year, November 12th. Which is the same date in 1955 from “Back to the Future”! Kudos if you picked up on that - it wasn’t a total fluke. Here’s why. The five main characters were all given birthdays when I updated their character file in March 2001. I did this by first slotting them into astrological symbols (which I actually did for more than the main five), then I “randomly” chose a date from 1984 - and I use quote marks, because I had them all born on a Monday.

I’m not sure exactly why I did that. I do remember using my calendar program (no apps back then) to investigate 1984 (except 1986 for Luci), seeing it actually aligned well with 2001 (when the story took place)… for instance, November 12th, 1984 was a Monday and then it turned out that November 12th, 2001 was also a Monday. Since Julie was a Scorpio, she got it for a birthday, and then it only made sense narratively for Corry to use her birthday in a dramatic way.

Able to follow that chain? Incidentally, Monday is also when I always had evening band practice back in high school, which is why Luci and Chartreuse went to band practice here. Of course, having stripped out the hard YEAR dates, this could now be taking place on a Thursday, for all we know. But we know Nov 12th IS a school day! This eliminates such years as 2005, 2006, 2011, and in fact the next two years, 2016 and 2017 (when Nov 12th is on a weekend). Good thing I’m posting this in 2015, or I might get letters, huh? … … Yeah, no. I never get letters.

BACKGROUND CHECK

Still on the topic of supplementals to the story, you can see another example of my older drawings off to the right. It’s the “closing still” for the show that I envisioned, over which credits would be rolling. The heads are too big for the torsos, and I’m not sure what’s happening with people’s knees, but getting multiple people in one shot was impressive for me at the time. Heights, relative to others, were a pain (and still are).

The drawing was actually planned out rather painstakingly. I still have the pages showing the different pieces, and I’m pretty sure the final picture was made by overlapping sheets and doing some tracing. I first scanned the image in immediately before “Part 32” was completed, on July 11, 2001. Hence why I’m including it here now, even though the image is worse than my usual fare.

The other relevant behind-the-scenes element featured in this latest arc was middle names. I’d always had the idea of using middle names to distinguish time displaced characters. That’s why Carrie’s middle name is “Elizabeth”, and has been since almost Day 1: It’s a hugely versatile name, should I ever need 6 Carries in a room at once. (Which Chartreuse felt like lampshading in her dialogue, apparently.)

Frank got my middle name, “Bernard”, which was indeed the name of my grandfather. “Isabella” simply sounded nice for Luci - which already came up when Linquist abducted her, so she need not have worried about Carrie. I didn’t plan those out in advance. In fact, that’s as far as I got back then - Chartreuse couldn’t go on a time trip yet, not until she provided me with a middle name! Though with her, odds are good that it’s a colour.

For those who are curious about the other birthdays: Carrie, March 26th (Aries). Frank, Sept 3rd (Virgo). Luci, Feb 3rd (Aquarius). Clarke, July 16th (Cancer). And Julie, Nov 12th (Scorpio). Further, the Veniti twins were born May 21 (Gemini, naturally), which I noted back when Julie was goading Corry in Arc 2.1. Chartreuse is a Pisces. Lee might be a Sagittarius. At this point, they’d all be born around the turn of the century, when I was actually writing this - or later, depending on when you discover the story. Gaaah, where did my youth go.

SPOILER SECTION

Spoilers for Book 1

Character-wise: Let me be clear up front that my parents are wonderful, I call them nearly every Sunday, I have two younger sisters, and girls rock. Julie’s character is in no way reflecting my beliefs about anything, nor those of anyone I know. But we’ve seen now that this story includes perhaps the worst parents, and the most twisted little suicide plot you could ever come up with.

One reason for Julie’s father becoming such a misogynist jerk might have been a need to double down on the parent plot. After all, you probably had a sense that Julie’s parents were the driving force behind her problems - she shut down Carrie when they were brought up in Part 28, etc. So that revelation wouldn’t be a surprise. This level of vitriol? May have been a bit more unexpected. Particularly when coupled with the “fake” attitude her parents display to her peers, on their (rare) visits to town, and the fact that they can demonstrate caring for EACH OTHER. But not to Julie.

Most damning of all, is that Julie’s parents kind of have a POINT. Not about her worth, but I’m dubious that Julie’s actions actually demonstrate that she can run a school, or a company. Julie has no sense of the human element involved. Heck, do teenagers ever really know what such “real life” things are like? Granted, this HAD to be the worst way for her parents to convey that lesson to her. This story has finally found it’s villains, in the elder LaMilles! Or… in Shady? Ah yes, what’s his deal?

Shady finally gets some character time. He was first seen WAY back in Book 1, Part 6 - and not really since then. Yet he seems to be trying to influence things, and if we assume he’s the same guy from the library, he didn’t seem to affect Lee. Hmmm. Was he the same guy? (By the way, did you foresee Lee’s mental immunity when he spoke of blocking alien mind control rays back in Part 23? No? Still surprising you with little details? Good.) We will be seeing more of Lee because of this.

Incidentally, Lars also returned, this time with a van. You might not recall him from a brief cameo at the airport back in Part 3, since if you picked up on THAT, you have a very good memory! Don’t worry, such really obscure things don’t impact the plot. Unless I change my mind about them later!

Plot-wise: The plot is also becoming tied into Shady. He knows about Julie’s actions, so at best he’s a voyeur, and at worst he’s the one who made that call to her (the one Frank doesn’t know about). Oh, and speaking of Julie’s actions, Carrie got shot. Since I know remarkably little about guns, I was trying to stay away from the medical as much as I could while still hopefully being believable. (Having since watched “Sherlock”, and for that matter the 2015 premiere of “NCIS”, I don’t think I’m that far off. At least in terms of fictional storytelling.)

The shooting, by the way, was no surprise to me. That’s why Chartreuse could have a vision of it AGES ago. The fallout that results, this where things got a little more blurry, hence my decision to “spoof” the situation with Hank’s writing at the start of Part 35. I am the sort of person who will write myself into a corner, and then spend days meditating on how to fix the problems I created. If I don’t know, you don’t know, right? Surely this counts for something - come on, I was shooting main characters before shows like “Sherlock” and “NCIS” made it cool!

I will leave you now with a final puzzle: How exactly does the time machine work? Sure, we’ve seen how it locates in time based on the coin used, but what about in space? Luci pointed out a lot of those problems back in Book 1, and offered work-arounds, but the original programming question has never been resolved. You now have all the pieces. The truth will come in the next part. Hint: Even if you never read Book 1, you saw what happened spatially when they traveled to the future! Extra hint, I’m a math teacher.

Parts 31/32 were originally called “Past Meets Future”, the “Frequent Flyers” addition was a reference to the Julie flyer and resuming time trips. Parts 33/34 were originally called “Julie’s Secret”, I included “Shots Fired” for obvious reasons. Parts 35/36 were called “The Wounded”, now followed by “Question Everything”.

Coming This Friday: ARC 2.3 and “Geography & Geometry”

Back when I was in high school, I used to pick up coins I found in the hall. I kept them in a tin in my room, and categorized them at the end of the school year. It was mostly pennies, as this was when Canada still had pennies, and they were the most likely coin to be discarded. At present, while I am back in high school (teaching), I don’t collect coins in the halls any more. But in putting this story online, I have once again started paying closer attention to the coins that cross my path.

Back on July 19th, in Commentary 08, I said Frank and Carrie probably had “around twenty” present day coins “by the middle of September”. Which I called myself out on as being implausible. Then on October 12th, I commented on my own post there, saying I’d obtained 7 quarters from 2015 without trying over the prior month. So what if I had been trying? What if I had actively returned to a store where I got a 2015 quarter and made another purchase that required 80 cents as change?

[caption id=“attachment_668” align=“alignright” width=“300”] 20 coins on Nov 12, 2015[/caption]

I don’t know. But we’re another month on now, so here’s a picture of the 2015 coins that I’ve amassed as of November 12th. Again without really trying (though a couple of the two dollar coins I exchanged for older ones as they passed through me to an account). Hey, did you know there are three different types of 2015 toonies in circulation? I’ve since obtained another nickel. So… if I had a time machine, that’s potentially 20 trips! (Assuming a return to the present.)

Maybe it’s a good year. Maybe it’s because I’m in Canada’s Capital region. Maybe it’s always like this now. Maybe I’ll keep monitoring.

HIT AND MISS

[caption id=“attachment_669” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Mon Nov 9-Sun Nov 15[/caption]

I don’t get why Wordpress felt the need to put a decimal point on the vertical scale. It’s not like I can get HALF a hit to my webpage, these are discrete values! (Are they obligated to use at least two digit numbers?) The mathematician in me is shaking my head. Oh well. More to the point, this meant that as of last Thursday, I had less than 25 views for over 50% of the month.

