Shinerdrinker: Blog

It is sometimes absolutely revolting when some of the only feedback I get for "Mayhem in a Pill" are small emails: Good Job., Keep up the good work., Can't you write faster., When are you gonna start having the MC sleeping with his sister.

And yes that last one is a real question from an email I received a few chapters back.

I rarely get truly useful feedback and as some of you know I am probably disgustingly constantly begging for feedback. Tonight, I got what was probably one of the best pieces of feedback I have ever received in anything of my writing and I spent time in college writing for the student newspaper and a few neighborhood newspapers as a summer job. I am including the feedback from actual editors whose job it was to give feedback on stories.

This email was beautifully written and several points the writer made were actually valid. I spent approximately twenty minutes creating a reply email to go over the ideas that were brought up and to inform the emailer they were correct about a few things and I was preparing to make the necessary corrections to the story.

Then I looked up and saw this person's wonderfully crafted email with its many valid points and beautiful prose was sent to me anonymously. So no return email address was given.

There went twenty minutes of my day I could have been using to work on the next chapter as I found myself with time in my day to write and even now as I am writing this blog posting, I realize I should be writing the next chapter!!!!

So I have decided to go ahead and make some of the suggested changes as the anonymous emailer has pointed out but I make them with a real "meh" attitude. I was looking forward to a possible continuing correspondence with this person who obviously shares the same literary standing as the great writers of all time. Obviously because the first thing they wrote was how much they liked my writing.

The ideas were just great and I find myself considering some serious personality changes of a fairly important character in the life of Tim Murphy.

But then I also realized they chose to use the same system to safely contact me anonymously as the asshole who wanted me to start writing about sexually assaulting a fourth grade girl.

As I said... infuriating!!!!


P.S. I find myself working twice as hard as I normally would on the next chapter because according to the download numbers, we are quickly reaching my self-styled deadline of 10,000 downloads of a particular chapter. Realistically we are already within less than a thousand of that deadline so if I want to keep my self-imposed deadline I need to do some writing. But then again... it is a self-imposed deadline.

Yes, I am aware of the posting problems with the new chapter. I initially noticed problems with the formatting and was already working on those when the email started blowing up with many other problems.


Hopefully, the many problems will be solved and you guys can enjoy another look into Mayhem in a Pill!

EDIT: Okay, it looks like the chapter has reupped and is ready for your perrusal.

Please enjoy and let me know what you think!

Sorry about the wait.

According to my outline for this story, this next chapter should be focusing on "Fat" Tim and how the interrogations are driving him to make a decision. But the last thing I or I suspect anyone would want to write about is torture when they are sitting on a hospital bed awaiting surgery and the subsequent physical therapy.

Yep. I started but when I found myself in the first couple of paragraphs into the supervised interrogations, I just could not continue and decided to just wait until after the surgery and therapy. But then real life hits and rather than the typical 1 to 2 weeks of therapy, I spend nearly a month being worked over. But also good news is the next chapter has a great head start! I decided to go ahead and skip over the "Fat" Tim scheduled chapter and wrote about "Young" Tim's first taste of varsity football.

It doesn't hurt the overall story to switch chapters, so the only people who should notice are me and well everyone else who reads this blog.

Anyway, the chapter is in the queue and should post quickly.

Again sorry about the wait.

Well. Sorry about the wait but real life gets in the way and totally decides to take control until it decides to move onto someone else. Had a bunch of hospital-like crap happen over the last couple of weeks and as such, writing was the least of my concerns.

I have not given up on the writing since I have discovered it is a nice coping mechanism for dealing with every day life. I just get back into the story and stay in that world for a little while. One thing I do have to change up was my original idea for the next chapter was a visit into the future to see how the fat version of Tim was doing with the torture aspects of his life.

But after dealing with hospitals and recovery, the last thing I want to do is sit behind a keyboard and bring those thoughts into my life so soon after having to deal with people being hurt. Not good for the psyche.

So I decided to add another chapter of what is going on with young Tim as he deals with the current of fame and popularity in high school and on the football field. I am discovering it is waaay easier to write about that then having to describe minutiae of torture and how to make it stop.

I can see that there is no difference to the overall story if I switch the chapters, so I shall do that.

Who knows maybe my inner self will jump up and say "Fuck You. Do it now or you might not be able to pick up that line of thought again."

But I can then say "Fuck You. That's why I have notes."

I'll be doing some writing this weekend for those of you who have been asking when is the next chapter. Writing about teens growing up an going to high school football games is a lot more fun that describing the blood spatter after a finger nail is plucked from it's home.

I'd much rather describe a 300 lb lineman with a full head of steam preparing to tackle an unsuspecting 175 lb running back.

Yep. Much less violence there.

Maybe next week for the next chapter.

Well a couple of weeks ago I posted the latest chapter of "Mayhem in a Pill" and I expected to have a couple of weeks away from the story just to get away from it for a while. Normally that ain't a problem since I have no set timeline any longer for when the next chapter comes up. I'm basically lazy... I admit it.


So I took the last couple of weeks and caught up on a bunch of reading I had been putting off until I finished the next chapter. So I caught up with some reading and some correspondence with other friends outside of you guys here on SOL.


My very basic deadline I have in my own swollen head is when the latest chapter reaches 10,000 views. I have been generally setting it up for the next one when I reach that mark. And before you ask, yes, I have been noticing the up tick in time for how quickly the 10,000 mark has been getting reached. But it has stayed at generally a month.


I checked it last night after I finished reading a story I had been trying to read for a little while and it was well worth the wait. So I check the chapter download stats and lo and behold chapter 16 of "Mayhem in a Pill" is already at 10,358 just 18 days after I uploaded it.


Wow.


I didn't think anyone would want to read the stuff coming out of my head and here you guys are reading it... faster.


As a gift to everyone... no the next chapter ain't ready quite yet, good grief get a hold of yourselves. I will use some of the time this weekend to work on it.


I don't think you understand what a huge sacrifice this is for me because I am an NFL Draft junkie. I watch the whole thing gavel to gavel and everything in between. I keep track of where the next team should go and find myself often getting into arguing matches with the so called draft gurus ESPN and the NFL Network like to put on the desk. I mean how dare they have a coach with decades of experience on the sidelines and often even years of experience playing ON the NFL field try to tell me I'm wrong about who should be picked next.


So, I shall tear myself away from the draft today until about an hour before the second round begins and I will NOT go out Saturday night to begin our first mock drafts for the 2017 NFL Draft. Here's a little hint about how serious this is for me... I have already been working on who will be available for the 2018 NFL Draft.


So while the draft is on TV, I will watch it happily then I will make myself watch only one after draft discussion show. And instead, I will work on chapter 17 of "Mayhem in a Pill."


Okay... maybe two NFL Draft shows I mean there are TWO conferences but then it's right back to work for my fans.

Anything for the fans.