Tag: Aside

Anything that relates to a story, but is not part of the actual legacy is found here.

Happy New Year! The Farmer Family Legacy 2020 Year In Review

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Happy New Year, everyone! Today brings to close a challenging year by most standards. The extra time at home (oh, who am I kidding? I’m always home anyway!) has allowed me to dedicate my time to writing the blog, and maybe a novel, full time. Since we’ve said ‘good riddance’ to one of the craziest years in the history books, I thought I’d bring you up to date on all the fun and happy things going on at the Farmer Legacy!

The Generation One rewrites are still in progress, and I’m getting closer to publishing a couple of chapters together. I’m not planning a break between the generations, so once the Farmer era has concluded, Destiny becomes the star of the show in every sense of the word. I am doing preliminary footwork on the Atwood era of the story, and I’m so excited to relive Destiny’s stellar music career. I’m currently writing a character profile for Arthur, which I’ve neglected to do for far too long. He’s definitely worth the introduction. 

On August 5, 2020, I launched the Blogger site for the Farmer Legacy as a ‘sister’ site, so to speak. For now, only Generation One occupies the space at Blogger, but that will change as I update more chapters from the later generations. The stats that follow do not include the activity from Blogger—since it’s a new launch, the performance so far is sub-par and doesn’t reflect the popularity of the overall story. That’s okay, though!  I’ll be actively promoting both sites through this coming year.

In September, I met the man who became my editor, and he has been an amazing addition to the Farmer Legacy. He is teaching me so much, and I have blossomed under his tutelage. He tells me he sees unlimited potential in me, and we look forward to many chapters written together. Chris has experience in the publishing business and a background in graphic design and commercial art. I am so blessed to have him on board!

So, now to the exciting part! Despite a months-long creativity block (from April to August), I wrote twenty-one chapters last year. I have not published all of them, but at least two are forthcoming in the next week or two. Compared to last year’s one-hundred-six chapters, it seems like a slow year. Broken down into geek, that’s 256 pages for Generation One, and 15 pages for Generation Five (Andy’s Surprise, Chapter 34), 114,028 words, 613,707 characters. I realize that is a fraction, almost one-fifth, of what I wrote during 2019. But here is where everything blows my mind. During the year 2020, The Farmer Legacy saw 751 page views by 374 visitors. Compare this to last year’s 411 page views by 194 visitors, and I think I can call this year a wild success! 

This coming year, I’m hoping to get past the Generation Two rewrites and clean up Three, Four and Five before I continue with Danae and Andy’s saga. I’m also seriously considering submitting some of my work to a publisher. I’ve been researching possibilities, and I’m hoping that I’ll find one that could be a good fit with the romance genre. Of course, should a book deal arise, it will cease to be a Sims Fanfiction novel—I will erase all traces of the iconic game from the story, and there may be extra content that was never available on the blog. This will be a test of will and confidence for me, a test to see if I’m becoming the author I want to become. 

Thank you all so much for the follows, the reads, your comments, emails, compliments, your abundant patience, and for telling your friends about this blog. I don’t take a single thing for granted—I’ve worked so hard to build all you see on this site. I appreciate everything—every bit of success is possible because of you. I look forward to this new year with my Farmer family and their descendants. As always, I’m available on Facebook, Twitter, WordPress Inbox and the Farmer Legacy Gmail.

From all my families to yours, wishes for a happy, healthy and prosperous 2021!

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Pose Credit

Poses By Bee
Couples 2 Poses

Custom Content

Around The Sims 3
Riesling Glasses and Bottle

The Sims Resource
Christmas III by Severinka

Custom Content is not my property, and everything is used in compliance with TOUs.

Generation One Is Live!

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Hello Sim Fans! I have some (obvious) news if you have been following on Twitter or Facebook, you already know the first five chapters of my Generation One rewrites are live on the WordPress blog. They are brand new content, completely rewritten and I think improved. I can’t wait to share the entire Gen One story with you.

That said, the rest of the chapters will go live one by one as they are finished and edited. Right now, I only have nine full chapters written with a possible twenty planned. It turns out, when you are writing events that cover almost forty years, it takes a few written words to tell the story. So keep your eyes out for the rest of the story.

Generation Five is still on hiatus until the rewrites are complete and posted in their entirety. That doesn’t mean that Andy and Danae are going away any time soon. We’re just paused on the Murphy era for a little while longer.

