Argon: Blog

I am switching from thrice weekly to every other day, so you guys will have Chapter 7 of Suddenly Rich Kid as your Easter Egg from me. It is in the queue and should be posted early today (early for you in Canada and the USA; here it is 11 a.m. already :o).Thanks for your interest and the great feedback!

It only took me five years to get this story (mostly) done, but here it is. Today I posted the first three chapters of Suddenly Rich Kid. More are to come starting Sunday night. I am planning to post 3 chapters per week. There was no editor involved. I cleaned it up to my best abilities, but I haven't the time right now to go through external editing, corrections, revisions and all that stuff. So bear with me and my story. I also thought that in these crazy times, you'll want something to read and not something for your English Literature seminar :o)

Enjoy!
Note added: Old Rotorhead offered his help, cleaning up the text and hopefully eliminating the remainder of typos and errors. The revised first three chapters are now online; Chapter 4 was edited before posting.

Thank you to the premier members for making Good Advice from the Afterlife this year's winner! I appreciate your support. This time, I have nobody to credit. The story was a last minute idea which I followed up by four days of furious typing. There was no time to involve an editor and I had to hope that I cleaned it up enough for the readers.
My next story, Mommy Issues, is in the last chapters of draft writing. It will be set in the universe created for Can't Pick Your Family, but Joey and Deidre will not feature in it. Don't hold your breath though; it will likely take until next year.

Chapter 29 of TROTG has been out for only hours, and I was already alerted to a continuity error (Thomas had indeed promised his crew to provide a financial advisor for them once their prize monies would be be paid out) and a painful screw-up: lye soap on the tissue of a vagina or a penis would have effectually prevented any fun during the wedding night. Ouch indeed!
The financial advisor was easily organised, and the cleansing is now done with soapwort (Saponaria officinalis) infusion, saponin in other words. The corrected chapter 29 was posted and should be up shortly. I hope that poor Mirabel can forgive me!
Thanks to Vlad and jantrevor for the warning!

I noticed today that 'Thomas Grey' just breezed past 'Ellen' in terms of accumulated download events. A little over two months versus 12 years, 18 chapters to 45 chapters of 'Ellen'. Back then I was happy to record 2,000 downloads for each newly posted chapter, these days it's a little over 10,000. Some of those downloads are certainly due to "repeat offenders", but the fact remains that SOL has at least quadrupled its reader base over that last 12 years, testament to the site's peerless functionality and the stellar efforts of many fellow writers. It feels good to be part of this community.
I am also slightly amazed over the reports that came to light regarding the despiccable behaviour of some key players in the entertainment industry. When I wrote 'In Her Genes' four to five years ago, I thought that my portrayal of Don Brentano was over the top. Turns out, it wasn't. The way I portrayed him, he was just your average slimebag.
In other news, Old Rotorhead just returned chapters 31 to 33 of Thomas Grey to me after editing, meaning I have material for another 7-8 weeks. Chapter 34 is an advanced draft, but I still need to draft at least four to five chapters. That's why I'm stopping my rant now. Time to combine desk chair and butt for another round of creativity :o)