Now, since that time, I ended up mumbling about stats on someone else’s thread in the Web Fiction Guide forums, and from that my monthly views more than doubled in 48 hours. A few people even said something over there. Possibly the problem is with my site design. Possibly making my amateur art a “featured image” was a bad move (I’ve been thinking of doing simple “head shots”). But possibly not. The crickets don’t tell me much aside from chirp chirp.

The upshot being, don’t be surprised if things shift around… or not. For the record, our next formal “ARC” commentary will be in two weeks' time. This Friday, we’ll see how bad the time travel serial fares when it’s time machine is gone and it’s protagonist is in the hospital. Thanks for the read!

“Time & Tied” PARTS 25 & 26

1. Original Date Of Completion: DEC 19, 2001
2. What I Was Doing: Teaching ESL Math & Science
3. Changes of note: -This was a “pilot episode”, thus got hacked to pieces. See “More Issues” below.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 27 & 28 1. Original Date Of Completion: JUL 1, 2001 2. What I Was Doing: Looking For Work 3. Changes of note: -Story used to be framed between a Clarke/Laurie conversation, rather than having it only at the end.

“Time & Tied” PARTS 29 & 30

ABOUT THE WRITING

SPOILER PARAGRAPH: It didn’t make sense (to me) to start a new book with a time machine that prematurely ages Luci, largely because that’s not how the time travel really works going forwards. My initial thought was to shuffle chronologically, to start with Grade 9 (27/28) then Grade 10 (25/26) then the present (29/30). The problem with THAT is the lack of time travel to start the book, plus it meant two Luci-centred episodes back-to-back. So, you got the order as presented. The “Pilot Episode” was meant to be an introduction to the whole story anyway. I hope it works.

The “Pilot Episode” itself (Parts 25/26) came about for two main reasons. The first was a desire to find an entry point for new readers. I had created a whole universe of characters, and temporal rules, but it took 24 parts (a half season) to get there! I needed something that would display all these characters and plot points at once. Something which would make people want to go back and read from the beginning - without massively spoiling anything that had come before.

The second reason for the pilot was a job I got in September 2001, as a teacher for ESL students in Math and Science, at a private school. This cut into my writing time, which meant the story caught up with me. Recall that, from 2000, I was writing about “the future of October 2001” - yet that future became NOW. Then the PAST. But as that happened, the pilot was already in the past, as it took place in 2000. While this might be insight in retrospect, I think there was some added comfort in not writing a future story that was happening in the present.

MORE ISSUES

In addition to that, the narrative had a fair bit of Luci (both past and future versions) thinking about things. As the leader of a writing workshop at Queen’s University remarked (when I showed the first page of the “pilot” to them in 2002), there should be more show, less tell. Don’t have Luci worrying about fitting in, show that she’s not actually doing it. So I decided I had to hack the whole thing down to a more reasonable length. There’s only two cut sections I feel bad about.

SPOILER PARAGRAPH: The first cut was a very short piece with Tim, after Luci talked to Clarke. It helped to set up the meeting at the cafe later, and give Tim some lines (the poor guy’s really neglected), but I deemed it superfluous. The second was dialogue between Luci and Chartreuse before the scene in the cafeteria. Chartreuse agrees to take Laurie to lunch, on account of “Luci’s aura being somehow displaced”. I hated to lose that, because Chartreuse. But it didn’t make sense to start Part 26 that way, when the emphasis there needed to be on getting to the mansion.

If you’re REALLY curious, the original “Time Trippers Pilot Episode” is at this link right here, so you can compare. There you have it; there really isn’t much else to say on the writing side, beyond the “changes of note” at the top. I suppose I can point out that I’m trying something new with the drawing, using a “featured image” and repeating a picture across both updates. How’s that working out on the reader side?

SPOILER SECTION

Spoilers

Character-wise: We are focussing more on Julie and Corry in this Book, for reasons that will shortly become apparent. We saw their first meeting (Part 27), their first major confrontation (Part 28), and how they operate (Parts 25/26). If you are picking up on the fact that Julie’s parents seem to be a factor, pat yourself on the back - but don’t be so sure you know the depth of things. Remember, according to Luci’s time trip, somehow the servants play a role too.

Julie also cut her arm. Things got dark. To say they will get worse is an understatement. After all, if you’ve read Book 1, you may recall Chartreuse had a vision of a gun. Now, for the record, I cut myself too, back in University - but guns, those are outside my comfort zone. So there is NO mass shooting in this story. In case that makes you feel better about reading on.

The other main character who got time this arc is Luci. She has her own nest of psychological issues now, from fitting in socially, to being abducted by a crazy person, to understanding romance, to (eventually) having to time travel back to knock out her past self. It’s perhaps worth mentioning that there is scientific basis for mental and emotional growth to occur asynchronously, though I wasn’t consciously including it. In fact I should probably feel worse about the things I’m doing to the youngest cast member. At any rate, you might sense that Luci’s interactions with Frank and Carrie are different going forwards.

Plot-wise: In terms of continuity, everything ties into the Julie/Corry arcs. The ‘conversation’ with Clarke that Julie references in Part 27 took place from his perspective back in Part 11 (Phil Doubt), and the broken swan Carrie talks about shortly thereafter is the same one from Part 1. We also saw Sue here (with Corry), but it was said in Part 7 that she was reporting to Julie. Oh, and the time machine’s back! (It broke in Part 20.) Just in time for the Corry/Julie friction to reach it’s apex. On Julie’s birthday.

Going forward, we will finally see the “Shady” character again (remember him?), and learn more of Carrie’s part in all of this. Bear with me, I play the long game. Random extra trivia: The book Frank reads (by Paul J. Nahin) in Part 25 is one I own, and when I was in the high school band, we tried to raise money by selling christmas ornaments one year. So that’s based in reality.

Parts 25/26 were simply called “The Pilot”, but when I stripped the dates out into a ‘book’ form, I used the chapter header “Time Zones”. I don’t recall why - pun on zoning out maybe? Thus “Missing Piece” was the addition. Parts 27/28 were originally called “Flashbacks”, so I added “History Lesson”. And Parts 29/30 were called “Growing Pains”, so I added “Search and Rescue”.

Coming This Friday: ARC 2.2 and “Past Meets Future”

“Time & Tied” PARTS 23 & 24

ABOUT BOOK ONE: AWARENESS

I hope you find this journey has been worth it so far. If you watched the early Season One episodes for “Agents of SHIELD” - well, it’s a bit like that. There may have been some episodes in “AWARENESS” you could skip, but it’s all part of the broader canvas. Something massive IS incoming… and we’re about to get darker, psychologically. Take where Carrie was at mentally in Part 23, dial it up another notch, and you’re getting closer.

Given all that - this website is going to immediately push through into Book 2: ESCALATION. (My other option was to insert another “Epsilon Project”.) There’s two good reasons for this decision. The first is that I’m also working on a Personified Math Webcomic in my now non-abundant spare time. That involves drawing, and with this pre-written (and now mostly pre-edited after Summer 2015), that’s also the case here. Related: I’ll be cutting back these Commentaries to only remark on a full arc of six parts. In part because I’m not sure I have as much to say about the history at this point, but also because they take time and don’t seem to be helping much for traffic.

The second reason to push on is the fact that Books 1 & 2 were originally envisioned as a single season anyway. Which brings up it’s own obvious question of, why even jump to a new book? Why not continue “Book 1”? Well… because there’s about to be a time jump of a couple weeks, along with a shift away from Carrie’s character. It’s also (I believe) a natural break, being halfway through the intended narrative. And most of all, some won’t read a serial unless a “set” is completed, and I’m hoping that I can snare some other people at the start of Book 2.

Wattpad fizzled out (it didn’t help that their editor began to remove all carriage returns). I may try Tumblr this time. Book 2 is, I emphasize, a perfectly good time to start reading. Granted, knowing “Book 1” means you’ll get more out “Book 2” context-wise (for instance, when there’s mention of Julie’s history with Phil, you’ll have actually seen it). But it can also mark a fresh start for the broader audience… or am I deluding myself there? Time will tell. Speaking of which…

ABOUT PARTS 23 & 24

Character-wise, Carrie’s arc is complete. (Plot-wise, it’s barely begun, but even there, a lot of the setup is finished.) She’s now with Frank and Luci, and on slightly better terms with her father. Julie’s arc, and it’s connection to Corry and Clarke, is about to fully launch. All the other main characters had episodes more than arcs to this point, with Lee and Tim in particular having relatively minor roles. Their roles will expand.

