Xalir: Blog

I've put chapter 7 in the queue and it should be up shortly. This chapter represents the third part of Matt's first Monday knowing what tore him and the girls apart. Like a lot of Mondays, this bad day never seems to end and this chapter takes him through the bulk of his evening, but not to the finish line.

Thanks, as always to the people that reach out to me every day. I've found a lot of the criticism constructive and helpful. Some of it is advice that I can easily take to adjust the future of the story, but some of it really would mean rewriting 600 pages of story to make use of at this point. Don't stop making suggestions. Just be aware that it might require me to balance a good suggestion against the amount of editing it would take to implement it.

On another note, I'm currently writing a scene where Matt's being asked to cut loose. Not just to let Bad Matt out to play, but to have Regular Matt step into the cage that normally contains Bad Matt and let the monster hold the keys to the kingdom. My question to the readers is: How deep does the rabbit hole go? This is a BDSM situation where the sub has stated that her normal restrictions don't apply tonight. She only asks not to be permanently harmed. She's specifically requested to be humiliated, used, beaten, bitten and fucked. She's brought up toilet slavery and a few other fringe fetishes that are not for the weak of heart. What's your opinion on how far Bad Matt would go if he wasn't restrained? I know where my opinion lies, but to some extent, this is no longer just my story. It belongs to each of us that have read the tale and been enthralled with it. So I ask your input.

I just posted Chapter 6 to the pipeline. It's the second part of Matt's first day back at class after finding out what tore his life apart.

Thanks again to everyone who writes to me with comments, concerns and suggestions for the story. I spend a fair bit of time every day just on email responding and reading.

Chapter 5 is in the queue. I hope everyone likes it.

As always, thanks go out to everyone who's contacted me with feedback. It's always appreciated, whether it's positive or negative.

As promised, I'm penning a small entry about what happened in Lana's head to make her turn against Matt.

The first thing that influenced her was the source. Marlene wasn't just a girl from school. This was her best friend. She trusted her implicitly and when Marlene told her that it was a fact, it broke her heart, but she wasn't about to call her a liar.

The second thing that was tied up in this decision was that she'd had a classmate commit suicide the previous year when she found out she was pregnant after being mistreated. When reminded of that event, Lana has a history of turning vicious and violent.

Third, Matt was acting guilty. The truth was that he was filled with self-loathing over what he'd done to Miranda, but everyone else was dismissive of whether he should feel guilty over that.

Put the three of those together. A boyfriend who's disproportionally guilt-ridden in the opinions of those around him, an alternate reason he might feel guilty from a "reliable" source and Lana's visceral hatred of people who victimize girls and is it really surprising that she went off the deep end?

The other girls have slightly different reasons, but at several points in Book 2, they point out that Lana had been so certain of his guilt that she convinced them. Beck's her sister and her reaction set off a completely different one in her. She was Matt's best friend. She trusted that when he told her that she and Lana were his first that he was telling the truth. He'd never mentioned hooking up with Tricia to her before, so as his friend, she'd expect him to be straight with her.

Tabby went through something similar. She had a miscarriage, rather than an abortion, but the thought that he could victimize another girl like that turned her stomach.

Lilly is Lilly. Her character develops significantly in Book 2 as the reader gets a better look into her motivations, but for now, it's not the first time she's taken a secret and sat on it.

Charlotte is the one that's going to take most people by surprise. She was aware that he was supposed to have been involved with a girl. Her role in his life for the past six weeks comes into more focus as the book wears on, but she felt like he was becoming more and more like his father when the news reached her ears. None of the kids told her, but being a teacher in the school, she heard it third or fourth hand after things had gone horribly wrong. It did a fair bit of damage overall.

Collie's motivation for leaving and keeping the code of silence is perhaps the most heartbreaking of all. I won't spoil it, but she acted from a different mindset than any of the other girls and when it comes out, the reason becomes a blow to Matt's life all over again.

I hope this settles some of the doubts that a lot of people have when they read the first few chapters. There's a LOT of revelations left to see the light of day and each one changes the focus of that breakup a little more. I promise, more answers are coming.

I just put Chapter 4 in the queue for posting. It should be up shortly.

There's been a lot of interest in what else had to be going on behind the scenes to make the girls turn on him. There's been a lot of speculation from brain-washing to hypnosis to more science-fiction explanations.

The truth is that Lana believed it. She convinced the other girls. They decided as a group not to talk to him about it. I'll post a little bit about their motivations later on today since I've gotten several emails about it.

As always, thanks to everyone who writes to me. I appreciate all the feedback. Some will shape my writing, other pieces have led me to write back to explain where some of the story choices have come from.