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Because the content is pretty much the same as in Tim, the Teenage MC, if I can finalize some last minute edits in time, I plan on posting the rest of book 3 over the next weekend or two. I may do the same for book 4 over the following two or three weekends.
Book 3 contains more m/m content than any other book and I've done what I could to make it so people who don't care for that can skip over it easily. Some of the light stuff (kissing) I didn't bother with.
I find myself usually skipping over sex scenes unless I'm revising, then I just buck up and go through it the best I can. I keep thinking I should replace the sex scenes with simple summaries, but for now, it is what it is.
Significantly toned down the m/m content. The overall story wasn't changed, just some scenes were shortened and/or altered to make it more palatable to people who are sensitive to that sort of thing. I think the changes also better reflect Tim's and Joey's hetero nature anyway. Toned down doesn't necessarily mean removed, just not explicitly described.
I also reformated all the telepathic communications to match the rest of the series.
As Love's Masters winds down (Part 2 has 15 chapters), the story transitions from self discovery, making friends and goofing around to facing a true threat that drastically changes Tim's and his friend's lives. Fractured Souls has some significant dark moments that may upset people.
And you know what? That's a good thing. That means you care about the characters. You feel something for them enough to feel some of their pain. But don't worry. I don't make it a habit to inflict that kind of discomfort on people. And book 4 Heart's Blooming is just the opposite and couldn't have happened without the events in book 3.
I remember twenty some odd years ago how upset some readers became when Joey and Suzi seemingly betrayed Tim early in the first book (being mindful of spoilers).
Another reader complained about how Tim and his mother didn't have sex on his sixteenth birthday. He was a troubled fourteen-year-old boy who became the inspiration for Tim's final foe in Book 9.
Twenty-three years ago when the best source for sex stories was the usenet group alt.sex.stories, people commented on stories a lot more than they do today. There weren't that many authors or long pieces of work back then, and Tim, the Teenage MC was one of the longer works available. Those comments were an important motivator to continue writing and it changed my life as well.
You see, writing Tim was therapeutic for me. I was a social introvert with little self-confidence and a fetish for mc content. By writing Tim, I had to balance perversions with my conscience. I let my perversions dictate the situations then let my heart lead me out of them. Like Tim, instead of letting my imagination corrupt me, I realized how control over people didn't give me anything meaningful and it was being equal to others and trusting others, that made me happiest. I'm still a bit of an introvert, but I'm not afraid to be with people, and that's in part thanks to Tim.
So please, stick with the story even if it becomes unpleasant for you. I promise it will all work out okay.
And if you feel something for my or someone else's characters, comment or send the author an email. That's the greatest reward an author can receive.
For those interested, the total word counts for each book are as follows:
Book 1: 355,094 - Love's Shepherd
Book 2: 365,786 - Love's Masters
Book 3: 369,151 - Fractured Souls
Book 4: 300,919 - Heart's Blooming
Book 5: 372,210 - Emergence
Book 6: 469,788 - The Gathering of Hearts
Book 7: 270,905 - The Path of the One
Book 8: 448,581 - Destiny's Choice
Book 9: 234,305 - Two Worlds
Total: 3,186,739
Chapter 13 is the last chapter in this book that is a rehash of the events in Tim, the Teenage MC. The next eleven chapters are all new with never seen before content.
I got tired of exporting then doing a search and replace to generate the proper formatting for publishing every time I found something I needed to correct. So I wrote a Perl script to convert M$ Word docx to clean xhtml/html, and a marked-up text file for SOL.
The script also counts the number of words. Book 1 is 24 chapters of 354,927 words, and Book 2 is 22 chapters with 362,971 words. I think I need to write a prelude or something for Book 2 for those who don't read Book 1.
I've been working getting the first two books ready for publishing for those who like purchasing stories to read it all at once. However, I'm not sure if the effort is worth it if only a handful of people would buy them. I would appreciate feedback from those who are interested.
I'll be posting another chapter or two this weekend.
Rass
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