Plot-wise, we have Chartreuse’s vision as an unresolved event (though maybe her interceding with the locker changed things?), as well as Corry’s song choice (but that was all in the background), and Julie’s meeting with Hunt (although she implied it had been semi-resolved). Everything else has dissolved into a waiting game. Until the time machine returns, as Frank indicated - to this point, it’s been a catalyst, speeding up people’s reactions. You’ll see where that leads things next book.

Had you pegged Julie as the one to set up the drugs, over Corry? Did you at all foresee Corry bringing Carrie over to his side? Basically, am I still surprising you? I’m doing my best here. My “Web Fiction Guide” review also haunts me - are the characters weak? I’ve decided that even if they are, they’re real to me. Plus John Golden tweeted at me once about enjoying Carrie’s arc, so yay.

Episode 12 was originally called “Understandings”. Because many pairs of characters reach understandings: Chartreuse and Corry, Carrie and Frank, Carrie and Corry. I called the first part “Rock Bottom” for lack of anything really witty. It described Carrie’s situation though, and a little bit my own feelings about this story sometimes. I have to stop looking at the page statistics. (Only one page was viewed once, between Monday and Thursday last week.)

Up next, Book 2. Even as the story shifts to Julie, we’ll learn about Carrie’s destiny, so “Time & Tied” will start making sense as a title. Watch their world get a lot darker and messier with: ESCALATION.

Coming This Friday: ARC 2.1 and the episode “Missing Piece”

“Time & Tied” PARTS 21 & 22

STATS ROUNDUP

Well… let’s say this post is my warning to any who think their fortunes will improve by publishing online fiction.

Individual days are full of variability. Some days no hits (like Thu Aug 27), other days have hits, my August peak being 20 on the 8th. (Then zero on the 9th…) Basically, let’s grab an overall “monthly” view, to clear out the static. For context: My first serial “Numbers Game” ran from Sept 2014 to Nov 2014 (3 months). My second serial “Wish Fulfilment” ran from Dec 2014 to March 2015 (4 months). “Time & Tied” has been going since April 2015.

[caption id=“attachment_560” align=“aligncenter” width=“620”] Exact #s 2014: 6, 156, 100, 118, 119; 2015: 119, 133, 108, 282, 359, 355, 147. Final Aug Count: 144[/caption]

Your first instinct might be to say “T&T” was received better… but there’s two events disguising the truth. The first was the “April Fools Swap”, where I wrote an episode for “Legion of Nothing” and Lucy Weaver wrote an episode for me. I got over 50 views (56) on April 1. (Never happened before, or since.) And that was before T&T got going. Though I’ll grant that some of the 147 views that week might have been for Part 1 here.

The second event was Billy Higgins (of Godpunk and more) writing a review for Web Fiction Guide, on May 20th, shortly after T&T was listed on their site. Again, for the week of May 18th, I got a spike in views (to 109), over 30 of them coming on the 21st. EXCEPT most didn’t return in June to read more parts. Related, May saw 55 total referrals from “Web Fiction Guide” - a number which plummeted to 9 in June (under Twitter, which had 17). This explains the spikes in April and May. So why is June high in terms of views?

Depressingly, there is some bizarre script/bot out there, and almost EVERY day in June, it would hit Parts 6, 7 and 8. Only those. Over and over. PART 5? ZERO HITS. Parts 6, 7 and 8? 29 hits each. PART 9? ZERO HITS. Based on this, remove at least 115 of the views (the bot was also hitting the commentary between 6 and 7). Alternatively, something of more relevance: T&T PART 1 saw 12 hits in June. PART 2? NONE. Zero hits there since May. No one kept reading.

ANY GOOD NEWS?

[caption id=“attachment_559” align=“alignright” width=“254”] Lyn (linear) & Carrie[/caption]

This means the majority of people who continued to #2 - went further. At least a bit. And those who stopped saw less than half the main characters, so they couldn’t have hated Chartreuse. Moreover, it wasn’t until after I went to ConBravo that I tidied up my homepage with the READ MORE links, so maybe people didn’t click individually, and read on the homepage! There may be more than … Okay, Part 20 only has 5 hits. Is it good or bad that I know none of them could be relatives?

I also have 3 people following/subscribed to my blog, so they wouldn’t show up in the stats. The Facebook page has 5 likes. Can we make a case for 6 people somehow? Because the largest number of votes I EVER got in “Epsilon” was 6 (back in “Wish Fulfilment”, part 3), so MAYBE we can make a case for me being no WORSE than I was many months ago? … Look, personified math is doing okay, so it can’t be that the writing seriously sucks. Can it?

I’m pretty sure it’s my (lack of good) marketing. Also Wildbow (at Web Fiction Guide) has pointed out that his popular “Worm” serial took over a year to get passable stats and feedback. And while the first ever comment I got on an actual PART of T&T was only last week, I do get some remarks through Twitter, and Scott’s commented on Commentaries like this one, and I had that one WFG review. So… I don’t know, progress since “Epsilon”?? Oh look, a straw. grasps

Again, this post is my warning to any who think their fortunes will improve by publishing online fiction. Thanks for coming out, maybe spread the word, let’s move on.

ABOUT PARTS 21 & 22

Spoilers

It was a bit tempting to end this Book after Part 21, with Chartreuse falling unconscious. Because (along with Corry’s previous song) we’re already into foreshadowing Book 2, plus at this stage a new book may be my only chance to rope people in. But while that would be a fun tease for me, it wouldn’t be a very nice wrap-up, seeing as we’re not quite done with Carrie. Her arc is almost complete, so two more parts/weeks remain.

As I alluded to in the last commentary, Carrie’s self-revelation was originally here, after the final betrayal by Julie. The revisions work better (at least in my opinion) as it means Carrie changed more because of herself, and less because of the external actions. (“You’ve changed” was an addition I put into Julie’s dialogue.) Also useful was that Part 20 provided a better chance for inner reflection by Carrie, as compared to what happened here.

Plot-wise, Julie now knows most of the things about the time machine that Carrie, Frank and Luci do. (I thought it was worth including that Julie-Carrie conversation when writing part 21, partly to remind readers of the facts. Don’t know if I needed to?) Add Clarke, and here’s our core five characters. Meanwhile, we must now add Chartreuse and Tim to the circle of those who suspect something, with Corry, Laurie and Lee only involved on the periphery. Their time is coming.

Why drugs in the locker? At the time, I wanted an offence that could get a person suspended, but not kicked out - or arrested. I don’t THINK teenagers raiding medicine cabinets for prescription medications was a thing during the initial writing (though I do know I saw it in a CSI: Miami episode at some point in the 2000s), but either way, I felt it worked well enough. Being a teacher, I also think things are more lenient in the present than they were fifteen years ago. It’s not so simple to get kicked out of school, “no child left behind” and all that; Hunt’s dialogue has had minor rewrites over time.

Character-wise, you probably didn’t NEED a reason to hate Julie and Corry even more. That said, there’s a bit more to that dynamic coming. Meanwhile, I’m also not sure if you needed a reason to LIKE Chartreuse even more, but whether it’s putting herself in danger or bringing people together, she’s become a real break-out character. Not bad for someone who had no last name when created! Incidentally, knowing which classes the students were all taking (in their schedules, as mentioned in Commentary 08) helped in writing here, to get a sense of who would see what.

[caption id=“attachment_529” align=“alignright” width=“146”] Chartreuse[/caption]

One last note - I decided to play around with images a bit this time too (after starting that math webcomic on August 3rd, my drawing needs work). Chartreuse was looking up - and I made her nightdress a version of “Vermilion” (red-orange) after the green (“chartreuse”) dress of the dance. Laurie’s clothes are the same colour pattern as Carrie’s last outfit, a nod to how she likes her fellow cheerleader. And Carrie’s face in profile is the first time I’ve attempted a profile image in ALL my drawing of the last five years. So… publishing this isn’t completely for naught. I guess.

Episode 11 was originally called “Serious Matters”. Even Chartreuse got serious! The second part I titled “Locker Up” for the obvious pun (“lock her up”, as well as the “locker” being the next plot point coming “up”). Next, Carrie’s circle of friends officially shifts away from Julie, concluding the arc and the book. But with a final twist that I hope you won’t anticipate.

