Episode 003 PreVIEWS

Episode 003 PreVIEWS

"My fears behind me, gone are the shadows and doubts
That was then, this is my now."

Hello "All Or Nothing" readers and welcome back to the Behind-the-Scenes blog of the online drama series that recently returned from a three-plus year hiatus. With two episodes under the "return" belt...AON is gearing up for one of the best arcs ever written, I truly believe that. Characters have matured, departed and some have returned. One of those characters who is returning to the canvas in Episode 003 is the notorious vixen Brandi Brashears Pierce.

In my opinion, Brandi was always one of those complicated characters who always bordered the line of heroine and vixen. In one case she was the orphaned child who came to live with Natasha Garrett Bradshaw's family when she was young, but the adult Brandi was very, very naughty. Did I mention that she had a bad habit of sleeping with married men? Including her one-time husband / baby daddy fashion icon Nicholas Pierce and former best-friend's very own husband Andrew Bradshaw (a plot point that will not be forgotten during this regime.)

But, Brandi's biggest crime was literally a crime against everything she once held dear...she caused the accident that claimed the life of Jered Bradshaw in 2004. His death rocked the River's Edge community...the Bradshaw and Pierce family...it caused Jered's sister April to split into a multiple personality...a forever destasted mother...and a wife who has not be capable of learning to love again.

Through the last five years though, it has been Jered's twin sister Jodi who has seemed to experience the most pain. A failed marriage, a crushing social life and the guilt that she carries around with her. Jodi's been living through this for the last five years and because she's authoring a novel, "Angels Among the Water" she is going through it for a second time. It's because of the in-progress novel that leads Jodi to the South Texas State Penitentiary for Women near Huntsville. There's an extreme guilt that Jodi has been carrying with her and those demons are clearly coming out to haunt her...she's there for one reason and one reason only - readers cannot miss Episode 004 as the episode ventures back to the 2005 when Brandi was on trial for manslaughter charges. Obviously we know what the end result was but how she got there is the story. Jodi's gunning for answers and she'll get them, not right away, because where is the fun the it that. As the writer, my suggestion is not to miss an episode and don't take your eyes off Jodi for a minute!

on the edge - the time has come

You never know how these things are going to last! I certaintly didn't imagine that when I created "All Or Nothing" in 2001 that I would still be writing the stories of these characters almost eight years later but low-and-behold here we are! I want to scream it from the proverbial rooftops..."ALL OR NOTHING IS BACK!!"

When I last left the characters in 2006 they were much like me at a turning point in all of their lives...those stories will be rehashed over time, but it was always like something wasn't completed for me in terms of these people. I created "AON" back in 2001 because I lacked something that I think a lot of writers do...I was an awkward kid living in a world that I thought was quite frankly a little screwed up. I thought I wanted to create a world in which I could escape and in that world I wanted to create people that I knew in my own life, create people that I could be friends with and create people who I hated and then do bad, bad things to them...Clarissa Bryant anyone, remember she was murdered! I'm kidding!

But, the more that I got to know these people...Brandi, Nicholas, Justin, Bradley...the more I started resenting them for being around and I got tired of seeing them until one day early this year when I was pushed by something to sit down at the computer and go to work. Before I knew it I had a 12 page outline of a story that will show the writers in daytime that just because you're over the age of 65 (gasp!) you can still drive the story and be a leading lady or gentlemen in this genre! And it was even the writing that allowed me freedom it was the creating of what I hope readers and fans will find to be a beautifuly new website...one that is done with class and taste in mind. There is so much in store for the people of River's Edge that readers truly have no idea what this journey is about to do for not only me as a writer but to the characters that the came to love in 2001. I've stayed true to who they were then and who they will become now. Also, thanks in part to the storytelling of "Lost" a show that we didn't have eight years ago the flashbacks will play into the story like never before for "AON" and in a style rarely seen in the daytime genre. I truly believe that there are more talented writers out in the Internet web-waves writing original stories or writing fan-fics to their favorite soap opera that could do it so much better than those getting paid so much money to do so, if only someone would take note and soon!

In closing I hope that you stop by and visit the AON webpage and leave comments here. Until next time enjoy the view from the edge!