I will be continuing to work on the other four chapters I have written and get them on the WordPress blog over the weekend. It’s not exactly how I had planned it, but I also wasn’t counting being ill, either. C’est la vie.

I hope that you’ll stay tuned for the rest of Charlie and Fran’s story. Thank you tons for reading, and I welcome and even encourage comments on the chapters. We’ll see you in Appaloosa Plains!

Happy New Year – The Farmer Legacy 2019 Year In Review

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As today kicks off another brand new year, I suppose it’s natural to sit and reflect upon the passing year. So, in my first year of writing about my Farmer families, I have some exciting things to share with you. 

Though I began writing the stories in 2018 before my mom’s passing, and it’s in her memory that I continue to write them, it was last year that saw the bulk of my writing. In early January, I posted chapter two of Generation two, the story of Destiny Farmer and her family. Since then, I have written one hundred and six story-related chapters for a total of a whopping 1,387 pages of text, 553,103 written words, and 2,450,254 characters, not counting spaces. Of those numbers above, 747 pages, 290,315 words, and 1,277,853 characters are from Generation Five alone! If you’re a numbers buff like me, that adds up to 54% of my pages alone are Gen Five (I suppose if I was really a geek, I’d do pie charts and data points, too, but let’s not get carried away, shall we?) If you couldn’t tell already, Danae and Andy have been my favorite generation so far, and I’m not done yet!

In addition to all of the impressive numbers above, these are the statistics that truly blow my mind. First, I’ve had 194 visitors to the site in 2019, and 411 total views! I can’t even get into social media presence, but suffice it to say, I’ve had a fantastic year here at the Farmer Family Legacy. Last but not least are my 121 followers on the blog just via WordPress alone. I cannot express to you how incredibly thankful I am for everyone who reads this. I am humbled beyond words, truthfully. I never expected to see these numbers when I reviewed my year-end figures. And I’m incredibly thankful to each and every one of you, whether you’re a devoted reader or you’re stopping by today because you’re curious. A million thank yous could never express my gratitude.

During January, I will be rewriting Generation One and getting that up on the blog in total by the 31st of the month. I anticipate the entire generation will be posted at once rather than chapter by chapter. In my absence, I will still be available via email, Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress inbox. As always, I welcome any and all comments, queries, questions, and suggestions.

I wish all of you a happy, healthy and prosperous 2020! I can’t wait to see what the new year brings to the Farmer Legacy. Cheers!

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Hiatus Announced

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Hello, fellow simmers and romance fans (if any are following for that purpose.) I just want to bring you up to date on the blog and myself very quickly.

I am taking a planned posting hiatus for January 2020, mostly so I can begin my planned re-writes of Generations One and Two. I’m anticipating this will take some time to complete, but I am hoping to publish Generation One in its entirety in January.  The rewrites are in very rough draft form, but I found my original gameplay notes, so I have some foundation to work with. Fingers crossed on this huge undertaking.

Second, I am obviously not going to be finishing Generation Five any time soon. Danae and Andy’s stories have been incredibly fun to write, and I’m not even close to drawing this to a close. That said, Elyse’s story is currently in development, along with Eamon’s and the… new Murphy munchkins! They are born in the game, but not in the story, but I promise that the storyline will not be left hanging until February. I am planning one last chapter before the end of the year, and I’m working on that this weekend without fail.

I am available via email, Facebook, Twitter or by inboxing me on this blog. As always, I welcome your comments, kind constructive criticism and a friendly word of encouragement. This project is a labor of love and has taken a good part of my past year. I’m having the time of my life writing my stories for you. I hope to see all of you in the new year. 

The Story Shifts!

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Hello everyone!

I am excited to begin a new adventure with the Jones girls (Darcey & Danae) and their families as they move to Isla Paradiso from their hometown of Starlight Shores. This is the first move since Destiny Farmer moved from Appaloosa Plains to the Shores at the beginning of Generation Two.

If you’ve been following the stories for long, you’ve discovered that one of my favorite worlds to write about has been the beautiful Caribbean-inspired island of Isla Paradiso. The storyline has been stale in the Shores really since the Estevan debacle in Gen 3, and it was time to shake things up a bit for Andy, Danae, Clint and Darcey with a whole new save game, new Townies to meet, a new job (in the story) for Andy and a career change for Clint (from LEO to game design. For the first time since graduating from Sim State, Clint will actually use his technology degree!)

