Fireworks 1 and 2

Afterword

March 1st, 2022

We are nearly at the one-month mark of me starting this new account. You guys have given this story 6k reads in less than a month. Thank you for that.

When I started my first Wattpad account, they had unlimited chapters (or they seemed to - I was able to get a story of four hundred chapters posted just fine). The chapter count has now been decreased to 200. For that reason, instead of continuing the third Fireworks book (previously titled Fireworks: Shut It Down) in this story file, I have to put the book in another story file. That change may cause me to add a fourth book to the series, depending on how book 3 ends. 

You're going to see me stack up stories in the same book file as much as possible, because I've decided to post ALL of my books on here. The stuff that has been published along with the fanfic. I have over 20 books completely written, so that will be a lot of stories for people to sift through. You will be able to see in each book description which books are included in each story file. 

50 Shades of Drake will begin posting on April 6th. I have to wait for this date, because currently Amazon Kindle owns the exclusive electronic rights to the first book in that series. That exclusivity period ends on April 6th. Because I'm posting 50 Shades of Drake, I won't post the published version of the series, "Bound." The text is too similar - the main things changed were Drake's name, his acquaintances names, etc. Most of the actual story is the same. Essentially, I'm going to keep the fanfic stories the same on Wattpad - when they're published, the name and company name details and some scenes may be changed.

Books 1 and 2 of Fireworks will be marked as Completed tonight. I am on a journey to become a Wattpad Star, a journey to build this account back up to the 76,600 readers I had before, and journey to build up the read count on my books to what they were before (50 Shades of Drake was my most popular story, and was at 6mil reads at the time the previous account had to be shut down). I see those of you who are trying to remember to vote for each chapter. I appreciate you guys. I'm not sure if you can tell, but I use those indicators to help determine which story to update most often. 

It was a crazy experience going back and rereading the stories I've reposted. I've noticed consistency issues. The typos were expected - thankfully, there weren't as many as I expected. I'm sure I haven't fixed them all, and there may also be inconsistency issues with this particular story, since I changed Meek Mill's character to Kenny in the story. I tried to make sure I updated all of the name changes and took out the descriptors pointing to Meek, but...LOL there may be some lingering. A lot of changes were made to this story, based on timing. There are updated events in both Drake's and Nicki's lives (they each have a kid now, etc.), and based on the absence of those children, I had to try to make sure certain things such as real Drake songs being performed lined up with the timing. 

A kind soul asked on my Wattpad wall (or whatever you call it) whether or not the songs in these two stories are real. I didn't really know my limitations with posting the lyrics to a full existing Drake song, so I made up these songs. Some of you day-1's already know that from having asked the question in the comments of the original story when it was posted back in 2015 and 2016, but I'm answering that question here also, for anyone else who may be wondering.

To those of you who are rocking with me on IG: shiloh.starr, thank you. Love you. You guys have been hella patient, and for that I'm going to throw some extra books at you and extra updates at you, once the updates start.

And speaking of "once the updates start," my priority right now is getting all of the existing stories up and posted. That is taking a lot longer than I anticipated. For those who care why, the indentation doesn't save from Microsoft Word to Wattpad, so I have to indent each paragraph myself, and also hunt down the photos for each chapter. I won't have this struggle when posting my published books, because I won't really be allowed to post any images, if I want those books to be considered for contests, etc. But for the fanfic stories, hunting down the right photo takes more time than I remember. Trying to get each story posted as quickly as possible, since people have their own favorites.

Reminder: When my original account was hacked, some story material got lost. I think I spoke on this on a chapter in another story, but will also add it here. Stories that were affected are: Insecure (the one starring Amara LaNegra), Teaching Mr. Graham Book 2, Fireworks Book 3, some of Fall for Your Type (the story based on The Little Mermaid), Maneater, Mr. Wrong Book 2, and Empire. These books will require a lot of rewriting from me. If you have faves out of this list, please drop them in the comments, so I can prioritize which ones to start rewriting first.

You may have seen me updating at lightning speed tonight. That is because I became aware that I am going to be MIA for about a 2-week period. I have to go inpatient for mental health stuff. The day 1's may also remember that even back in the day, I had intervals of hard times and times when I was struggling mentally, due to trauma, etc. The pandemic exaggerated some issues that were already there. Somewhat related to that, I did alter Mia's speech towards the end of Fireworks Book 2, when she's onstage talking about everyone being negative with each other. It feels like people need to hear shit like that right now. But anyway, seeing bad news happening, the racial BS that was happening, political crap that was happening, plus COVID family losses and my own personal trauma I've experienced, all compounded to wear me out. I've been inpatient before, saw quite a bit of progress, then got knocked back down again. So I've made the decision to go back in. Not sure how long they're going to keep me. Usually it's one to two weeks. 

Once I return, I'll get back to updating as much as possible - and I'll be that much closer to being able to post 50 Shades of Drake (that series is my baby...for reasons LOL). 

I don't want anyone feeling sad for me. I like to be open about stuff like this, because too often, we put our highlight reels on social media and not our struggles. Thankfully, more and more people have spoken on this topic the past few years, and have started trying to post more of a balance. I want to be one of those people. So when I go through tough times, I post about it on my IG. 

Anything else I need to tell you guys? Oh. Back when we were all kii-kiing in the comments, we didn't know what a Tyler Lepley was. Now, I know what a Tyler Lepley is and that man is foine. I commented on his IG that I wanted to cast him for a project (being 50 Shades of Drake) and he followed me and is actually active, liking posts and stories). He is about his business and I love that about him. Love him and Miracle together, and think it's ironic af that he is my choice to cast in the 50 Shades of Drake movie, and he winds up with Miracle, who I cast for Mr. Wrong. I also got to see Drake and Kylie Bunbury play Steph and Ayesha Curry in one of the sports awards shows Drake hosted. It always feels like a fourth wall being broken. But...I'm going to say it again. Tyler Lepley is fine as heyell and I'm going to cast him in something. I just don't know what yet.

Also, a Doja Cat fanfic is coming up. It's going to be beautifully weird, and I can't wait for that. Euphoria fanfic coming up. A lot coming up. A lot of published books coming out over the next year. Just...a lot.

I'm experimenting with the whole external link thing. I don't know what it means, but currently I have it set to the Creatives' Corner section of my business website, where writers and artists of all types of mediums and learn, get inspiration, and network. I'm going to see where the link shows up and what the whole purpose of that is. 

Aaaaaaaaand I think that's all I got. 

I'll end off with a major thank you to you guys for hanging with me for this long. I posted my first story on here end of 2014. We are coming up close to a DECADE. Sheeeeeeeeeesh.

Hoping you guys are staying safe and sane.

<3

KS/SS