Coming This Friday: “Rock Bottom”

“Time & Tied” PARTS 19 & 20

OPENING SEQUENCE

1) I never really knew what the “music with a good beat” might be. Then in 2004 came the Japanese visual novel “Shuffle!” (which later became an anime). WOW. That theme works. Even the visuals work - from the arrows (like timelines) to some of the words (“the innumerable possibilities”) to there being five main characters. LOVE. (Primula even has Luci’s twintails!) It works so much better than mine; I would merely need to replace their static images with what I have below. Well, and copyright issues. Here’s a link to check it out though.

2) The image I scanned in below is one I drew back in 2001. It was meant to be a commercial buffer image - sort of like how “Stargate” flashes up that image with that DUN-DUN-DUN-DUN-DUN-DUN vamp when going to break. In the context of this serial, it would have been appearing in between two consecutive parts (as two parts make up a single half hour episode). Yeah, my drawing kinda sucked, that’s partly why I’m showing it to you - see how much I’ve maybe kinda improved? (For that matter, I also overuse the word “suddenly” in the OP below! See? Progress??)

3) Finally, Facebook is kind of making fun of me. There’s a bit at the start of the OP where we ‘zoom in on Carrie’s body’ (rather than her head), to annoy her. And whenever I post updates to Facebook, the images I add to each post invariably crop to show the middle third. Well, seeing as I tend to sketch waist-to-head, that would be a zoom on Carrie’s chest. Really, Facebook? You had to parody my 2001 opening sequence back at me? (In fact, for Part 20, it happened not only on Facebook but Twitter too! I can’t win.)

SEASON ONE

-Current date for when episode is starting out flashes on the screen three times.

-In place of fourth flash, some music with a good beat jumps in as we have a close up on a blonde with long hair and a blue hairband, smiling. Pull back somewhat to note she’s in a gym, dressed like a cheerleader, waving pompoms and kicking her legs in the air. -Zoom back in but away from her face. Before getting too close the blonde ducks back into the frame looking mildly irritated and she throws a pompom towards the screen. It fills the view, obscuring everything. Blur effect as if camera is spinning away. -Refocus on a guy with short brown hair wearing glasses, working at measuring something out of a flask onto an apparatus in what might be a chem lab. He looks up, smiles amiably and waves with his free hand. He then adjusts his glasses and looks back down at his flask, pouring a few more drops of liquid out. An explosion results, smoke obscuring everything.

-Suddenly through the smoke comes the blonde from before, sitting on the covering for an enlarged open pocketwatch with the hands spinning around behind her in both directions, out of control. In her lap, the blonde has something vaguely resembling a cash register but it’s totally black with a lever on the ride. View parallels her briefly but she quickly outdistances us off one side of the screen and we are momentarily left with a view of the chain from the pocketwatch. Suddenly the guy with the glasses comes into view, and he’s clinging onto the chain with both hands while being buffeted about by wind. -Pull back to a wider screen shot to see both characters, at the same time seeing that the backdrop isn’t smoke anymore, but is in fact a grey thundercloud. The pocketwatch turns and makes a flyby over a high school, the weather now generally seeming rather dismal and stormy. The characters riding the pocketwatch have begun moving perpendicular to our view, getting smaller. Then lightning flashes, sound of thunder and the view suddenly drops down and zooms into a classroom window.

[caption id=“attachment_510” align=“alignright” width=“206”] COMMERCIAL BUMPER (c) 2001
Why am I showing you this?! >.<[/caption]

-Standing there is a girl with medium length brown hair which is naturally curly, wearing a somewhat conservative sweater and skirt. She turns and folds her arms over her chest, tapping her foot on the ground, with an expression indicating annoyance and general discontent with being observed. Pursing her lips, she jerks her gaze up and to the right and we follow her gaze to where there is a taller athletic looking blonde guy with relatively long hair standing nearby. He simply shrugs then gestures towards the door, reaching for the doorknob. -He opens the door and we go through it and turn, proceeding down a high school hallway, sweeping back and forth across it, dodging around people. The various types here are either walking by or are at their lockers and include a sad faced smaller guy who just stares quietly, fraternal twins with near identically styled shoulder-length red hair who lift their eyebrows in passing, a girl with colourful bows in her hair who seems to be meditating, and a guy with unruly hair smiling absurdly who gives us a thumbs up. At the end of the hall we encounter a wall, and standing in front of it is a fairly short oriental girl with dark hair brought back into two small ponytails. She is looking down. We partially zoom in, she looks up and blinks, then without otherwise changing her expression, lifts up a finger to point towards the right. Turning in this direction and exiting through a set of doors in the process, we find ourselves back outside the school, except it’s sunny.

-A car drives by, we zoom in to the man at the wheel, he’s looking sort of depressed and vacant, not acknowledging our presence. Shift view through the windshield and somehow he’s now driving up to a house. We depart the car and spin around the residence to the backyard. The blonde and the guy with the glasses are there, sitting in front of the device that was in the blonde’s lap before. The blonde drops a coin in, pulls the lever and a new background crashes down behind them, that of an airport. The process is immediately repeated by the blonde about ten times in quick succession with various backgrounds dropping down including a ravine, a 50s style hotel lobby, a van about to hit them, a sky full of clouds and possibly a few more. -Finally an image of the school drops down behind them. The brown haired guy grabs the machine as the blonde grabs his arm and they run towards the building. We follow them in, though now they’re no longer in physical contact. They hurry down a hall and turn into a classroom where everyone seen inside the school before is now sitting, posed in two rows but with space in the middle front. The two characters who just ran in quickly move to fill the space. Flash snapshot effect.

-Pull back to take note of the frozen picture, making it slightly offcentre on the screen and revealing a caption underneath it reading “Homeroom 3; Class of 1950”. The 1950 is only there for a split second though, as the last two numbers quickly scroll up through the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s, slowing through the 90s before finally ticking over to 2000 then 2001. Music concludes.

ABOUT PARTS 19 & 20

Spoilers

Carrie may not be the nicest person. That said, this episode was NOT originally her moment of self revelation (it would have been two parts later). Still, since the only review I’ve had over at “Web Fiction Guide” points to weak characters, with Carrie a problematic protagonist right from the start - more so than I might have thought - it made sense to me to rewrite things to have Carrie convert a touch earlier. Why?

In large part because the next four parts are denouement/setup for Book 2 - and with the few additional thoughts I’ve given Carrie over the last several parts, her personality peaking now coincides nicely with the machine breaking. Which did happen. The time machine is now broken. So honestly, Book 1 will finish up using the characters as the plot. Meaning if they’re weak, and/or you hate them, I AM SO SCREWED in terms of you sticking around. Which kind of terrifies me.

Then again, there’s always Book 2! The time travel will be back, so you can take a breather and jump ahead to that if you like; it would merely be like watching Season 2 of “Buffy” or “Stargate” without seeing all of Season 1. I think. But enough about my insecurities.

What was in the unchanged episode 10? WELL. For the first time, lots. Carrie was more upset with Luci, and less with herself. Ironically, to force Carrie to turn deeper inwards, Luci became even more antagonistic here, to the point where you being upset with Luci’s bluntness might have been equally justified. (The “meanest cheerleader” line wasn’t originally there, among others.) Also, originally the perspective when the machine breaks was from Frank. It obviously had to shift to Carrie, for her to be mentally reflecting upon her actions, all of which was new.

The ramped up Carrie/Luci dialogue then made Frank’s job of mediator even harder. My character push for him involves going from avoiding social interaction to needing to deal with conflict resolution. Somewhat ineffectually to start here, as he tries to please both Carrie and Luci at once, despite them both having a stronger Willpower stat than he does. (He also isn’t rolling high. He wasn’t doing well in the original ep 10 either, but now he’s having to physically restrain people.) Meanwhile, there’s still Julie, the master manipulator. Her plan was to get Carrie and Frank reacting to her, rather than taking action. I’d call that plan a success - it’s the only thing that didn’t get a revamp! (Well, okay, the bit with Hank Waterson didn’t change much either. Parents - they exist!)

Plot-wise, one could argue that a trip back to earlier than Friday’s dance might be an option to prevent what Julie did - but she’s been putting in lots of redundancies going forwards. After all, she’s confined to linear time, and had no idea of the limitations there were to Carrie’s time travel. Had no idea… UNTIL NOW. Mwa ha ha. Yeah, Carrie running to Julie at the end not only makes sense for her personality, but helps me out narratively, as you’ll see. Incidentally, I kept Julie’s dialogue reference to “time trippers”, but I swear “time and tied” will eventually make sense too.

Episode 10 was originally called “Fallout”, so I inserted “Dance Dance Redux” as part 19 and kept “Fallout” as part 20. The title name is meant to imply both the ‘fallout’ from the dance, as well as the ‘falling out’ between Carrie and Frank over the machine. Up next, how are the Veniti twins handling recent events? (Hint: Badly.)

