I've been answering some e-mail today and I found myself writing the same thing a number of times so I thought I'd blog it.
I've gotten a few e-mails telling me they enjoyed the stories but were wondering why I was putting them on SOL when there was no sex in them. I've responded with my 'method' - the sex enters the story when it comes. There hasn't been a reason for sex yet so I haven't written it.
I've received a lot more e-mails telling me not to worry about the sex; SOL has 'No Sex' and 'Minimal Sex' tags for a reason. I absolutely and whole-heartedly agree.
The really funny thing is that this entire series started as a sex story inspired by an internet meme. The meme depicted two rocking chairs on a porch; a black rocking chair with a young man reading a newspaper and a white chair with (what I assumed was) his grandmother knitting. They were watching some children playing in a sandbox. I don't remember the tag. My sick, twisted mind created a sex story from the meme (as my sick, twisted mind is wont to do) that basically revolved around an intermingling of two specific sex categories and dealt with an Oracle predicting the young man's future at a time in the distant past. I liked the idea and started fleshing it out and added a snip here and a cut there and sprinkled the Order of Judas in liberally with just a soupcon of a boy defending his sister's honor then added a backstory that kept getting deeper and...well...Speed Demon was the generic result.
Even more funny is that I'm still on track to hit the two original categories though I've added a few more (one of which is 'kind of' an offshoot of one of the originals). If you 'read between the lines' of the last three stories, you can probably even figure out the original two categories. While I've not been blatant about it, I've been building up to it in all three - making sure the groundwork was in place so I didn't startle anyone.
I have started worrying, however, about what's going to happen to some of the readers if the categories (and they're a part of the story - maybe even a large part - in part 4) hit a 'squick' for them. As I was agonizing over whether to make this whole series 'sexless' (remember that this started it's life as a sex story)...I realized that I was doing the one thing I promised myself I wouldn't. I was letting my vanity dictate the story.
Many of you might be aware that voting is turned off for the current 'Speed Demon' stories; the plan is to leave it off for all of them in this series. I know it's a bit blunt but...these stories are my guilty pleasure. I'm writing them for me. I share them with everyone because I'm vain and I enjoy it when I get e-mail about them - laudatory e-mails and constructive criticism both. I enjoy it so much that I often check my e-mail every 5 minutes or so for several hours after I post a story waiting for someone to write. However, the stories are really for me and I'm not going to re-write them hoping I get better reviews. If people don't like them or can't get past the sex scenes or think the sex is too slow in coming - I sincerely apologize but that's where I was planning for the story to go and the pace I wanted the story to progress at.
I learned this lesson with 'Traveller'. Long before my eye issues, I was struggling with the story. In the beginning, I'd created an outline detailing each chapter, what I wanted to happen and where each was going and why. I threw in ideas that needed to occur to 'introduce' arcs occurring later and so on. Then, I started writing and made the mistake of posting each chapter as I finished it. I absolutely loved the e-mail I received and was happier than a pig in manure. Problem was, some people had suggestions that I loved and wanted to incorporate. That led me down a path where I started making changes to my outline, moving things around to make other things fit and so on. By the time of my eye surgery, I was lost. I wasn't having fun anymore. My outline became crap, I'd lost the 'feel' of the piece...it was a mess. I didn't want that to happen with Speed Demon (and is a major reason why Traveller isn't finished yet; I plan on working on it - starting with a revised outline - so that I finish that part of the series by end of summer).
However, I'm vain and my vanity wouldn't let me write War and Peace without getting some feedback/kudos/constructive criticism. So...I am writing Speed Demon in 'arcs' that are all part of an over-arching whole. That's the reason behind the 'shorter' stories that are telling a single narrative (sort of; I'm not sure I've used narrative right in that sentence).
Now, a contest with the winner receiving a well-deserved pat on the back from me (hey, I'm poor...deal with it).
Name the original 2 categories (honestly, I want to see if I've been blatant enough to set the groundwork correctly). I have 3 clues for you (which I gave in an e-mail to 'Bruce' who was nice enough to write me):
Hint 1: I'm not talking about any of the 'core' categories such as MF, FF, mF, mf, Ff, and so on. I'm probably going to hit a bunch of those anyway.
Hint 2: Beastiality is NOT one of the categories. While not necessarily a squick of mine, I wouldn't have the faintest clue about how to write that type of thing.
Hint 3: MC (mind control) IS a category but IS NOT one of the original 2.
Hint 4: Voy and SciFi (Voy was used in the first story and all of the stories are SciFi) are NOT either of the two categories.
I'll blog the person who answers this first (so be sure to include your name/alias/handle however you want it to appear)...and probably include some of the people who get it after that.