You have been gone for a long time! LOL You've missed a lot I guess?
When Kevin came back there was a big resurgence in writing again from people who kind of stopped like you did. The new album and tour seemed to revitalize everyone for a bit! I know what did it for me was finding out they had all rented a house together in London. The other thing that pleasantly surprised me especially last summer was the new slew of suspense stories. That genre had fallen way off over the years and the most recent page was primarily dominated by nothing but romance and then it was like BAM! Everyone started writing suspense, even people who didn't usually write it. What a nice refreshing change that was.
Now there seems to be a nice eclectic mix of stories to choose from which is great!
As far as writing, I've considerably lightened my load with that. I mostly write one story a year and post it during the summer. I occasionally will write some one shots during school but I have decided I just don't have the time or energy when school starts to write and read fanfic. I wrote a suspense last summer "Hope is the Last Thing Ever Lost." and the one before. "Whatever the Night May Bring." This summer I'm going more the bromantic route. "The Secrets that We Keep."
As far as reading, "Dodging the Daylight" is one I know you'd enjoy! You'd also love Rose's new one "Show me a Reason" and one called "Brothers" by a newer author Jess20. All three of them are bromance heavy but Dodging is also suspense. I think those are primarily the ones I had been reading. Oh, you should also check out "Save a Prayer" by Carter-Orange, unless that was before you disappeared? LOL
I'm sure if I forgot anything someone will mention it.
I am really happy to see you and I am the same way with the boys. Actually, I'm in one of my downward fandom cycles. LOL
Hahahaha, I had this proud, happy smile the day I found out about Kevin's returned... then I let my 90's teenybopper self squeal a bit, lmao! I think I may have popped in a few times after Kevin's return, but it's good to know there was a resurgence of writers with the "reunion", so to speak, hahaha. I gave a listen to some of their IAWLT album songs, and was kinda sad and worried when I wasn't really receiving their new songs like how I used to; you can definitely tell that they aren't under an established record label, which is cool, but it honestly took a long while for me to get used to it and for it to grow on me, lol. I do want to check out the Backstreet Movie whenever that comes out, lmao! But back to the fics, I'm sooo glad to know there was also an increase in suspenseful writing... you know I can't stray far away from the genre for shit, lmao!!!
And that is totally understandable with how busy your schedule is Mare, and trying to find the time and energy to sit down and write or read. DOE jobs tend to just drain you at the end of each day, or at least it does for me, lmao. On top of that, I have another job that I shoot straight after school to do that ends my day, so I've been a lot busier as well; trying to hustle, lmao. Figured I'd get in as much writing and reading before my summer completely escapes me; not sure why I waited till the end of summer, lmao, but oh well. And girl, you know I feel ya with the downward cycle on the fandom, lmao!!!