Alured de Valer: Blog

Chapter 13 of Best Summer ever has been posted. Nothing earth-shattering, but it still helps move the story along. Setup for the club picnic finally begins. Mom has suspicions, but aren't moms usually suspicious? Dad does dad things, Gary and Jed continue to work out, Kacie continues to spread her wings.

Things are starting to gain momentum. Once it gets into the weekend, more characters will appear and different situations will arise.

The story continues to perform well on the charts and the score has gained about a tenth of a point the last couple of days. I'll keep writing if you'll keep reading.

Chapter 12 of Best Summer ever has been posted. The plan to find guys for the other girls takes shape and Kacie seeks a new experience. We're finally getting close to the meat of the story, which will resolve several of the questions raised so far. Chapters 13 through 15 are in the can and we start meeting some of the other characters. I can't wait for the pool to open and things to start happening around the club.

I'm almost afraid of getting too far ahead of myself. I keep going back to reread earlier chapters to keep things consistent and find myself reading just to read instead of getting back to writing. This really is a fun little story, if I may say so.

The story keeps averaging about 4,000 downloads a day, which I can hardly believe. It is such a kick to see my work so high on the weekly download list ahead of some stories I really like. The feedback has been tremendous. Keep it up!

Chapter 11 of Best Summer Ever is up as we begin a new week. I'm looking forward to to seeing what we can get done over the next seven days. Gary and Kacie finally get around to trying new things, some big news for Kacie, Morgan makes a cameo, Gary gets lectured by Mom, it's Dad's turn to cook and there's more of the Great Pineapple Caper.

No real surprises, just a few little flourishes that added themselves to the story. I basically outlined Point A and Point B, then let the characters figure out how to get from here to there without being too contrived. This chapter covered a couple of those plot points that have been piling up.

I continue to be amazed by the story's performance on the lists. It's averaged almost 4,000 downloads per day. I just hope I can keep readers interested. The scoring also has me intrigued. It took a couple of days to get started, steadily crept up to a high of 7.66, dropped to 7.49 and is back to 7.54. That's a consistent good-to-very-good rating, which is a bit of an ego boost.

Chapter 10 of Best Summer Ever has been posted and we're slowly, inexorably getting into the story as I envisioned it. We finally meet one of Gary's friends, but there are still a lot of major characters who haven't taken the stage yet.

I'm trying to keep thing as balanced as I can where Gary's relationships with Kacie and Morgan are concerned, but Kacie has the advantage of living under the same roof.

There are still a lot of questions to deal with. Will Gary be driving the girls around in his mom's minivan all summer? Will any of the other girls make a serious play? How long before someone gets busted by their parents? And was the pineapple juice fresh or canned?

Chapter 9 of Best Summer Ever is up. For once, a chapter went pretty much as I originally planned. No surprises or dark secrets exposed, although I am intrigued by the idea of Ruby's granddaughter visiting a cabana at the pool.

Again, thanks to all who have been reading, voting and reaching out. I've received a lot of encouraging words in just my first week of doing this. I hope I can maintain the pace of a chapter a day.