Coming This Friday: Serious Matters

“Time & Tied” PARTS 17 & 18

SONG LYRICS

I DID have experience writing PARODY songs before this part was done, because I used to write for FASS at the University of Waterloo (stands for Faculty, Alumni, Staff and Students). This is a theatre group who, every year, write an entire musical, which rehearses in January, then is performed for 4 shows in February. The songs within are usually parodies of pop music, but occasionally featured original music too. I was part of this group from 1997-2002.

In fact, I was chief scriptwriter for 2001’s show… which for the first time makes me realize I was writing Episodes 1-4 while co-ordinating a lot of other writers, and how the HECK did I manage to pull off Episode 5 during the month of rehearsals? Huh. Anyway, point being I’d written song parodies; I think my first two were written in 1999, and performed at the show in 2000. A lot of it is hearing rhythms, using misheard lyrics to your advantage, and finding a good “rhyme dictionary” to assist.

I’m still doing parody lyric writing - for mathematics. I stumbled back into it when I was considering “transformation” music for my personified math characters. From 2011 to 2015, I’ve come up with nearly 30 completed parodies. Life is weird.

What follows is Corry’s song in full. It’s not QUITE as in the episode (in that repeating the Chorus in text seemed disingenuous), and I’ve included a bit (in italics) from a file I found from 2001, done as I was working on it. As to a title… maybe “Outta Time”? After all, “Don’t Stop Believin’” only name drops at the end.

OUTTA TIME

CHORUS: I’m three days older than I was last night Wondering if I put wrong what once went right And I would hit rewind but time’s being unkind Destinies intertwined now I’m losing my mind!

I can speak of tomorrow but not yesterday For when history changes your past goes away I altered one thing that was causing me strife The tapestry tore changing everyone’s life

Maybe that’s fine, maybe it’s not, Who draws the line, who calls the shot?

While in progress: The forces at work I cannot understand And I’m not the only one brand/hand/band You’d better beware Time won’t always play fair **

Is there some higher power involved around here? I don’t know if they helped or are something to fear. I see now that these forces can’t be understood I’d return things to normal if only I could,

But the ramifications have damaged my brain It won’t be long now before I’ve gone insane.

CHORUS: I’m three days older than I was last night Wondering if I put wrong what once went right And I would hit rewind but time’s being unkind Destinies intertwined now I’m losing my mind…!

None of this should have happened, I know in my gut Yet our future is hist’ry, and I’ve lost what’s what. We must now beware, time is not playing fair, I would solve this crime it’s just I’m… outta time… outta time… outta time…

ABOUT PARTS 17 & 18

Plot-wise: We’re looking at ‘sweeps week’. Everything came together here, all the characters (even Fisk, the science teacher), all the plots (kinda - Shady’s absent)… and that last part was (and will again be) the climax for Book 1. What you might call the mid-season December cliffhanger for a TV show these days. Granted, there’s a BIT more to it than what you saw from the dance floor (because time travel). Of course, whether the story works at this point MAY hinge on how much you bought into the Veniti twins.

Character-wise, we met the twins. They were first name dropped by Clarke way back in Part 8, and there’s been a couple veiled references since then. If Julie is presently Carrie’s nemesis, Corry is the thorn in Julie’s side. Hopefully you got the sense that the two of them have a history. But Book 1 is still Carrie’s story, so we won’t be expanding on the Corry/Julie dynamic quite yet. Assuming you care… my God, I hope you care a little? I have a number of terrible people in the cast who likely deserve what they get. Thank goodness for Chartreuse and Laurie, providing balance.

I do love rereading Chartreuse’s parts. She makes me smile. And I have all the feels for Laurie, I made her the most innocent person in this den of lies and secrets - then had her betrayed (indirectly) by the protagonist. Laurie didn’t even get to dance with Clarke! I am such a jerk. A possible saving grace is that because you didn’t get to see Laurie until now, you might not empathize as much with her yet - and hence not want to throttle Carrie?

Or maybe you do empathize. I don’t know. Scott’s commenting, and John occasionally tweets at me… that’s it. Fortunately, I also retained Scott Delahunt’s original commentary from 2001, including: “[Laurie] doesn’t seem to be the type who would cheat. She just wouldn’t know how.” and “Julie is about to go over the deep end.” Accurate enough, so I’ll assume I’m still doing okay. ^_^

Episode 9 was originally called “Dance Dance Revolution”, the same name as the popular video stepping game at the time I wrote this. I kept that name for part 18, using “Observer Effect” for part 17. That term refers to the idea that one can change an event merely through observing it - which sort of describes Chartreuse and her efforts. Plus Carrie and Corry were doing self observation. Up next, the school dance! Again. Kinda. It’s also the episode with the most revisions since 2001.

Coming This Friday: Dance Dance Redux (I might go back to Wattpad, but it seems unlikely.)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 15 & 16

BEHIND THE WRITING

I’m sure I had a timelines file (to keep dates straight), but I tended to overwrite it when I added detail. Conversely, my character file was saved separately after major updates. Version 2 (Feb 24, after Clarke’s story, aka Parts 10/11) had bits for not only “Carrie Elizabeth Waterson” and “Frank Dijora”, but also: “Julie LaMille”, “Phil Clarke”, “Luci Primrose”, “Laurie Veniti”, “Corry Veniti”, “Lee”, “Tim” and “Chartreuse”.

Chartreuse’s entry there read, very simply: ‘Girl who’s into herbal remedies, has braids and bows in hair.’ So naturally, she’s the person who managed to get a 2014 spinoff here, in “Epsilon Project”! Granted, her entry fleshed out a BIT more in Characters Version 3, the one that gave birthdays to the main five. In it (Mar 14, right before the tribute ep, Parts 12/13) it referenced Chartreuse’s ‘valley girl’ speak - but she still didn’t have a last name. Basically, some characters can surprise you in how they evolve.

Also at this time (actually right after the tribute ep), I finalized a new ‘opening sequence’ as you might see on an actual Television Program. Remember, TV is how I originally envisioned this story, not as a serial. I’ll toss that full text OP (opening) into a later Commentary. The 6 month mark here also marks the first recorded time when I went BACK to my earlier writing, making some revisions to Episode 1. (It still began “At the back of a rather nondescript two story house”, yawn.)

It was after releasing the latest episode (parts 15/16), that I decided I needed a class schedule for all my characters. To know their interests, particularly electives, and what non-homeroom classes they shared. My files show these schedules would be completed May 8, so right after our next upcoming episode (Parts 17/18). I don’t know - is all of this typical background work for most people? Should it have been done much earlier? What do you think? Feel free to comment.

ABOUT PARTS 15 & 16

Spoilers

Character-wise, Luci was overdue for some screen time. You can only have a person be mysterious for so long, particularly when they’re a main character. I WAS wondering if people would think she was behind the time machine somehow. Instead, she was the one who made the mysterious phone call to Frank. Did anyone foresee that? (I am going to presume that no one worked out how she knew about the machine due to a “future” Frank… but maybe I’m wrong?) Luci’s also brought up some interesting logistics about time travel, and offered a new way going forwards.

At the same time, we’re seeing a bit more into Carrie’s relationship with paradox. She’s the central character for a reason. And Julie won’t let me forget about her plot either, though as the audience, we know she is jumping to conclusions in terms of what’s really going on. Then there’s the new incidental characters - Theresa, Lee and Chartreuse. We’re building to something here. (If your reaction is ‘COOL!’, yay, if your reaction is ‘FINALLY!’, apologies.)

Plot-wise, the “running out of present day coins” discussion was added (as I noted above). At the time of first writing (in 2001), I wasn’t sure how many more trips/coins I might need. Putting it in here now adds a bit of a ticking clock, which helps lead into Carrie’s insistence she take her trip sooner rather than later. (Originally, her deadline was more due to Frank’s lack of progress.) Regrettably, if you think about it, this scenario is unrealistic.

It’s not exactly research, but I’ve always tended to look at dates on coins. If Frank has ten present day coins now, this means he and Carrie must have had around twenty… by the middle of September. Even if you assume “hoarding” current dates, I don’t think 20 is plausible - do you? Of course, this is a universe that would allow future incarnations to slip key coins into businesses of the present, so that’s my reasoning.

We also got to see another ‘malfunctioning’ trip here, my way of reminding you that - despite the 1955 trip going so well - this time machine has that random element. Because when things like “leap seconds” occur (as one did last June 30th), I don’t see how you can avoid a bit of randomness.

