“The way you tell your story to yourself matters."
~~Amy Cuddy
Hi all,

Welcome to JABB's 19th anniversary issue!  And because JABB turned 19 on July 19th, this is its golden birthday!  Hence the color scheme...

As we're drawing very, very close to JABB 500 and I plan to do something a bit more extensive for that, I thought a low-key look at 19 facts about JABB would be fun.  I think I did something like this before but heck if I can find that issue so there may be a little repetitiveness below.  I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

God bless,
Jenni
Nineteen  (Hopefully) Interesting Facts about JABB's Nineteen Years

1.  My JABB files now take up 1.59 GB of space.  And that's not counting assorted backup files.

2.  That 1.59 GB is made up of 44,581 files.
 
3.  While it seems to only count pages picked up by Google, Online Word Counter says that JABB's site is comprised of 2,147,483,600 words.  That wouldn't count anything password protected.  Sheesh!

4.  Over the course of writing a mere three items for this list, I've had to stop four times just to deal with Leo wanting something or getting into something or spilling something or breaking something...  Leo is the number one threat to JABB.  ;-)

5.  Over the course of my many years of writing Dyeland stories, plots have sometimes drifted from what I originally planned... sometimes differing quite drastically.  For example: Originally, the Dyeland stories were going to accept all three seasons of "Beauty and the Beast" as "real"... which means Catherine would have died back in the 80s.  I really can't remember why I decided to ignore Season 3.  I probably just didn't want to be depressed!  I'm glad the Dyeland tales include Catherine!

6.  Along those lines, I also very briefly considered having JenniAnn be Vincent's biological daughter.  The major hang-up there was I had no idea who her mother would be and rather liked the idea that Catherine was Vincent's "first."  Further, it made me sad to think JenniAnn would be the sole person to carry whatever genes made Vincent who he is and then they would die off because of her and Andrew.  As it is, someone else is carrying those genes...

7.  Yehuda was not originally supposed to appear in "The Carpenter."  He was added only because I thought there needed to be a little more tension in the story.  Once I did decide to include him, I had considered having Zeke be one of his descendants and that was why he could sense Yehuda.  However, I ended up liking the idea that Zeke picked up on the traitor simply because he'd been in his head for months as he prepared to play him in "Jesus Christ Superstar."  It was just a happy accident that Yehuda could then serve as at least part of why Satan is/was so intimidated by Andrew.

8.  Some time ago, I read that the first TBAA episodes were written in hotel rooms that were being rented until the cast and crew knew whether or not they'd get a Season 2.  Thus, to close the circle, it's long been in my mind to write the last bits of JABB in a Holiday Inn.  As of right now, I have no reservations at the Holiday Inn... happily!

9.  I've long joked about JABB being brought to you by caffeinated beverages and whatever sweet I'm most into at a given time.  Now I need to add one more thing: rawhide.  Without it, I'd be dealing with even more canine interruptions.

10.  One of my favorite things about JABB is being able to carry on with TBAA's dedication to confronting important social issues.  Some that I'd like to touch on in the future include: infertility, transgender issues, depression, and, on a lighter note, debating if Andrew is, in fact, an alien. 

11.  I keep a spreadsheet listing the color combinations used on JABB newsletters and check it to be sure I don't use the same palette too often and too close together.  It's kinda bothering me that I'm using a gold background right after having used a yellow one.  But I think we can all cope!  :-)

12.  With the exception of the first computer I used to help write JABB (which my parents owned), all the others have been named with JABB in mind.  The first one I bought was Ebendrew because of my love/hate relationship with my puters.  Then came Serendipity, named for Andrew's old house in Dyeland, and this one is Willowveil. 

13.  Back when I was angstier and more hormonal (aka college era), I would sometimes write uncensored versions of stories so I could exorcise the more dramatic and wildly Romantic elements I had in my head before sitting down to compose a version that had the TBAA and Dyeland characters behaving a bit more realistically.  Without that, Andrew would likely have come out as an unholy blend of Heathcliff and Lancelot.  ::shudders:: 

14.  This one's a little sad but truthful so...  I won't read the very earliest JABB newsletters and haven't for many years.  For one, I find them more than a little embarrassing.  For another, it hits me harder than I'd like to admit reading my younger self pining over John and knowing what's coming.  But if I could go back in time and try to urge my teenaged self to crush on someone else... I wouldn't.

15.  Writing about Joshua and his family has been so meaningful for me that sometimes I feel better referring to the holy family as Joshua, Maryam, and Yosef as opposed to Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. 

16.  Another kind of sad one: I used to love coming home to a quiet house, writing in quiet, cleaning in quiet, etc.  For some reason, after John passed away, silence became a little hard for me to deal with.  So now my go-to soundscape for writing is Pandora's New Age Instrumental station.  This can become a problem when a really romantic tune comes on.  Then all I want to do is write about characters swooning over each other!

17.  I literally just realized that since JABB is now 19, that means I've lived in my own house for more of its lifetime than I did in my parents' house.  I wrote and co-wrote nine years of JABB there and ten here.  Weird!

18.  I'm so incredibly glad and grateful to still be doing this.  While it's sometimes hard to carve out time for JABB now that I've gone from a relatively carefree teenager to someone with bills, a full-time job, a house to manage, and rather demanding dogs; I feel very blessed to have JABB.  It keeps a part of my childhood alive, has brought me so many friends, and keeps John's memory close to me.

19.  God loves you!!!  Okay, okay so it's not a fact about JABB.  But it is a fact and belongs here!


This newsletter is dedicated to John Dye for giving us nineteen years of friendship, fun, comfort, creativity, and love.  Thank you, John!

JABB Portal
JABB TOC
JAB 495

(Photo Credits: The photographs used on this page are from Touched by an Angel and owned by CBS Productions, Caroline Productions, and Moon Water Productions.  They are not being used to seek profit.)