Oh, hey! Gather round. Find a cozy place next to the fire. Grab a blanket and cuddle up. Comfortable? Got some hot cocoa? Excellent.

I have something to tell you guys.

Something big.

Like, big enough to post cryptic emojis and tweets and countdown timers about for weeks.

Are you ready for it?

You sure?

Well…

I wrote a new book!

An original one!

With new characters! New challenges! And new, hot, steamy romance!!!!!

It’s called…

It’s taken me years of planning and drafting (a lot of which was derailed by 26 chapters of The Final Shade of Fifty), and I’ve re-written this draft about three times, but it’s ready to share and I am so unbelievably excited to finally be at this place BECAAAAAAAUSE, it’s not just this one book. Not just this one series.

I’m building universes over here.

Like the MCU, but sluttier.

The Taraverse.

WishingMrGreyWasHere

I want to start by managing the panic I can already feel building in the room. What about Shades of Fifty? Am I taking the site down? Will I ever finish the outtakes?

Excellent questions.

WishingMrGreyWasHere will remain right where it is. I’m not pulling the story, I’m not moving it to a different place, I’m not putting it behind a paywall… It’ll be right here as if nothing is changing at all.

I’m not one of those authors who wrote fanfiction and then tries to pretend they didn’t. I’m proud as shit of this story.

So what about the outtakes? I’m not abandoning them, really. I have about half of one written that’s so long that HALF is already at 7,000 words, and it’s just a beast to get through. Spoiler alert: It’s a Christian POV and he’s just angry and sad and scared and it’s hard to sit in that for long periods of time and work through his own irrationality. I’ve started a few others, but haven’t gotten into them really because I’ve been heads down on my new story for over a year and haven’t spent much time working on anything else.

Still, the biggest obstacle to the outtakes is my own damn indecision. I probably shouldn’t say this publicly because I still haven’t committed to anything for myself and I have a literal universe of writing to do, but I’ve sort of put myself into a stalemate on all things fifty because, while I want to finish the outtakes, the naggingly persistent thing that I want to write for Shades of Fifty is a continuation of the kids’ story I posted last year. And I mean a continuation as in…. book 5. There’s a lot there that I actually really want to explore, so much that it would take an entire book to flesh it all out, and every time I try to get myself to focus on outtakes, I get all caught up in plotting this whole ass new story that I didn’t have the time to write. So nothing got done.

Excuses, excuses, right?

Oh, and also this stupid Real Housewives of Seattle idea I had after a very long Bravo marathon that thankfully got killed by a Twitter poll.

The point is though, the outtakes will come. Slowly. Unexpectedly. Randomly. Eventually. I may not do all of the ones that were requested, but I’ll at least finish the ones I have. And yes, there may be more to come…

We’ll see.

POPSTAR and Beyond

Because I’m keeping Shades of Fifty here, my original content will be posted on a separate site. That’s right: site. You’ll be able to find my new story, and all the original stories after it, on taranichole.net.

Because here’s the thing.

I looked into traditional publishing. It was a dream of mine for-almost-ever. But the truth of the matter is, I’m under no illusions that I’m going to make EL James money from writing, and I’m okay with that. I write because it’s what I love to do, and I love to share my work with the people who enjoy it. But that means I have to keep my job, and your girl has a demanding one.

I just don’t have the time to do the marketing and the engagement that published authors are required to do, and I’m terrible at Tik Tok anyway. So I’ve decided to just do this the way that has always made me happy.

I’m going back to Monday posts.

Beginning FEBRUARY 14TH 2023, Popstar will be posted serially, one chapter a week, until it’s completion – the same as I posted all of my Fifty content. Now, I know what you’re thinking… one chapter a week! I know, I know – but they’re meaty chapters, and doing it this way ensures that by the time book 1 has been posted, book 2 will be ready to follow right after it.

All Taraverse stories will be paid content, that works like a membership. For Popstar, that looks like this:

Membership Level	One-Time Cost
Popstar Package – includes the entire book (i.e. every Monday post)	$3.99
Popstar Deluxe Package – includes the entire book (i.e. every Monday post), and chapter audio	$9.99

These options will expand as the universe expands.

I’m also in the process of recording podcast episodes to post each week along with each chapter where me and the people I’ve talked to behind the scenes about the stories discuss all things Taraverse. I’m not sure if that will be totally free content on the site, or just included in both packages, but either way – subscribers will also have access to a weekly podcast about the story.

I hope you’re all as excited to take another journey together as I am. This has been a terrifying new step for me, venturing into territory where there’s no established cannon to help get people hooked. I’ve poured so much into this story, and I’m extremely proud of what it’s turned into and so freaking excited about what’s still to come. I really hope you’ll come along.

But if not, still know that I appreciate all the time you’ve spent following me here. This has been such a light for me when parts of my life have gone dark, and I’ll always be grateful to all of you for that.

All my love

xoxo

Wishingmrgreywashere

PS. Don’t scroll up, my new site is right here. Go on, give it a visit. You know you want to.