Kat LaFleur

Good news/bad news time!!!!
          
          The good news is I am all the way back on my bullsh*t. My little gang of misfit characters are talking to me again and the Lake Effect Kid saga is back in active drafting. I'm just about done with the first draft of chapter twelve. 
          
          There's some challenges to telling this section of the story in a way that makes sense, but I'm doing what I can. I'm resisting the urge to post any of it publicly, but I have wonderful beta reader at this time who is helping me so much. If you're reading this and also would be interested in reading a partial first draft, feel free to reach out <3

Well, I entered the Wattys! Wish me luck, guys. I've been a little down on myself and this project lately, with the sequel draft sitting more or less abandoned for much longer than I would've liked. I'm working on myself right now, just trying to stay afloat mentally. I don't have a ton of energy to give to my characters right now, and they deserve more. 
          
          It's meant the world to have a few of you reach out to me asking about updates, so this is al I have for you right now. Thank you for being here, thank you for giving a damn. <3

700 views!!!!!! Oh how I wish it was a bigger number, but that just makes me more grateful for every single click. Thank you for being here 

I miss checking in to share new chapters with you guys </3

Don't mind me. Just popping in because I'm proud of myself. I went back and read all eight chapters of Young Volcanoes's sequel. I made some tweaks, I threw out some trash, I found some gems that I forgot I had buried. 
          
          Sometime in October, things stopped coming easily. My characters stopped speaking to me. I was dragging things out of them, and everything I was able to pull out was bad. It made me anxious, made me dread sitting down to write. My outline alone is six pages long. It was starting to look like gibberish. I abandoned the gang, left them sitting nervous and unsure at a dinner table full of label execs in the middle of chapter nine. I knew exactly where they were. They had to stay there until I was ready to get them out. There was a little resentment at first, but we're back on speaking terms. 
          
          I finished chapter nine this weekend, three months after the last words I had written. I tore my outline apart and put the puzzle back together from scratch. There's a clear picture now, a logical path towards the end. 
          
          I'm still not sure what I want to do. If I started releasing it here now, one chapter at a time, I'd have a nine week buffer to help me keep writing and make sure I could keep up a chapter a week by the time we caught up to where I am now. If I can stay even just one chapter ahead, it works. I'm not ready to commit to that yet. Maybe if chapter ten comes as easily as chapter nine, I'll revisit. I'm also contemplating more and more unhinged ways to get Young Volcanoes into the hands that will either elevate or crush it. At this point, a cease & desist is the only thing that's gonna stop me. I wonder who opens the mail at Crush Management, because that's where Fall Out Boy's fan mail address is.

Welp, here we are. This journey of posting this story for public consumption has been interesting, and I'm so grateful for the base of readers I've found thus far, however small.  Based on the breakdown of views by chapters, it looks like I've had 11 readers at most. It's not what I was hoping for, but I love every single one of you. 
          
          Enjoy this final chapter, and let your mind fantasize about where Quinn and the band will go from here - I promise that even your biggest, wildest guesses won't be enough. 
          
          For those of you who actually read these announcements, here's a treat: Book two is titled "Jet Pack Blues". If "Young Volcanoes" is book one's end credits theme, "Jet Pack Blues" fades in as the credits roll at the end of book two. Yes, that should worry you. Very much. 
          
          The problem I have right now is that when I chose to publish Young Volcanoes here on Wattpad, it was finished. It had been finished for quite some time, but I opted for a release schedule for algorythm reasons - for all the good that did me. While Jet Pack Blues is in progress, it's not ready for a release schedule like the one I had for Young Volcanoes. 
          
          So I pose the question to you, dear reader: are you willing to wait? I'm ready to sit back down and commit to making Jet Pack Blues just as good as Young Volcanoes. Until this week, I hadn't opened it since October. I needed a break, and now I'm back to work. Would you rather wait until I can promise you a chapter every week? Or should I give you what I have already, and offer you the chance to influence the plot in real time?
          
          Sound off below, and again, I truly thank you for being here. I am ALWAYS down to talk to my readers about anything and everything, so feel free to find me on social media. I'm on Instagram and Tiktok as @manicpixiefinalgirl. If you follow me, let me know you came from Wattpad so I can be sure to follow you back. 
          
          xoxo Kat

Today’s a weird day for me. But instead of bringing that here, I’m gonna just let you know that chapter 23 is your chance to finally exhale. I promise I’m done hurting your feelings*. 
          
          Dear Quinn, I showed you the bad things. I punished you for trying, for hoping, for trusting. It was only because I knew it would be temporary, because I knew what was waiting on the other side. The world isn’t evil, and you’re not doomed. 
          
          Neither are you. Let this chapter show you. 
          
          
          
          
          *until the sequel

We broke 500 views today!!! I’m really, really hoping to boost that number by a lot. But I will always value ya’ll that found me first. Thank you for your support 

Alright listen up and listen up good. 
          
          Chapter 22 is ugly. 
          
          U G L Y. 
          
          Not all of it. Some of it is my all time favorite Quinn and Paul interaction. Enjoy.
          
          But I *did* say it was going to get worse so you’ve been warned. I promised I was taking the liberties of fiction to take tropes to the extreme. Consider this the boss battle. 
          
          I also am, as a reminder, a sadist. I get a little bit of a rush if I find out this stuff made your insides churn. 
          
          Let me in. 

I’m a loser who REGULARLY tags fall out boy and specifically pete wentz in stuff about my book. tbh I’ve been trying to interact with pete on social media for over a decade at this point and NOTHING. 
          
          Let it be known that sometime on 12/30/2021 (my late father’s birthday), pete wentz viewed my story. So that’s the date we know that he knows this exists.
          
          If we want this to happen, it can’t just be me tagging him. If you want this story to be all it can be I need YOU sending him tweets, instagram DM’s, all that shit. Let’s get on his radar. 
          
          Oh and HAPPY FRIGGIN NEW YEAR!!! MAY YOU GRAB 2022 BY THE HORNS AND RIDE IT SCREAMING INTO INFINITY.