Episode 8 was originally called “The Girl With Kaleidoscope Eyes”, riffing off lyrics in the song “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”. I shortened it to “With Kaleidoscope Eyes” for Part 15, then “And Logical Mind” for Part 16. Luci in a nutshell. Up next, the Veniti twins, and all hell breaks loose.

Coming This Friday: Observer Effect (I think I’ll be giving up on Wattpad, their new editor removes all ENTERs when doing cut and paste.)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 13 & 14

TIME TRAVEL TRIBUTE

Interestingly, despite my long time interest in time travel, I never knew of the movie’s existence until I saw a newspaper ad for Part II. And Part III is the only part of the trilogy that I saw in theatres. But I saw it twice. Which is big, as I can count on one hand the number of movies I’ve seen twice in theatres. By the way, the book “We Don’t Need Roads” came out last month, read about it on io9 here.

Meanwhile, “Quantum Leap” (QL) is possibly my favourite TV show of all time. (“The Girl From Tomorrow” also ranks highly, but as it’s out of Australia, you may not have heard of it.) In a sense, Quantum Leap makes for the perfect serial - you’ve got a core cast of two, with different situations every week… Sam and Al being a bit like Holmes and Watson. You even got a cliffhanger every episode going forwards.

In fact, the way Sam could “leap” to any number of stand alone episodes also meant that when the show went on hiatus, he could “leap” back into an earlier part of the season - something the show cleverly took advantage of. A casual viewer may not have even been aware the next episode would be a rerun. Heck, I remember splicing together a videotape of one long leaping loop back in the early 1990s, just to realign the series.

All this to say that Episode 7 (Parts 13 & 14) was my tribute episode, mainly to those two temporal universes. SPOILERS NOW FOLLOW for the individual references, so before reading, maybe look back at the episodes? And if you’re looking - how many references will you catch?

THE REFERENCES

2. “Oh boy”: Sam’s trademark phrase from QL became Carrie’s opening line.

3. The Clayton Hotel: In BTTF III, the Clayton Ravine is featured.

4. Carrie’s whole McFly story, and for that matter the date, should be obvious references.

[caption id=“attachment_459” align=“alignright” width=“300”] I did this kind of thing in my personified math serial too.[/caption]

5. “Trust him, he’s a doctor”: Send up phrase from Doctor Who, followed by suggesting 911 (used to call emergency services in North America - but not in ’55, which Al once pointed out to Sam in QL).

6. “What the hell’s that?”: In BTTF, that’s how Marty tried to distract Biff when he wanted to make a getaway.

7. “It’s a quantum leap forward in technology”: Too subtle? (The word “flux” was also snuck in earlier.)

8. “You’re my… who are you?!”: In BTTF III, this was Marty’s reaction to his ancestor when he regained consciousness in the old west.

9. Beth Parker: “Beth” is the first name of Al’s first wife in QL. “Parker” is the last name of Jennifer (Marty’s girlfriend) in BTTF… and “Parker” is also the last name of the main character from the TV show “7 Days”.

10. “If only she had more time”: This was Marty’s lament in the DeLorean in BTTF, shortly before the “bolt of lightning” event.

11. “There are now two of me here and there are two of you here”: This was Doc’s explanation to Marty in BTTF II when they returned to 1955.

12. “Back from the future.”: Verging on the closing line from BTTF II.

13. “Damn. Damn Damn.”: From BTTF, echoes of Doc Brown’s cursing over where Marty was, also shortly before 10pm.

14. “Officer Strickland”: The name of Marty’s school principal (who appears in all BTTF movies as a ‘law man’).

15. “Lyon Estates”: Where Marty lived in BTTF.

16. “Great Scott”: Someone had to say it. (Heavy would be pushing it.)

17. “You’re an angel”: Cribbed some lines here from the QL episode “It’s a Wonderful Leap”, surrounding Angelita, Sam’s guardian angel.

18. “Tiff Bannon”: Too many BTTF names were played straight, time for a malapropism.

19. Future Carrie’s wrap-up at the end was meant to be in the same vein as Al’s commentary at the end of QL episodes, giving the audience the future information before moving on.

20. “putting something right that might have otherwise gone wrong”: Also a send-up to QL.

How many did you spot? Did you spot OTHERS? (My subconscious is often cluttered.) Let me know!

ABOUT PARTS 13 & 14

No Spoilers

Plot-wise: There isn’t much to say about this part. It was a “stand alone” ep, a way for Carrie to lose her hairband in the past, that’s all. To be interesting, I tried to put in the fake-out, where she lost it, yet recovered it. I also did something that I think was clever, because it’s something that could only work in text: the narrative reveal of Beth dressed as Carrie. But do you think that was more clever, or annoying? I wonder.

Character-wise, it’s back to Carrie and Frank, the former causing problems for the latter… and as Billy Higgins said in my only review over at “Web Fiction Guide”, that (and her physical abuse) doesn’t really make Carrie a likeable protagonist. Very good point. I’ve tried to soften her edges a bit in the present - but she does need to be her own worst enemy, in a way. Think about the time travel aspect, and you may understand why. But yeah, in retrospect I don’t think I’ve balanced that very well.

If you want to read how this episode appeared after the hard date changes, but before the additional Carrie edits to post it here, you can find it on my other blog site one year ago. They aren’t that significant in my mind, but then I’m the author. The images are actually reused from there.

Episode 7 was originally called “Doubletakes”. Since it’s a tribute, I simply made the second part into “Part II”. (Interestingly, there is a real Part 1/2 episode that I wrote, but you won’t see it until Book 2.) Up next, filling out the cast: More on Luci, plus meet Lee and Chartreuse.

Coming This Friday: With Kaleidoscope Eyes (I’m actually out of the country, so that chapter is likely not yet up on Wattpad. But I haven’t been getting any traffic there any way.)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 11 & 12

WORD PERFECT

If you’ve never heard of it, WordPerfect 5.1 (released in 1989) was one of the most popular word processing programs of it’s time. Sure, it was DOS based, but the file format was supported by pretty much everyone. This being around when I started high school, it was basically my introduction to writing on a computer. (Heck, in Grade 9, typing class was still done on electronic typewriters.)

One particularly nice thing about WP5.1 was that the program file size was not terribly large - it fit on a floppy disk. As a consequence, I carried it with me after our computer was upgraded. And when WordPerfect 5.2 (1992) didn’t make the Windows transition very well, it was WP5.1 that got installed on my subsequent machines. Including Windows ME around the turn of the century (an OS I’ve never had a problem with, I don’t know what all the fuss was about).

The other thing I came to like about WP 5.1 was how easy it was to make these serial episodes the same length. I didn’t count words or anything. I would simply write towards having a cliffhanger shortly after the end of Page 6, at which point I’d write towards wrapping up the episode by Page 13. Easy.

When I finally got to Episode 23 (aka Part 46) in “Time & Tied” (remember, most of this is pre-written), I decided to change to Microsoft Word. I hated it. Without WordPerfect, I didn’t have the same rhythm to my writing. For Episode 24, I switched back. I wrote in WordPerfect 5.1 until 2009. That’s when I finally transitioned to a Mac, and left WP 5.1 behind, in favour of straight text. But it was a good run.

So what program do YOU use, and how long have you been using it?

ABOUT PARTS 11 & 12

Spoilers

Why a part with Clarke? Mainly because I wanted to showcase Julie - but I couldn’t do that effectively if I used her point of view. In part because there’s some things I needed to keep secret (not to mention Julie was keeping some secrets from me), but also because the only person who sees Julie in a somewhat sympathetic light is Clarke. And not even Julie herself really understands why he does that. Hence, Clarke gets a flashback episode.

We also got to meet Mary! Carrie and Julie have no siblings for plot reasons. Frank and Luci don’t either because, well, I didn’t give them any, which leaves Clarke. So he gets an older sister, someone he can talk to who isn’t an adult. (Why a sister, not a brother? See my Commentary 04, I seem to have a bias towards females.) Of note, I’d never drawn Mary before illustrating this part. Meanwhile, “Lance” got his name because it was an alternate choice by my parents for being my own name.

Plot-wise, Julie has confirmed the existence of a time machine. Not normally something one needs to account for in a high school - unless you’re at Hogwarts or something, and I wrote this before “Harry Potter” came out. You can perhaps guess how well Julie is going to take this. We also have a new mystery, in why Carrie’s hairband is going to end up missing for several decades. So stay tuned!

Episode 6 was originally called “The Clarke Side” (a pun on ‘the dark side’ given how Julie was being set up as a ‘villain’). This means “Phil Doubt” was the new title, a pun on “Filled Out” (as his character gets filled out), which also worked as a nice follow-up to “Time Doubt”. Up next, a time travel tribute episode.

