Time flies and other updates

So, it was pointed out I kinda just went dark for 4+ months, so I wanted to give a small update. Life has been crazy and time is not working like it used to or something.

Anyway, I'm planning basically two more pieces to the Bound Friends Epilogue.

There will be Epilogue 1½ which is the continuation of Epilogue 1. Epilogue 1 had been the "end goal" for a very long time, but in that time I'd had many ideas of "and then what" that I'm consolidating into a volume, albeit shorter (hopefully) than Epilogue 1 and with a less bittersweet ending. Epilogue 1½ is 100% optional and if you like your headcannon of what happens after Epilogue 1 then just keep it and go onto the next part.

Then comes Epilogue 2. You will need to have read Epilogue 1, but Epilogue 1½ will not factor in at all. This is the branch I started coming up with once I started getting squeamish about the end goal I had in mind. I had been writing Andrea and Megan and Zainab so long I didn't want to put them through that much pain. So I started coming up with alternative directions to go, ones without so much sadness. So this is where the "new" endgame was heading when I hit massive writing block. I've written basically a full length story already going down this path, so that will make the heart of it. Then, at the end of Epilogue 2, is a bit of a conversation between Andrea and Megan in the time in which the storytelling takes place. They are living in a world much closer to Epilogue 2 than 1 and they give me a chance for an ending that way I wouldn't have been able to have if I didn't do this epilogue format.

I want to try to give these characters a bit of an ending, but I also know that I have to rush myself a bit to get there. (As if it looks like I'm rushing now!) I've also started writing some side stories that are unrelated to any of this that I will post here when they are done but they are both far from it. One I hope to get by Halloween, but that's a long shot.

Either way, I'm still here, I'm just really busy and burned out but I am trying to finish this off when I have the energy to write.

Epilogue 1 - Andrea and the Original Dream

So it has been a long time since I first promised it, but the project simply grew in size like I wasn't expecting. Now however I can share the first major part in the ending, which I'm calling an epilogue simply to distinguish it from my more "conventional" stories.

This is the first story, and it details the path I had been planning on taking for a long while. It ends where I had planned to end the series. This path is the one Lea's story had been started for, but this stands alone if you haven't read that fragment. I had vague notions of where people went after this, but I wanted to end the story here since for years this was where I planned to leave it. The "Original" as I dumb it.

Going forward now I should have one more story of roughly this size, maybe a little less. That will show the alternate path I was coming up. I may also share some of the other ideas for alternate paths I came up with but no promises on how much. I'll also share the partial story (though much fuller than Lea's) I had been working on.

So now without further introduction:

Epilogue 1 - Andrea and the Original Dream - PDF Version

Part 24* - Lea and the Recovery (Unfinished)

This is the start of what would have been a the next chapter in the series. This picks up with Lea and sets her back on a path to getting better. This was one of the parts I found hard to write. Maybe it's the subject matter, I was caught between not wanting to "cheapen" what Lea was going through but also not having an easy time writing the depressive melancholy. I have put parts of myself (or parts I wish I had) in many of my characters, and maybe this was just too close to home. I don't know, but it's been sitting unpublished for some time and I had even written out an outline for the rest of the story to try to drag myself forward without a lot of progress. I won't be doing the normal PDF download for this, unless someone asks. Anyways, enjoy a brief glimpse into Lea and her RV adventuring:

One month later update.

So it's now into February and I had earlier said I'd have something by last December. So, yes sickness did delay things. I've found that I get the most writing done during periods when I'm away, maybe it's the change of scenery, but I had planned to use Christmas break from work as a time to punch it out. So being sick over the holidays is a bigger deal than being sick at other times since I have more energy to write when I have breaks from work.

But the largest part of the delay is the scope. I had planned out roughly to get a preamble setting up the format of this special story, then go through the two paths I had planned out in very rough details. Well, as I actually got typing, a bit in I realized I was not being nearly as brief as I had planned to be. I was still skimming faster, almost no downtime or dialogue, but more details than I had originally planned.

My two options were return to skipping more of the details to get it done faster, or go back to the beginning and fill in a little more of the details and get everything the kind of some-details version rather than the few-details version. I settled on the some-details version, I think it's more satisfying to read, but it's making the story much longer. I'm already to 23 pages and haven't finished the first thread. So when I am done that I may post it so the "dreams" are spread out over two stories, but I don't know for sure. Either way I wanted to update those of you still out there so you don't think I totally flaked again.

Will keep plugging away when I can, but unless something else comes up I probably won't give another update until I publish something.

Do adults still get sick notes?

OK, so I know I said I'd have an update by end of year. But I also forgot to factor in that my immune system really hates the Christmas holidays. Between the travel, the cold, the sleeping not in my apartment, I have about a 1 in 3 chance of getting sick every year around this time. Why can't Christmas be in May?

This is my long winded way of saying I'm sick and will be a little slower because I have been dizzy and sleepy for the majority of the last almost week's waking hours. I'm getting better and thought maybe I could still make it, but I didn't.

It is coming along, it's also getting a little more detail than I was thinking originally I'd put in but if I don't put it in here it may never make it into anywhere. 11k words so far and I'm still on the first "branch." So..

The good thing about me being such a flake the last year and a bit is that at least you know how to wait a little longer!

Happy New Year everyone, and buckle up cause 2019 is coming and things are going to get worse before they get better.