For now, I am planning a month or so hiatus at the conclusion of Generation Five to continue to develop my ideas for the Generation One rewrites. That project has been slow, because I am having difficulty finding my notes from my original game play. If I cannot find them, I will go back and recreate my game using an old save file.

What will the hiatus mean for the beginning of Generation Six? I am not anticipating the Five and Six storylines will overlap much, if at all. Danae and Darcey are older parents, having started with their main story almost halfway through their young adult cycle in the game (They are significantly younger in the stories.) I am not anticipating the twins will enjoy the same benefits their parents and grandparents did. I don’t see Danae and Andy living to see their grandchildren born, and the same for Darcey and Clint. That said, Elyse and Eamon are still toddlers in the story, and Generation Five still has a lot of life left to play.

I hope you are enjoying the generational saga that has become the Farmer Legacy. We’re almost halfway there. Thanks for sticking with me, and let me know your thoughts, feelings and ideas in the comments.

Generation Five

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Hey everyone! I have some news regarding Generation Five. The twins, Danae and Darcey, are now officially young adults in the game, which means… their stories are coming shortly! Because they are identical twins, their stories are written as one. I’m sure neither of them would have it any other way!

Devin is now officially a teenager, and is almost the spitting image of his daddy, Travis. I won’t know for sure if he will stay with that strong resemblance, or if he will lean more toward Charlotte by the time he is an adult. We will see!

For those of you who do not follow our Facebook page, I will post the photos (read:Screenshots) of the Generation Five actors, in all life stages, below.

I sincerely hope you are enjoying the stories, and as always I welcome feedback, comments or questions at the end of each post. I feel like the Jones family is my own, and I will miss Charlotte and Travis when it is their turn to meet the Reaper.

Without further ado:

Danae Elizabeth Jones

Danae, toddler
Danae, childhood
Danae, teenager
Danae, young adult

Darcey Isabella Jones

Darcey, toddler
Darcey, childhood
Darcey, teenager
Darcey, young adult

Devin Rogelio Jones

Devin, toddler
Devin, childhood
Devin, teenager
Devin, young adult

Thanks again for reading, and for allowing me the chance to share the combination of my two passions: The Sims, and writing. I’m thankful for the opportunity and the resources to do both.

Thoughts About Generation Three

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The conclusion of Generation Three, with Bella and Rogelio St John, has been published, and I thought I would share a few thoughts about the chapter, and about Bella and Rog as a whole.

Rog & Bella have been the most interesting of the families I have written about yet. In many ways, they might be the peak of what this legacy will look like, though I admit I never know in advance which way the story will go. Bella’s early relationship with Estevan Best was actually very rocky in the game, and with his “Mean Spirited” and “Evil” traits, he became the natural antagonist in this generation. His craziness was offset with Rog’s happy-go-lucky nature, and his fierce love and desire to protect Bella. Often, when I was writing, I’d run into a snag with a story line, and I would have doubts about taking the story in the direction I was writing, so I would write an alternate ending, or path. Usually, my original plot was more interesting than the rewrite, so I wound up keeping it.

If I said their in-game deaths weren’t devastating, I’d be a big ol’ liar. Rog’s death tore me up, and Bella’s death the following sim day was equally horrible. I was attached to them and their story, so I am hoping that I did their final days some justice in the last chapter. I, like Bella, was not ready for them to go.

I hope you have enjoyed the stories up to this point. There is a lot more coming, with Generation Five growing up faster than I can say “Sul Sul.” Charlotte and Travis still have much more to live, and their beautiful children have their own stories to tell.

I look forward to sharing this passion, my heart, with you. Enjoy!

Another Farmer Legacy First!

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Travis, Charlotte’s doting husband, has an interesting, somewhat checkered past. If you’re wondering about him, wonder no more! The story of his life before Charlotte is now live.

This chapter is a first, because he is the first non-blood related Sim in the story line to have a back story. Many of the things he does and says are guided by his past experience. How he loves, his views on parenting, and how he treats his own in-laws. It also contains some uncomfortable scenes between him and his overly controlling and notoriously crazy mother, and concerning what happened to his first love. Be warned, some of it may be difficult to read.

I hope you enjoy this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! Happy Simming!