Coming This Friday: Doubletakes. (That chapter is already up on Wattpad, if I remembered to upload it yesterday.)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 9 & 10

TIME TRAVEL

Question for you now: Is that a paradox? After all, if the professor left the present, surely he can’t still be there in the future. That is, unless he returns to the present - but then is that future he saw really the future that is going to happen? I’m not suggesting I was consciously aware of those questions back in Grade 8, but rest assured, such thoughts were on my mind in 2000 when writing this serial. To that end, if the paradox of the apple in the latest parts bothers you… it was designed to do exactly that.

My point is, I’ve done actual research. With that said, I’m not going to claim I’m using hard science everywhere - for instance, the narrative will eventually lean towards the usage of wormholes, which science says has it’s own problems. As do many other interpretations, frankly. If you want to delve further into temporal mechanics, I’ll point you at “Can We Time Travel?”, the writeup of a panel I went to at CanCon 2014. Alternatively, just enjoy this fiction story!

Unrelated, you might have noticed my ‘What I Was Doing’ (above) has shifted - I completed my last University exams in December of 2000. This due to taking an extra semester, completing a music minor along with my Bachelor of Mathematics - technically I was class of 2000 but my grad ceremony was in 2001. I suspect the life shift (and the holidays) was part of the reason for the larger skip between episode writing here; this was the first episode to take me over a month to complete. Granted, I also had to avoid contradicting any facts from the previous parts.

ABOUT PARTS 9 & 10

Spoilers

Regarding the time travel plot, I’ve now introduced the two widely regarded theories: The “Frank” argument (self consistency) versus the “Carrie” argument (parallel timelines) - and right now, both should seem valid. After all, perhaps Julie’s chemistry plan did take place, but you as the reader don’t know, because you’re following Carrie’s revisions. Or perhaps it never did, because Carrie’s trip was always fated to take place, as Frank argued. Which do you think is likely the case here?

I will eventually make clear what rules the “Time & Tied” universe follows. And we will also get some clarity on “Shady” - who apparently gave Carrie his time machine? And who is now making crank calls to Frank? But I’ve been hitting the time travel pretty hard to this point. My hope is you’re now invested enough to stick around for the answers - I want to show what impact those answers might have first.

After all, the time machine is affecting the non-time-traveling characters too, notably Julie. What’s the deal with her? Is she buying into Carrie’s explanations? And does she have both Clarke and Luci working for her? That’s what I’ll address next - Carrie is not even going to appear in the next episode. But before you read, I’d love to hear your thoughts, be it on either those questions or my earlier time travel remarks!

Episode 5 was originally called “Time Doubt” (a pun on ‘timed out’). This means “Present Tense” was the new title (as things were a bit tense), even though I used it as the initial title this time around.

Coming This Friday: Phil Doubt (This is starting to serve as a reminder to upload to Wattpad. If you want to investigate there.)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 7 & 8

GENDER AND RACE

I am, as you might have guessed from the above picture, male. So far, no one has said I’m writing my female characters completely wrong. And since, for whatever reason, I find females more interesting than males (can I blame magical girl anime in the 90s?), I’m liable to keep doing it. At least until someone says I need to fix things.

Yet when it comes to race, I shy away. Luci is the only non-white main character in the story, which (as I recall) was to offer a definite contrast to Carrie (also it might have been the anime again). Luci’s a bit like Frank (on purpose), so I’ve ended up with the stereotypical “asian who is good at math”. I now hate when I end up in that sort of box. When I wondered (more recently) about switching some of the characters’ races, Clarke has the “basketball” association, Lee is “poor”, Corry is “aggressive”… so-called “black stereotypes” I’d want to avoid.

Coupled with that hesitation is that I didn’t want someone to stand out as a “token” black character either… so could I have made both Lee and Frank black? (Though Frank gets smacked around a lot.) I also realized I couldn’t do it with the twins, Corry and Laurie, as for plot I needed redheads. But maybe a female, like Chartreuse? Except for how she talks, also a plot point. Carrie herself would be problematic mainly because, with her time travelling, I don’t know enough historically for how a black girl would be regarded. I suppose I could look it up, but that feels artificial.

And then what about someone of latino heritage? Or native American? In fact, maybe I’m already in trouble - is Luci already seen as a “token” asian character? Does that get better or worse if I start switching everyone up? I wrestled with this two years ago in writing my math web serial. In the end, with this story, I decided to keep everything how I’d originally written it in 2000. My excuse is that it’s a small Ontario town.

I’ll probably try to diversify more with future writing. Yet even so, it’s curious: Despite having no personal problem writing female characters, race - and religion - feel like larger issues. Just me? Can it truly be due to lack of personal experience? Because it’s not like I have experience being a girl. I don’t know. If you have any insights, feel free to comment.

Incidentally, on December 7th, 2000, after completing this part, I drew some head shots of the five main characters to date (plus the Veniti twins, referenced by Clarke). My drawing ability was “sketchy” even then, but you can see what Julie looked like below.

ABOUT PARTS 7 & 8

Plot-wise, the Carrie we had for the majority of this episode was not the Carrie of the present, but one back from the future. Characters replacing themselves will not be typical, but the concept of a “cause” coming AFTER the “effect” will continue to occur. One might ask: Did I have to complete Parts 9 & 10 first, to see future Carrie, before I could use her here? Actually, no.

I had a sense of what Carrie would know (and must not know) going in, which was sufficient to write this first. It helps that Carrie was the ONLY person out of synch. Granted, it made 9 & 10 a bit more difficult going forwards, because I couldn’t contradict what I’d already laid out for her - but I’m pretty good at rationalizing why something in a story is reasonable (not to mention sticking to a framework). The ‘Carrie Time Tracker’ was a more recent web-based idea. With the next full episode out, you’ll be able to read Parts 7-10 from her point of view, instead of chronologically.

[caption id=“attachment_404” align=“alignright” width=“300”] Julie, drawn then vs. today[/caption]

Character-wise, the cast is bigger, now that we’re in the present. Which is where we will be for the majority of the time. Of the new members, you might have noticed that Julie has a firm grip on the plot. As my beta reader, Scott Delahunt, said back in 2000: “Julie is scary.” & “People regret getting on Julie’s bad side, don’t they?” First impressions are important! (It’s been pointed out that first impressions of Carrie make her somewhat unlikeable. Whoops.) Julie is very driven.

Still, like Carrie, Julie has her own personal problems to work through. I’m curious as to your impressions of her now - I wonder if they’ll change over time. Along with her, we get Clarke and Luci - ah, and whose side is Luci on? Feel free to make a guess now (even put one in the comments), and we’ll see how well I’m foreshadowing! In particular, we’ve got another half dozen parts to develop these five characters before we broaden the scope to the full T&T cast.

Episode 4 was originally called “Group Chemistry” (obvious double entendre), with “Sound The Alarm” as the new addition. I’m lukewarm on the new name, not sure it’s as clever as some of my others. Up next, I hope you like ‘temporal mechanics’ more than Chief O’Brien from DS9 did - time travel theory gets explained.

Coming This Friday: Present Tense (That chapter is already up on Wattpad, if you want to investigate there.)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 5 & 6

WHAT’S IN A NAME

Still, I kept that “placeholder name” through every incarnation, even the 2013 revision that I undertook. Finally, now in 2015, before publishing it here on the blog, I did due diligence in terms of seeing whether the name was now out there anywhere else.

It was. Twice. It’s some comedy movie (in IMDb) from 2012 about “fact checkers”, and it’s also a web original series (on YouTube) from 2013 about students from the future getting trapped in our present. (I watched the first episode, which is less than 15 minutes. Not bad.) And outside of video, “Time Trippers” is a rock and roll band, which is funny for me because of Corry. (We’ll meet him and his band later on.) So, that’s what I get for resting on my laurels!

Thus, I needed a new name. And as I brainstormed new ideas, I found that a lot of them were ALSO taken. Well, darn. (I kept a list, but have since lost the file.) Eventually, I found five possibilities that I kind of liked, which weren’t taken, and asked Facebook friends for their opinion on: “Time Tuners”, “Time and Tied”, “Processing Time”, “Time Management” and “Countdown Timers”. Many also offered their own suggestions (I hadn’t considered “Watch” as a double use word - nice).

“Time Management” was popular (in that more than one person liked it), but the more I considered it, the more I thought my story characters weren’t managing time very well - if anything, they were “processing” it. But someone else thought that was too clinical. (If not for that, and a chat at work, “Processing” might have won.) Since “Time and Tied” was actually a popular runner up choice, that’s what I went with… and I like that I can still use TT as an abbreviation. It’s a pun on “time and tide wait for no man”, where here “tied” refers to how one character is roped into a destiny. You likely know who by now.