A major announcement

Headline first: A STORY IS COMING VERY SOON

But it will be a little different as I'll explain.

So as is quite obvious, my output has basically stopped. I could say it's fatigue, or my changing life making me feel less inclined to write, a desire to change up the long plot, or  any number of other possible reasons. Whatever the motivation, the result is that I'm simply not been writing much. Writing out the events is just not feeling as fun as it used to be, and so in my freetime I don't do it very much any more.

So I made a deal with myself a while ago. If by December 21 when my work shuts down for the year, if I haven't finished the next story I go to plan B. This story "Andrea's Memories" will be done some time this holiday break.

New Short Story: Deep Cover Engagement

So, I was going through some forums and came across a story contest being held over at Gromet's Plaza. The topic was a crime fighting woman, and rather quickly an idea came to mind. So I wrote out a quick story on it, I maybe could have gone longer but I tried to keep it short since the story contest specified a maximum of 6,000. I still went way over that amount, and had to edit down the story quite a bit removing whole scenes to make it fit.

So I wanted to also post the story here in its fullness. I have no idea when/where the contest is happening, but I'm not going to link to it cause I don't want to try to funnel people from here to vote there and throw the fairness off. I sometimes find a random topic like this can be a change of pace that is good for resetting the mind. I'm sure many would prefer this be a story about the main girls, but it's just its own thing all on its own. Hope you enjoy:

PDF Download

Deleted scene!

So, I suddenly realized how ungodly long it has been. The past year has been exhausting, draining, not just from work but just.. all of it. Anyway, I've never fully given up on this, but I keep having difficulty concentrating on it often and I keep reworking and re-refining how everything's going. I can't give you an update unfortunately about when a full next story will be up, but in the mean time I do at least have one section that I know for sure will not be in the next story. I wrote it, I like it, but I realized a better way for things to naturally go. Normally I'd take something like that and store it for maybe being recycled into a future story but this small bit can't really do that.

So I present the first bit of a deleted segment of a story, and all you need to know is that Andrea and Zaianb are at a party, and as they came in there's a large room where costumes are out for people to put on. Andrea is having trouble picking what to wear, so she and Zainab get one of the people working there to dress her up in the "swankiest" attire available. It may not be much, but enjoy:

A Slight change

So I have been writing more, but something new has come up. I started this whole series a while ago with the idea originally of trying to lump all my various kinky scenarios into a continuous story so I wouldn't need to re-create characters or re-establish dynamics each time I wanted to write a story. It built up a bit beyond my original plan, but the broad stroke outline has been mostly the same since I started writing about the cabin.

I've been making pages and pages of progress, but I've been finding I've kind of hit a wall of sorts. It's not just my different life, I'm able to focus more of late and spend more time writing. I'm just having trouble getting moving past where I'm currently at. A weird kind of writer's block.

And of all the places I thought I might get inspiration from, I didn't expect a network show I just started on Netflix to be able to tell me why. For those who haven't seen it, Jane the Virgin is really crazy over-the-top. But in an episode I just watched recently, Jane (who writes on the side) got the advise that when you reach a block, sometimes you need to look farther back. And so I started questioning my long-held outline for where things will be going to see if changing that might help.

I've always liked having twists in my writing. I think they keep suspense when you know they are a possibility at any time. However, I try to keep them within the real of likelihood to not be rejected out of hand. My biggest criticism to myself from the series is I think I may have crossed that line (or at least got very close) with some of Sophia's contract stuff. But what I'm at the edge of now, might require as much or more unrealism and I think that might be what's hampering me. Either that or I'm feeling it's maybe too mean. So I've started thinking about what else to do with the long arc of the story. And since removing that restriction and creating a new path, I'm writing better again. It unfortunately means shelving a lot and repurposing what I can, but such is life.

I still don't have a time table, I'm still not writing as fast as I was a year+ ago, but I wanted to give a little update about a recent change. I'm writing faster than I was half a year ago, and hopefully faster still with this shift, but it does mean some work has been lost.

An Update with unfortunatly little new to add

Hi all. I just got reminded how long it's been since I've said anything more and though I'd do that now.

I've said before that the change to my work life has made me less productive. But a big specter that I haven't talked about was the election. Politics have always been important to me, it was what for a time I thought I wanted to do with my life. Andrea going to AU was not a random pick, it is my alma mater, her room was basically my room (for those who care/know enough to figure out which dorm that is). But my usual passing watch of news et al has been increasingly replaced as this election got into the closing months (which is seriously way too long). It has to a large degree consumed me whenever I had a free moment.

I know statistically, many of you will be on one side while the rest will be on others. So I've resisted the temptation to let politics bleed into this side of my life. It is sad to say that ~40% of either side believe that the other side winning could pose a threat to the country. So not only would I divide my readership by landing on one side of this, but I'd worry that I would offend at a deep level someone who may feel my side is a threat to the country.

Now that the election is over I'm hoping I can regain some sanity. I feel almost like a junkie, that my worry and passion fueled an almost addictive obsession. I'm trying to wean myself off in a way I seemed incapable of during during the general election itself. Because even though I know watching news attentively does not alter the news I'm watching, I none the less felt almost an obligation to hear everything in a way I haven't with elections before.

And among those things I'm using to try to wean me off of it, I am trying to write more. I won't lie and say I'm nearly there, but I dropped off the map for reason, and hopefully that reason will soon be going away. And I'll try to let you know how that's going sooner than the five months I waited this time!

😁