The Book of Masks Homepage

Time for Another Shift, and a Poll

So today's posting—

"Joey and You and You"  (public)
"Joey and You and You"  (interactive)

brings this branch to a halt.

Last week I was pretty inconsistent about posting chapters, mostly because I've been writing these chapters right up against the deadline. Some of them I have finished up right before I post them. So yeah, this has all been highly improvised, in keeping with the highly improvised manner in which Joey Tartaglione walked in.

People have said nice things about her, both directly, in public and private comments, and indirectly with some tips. My thanks, by the way, to Easy, Tal, Wordsmitty, bickuribox, and HayateZero for those. I hope I didn't sounded needy and insecure and in need of encouragement when I made that post where I described her genesis and admitted to not knowing if I liked her or not, and I hope that wasn't the reason I got those tips and comments. But whatever provoked them, I am grateful for them.

* * *

I need a bit of breathing room after a week or so of last-minute composition, so for the next week I'm going to be posting a series of chapters that I wrote some months ago but held back. They pick up here, with "The Wrong Guy for the Wrong Girl" . The back story?

Will got rid of the "Libra," but it has come back into his life when through Keith he makes friends with Carlos Montoya, Michael Hollister, Philip Fairfax, and Joshua Shank. These guys were using the masks to insert themselves in place of some cheerleaders, and using their new clout to try to make Will popular. But Will stumbled onto their secret and joined their gang. Needing a new project, they have decided to engage in some "Freak Friday" style antics, by making unwilling body swaps between some of their classmates.

The first victims are Chelsea Cooper, the head cheerleader, and Yumi Saito, one of Chelsea's critics and enemies. Will, in the guise of Yumi's friend Jenny Ashton, has been keeping close to Chelsea (the real girl, now trapped in Yumi's body and life) to see what she does and how she reacts.

And to everyone's consternation and horror, the Yumi-swapped Chelsea has reacted by starting to date that gang-banging drug-dealer, Gary Chen.

* * *

So that starts tomorrow. It's all written, so I need something else to write while it's rolling out.

And you know what that means? Let's do a poll: [Poll completed and deleted]

(See poll for details.)