ABOUT PARTS 5 & 6

Why did they end up in June, rather than September? Mostly for drama, and to emphasize the occasional random hiccup in the machine. But partly because, back in 1999, the Canadian mint was rolling out 12 special quarters, one per month. Were they actually produced in the month stamped on them? No idea. But in the original written version, Frank had remarked on how he’d used a June 1999 quarter, so maybe that month got tied into the machine too. The mention got nixed, now that there’s no hard dates.

So, how were they supposed to time travel, since getting specifically minted quarters of their present month (to return) would be a problem? Good news - as the nickel here showed, any coin will work! Of course, travel to future years will remain impossible, barring reprogramming. Even travel within their present will be impossible in January - no key coins are in circulation yet. The good news? In Carrie’s present, Frank will have had 9 months to check dates on coins, and build up a stockpile. The bad news? This is still a finite number of trips.

[caption id=“attachment_380” align=“alignleft” width=“184”] How a pic looks before inking[/caption]

The other key change to the latest episode was shortening the time frame they were stranded. Three days felt excessive, particularly given their condition to end part 5 - but then I’m no doctor, so what’s believable? Also, I’d written into the narrative Frank’s right arm hurt, but when I drew it, it became the left. So I removed the word ‘right’. Incidentally, random aside, I find the dishevelled Carrie I drew for these parts kind of hot looking. Maybe it’s the messy hair? Um. Just me?

Plot-wise, there’s now the “Mysterious Figure”, who seems to know about the machine. Where/when is he from? How did he know to come into the woods? Sorry, you will NOT get answers on that for a while yet. What I will handle first is the curious temporal rules that you’re getting hints of - as Carrie and Frank discussed, how changeable is the past? Are the rules here more like “Back to the Future” or “Terminator”? (Or put another way, how much of this story did I have to lay out in advance, based on future trips?)

Episode 3 marked the first time I wrote the date in my original OP header, for easy tracking. “Breakdown” was the original chapter title (due to the physical and emotional breakdown, as well as a ‘break down’ of time travel repercussions). “Welcome Change” was my recent addition after the episode split (and is naturally a pun on ‘change’). Up next, we meet Julie LaMille. Ohhh boy, do we meet Julie.

Coming This Friday: Group Chemistry (That chapter is already up on Wattpad, if you want to investigate there.)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 3 & 4

AIR DISASTERS

You might ask why I didn’t simply change the circumstances of Elaine’s death, to avoid the air travel problem altogether. Well, because I needed her gone, presumed dead, but without a body. After all, the circumstances of Elaine’s “disappearance” has been a major sore point between Carrie and her father for over a decade. (Does this mean Elaine’s still alive and could be coming back? Not telling!) A plane and the Bermuda Triangle, it was a handy way to do what I wanted. That’s also why she went via Miami, another vertex of the triangle, even though it’s a bit out of the way when flying out of Ontario.

I have no idea if the recently vanishing planes of 2014 make the story more or less convincing, but it does make wonder what I got myself into. Air disasters in a story: surprisingly complicated. If you have any thoughts for or against plausibility, feel free to comment.

ABOUT PARTS 3 & 4

Spoilers

Concerning the “other changes”, above: I mentioned last time that I’d envisioned the whole serial as a TV series (before I knew what a ‘serial’ was). This included writing a teaser, a one paragraph opening that would lead into the theme song. For this episode, that opening was Carrie and Frank running out of a baggage conveyor belt after it shut down, as a guy named Lars bemoaned the loss of his bags again. I could not find a smooth way to keep it, hence why Frank pushed past a guy with a ‘Lars’ shirt in this version.

Regarding the time machine: When I was in high school, I used to pick up coins in the hallways. I started collecting old coins after that (not actively, only passively), by checking the dates of my change. I still see hallway coins now that I’m a teacher (though tend to leave them there). Of course, there’s no pennies, because Canada got rid of those in early 2013. Time marches on. But why couldn’t quarters be used to not only power, but program, a time machine?

That’s another reason why this story needed to get out sooner rather than later — after centuries of coin based economy, we’re shifting to credit. People don’t carry coins like they used to. Yet the “futuristic” time machine doesn’t have a credit card setting. Even bills today are different - originally Frank was worried about the “holographic square” on his $20, now Canadian $20s are a plastic derivative, not even paper. (As to the spatial circuits of the time machine, stay tuned.)

Character-wise, I’ve now cemented the old cliche of “popular athletic girl hooks up with brainy guy”. But at the same time, I was aiming for some subversions. Carrie is more than a pretty face with a sharp kick, she’s good at thinking on her feet - and without the conversation scaffolding she laid down, I doubt Frank would have been able to finesse the situation as he did. Meanwhile, Frank isn’t solely focused on the science - despite the abuse, he does care about what happens to Carrie. Plus, the impressions the characters have of each other include a two year temporal discontinuity, which I try to remind readers of when I go into their thoughts.

“The Plane Truth” was the original chapter title (also a slight pun on the ‘temporal plane’ truth), “Flight Attendance” was my recent addition after the episode split. Up next, more problems in the past.

Coming This Friday: Breakdown (That chapter is already up on Wattpad, if you want to investigate there.)

“Time & Tied” PARTS 1 & 2

STORY HISTORY

Because two parts actually form one entire episode. I originally envisioned this as a television series. With a cliffhanger heading to commercial, then again at the episode’s end. Basically, Babylon 5, Buffy and Farscape were notable influences, but I felt like an hour was too much. Regardless, I aimed for (and accomplished) a 22 episode season.

Then, at the start of 2013, a publisher was looking for stories. So this tale was pulled out, dusted off, and revised to remove all “hard dates” (which were now over ten years in the past), along with turning the 22 episode season + pilot episode into two books, “Awareness” and “Escalation”. The publisher wasn’t interested. Two years later, I’ve sensed this thing is on the cusp of needing more revisions due to technology, etc - so it’s going out there instead! Boom!

SUDDEN SHIFT

1. The “April Fools Day Swap” of Web Fiction Guide. Optimistically, I thought I might get a bit of a bump in viewers after that - but my story arc was finished, and it would take a couple weeks to get a new scenario going. Which could lose those viewers. Also, the story I wrote for “Legion of Nothing” (check that out too!) involved Time Travel. So why not?

2. The School Musical. I’m a teacher, and April is always the busiest month, because I help with the musical (after school, weekends) in addition to it being report card time. Thus Easter Weekend was my last real free time for the month - so I decided to use the time leading up to it for queuing things up. In fact, the bulk of THIS post is being written on Sunday, March 29th. Hello from the past!

The shift to Friday updates is because they’re supposedly better for traffic, and I only needed Sunday updates in order to pull a rabbit out of my head if I had no “Epsilon Project” writing time from Wed-Fri. I DO plan to return to that series for a break in between books… or maybe only between Books 2 and 3 (there are currently 4 unpublished “Time & Tied” books, and I’m working on the fifth). Or was “The Epsilon Project” a really BAD idea? If not bad, is it better to stick with this for now? Let me know - we’ve got another 20+ weeks to decide.

ABOUT PARTS 1 & 2

While I list the original date of completion above as Oct 15, 2000, the earliest text file I have is from DECEMBER 1999. It began: ‘Carrie Baker dropped lightly to the ground and brushed off her hands.’ It continued with her grumbling about being grounded by her MOTHER and STEPFATHER for some phantom charges on her mom’s credit card. After which she headed for the party, hoping to see Jim MacDonald now that he’d broken up with Cindy Carter. (I have no idea who those people are, they never appear in the present story.) She found the machine the same way, but it was Sept 20, 2004.

Even before THAT, I have some handwritten notes (for a 13 year old and 14 year old Carrie respectively - she’s a brunette). And more handwriting came after 1999. I’ve kept it all carefully in a folder. I’ll likely scan some of that material for future commentaries - in particular, I used to sketch illustrations, even back then. The one thing which has been pretty constant through every incarnation is the functioning of the time machine. But that will be revealed in-story.

Hm, anything else? Oh, “Timely Discovery” was the original chapter title, “Time Out” was my recent addition after the episode split. Also, the original name of the ENTIRE story prior to MARCH 27th, 2015 wasn’t “Time & Tied” at all. It was “Time Trippers”. I’ll definitely talk about that in a future commentary.

Coming This Friday: The Plane Truth (That chapter is already up on Wattpad, if you want to investigate there.)